#ignore me im high i just want to feel connected to you guys im very out of it today akfksks

[citrlet]

🩷

[dearreader]

hello fellow members of the tortured poets department.

today i will enter into evidence THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT as a song and analyze it. i’m going to look at the lyrics and the relationship and how that translates to the entire album as a whole.

previous posts: fortnight

this song is pretty straight forward, so most analysis is redundant. as most of the lyrics bounce back and forth between two things:

thinking that they’re nothing but two idiots and not geniuses or actual tortured poets

quiet moments where taylor is reaching out and trying to help the situation and make it last but us hindered.

the first part is mentioned relentlessly, to the point it’s the chorus line, “you’re not dylan thomas/im not patti smith/this ain’t the chelsea hotel/we’re modern idiots”, and also taylor says it point blank in the opening stanza:

“you left your typewriter at my apartment/straight from the tortured poets department/i think some things i never say/like who uses type writers anyway?”

this immediately sets the scene of taylor knowing, either looking back or in the moment, that he was full of himself and it wasn’t as serious as she thought it was. but he disagrees, he does view himself very highly. but we see plently of moments where taylor describes him as just… a guy? he’s literally just some guy who gets high and makes declarations, “you smoked and ate seven bars of chocolate/we declared charlie puth should be a bigger artist/i scratch your head as you fall asleep/like a tattooed golden retriever”. this is how she views him, just some guy. maybe this is her trying to show us what she saw in him.

but this brief moment is cut short by his own issues and possibly hung over, “but you awaken with dread/pounding nails in your head/but i've read this one where you come undone/i chose this cyclone with you”. and because of this he’s most likely pulling back or self sabotaging, as can be indicated by the first verse “but your in self sabatoge mode/throwing spikes down on the road/but i’ve seen this episode before and still loved the show”. the first verse is important to know here as it implies that she’s either seen him or a previous partner experience this before, and based on the albatross i think it’s previous partners experienced this, mainly peter as she implies these two and her relationships to them were incredibly similar. because she’s experienced this before with not on the outside world and media interfering in her love life, but she’s also experienced what it’s like to watch a loved one struggle with this. she’s “read it before” in others albums like folklore or midnights where she discusses the media interfering with her relationship and career. and because she saw how that one ended she fears this will happen again and wants to stop it. because she chose him to get out of her previous relationship so she will stick through it with him.

all while she keeps repeatedly telling herself they will never be able to hold each other or know each other like anyone else. so they have to make it work. they just hsve to. but she does fear it won’t work. that he’ll mess it up and their fated love story won’t work out. but she is deluding the fears with rose colored glasses and thinking that he loves her so much that “he’d kill himself if i ever leave” which taylor even acknowledges she likes because it made her feel seen, which we know is something she craved from her romantic partners in the past from songs like tolerate it and you’re losing me. and because of this guy finally sees her so much and loves it he’d rather die than lose her. she’s ignoring all the warning signs around her because she’s finally being given the attention she’s needed in her other relationships. so she’s willing to wear the rose colored glasses, look past his pretentiousness and issues because he’s giving her what she needed… and that was enough.

but how this connects to the album as a whole and why it’s the title. this album is about taylor grappling with years worth of trauma and suffering. it’s about her grieving a 6 year long relationship with who she thought was blown in with the winds of fate and then dealing with the hurt and betrayal that this guy who swore he’d love her forever was leaving her. her titling an album about how he views himself, and almost setting the album itself into a hospital because she feels like she’s on life support, is her acknowledging the hurt she caused. she’s saying that he’s pretentious and under that he is nothing but an idiot who broke and hurt her to the point she felt like she was in a months long manic episode. this man hurt her. so she wrote an album about her healing journey and dissecting the public’s image of her, the thing that’s ruined so many relationships for her, and titled it with his own ego as a fuck you. it’s very tongue in cheek and subverts all our expectations, including his. she’s not taking herself seriously, she’s moving on and healing, and is making fun of him for being that serious.

i’d like to apologize again to the fellow members for this being disorganized. i had a solid explanation for it but then it took me like two hours trying to figure out how to explain it. but, in summation: who the fuck uses type writers anyway and drags them along to the house of a girl you’ve been dating for under a week? only fucking pretentious idiots do.

(tagging the wonderful @camerabitchsmile cause they’ve organized this event and despite my unorganized analysis i’m having fun with this event!)

[sweeetrandall]

here is what happened in miracle mask, to me.

randall is not jealous about his high school girlfriend i genuinely dont think he was that in love with her judging by the amount of status and pressure to marry both of them had like. randall lamented how she wouldnt support him like his dad like i dont think they would have been very happy together ignoring the fact they were teenagers.

i DO think he would still be a terrorist about everyone forgetting about him. but over "stealing his love" he doesnt care he hasnt thought about angela in 18 years. but something intrinsic to his character is wanting to be noticed and acknowledged for his achievements so realizing he had been "wasting time" for so long and hearing about what he used to do/what he did accomplish before he lost it i think he would be pretty upset about that. combined with just being overwhelmed with all the (manipulated) regained memories. yeah i think he would be pretty hurt and do all that.

henry would probably stay and establish monte dor because i do think his "loyalty" is true but its not very heartwarming to me. i think a large part of it is from being raised in an environment where he was always a subordinate made to serve randall he probably genuinely believes its his main purpose. and thats not a "magic of loyalty and friendship" moment to me its kind of tragic. not to mention randalls parents were still alive and given the fact he is still looking after mrs ascot 18 years later i think he held an obligation to the entire family. its also kind of poetic to me that he grew up to be the wealthy and successful successor of the ascot fortune that mr ascot wanted randall to be, coupled with how randall felt like his dad liked henry more than him, its all kind of twisted. and i do think randall would be kind of enraged seeing this.

angela did not lavender marry henry she left the town like hershel did for very similar reasons. the minute mg showed up henry probably contacted her first and didn't bother to contact hershel because he held a grudge against him even before randall died. angela would come to monte dor to observe the situation and go oh hes setting people on fire? and hes speaking in riddles? i think thats randall. have you talked to hershel about this? do you know hes a famous archaeologist who solves village-wide mysteries now? what do you mean you haven't told hershel? im telling hershel.

i wouldnt change anything about how hershel handled it up to mg because i think its beautiful and perfect yeah he would be so wracked with guilt he'd dedicate the rest of his life to his best friend and become him yeah mhm. but i think at the end of it all. randall would feel the strongest connection with him not henry and angela. because hershel was the guy who i think treated him best and respected his legacy, in randalls eyes, after he died... would randall hold a level of resentment toward hershel oh absolutely. but i think most of randalls rage comes from people forgetting him. he has a whole vengeful ghost/angel thing going on. and hershel "every puzzle has an answer" "critical thinking is the key to success" layton like very obviously did not forget him

[dreamychuu]

hi hello chu!!

i saw your requests were open so i wanted to send an ask! but!! i also saw that you're currently sick, so please don't feel obliged to accept this! i really hope you get better soon!! sending lots of positive energy ✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧!!! 💐💐

would you be willing to write a scenario/drabble (whichever you like!) of mika with a gn crush who seems really cold, silent and a little intimidating... but they're actually just a pure ray of sunshine?? if that makes sense?? if not feel free to delete/ignore this ask SJSHSHS

(p.s. maaf ini aku gemeteran banget soalnya jarang jarang nemu fan enstar dari SEA sumpah TT that aside salken chu!! i love your writings they're so <333)

a/n : Hello!! I was shaking when I got a notification of you following me back and apper in my inbox , Im so happy to see fellow SEA and most importantlly another Indonesian !? Is this a dream? Is this real? But yeah salken juga !! , and thank you for the compliment! I hope you enjoy this~☆

-

✧ - Melted hot chocolate

╰┈➤ - warning : pinning i think?

-

✿ - admiring someone presence and slowly having a crush on them is a natural thing to happend especially for a high school teenager, but is it really this complicated?

you are a kind and a very much positive person, hanging around you will make anyone happy without they even realized, but not many people know about that.

everyone around you always has an opinions that you are an intimidating or a rude person without even trying to get to know you first but at the same time you arent suprised you do look quiet and cold most of the time.

getting seen that way by people around you makes you doesnt expect someone to like or have a crush on you.

but little do you know there is one person who likes you... And that person its none of other than the youngest member of Valkyrie "mika kagehira"

you're not very close to him but since you have a very much connection with shu you decided to be more open to him.

The more open you to him, the more he start to realized the rumor he heard from his clasamate was so wrong!, you are actually cheerfull and a sweetheart.

but as time goes on , the more you two spend time together makes him slowly feel something he never felt. At first Mika only thought it was just an admiration.

but after he told a friend named Arashi, his friend immediately said that it was not just an admiration , and explain how the feeling he felt was there beacuse he got a crush on you!.

he was a bit shocked and start to overthink about it, making himself lose focus while doing his routine even when sewing.

every time you and him suddenly bump into eachothers you guys will have a little conversation before it end up with you both hanging out together.

And thats moment he spend with you makes him very happy , Your figure who always shines by his side always make his heart melts. Just like a chocolate that get melted by the sun.

When he get a little more distant from you, you always notice it honestly it makes you very confused all the time, did you do something wrong ? Is he mad at you?

even though all that happened not because you did something, but it happened because of Mika himself.

every time he catch his eyes on you, he always lost focus and doesn't know what to do...he doesn't want you to see him doing something stupid.. And decided to stay away from you until he can become normal when he is near you again!

even of how hard he try to stay away from you somehow you and him always cross paths like fate wants you both to be together, and everytime before a words came out of your mouth you can see his face red just like he was burning and was about to faint on the spot.

but all of that won't happen again because in this month , this week, this day , after school he will tell you all the feelings that he hides all this time and hoping by being honest will help him stop being so stupid and clumsy around you.

well, that was the original plan until something happened...

today shu can't attend to school because he fell ill and with that Mika went to school alone but Before he left, Shu told him to continue with the clothes he was sewing, Mika was a little scared because he wasn't thst good at sewing after all.

but Shu then explain that he had already called someone to help him later, the person would come to the handicraft club room at lunch time.

and when lunch time finally arrived. he walked into the handicraft room thinking that he was safe and didn't have to worry about staying away from you.

because there was no way you would go here. with Shu not attending school thats mean you will not have any bussiness here anyways.

He opened the door slowly, thinking the person behind the door was Kuro but he was wrong, it turns out that the person Shu called is the person he was avoiding..

You can be seen holding some fabric in your Hands as you put them on the table beside the little supply box.

Mika who doesnt expect you to be here was frozen on the spot, until he heard a called of his name out of your mouth. oh no... you already have noticed he is dare there is no way he can get away now!

he finally approached you slowly and stood next to you. he can also notice you are talking but he doesn't pay attention to your words and just stares at you until you wave your arm in front of his eyes.

he came back to reality and looked at the fabric followed by the sewing tool beside it. He can see you taking a seat on one of the chair and start sewing again.

he decided to take a seat too and start sewing the cloth, the room was silent the only sound that can be heard when you're taking some material for the clothes.

as he was sewing he cant help but take one little peek of how you were doing... a one little peek turn into two, two turn into three , three turn into four, and four turn into him hurting his hand for not paying attention when sewing.

"Ngah!", he whined when the needle hit his finger, when you heard him you went straight to him and held his hand.

You start to carres his hand a little while looking for the finger that was hurt by the needle while asking if he was okay.

He didn't pay attention to what you was saying, he just stared at his hand that was clasped by you, he forced himself to stay calm and not do anything stupid. You call his name again and he immediately shakes his head and replies that he's okay.

You sigh in relief when suddenly the idea of ​​asking why he seems a bit distant from you pops into your mind.

as he was about to continue sewing, you stop him and ask, "You've been avoiding me lately, have I done something wrong?" he looked down as if he was holding himself back.

You get worried and hold both of his hand him, he cant can't hold back anymore. he looked into your eyes followed as the word "i-love you" Coming out of himself.

You are shocked by the sudden confession and just stay silent till you see tears coming out of his eyes.

"Im sorry-", he apologize. "For what?", you ask him.

"Well you doesnt love-" " I love you too mika, I really do" , he was cut off by you answering his conffesion.

he felt he had melted on the spot! with you who already melt him earlier and followed by you saying that you love him to also affect him the "chocolate" that already melts into a hotter melted chocolate.

after a while he immediately hugged you suddenly and you gladly accepted him in your arms.

in the end he can finally let out all of his feelings and even better it turns out that you also love's him make him happy...

Looks like he won't let go of his hug soon so make sure you're strong enough to hold him for a long time.

[lonelychicago]

seven sentence sunday

tagged by @lostinabuddiehaze @buddierights @rogerzsteven @spotsandsocks @elvensorceress and @monsterrae1 thanks for the tags, loves!

this is for my prince buck au!

Eddie would not recommend that anyone fall in love with a prince. It is, objectively speaking, a terrible idea. It can only end in heartbreak and it’s not worth it.

Except it totally is, of course.

But it's so stupid, feeling the way he does, because the first thing Eddie learns about Buck is that he's going to marry someone someday— preferably a nice girl, from a wealthy family and good reputation. It’s the first thing that Queen Margaret told him when she hired Eddie to protect his son— or more like, to make sure her son doesn't get in trouble.

Eddie thought it'd be perfect. The job pays extremely well, he's far away from his parents and he can give Chris a comfortable, nice life.

Except, is not easy to be the personal bodyguard of one Evan Buckley.

The guy is reckless, pulling stupid stunt after other to mostly piss off his parents. He's too cocky for his own good, stubborn to a fault and he makes Eddie's job harder than it needs to be.

Evan Buckley is a pain in his ass, if he's being completely honest.

And yet… Eddie went and fell in love with him.

Eddie's never been the type to ask very many questions; he tends to stay quiet and observe, and he's good at it. But when it comes to Buck… he can’t. The prince just has this talent to push Eddie’s buttons in the most infuriating, intoxicating way.

Their first meeting hadn't been the best— not at all like Eddie picture it would go the first time he met a prince.

The thing is, Evan Buckley isn’t every other prince in the world. Other princes would have had Eddie punished, when they first met, because it was not, by any standard, a good meeting. It was the end of a long day of talking to all of the people forming the security staff of the Bukingham palace. He found a lot of stupid little mistakes that could potentially cost the royal family's safety and Eddie was just in a sour mood. So of course Buck came in making demands to go to this stupid party with zero time to plan anything.

Eddie told him right then and there that if he wasn't willing to treat him with a modicum of respect, Eddie wouldn't respect him. (It was an incredibly stupid thing to say to a prince, by the way. He definitely doesn't recommend doing that.)

He remembers how Buck opened and closed his mouth twice before leaving without another word.

The next day, he apologized. "I'm sorry about yesterday. It was— I just— I'm always here, you know? And if I'm not, I'm always with my parents or where my parents tell me to go." Buck had explained to him, surprisingly open and honest. "And I know you must be thinking I'm a spoiled brat… I just needed one day to go out and breathe, I guess."

And in that moment, Eddie had felt a connection to the prince. This sort of kinship. Because even if the situations weren't the same, Eddie could understand where the guy was coming from. He remembered how it felt when he was just a stupid teenager and got his high school girlfriend knocked up. Eddie's parents had been relentless and overbearing— Eddie could understand what Buck was saying it's all.

tagging: (im sure im late and idk who's done it already so feel free to ignore me) @bekkachaos @fatedbuck @loveyourownsmiilee @swiftiebuckleys @the-likesofus @wheelsupin-five @maygrantgf and whoever else wants to do it!

[fish-bowl-2]

okay lmao you don't have to answer them all but im interested in your hot takes when you have time

7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24

😁 we need something to talk about in this micro fandom

Oh boy oh boy...

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them? Honestly, a bit of a hard one for me to answer because I don't really have one. I mean, there are always going to be fandom interpretations I am not into, but even so I don't really let that influence how I feel about the actual characters. A lot of those fandom interpretations don't seem to be the overwhelming majority anymore either. I feel that if I was invested in the EEnE fandom back in 2013-2014 I would absolutely be tired of Kevin, but that isn't really the case anymore. As far as I can see lol.

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about? That all the Kanker sisters (excluding May) are irredeemable and will never break out of whatever cycle they are present to at home. I mean, I'm not asking for any neatly packaged happy ending when I say that, but idk, despite my issues with their lack of development and presentation on the show, I think they are really interesting. If you want to get deep, they are just kids after all, with a lot of room for change in their life going forward. I like to think that they ALL go onto better things. Better can be open to interpretation. I do not mean any kind of stereotypical college degree manicured lawn and job type stuff. Satisfaction can look like a multitude of things. A lot of people apply this to May, which is great! But does that have to mean pushing aside Marie and Lee in the process? I personally don't think that is very fair.

9. Worst part of canon? Harassment when it is girls towards boys = funny : / Also, this is more of a fandom thing, but there are so many youtube videos where ppl are titling them stuff like "Kanker sisters RAPE Eds" like wow so edgy and funny guys how about we keep this in 2009?

13. Worst blorbofication? Absolutely Edd. No argument. I don't think that this is an unpopular sentiment nowadays either. It has been discussed to earth and back at this point.

16. You can't understand why so many people like this thing: - That in high school/college Edd will make a complete 360 change in personality and become a complete bad-boy shadow the hedgehog recolor. Granted, I do think that Edd will grow to tone down his anxiety over following rules, BUT to completely change is out of the question. This is still Edd we're talking about. Rebelling for him would be something like jaywalking or wearing shoes inside someone's house he doesn't like. It nags me a bit when people completely ignore the defined quirks and personality of a character in favor of creating a whole new oc. You can of course be inspired by a character you like to create your own, but how about present them as that? - That Edd will start to drift away from Eddy and Ed as he grows older, or the other way around and Eddy and/or Ed drift away from Edd. I don't get how this head-canon keeps popping up. The WHOLE point of the show is their friendship and that they are blood brothers and meant for each other!!! This goes beyond their diverging interests and personalities!! The actual show proved this with the movie!! "But lots of people don't stay friends with the people they knew from childhood" umm and lots of people do? I am still closest with my middle school friends then any other people I've met in adulthood. My dad doesn't talk to anyone from university but still meets up with his childhood friends. And even so, I just don't understand the appeal. Their friendship kind of IS the whole show, and doing away with that ultimately defeats the purpose for me. I find it a lot more interesting to delve into aspects like how they would uphold these connections and friendships into adulthood, when work and responsibilities makes it a lot harder to get together regularly.

19. You're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like... Ngl I can't help feeling kind of shy about being super invested in a slapstick cartoon that came out nearly three decades ago. Even when I am talking to other cartoon/animation fans, I feel a bit silly about wanting to analyze their dynamics and traits when most people casually just remember the show as fun slapstick (of course it is but I also wanna get insane about it without being seen as MysteriousMrEnter or smth lmao).

21. Part of canon you think is overhyped? "What is under Double Dee's hat, guys?" "Why have they never confirmed what is under there?" "Any one else disappointed that they never showed Edd without his hat?" Umm idc lol

22. Your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores? - Probably the connection between Ed and Double Dee. I think it is really cute. I love how so many episodes kind of have them hanging out together. I don't think people acknowledge enough how their dynamic works. It is very Autism 2 Autism, like Edd gets to kind of info-dump about whatever to Ed, and even if Ed has no clue what he is talking about, he still enjoys the company and has fun in listening and partaking in whatever Edd is invested in. - I always really dig how Nazz is depicted kind of "cool" and "sporty". Idk it could have been very easy to make her just any kind of popular girl trope, but she kind of holds her own (even if she is super underdeveloped compared to the other characters). I think it makes her friendship with Kevin interesting. - On that note, I also really like Kevin and Rolf's dynamics in their friendship. I do actually see people discuss this a bunch, but I felt like I had to mention it. I really like how the typical American Apple Pie jock is besties with the foreigner with odd customs and both are kind of at an equal footing to each other. - Sarah is insanely strong, like almost on the same level as Ed. What is in that family's genes??

24. Topic that brings up the most rancid discourse? Shipping, probably. (When is it not shipping).

[andro-dino]

furries have been on my brain so here are some shogun steel characters and what i think their species would be and why 1. Zyro is a black jaguar!! you are right axel he is pretty kitty but i feel like his backstory and personality fit a wildcat more. i like to imagine he dyes his fur orange to help him stand out cause he blends in with the dark so well haha

2. Maru is a hamster!! this one is mostly based on vibes teehee. she's just a little guy. pick her up and hold her in your palm 💞💞💞 i could also see her being a bear cub tbh, but i just like the image of her stuffing her face and her cheeks get all large as a hamster hehe.

3. Shinobu is an axolotl!! it's literally cause of his antenna hair i gotta be honest with you lol. but besides that i just feel like the colors of axolotls suit him and it's fuel for your mexican hcs cause axolotls are native to mexico 👀 (ive also imagined in this universe where instead of breaking his bones in canon he loses limbs and has to be in the hospital so he can safely regenerate them akdsjfasdfk)

4. the Unabara brothers are sea otters!! i mentioned before that kite's hair being urchin shaped reminds me of how sea otters eat urchins so i found it fitting. plus it fits with the aquatic theme they have going on. in japanese mythology otters were tricksters like kitsune and tanuki and that fits eight to a T. otters also hold hands to stay together in the water and that's soooo unabara-coded <333

5. Ren is a hunting dog, most likely a spaniel. not too certain on the specific breed yet but i like the brittany spaniel!! she just has that dog energy and i feel like her being a hunting dog can represent her rivalries with other bladers, like taka and genjuro (ik she barely has any in canon but let me dream okay 😔)

6. Taka is a leopard or spiny gecko!! dont really have a proper explanation for this one it's mostly just vibes as well, but i feel like you could compare him being a small lizard that easily "sticks" to people and is very loyal to sakyo, who in a way is like a direct opposite to him.

7. speaking of, Sakyo is a maned wolf/dragon hybrid!!! you mentioning sakyo as a maned wolf lit a lightbulb in my head how does it feel to be so right. i feel like you can really dive into his identity as a descendant of the dragon clan with him visibly being half-dragon too yk. just in general it fits his supposedly menacing aura yet when you get to know him he's just silly and kind of a loser lmao. him and zyro's rivalry is so perfect too cause jaguars are the maned wolf's biggest predator! (plus imagining victoria as a really tall maned wolf 😳 like heeeey girl /j)

8. Kira is a wolfdog!! specifically a high content wolfdog (he has more wolf dna than dog). i chose wolfdog specifically because him being part dog really emphasizes his upbringing in dna to me, and how he still genuinely yearns for connection and a home. i like to think he just calls himself a wolf and ignores his dog heritage cause he doesnt want to seem weak or subservient, and eventually he learns to be proud of his dog attributes

i have more specifically for the rest of the dna bladers but i think ive written enough. hope you enjoy axel!!!!

AWAAAAAUUUUUUUU CHRIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS IM CRYING REAL TEARS OVER THESE 😭💞💞💞💞💞

I’m too tired to be able to put all my thoughts abt these into full sentences but

AWAAUGGG. HAMPSTER. MARU. SO TRUE‼️‼️‼️

axolotl Shinobu losing full limbs and needing time to regenerate is so big brained you don’t understand (also fun fact I was briefly nicknamed axelotl so I have a connection with them that makes me particularly happy abt this one :] )

SEA OTTER UNABARASSSSSS 😭😭😭😭💞💞‼️‼️‼️ the little guys ever

DOGGIRL REN SO TRUE‼️‼️‼️ also her rivalries with taka and genjuro are very real and true TO ME I think about them soooo much

gecko taka forever 🫶 AND SAKYO OURGH!!!! lowkey kinda wanna draw his dragon maned wolf hybrid fursona (and also you are so right about maned wolf Victoria 😳)

ALSO. KIRA SAYING HES JUST A WOLF FIRST BUT ACCEPTING HIS DOG SIDE TOO LATER ON OURGH ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME /POS

[gutsfics]

Since you write for multiple Choices stories, I'm curious: (how) do they all intertwine? Do your various MCs know each other? How do they get along? How did they meet? If any of your stories don't exist in the same universe, how would the characters get along if they did?

aaaa i love this question!!!! i love figuring out how these stories all fit together even if they don't interact <3

they do all intertwine, but in some places what's 'canon' and what isn't gets a little muddy. like for example, for me both RCD and HWU are equally canon, but its impossible for them to both exist in the same timeline, but that doesn't mean that there isn't connections that happen in both versions. Simon is Hunt's nephew in both RCD and HWU, but how he met Avalon is different because how Hunt met Avalon is different. and that's not even touching on all of the different versions for It Lives I have, and how those different endings would change how It Lives connects to all of the other stories. plus also: all of my sillies fun aus (which i will not talk about here at risk of this post going wayyy too long)

this might get a little messy, my mind is bouncing all over the place. under a read more bc i Will talk way too much about this <3

Simon

anyway since i mentioned Simon by name I'm gonna start with him. im ignoring choices HSS for him & his friends, bc i don't like that it kind of retcons some of HSS prime + makes all of the original friend group just People Who Go To School Together And Barely Interact.

obviously, he is Thomas' nephew, his dad is Thomas' older brother. they're very close, Thomas is his favorite uncle & he's very supportive with Simon figuring out his gender stuff. in fact, he's the person who buys Simon his first suit and the person who helps Simon find a good surgeon for his top surgery, as Thomas himself had issues with his own and didn't want Simon to experience the same things he did (more on this later)

in the HWU world, Simon meets Avalon over his spring break, which he used to sit in on a few classes of Thomas' classes. they know who each other are in really simple terms, just "there's that tall guy from that one class Thomas teaches, he sure is a nice dude :)" "oh, there's that high schooler who's sitting in on classes that Ethan wants to be the agent of. i hope he doesn't feel too pressured to make a decision right now, he's still got plenty of time to figure things out". they do eventually form a stronger relationship but that's only after Thomas and Avalon end up together officially- Simon thinks Avalon is really cool, and Avalon likes that his daughters have a cousin they can look up to (Simon LOVES babysitting/hanging out with Dawn and Lily btw theyre defo The World's Most Chaotic Cousins)

in RCD world, Simon was very small when Avalon and Thomas were together the first time and he knew Avalon just as Thomas' Cool Fun Roommate. he was absolutely DEVASTATED when Avalon "moved away" (read: they broke up) bc he thought Avalon was just SO COOL. but alas, since he was so small at the time he doesn't really remember Avalon all that well. But he is excited when Avalon reenters Thomas' life, and even more excited to find out that they're getting married (he'd be about early/mid 20s by this point). he may not remember Avalon too clearly, but he remembers how much he loved it when Uncle Thomas and his Best Friend Avalon came to visit

in both worlds: one Dr Bryce Lahela does Simon's top surgery (i'd say he gets it maybe mid/late 20s). he specifically chose an Edenbrook doctor bc Thomas knows Dr Banerji and he asked if there were any surgeons that Dr Banerji would trust to do the surgery properly, and he recommended Bryce :) more on how Thomas knows Naveen later

Baxter & Reigan

theyre getting a whole section to just them bc theyre BoyBestFriends and there's a lot about em (but ill try to keep it short)

Baxter and Reigan met in high school, after Baxter was deemed healthy enough to actually attend school instead of just being homeschooled in a hospital room (it was absolutely 100% Baxter's idea and want to do this, their parents wanted to keep them in the hospital 24/7 bc they were worried they'd immediately get sick)

at the time Baxter had been super standoffish and did not like being around people, so Reigan was the one to approach Baxter first. he was fairly well liked and respected by their classmates & he wanted to make sure that they didn't have an awful experience in school. eventually Baxter ended up asking Reigan out, not because they were particularly attracted to him (they were a bit of a late bloomer in that regard) but because they wanted to have all of those Normal Teenage Experiences(tm) and they did like spending time with him. and he said yes, bc even though he didn't feel any attraction either (he's ace/aro), he did like spending time with them as well (and to some degree was hoping that attraction might happen eventually)

dating for them just looked like how hanging out did, although they did hold hands a bit more and kiss at some point, when Baxter decided that they were at The Point In A Relationship Where You Kiss. they also went to prom together.

they broke up shortly after graduating high school, half bc Baxter achieved all those Normal Teenage Experiences(tm) they wanted to and half bc Reigan felt bad that he felt no attraction to Baxter, although he didn't mention it at the time bc he didn't want to hurt Baxter's feelings. there was a bit of a pause in their friendship after this, as both of them felt that they had to give the other some space to get over the romantic part of the relationship, but in the end they realized that neither cared? and went right back to being close good best friends :)

their friendship ended up being long distance for a while, as both college and career choices got in the way of being physically near each other. but. the week that Reigan got the job offer for McGraw Byrne was the week that Raf broke up with Baxter AND Ethan left for the Amazon, and the idea of being just a three hour train ride from his best friend defo played a role in him deciding to take the job. he actually flew to Boston instead of NYC so he could spend a little time with Baxter before he got too busy with his job. Baxter, Aurora, and Bryce actually spent one of their days off helping Reigan's dad furnish Reigan's Cool New NYC Apartment :)

speaking of Reigan's dad. Baxter is actually WAY closer w Reigan's parents than they are w their own. in fact, when Baxter went NC with their parents, Reigan's parent's were like "cool WE'RE your parents now :) we love you kiddo"

anyway. the attack in OH year two happened to line up w the end of LOA book one/beginning of book two (at least it does in my timeline) & Reigan immediately dropped everything to head to Boston to make sure Baxter was okay. while he was there, Martin kept trying to give Reigan really petty cases that were a waste of time, even though Reigan had taken time off and given a reason for it. he ended up chewing Martin out over the phone and quitting, deciding that he'd just look for a job in Boston to be closer to Baxter anyway. he stays in Boston for a bit to help take care of Baxter after they're discharged from the hospital, and when he gets back to New York he learns that Aislinn and Gabe also quit & have started their own law firm, which Reigan has been given a job offer for. he takes it only after Baxter assures him that they will be fine if he stays in NYC

Baxter is the reason that Reigan and Tobias meet (but not the reason that they end up in a qpr together) and they're also the Best Man Of Honor at both the weddings they end up having (Reigan and Tobias marry twice-- once in a Boston courthouse bc they decide that the legal benefits of being married work with what they want from the relationship w each other (Baxter's role here was just a witness), and a second time a more traditional wedding (more of an exchange of vows than a legal process this time) a year or two later to appease the parents)

and this does Not have to do with Baxter and Reigan's friendship but it doesn't really warrant it's own section: Reigan and my Bachelorette Party MC, Hallie, are friends from law school :) and speaking of Hallie, she's the twin sister of one of my Lovelink MCs, Harvy, although Harvy and Hallie were separated at birth bc their bio mom didn't know she was having twins until giving birth & she was unprepared to raise both so Hallie was put up for adoption & raised in the US (Harvy was raised in Vancouver, Canada). it takes em a while to find out about each other (Hallie knew she was adopted but didn't know she was a twin (her adoptive parents didn't know either) and Harvy just straight up Didn't Know he was a twin as his mom didn't tell him). also Harvy technically is just A Character I Have Now bc i really don't care for Lovelink anymore

It Lives

ok so here's where it gets messy. also i might kind of be vague here sorry

the It Lives series has a bunch of different ways to end (zero thanks to pb, this is 100% itlivesproject's win [blows a kiss for the itlivesproject crew <3]), all of which i really like.

so tbh for my world. each and every one of the endings is both canon and non canon, depending on which one i feel like writing for. bc sometimes i wanna write some cute soft fluff where Noah and Devi get to overcome their trauma. and sometimes i want Noah to fucking wallow in his pathetic meowmeow sopping wet sadboy misery where [SPOILERS] bc [SPOILERS] and [SPOILERS] (seriously pls go read the it lives trilogy theyre so good, especially It Lives Within)

however. It Lives IS canon in my worlds. i like the idea of a very mundane world having some kind of exciting magic to it, even if its mostly unknown. just. a magic that touches everyone's lives in little ways and connects us all together :) and that's EXACTLY what the Power is

anyway the ending where the It Lives characters get to interact with characters from other stories is the one where Noah and Devi get to overcome their trauma, and they open up a restaurant together <3 basically i think at some point All of my characters will end up having a meal at Baby Jane's. not all together, but they'll make their way there eventually :)

also there's my au where It Lives is a tv show which I KNOW i said i wouldn't talk about aus BUT i just want yall to know that the actor who plays Devi (i don't have a name for him yet, bc hes not technically Devi) sees Avalon as a mentor figure :)

Thomas & Naveen

(tw for medical malpractice and transphobia)

hey so remember when i said i'd talk about Thomas' top surgery later? and that i'd also talk about how he knows Naveen? well.

my Thomas took a gap year between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college to medically and legally transition. he was moving to a new place and he wanted to be as stealth as he could be. so as soon as he turned 18, he got his name legally changed and started on testosterone, and got his top surgery scheduled. his plan was that by the time he started college, he would have recovered from his surgery and he'd have been on T for long enough that he'd be going through most of the changes he'd want from it

he specifically found a surgeon in the same town his older brother (Simon's dad, his name is Jonathan) had moved to so he'd have some company/a caretaker while he recovered. unfortunately for him, that surgeon... kind of sucked. his surgery was done wrong, and wasn't healing properly, even though both Thomas and Jon were making sure they were doing everything right. but when they tried to talk to the surgeon, the surgeon would just say "nope everything's fine nothing is wrong you are delusional :) its SUPPOSED to be all rotten and nasty :) stop bothering me" and no one else in the clinic seemed to care at all?

anyway one day Jon just had Enough, bc he'd heard from other people who'd had this surgery how recovery typically looked, and his brother was just wasting away, too weak to do anything bc of how his surgery got fucked up and he kind of just. snapped. and started yelling at the surgeon to Please Fucking Do Something.

while the surgeon didn't do anything, Jon's yelling attracted the attention of a different doctor, one who had only heard bits and pieces about this patient who's brother kept stopping by to ask over and over again if a surgery was healing properly, one who'd heard said surgeon being kind of a dick about it in the breakroom, and he decided that someone needed to do something to help these brothers

that doctor being a young Dr Naveen Banerji, pre diagnostics team and pre Edenbrook employment

he caught Jon just outside after Jon had been..... "politely" escorted out and asked what, specifically seemed to be wrong with his brother's recovery

immediately recognizing the problem caused the surgeon's incompetence/prejudices effecting the health and safety of a patient, Naveen helped Jon find a hospital to take Thomas to, one that would actually help him with what was wrong and set him onto a proper path for recovery

he also quit his job at that hospital. he'd noticed things similar to that happening before, but this was just the final straw. he helped as many patients as he could there, but at some point you have to know when to walk away. but that was a good thing for his career, as he was able to start the diagnostics team at Edenbrook, not to mention that other hospital ended up getting shut down for medical malpractice

Thomas and Naveen stayed in touch, and now whenever Thomas ends up in Boston for whatever reason, he'll stop by for a visit :)

[keefwho]

March 20 - 2024 Wednesday

11:54pm

6/10

This morning, very little cleaning again. Not that my room really needs it. I just did some dusting and putting a couple things away. This morning's shower was extra short since I had to do dishes too. For breakfast I made another breakfast sandwich with instant oatmeal this time. I played Stardew Valley while it cooked.

During work I warmed up with a color study and a few shygal sketches. Then I worked on and almost finished the shygal commission I'm currently on. Streaming was frustrating today because no matter what I said, someone always tries to be "right" even when there isn't a right or wrong. Like how we were talking about sexual orientation and someone implied that I haven't experienced enough real life relationship to know what I'm into?? Thats just one small example, this kind of behavior happens every day. I'm fixing to start ignoring every time I see a stupid response, like it was never typed.

After work I tried to do my workout but my tummy was a little grumpy so I only did about half. Then I kinda sat around until lunch. Lunch was my homemade stir fry rice with pork.

During afternoon work I tried joining BR's server again but it was more game talk and it got old pretty quick. I finished today's request and worked on my animation for another hour. My tummy started feeling worse so I left the call and worked on AE's avatar for about 15 minutes before quitting. I had to use the bathroom which helped but I still felt bad. I got a heating pad for my tummy and made some peppermint tea.

DS called fairly early today for fursuit work and chill time. I played the MLP game for awhile. It was the coziest I had been today because this is what I wanted most, bestie time and pony game. After her work, she read me 3 short Disney storybooks, the kind you read to kids at bedtime. They were good, especially the one about Figment. She's really sold me on him and the Dreamfinder as characters. I keep thinking a crossover with them, Bob Ross, and Vsauce would be oddly fitting and amazing. Then we tried some Roblox. I proposed a mountain climbing game I saw someone else play. We didn't get very far, I don't think she likes that kind of repetitive challenge, falling over and over until you finally get it right. Thats something we differ on. Then we peeked at a Monster High RP game briefly before bedtime. In bed we did our puzzles, Monster High reading, and Kingdom Hearts. The Connections puzzle today was hard and different, must be a NEW guy making them. After she fell asleep, I played Stardew Valley. Im leaving my water heater on tonight to see if it'll work, I have reason to believe it might. I just want more hot water in the morning.

~~~

Today I was thinking about acceptance, more specifically accepting both the good and bad parts of any experience. Its a good way to stay connected to whats happening, reminding myself that there are always 2 parts to everything. It helps if I start obsessing over the negatives. It's about searching for that silver lining and truly accepting that it exists. Im REALLY good at accepting bad things, I need to work on accepting good things.

3 things I liked about today.

Playing stardew Valley.

Painting the Shygal commission.

Extra time with DS.

[nahalism]

There’s this girl who has been in me for two years and no matter what I do, it doesn’t go away. I have periods where I’m doing great and also not. When I’m not doing great, I think about her and it drives me crazy. When I’m doing great, I work on myself, feel better, but then it hits me harder. As if she gets closer. She comes in dreams, but I can also feel her. Never bad, it always has been warm and pure. She changed me and my life. Unknowingly. It made me spiritual. Weird thing, we only spoke online. The past three weeks the dreams turned into nightmares and it’s not warm and pure. Its not like the other dreams, where I felt both of us where there. I’m not sure if my fears are hunting me, or if it’s really happening. She ignored me in the dream, walked away and was with another guy. She had a relationship and I was happy for her, but this just feels different. The dreams make me not wanna sleep and this sounds even crazier, but i feel like I sense her being intimate w another guy. It’s a gross feeling in my body and idc about nothing, but this drives me mental. Idk what it is or why her. Never had this with any girl. Not the ones I dated either. Tbh I asked myself if it’s me linking this awaking to her, but this awaking happened 4/5 after we stopped talking. I asked myself if I portray my desires on her, but it can’t be. The first time I’ve seen her face on a photo, i don’t know what it was, but I heard “she’s part of you” and honestly not one day since then has been without her in my head. Beside that she’s my opposite. It can’t be real. She’s on every guy and very open minded, while I am very private and just want to be in a relationship rather than being w everyone a little bit for a while. I know it’s weird. I did not tell her this or anyone I know, cuz how tf do you explain. I accepted it all. We either speak, meet or will never, but I can’t bare living w these dreams and gross things in my body. You seem honest, whatever it is I’m curious about your thoughts. Have you felt anything similar or have tips on how to get rid of this?

hey. in advance, this is going to be really long – i 100% believe in unexplainable spiritual, emotional, mental ties that occur between people, whether they're built over time, or instantaneous. i think sometimes those quick intense bonds need to be watched though, because whether or not theres a true vibrational match underlying them, they tend to have their roots in trauma or unconscious conditioning.

its hard to speak on your situation because i dont know the depth and breadth of you guy's conversations. im weary of filling you with a false perception or confidence that theres potential between you, when i have no evidence to support that. there may or may not be something between you both, but ill gear my observations toward your own self enquiry, then hopefully if there is potential between you two, that self inquiry will put you in better stead to further cultivate your relationship with her and yourself.

disclaimer: i know you said you dont think your projecting your own desire on to her, but i have to speak the truth of what i feel with the facts i have. – often what we feel in relation to other people is a deep mirror of something operating within ourselves. since most people are usually unaware of what those aspects within them are, we feel drawn to understand them and relate to them by understanding ourselves through the people we are drawn to. this means you may not be actively projecting your feelings on to her, but that she is a larger projection of something you resonate with/feel. if not, she wouldnt be such a high vibrational match to you and showing up for you the way she is, and intensely as she is.

if the truth of the situation is that you feel bonded to this girl beyond physical explanation, (a connection so deep its awakening things within you you never felt before), then my question for you is, why haven't you spoken to her about it, or made moves to actively pursue her? im not saying divulge the full depth of your feelings and experiences straight away, because telling her all that at once might be a bit intense and scare her off. (not because what you feel is wrong, but because it can be confusing to have someone feel all these things about you without having met you, or truly gotten to know u. she may feel unduly fantasised about or fetishised which will enhance a feeling that the relationship is one way & feel way too intense, yfm?)

anyway, the fact you feel all these things but are so quick to accept that you 'may never meet her and nothing may ever come of it' seems like complete passivity and almost a rejection of pursuing what you deep down desire or yearn for in order to protect urself/ ur feelings/preserve ur pride from rejection/failure? (or even out of the feeling that even if your current relationship is limited, at least it still exists which is better than nothing). regardless of the reason, the fact your talking to me about this and haven't addressed it with her, is an issue, and the part you need to get to the bottom of. regardless of if she feels the same right now, its fully possible that had you moved to her, she may have awakened to that same feeling, and same connection you feel toward her. the fact that you didnt, and werent vulnerable with what you were feeling in the moment is what allowed that chance to slip.

what may be haunting you in the form of those nightmares may therefore not even have anything to do with her being with other guys. it could be a reflection of the discomfort you feel deep down toward all you feel but haven't voiced/acted on. if that resonates, then it could be that the disgust/grossness you feel, is less about her actions, and more about you having fumbled an opportunity to be in a role you secretly desire to be in with her due to your own inability to act on what you feel. – again, if that resonates question: is that theme present somewhere else in your life? wanting something deeply but not striving to attain it because you feel its futile and out of your reach? – if thats the case, are the intensity of your feelings truly about her, or do they exist in relation to her in as far as she represents something desired but unattainable. –––– if im completely off here then question why it is that you cant bare to think of her with someone else. you cant bare to perceive her in the way you usually feel comfortable doing, specifically because she feels distant to you and attached to someone else.. yet you also havent done the work to make sure that wouldn't be the case?

who knows. it could be that she is a part of you. whether thats as a life partner or as a teacher, only you and she can answer that. her being your opposite doesn't mean she cant be perfect for you, and her being more liberal with her approach to dating at the moment doesn't mean that she may not desire containment and a long term relationship. but in order for that to manifest, you also have to show up in your authority and as the kind of person she feels willing to be in a relationship with. being blasé or nonchalant is not cool and is not the embodiment of that energy.

this is all hypothetical of course, because idk if her feelings toward you are mutual. if they are, id suggest you do the work to make yourself emotionally and physically available to her. dont fear rejection or assume that if shes into you she'll drop everything and make you a priority. you may have to put in work and show up as a solid figure for a while for the situation to unfold.

if she isnt in to you, try not to beat yourself up or feel weird for 'inventing scenarios' in your heard. your not weird, your working through something, and as time passes the lesson will be whats prominent, not the circumstances that brought you to learning it. take the l, charge it, just do the work to make sure u arent caught slipping again.

i genuinely hope this helped and that i didnt just make u feel more misunderstood. im sending u love and all the resolve necessary to be able to assert yourself accordingly in this situation!!! may you get your desired outcome, and that regardless of whether u do or dont the growth that comes from this is the most beautiful part. ty for trusting in me enough to share with me and lean on me <333333333333

bon chance !

[gods-favorite-autistic]

I know this probably won’t make sense but:

Im gonna try and make this make a little more sense:

Also ⚠️Spoilers for Volume 2!⚠️

Eleven: There is a clear connection that a lot of people have drawn between El and autism, which influence this a little, but I also feel that it makes sense with what we know about her character. Her not understanding customs that are supposed to be ‘normal,’ especially if it’s just a social rule that was made arbitrarily, her not following the rules if she doesn’t understand the rules or doesn’t know why the rule is in place, and her going partially nonverbal when overstimulated or under extreme stress are good examples.

Max: I feel like she had a lot of trouble with reading when she was a child, so she really latched onto certain things that she could read or comprehend easily, like presumptuous. I feel like a big reason she teases the boys for being nerds about stuff like Lord Of The Rings and DND is because she always had trouble with that type of stuff, and it would frustrate her to the point that she would just end up not liking it at all. I feel like after she comes out of the coma she opens up to Lucas about it and they end up reading Lord Of The Rings together. Also, about the letters, I feel like it becomes a lot easier for her to write concisely if she’s writing down something that she really wants to write, and has a lot of emotions in it.

Dustin: So with Dustin I feel like his main hyper-fixation is science. That’s why he treasures everything to do with it, why he is basically best friends with Mr. Clark, and why he’s so proud about it. I do think that’s ADHD is also why Dustin, a usually very smart student, got a near failing grade in one of his classes. You could argue that he just isn’t good at that class, but I think that it could be due to executive dysfunction, which is very common for people with ADHD, especially when it’s something that they are not interested in.

Steve: With Steve I feel like this is a more obvious opinion. I feel like a lot of people look down on him and judge him for being dumb and not knowing things or not getting things that other people get, and I think that could be very much contributed to the fact that there was something just simply different about him, y’know? Especially with those being two very much lesser known disorders back then. I also think that his parents know about this because they have the money and they obviously knew something was ‘wrong’ with their son, in their eyes, so they got him tested for a couple things both physically and psychologically, but they never told him about this and thought that if they ignored it then it would just go away, which is sadly still a very popular thing for parents of neurodivergent children to do.

Robin: A big part of this for me is the fact that her whole aesthetic is very reminiscent of both ADHD and Autism culture, but also the bad coordination (honestly same girl) and the whole ramble thing on is what sticks out to me the most with her. She’s very much the infodump type of ADHD, like I feel like whenever they’re just bored and business is slow I feel like her and Steve will just sit around and infodump about their favorite movies together so she like instantly clocks his ADHD the second they met which is a main reason as to why she was so quick to become friends with him (it’s like gaydar, but for neurodivergent people).

Eddie: Once again I feel like a lot of people look down on him or call him dumb because of the whole dyslexia thing and I feel like that’s a big reason as to why he’s failed high school twice. He’s probably a pretty smart guy, he just has a few things that make it harder for him. And with the autism thing, I feel like two of his main special interest are rock bands like Black Sabbath and DND. And I feel like he knows that he most likely has it because of his uncle, not because he got him tested because he probably couldn’t afford that, but because his uncle noticed that there was obviously something different with him and because he cared a lot about his nephew he looked into it and told him about it. I think that’s a big reason as to why he really owns being a freak and being different, because his uncle normalized it to him and made sure he knew he didn’t have to be ashamed of it. That really ties into the whole speech he gives in the second episode to Nancy, about him being a good kid and him willing to defend Eddie’s reputation with his life.

Will: So I feel like this one is the most complicated, and it’s kinda hard to explain. So for the dyslexia thing, I feel like when he can’t express his feelings verbally, I feel like instead of expressing them with written words like Max does he expresses them with art, like he does in the show with the painting that he paints for Mike. He finds it easier, and that’s also why he likes comic books more, because he can comprehend them a lot easier than written books. With the ADHD thing I feel I get this a lot more from his hyperfixation on DND more than anything. I know that for a lot of neurodivergent people sharing their hyperfixation/special interest can be a kind of love language, and I feel like that’s exactly how it is for Will. He tries so hard to keep his friends interested in it in season three because that’s a really big way that he connects with them, he finds it easier to express himself and his emotions when he’s playing DND. And with the whole autistic thing, it’s more of a thing you see in his social life more than anything. You can really see how much he tries to act ‘normal’ socially and how much he tries to fit in with people at school, which is really reflected in how he doesn’t have any friend at his new school. The main reason he had his friends in Hawkins was because they approached him, which is a common thing with autistic people.

Anyways I don’t know if this made any sense to anyone but me but those are my reasonings.

Also, if anyone from these communities has any problems with this post, feel free to tell me about them because as of now right now I don’t have any diagnosis for any of these things, and I really don’t want to be ignorant or insult anyone.

And if y’all have any thoughts on the matter then y’all can share them in the reblogs and replies as long as y’all make sure to be kind and to not be mean to anyone because they have different opinions (although if they say something ableist you have my full permission the lecture the shit out of them)

Anyways have fun with these ideas

[lgcheewon]

hi hello and thank you for the warm welcomes. i'm new (they/them) and i'm... new lol more importantly, this is heewon and he's an aspiring rapper who likes coffee and cracking the type of jokes that make you laugh before wondering "wait is he ok?" i have a tl;dr under the cut, but you can find an even shorter one on his stats page here. feebly cobbled together some plot ideas too!

i don't have a twitter or anything of the sort, but if you're down to plot and don't mind doing it the old-fashioned way in ims, feel free to like this post and i'll hit you up when i can (or feel free to im me first)!

heewon (you can also call him won) is not an interesting guy. or so he'll tell you! he doesn't like it when people have too many expectations of him. makes it too easy to disappoint, y'know?

born and raised in nyc, he's the eldest of three and the kind of prodigal son that parents who put too much money into cram school and the like weep about. he's born to a well-off family, but has no real interest in anything but music (and this is apparent early on), and even that's a stretch.

he doesn't really think about pursuing anything as a performer himself until he auditions for lgc on a whim and actually gets invited to be a trainee. by then he's kind of on the older side and it feels like a crapshoot, but hey. it's almost been three years. maybe he's doing something right? or wrong? who tf knows lmao.

he's chill, mellow, laidback, easygoing, etc. and he very much so floats on by at his own pace. he comes across as pretty aloof sometimes, but he doesn't mind small talk and he doesn't mind meeting new people! with the obligatory downside that he probably won't remember your name. no hard feelings, really. it's just hard for him to care enough! (ok. sorry. maybe some hard feelings?)

he is a hard worker when it counts but he's never joking when he asks you to keep your expectations low. he doesn't like disappointing people and it's easier when the bar's closer to the ground. does he work hard? yeah. but does he want you to know that? not really. he cracks a lot of jokes at his own expense to mask the weird kind of self-esteem issues he has. perks of being the failed first son, am i right?

fiercely private when it comes to his personal affairs or emotional issues, he'd rather you think he has very few cares in the world. no hard feelings (for real, this time) or anything. it's just the big brother in him kicking in.

on a lighter note, he's kind of pretentious in the way he likes foreign films and poetry and film photography and pretending he knows a thing or two about loose-leaf tea, but he's also the kind of guy who likes doing a little bit of everything. he's down for most things too. it's hard to embarrass him. everyone has to be "bad" at something, right?

WANTED VIBES

event... stuff.... (pretending like i know what's going on)

childhood friends — he went back and forth between korea and america pretty frequently, especially during the summers. his family has a separate home in seongbuk!

high school friends — he went to high school in korea for about two years (at a foreign school, but he's fluent in korean and english!) before going back to the states for university and then coming back to korea to join lgc.

trainee friends — i'd imagine he probably has a lot but maybe only a few that are actually close-close with him. he's not a cold or frigid person by any means, but he's certainly a lot private and he likes to keep things as lighthearted as possible. he's a nice person to have around! and even when he's less than delightful around his closer friends, he usually tries to keep the sad vibes to a minimum.

antagon???istic??? — ample question marks because he likely would not return any strong negative emotion. please feel free to resent him for literally anything but he's really good at ignoring the things (years of practice, baby) that he doesn't care for so don't expect any sparks!

KEYWORD CONNECTIONS

sugar — did i say no negative emotion? well, i lied! just kidding. but he does resent you a little. it's not really your fault, but for whatever reason, the barista in the company building keeps getting your order confused with his. maybe it's because you two are the only ones who seem to be there at that awkward mid-morning hour? either way, he's getting a little sick of your drink. is it even human to consume something this sweet...?

past — (similar age) hello to the ex he still cares a lot about! he's the type of person who says "sure" to anyone who confesses to him. bad habit? maybe. but what's the harm in giving it a shot? well, maybe there's a little harm when he actually catches feelings. the relationship ends almost as quickly as it starts, and maybe it's because you started off as (and thankfully stayed) friends, but he does think, privately, that in another life, he might have given it a little more effort to make it work.

sibling — his brother/sister has the biggest crush on you and he's been tasked with getting your autograph. but he's bad with faces and even worse with names. isn't it funny, pal, the way his baby sibling's celeb crush has the same stage name as you? the world sure is small—oh.

dawn — he goes for a jog every morning. just because routine keeps him sane and all, and because the rec soccer team he plays on on sundays is way more serious than he thought it would be. while his runs are often pretty uneventful, it's on one morning in particular that he turns a corner too quickly and crashes right into you. did you roll your ankle? sprain it? well, fuck. say the word. he'll be at your beck and call until it heals in penance. consider it good karma.

puppy — (younger) for whatever reason, you have a crush on him. you should get your eyes (or brain) checked when you can, by the way. you've definitely got a screw loose. he's not so inattentive that he doesn't notice, but he sure doesn't want to break any hearts—so he'll pretend he doesn't know. all while pushing you to find someone else to set your sights on. for your sake.

coffee — he likes people watching. he especially likes watching your reaction every time you drop by the coffee shop he works at just to bravely try some of the shop's best (but woefully un-sweetened) coffee. next time he catches you in the legacy building, he'll treat you to some coffee milk. lol. baby.

close — (same age or older) of his best and closest friends, you are his best and his closest friend. it's not by a long shot or anything (he wouldn't want to offend the others, after all), but if there had to be a tier or a hierarchy, you'd probably be at the tippy top. he's comfortable around you. and you make it easy. probably why he's caught some feelings, right? no worries—he wouldn't dream of risking what you're sharing with him. sooner or later, the palpitations will fade. hopefully.

photograph — (similar age) it's a shame you're not really friends anymore but it's always easier to stick with the people who share the same level of ambition and drive as you, huh? he's an overly sentimental person, though. and while he's okay with the fact that you're orbiting different stars now, he still keeps that stupid polaroid of the first sleepless night spent practicing in an eerie studio together in his wallet. or he did. where did he drop it...

[thithesandofferings]

Yandere FFXV Crew

FFXV being Yandere- Gladiolus/Noctis/Prompto/Ignis/Ardyn/Regis

*Covers eyes* I am not here. But you are. You might as well read. 

:readmore:

TW:  MINORS DNI  Dark Content. Yandere themes. Stalking. Dubious Dubious Consent. Slight Daddy kink. Masochism. Sadism. Slight exhibitionism. Fear play. 

Gladiolus - Geeezzz he's so in love with you. Has been for so long. Just watching you through the castle. He just knows you'd look good in his bed. With a ring on your finger (and neck) crying out his name. He sees the other knights in the castle chatting you up, but he may or may not be standing behind you giving them the death glare. Its only accidental that a couple of knights disappear. Only happenstance that these were the same men that gave you a hard time. When you look at him with needy eyes asking him for help, he has to have you. Wont let you out of his room. Look hes trying to make you feel safe and secure. You may think he's not the kindest when he buckles you in your collar connected to a brick wall and gives you the deepest of kisses. Grips your chin to open your mouth so he has more access- every day before he goes to work. He knows you hate when he leaves and hes gonna make it up to you. He even promised you a baby if youre good. Your eyes are misting, but theres no reason for it. you know he's gonna fuck you into that very same wall when he gets home. Give you all the attention that you've been whining for. "Awww sorry princess, Daddy didnt mean it. Im not letting you go unitl you forgive me".

Noctis- Two words. Cage Beds. Always. He loves you, but he cant trust you as far as he can throw. He was even nice enough to pick the bed with you in the room.  Keeps one leg shackeled at all times when he doesnt have sights on you. Why would you want to get out anyways? Your sole purpose is to serve him. He would never feel bad for taking your life. Its his anyways. He might use the guards to spy on you, and so what? You like to run. And not that he doesnt like to chase you, no, it becomes a hassle when he has duties to fulfill for the kingdom. Playtime is not 24/7 pet and you know this. He has to roll his eyes because it seems that no one understands that not a single soul is allowed to talk to you in any capacity. At this point he's going to have to pay his public executioner more, he's been working overtime. Probably gonna have to fuck your little mouth shut again just to give everyone a break.  He would hope you'll get used to being his possession. Its hardly sexual at this point, especially when he can use you like a malleable toy. You're cute,  but he's really been thinking about...experimentation during his down time. Wonders what you'd do if he held a syringe of anything next to that cute face.  

Prompto - He doesnt mean to be angry. He doesnt. But you just make him so hot, its hard to cipher his feelings out of something so strong. You were so nice and thats why he took you in the first place; but now youre so hurtful. How is he supposed to deal with that- especially when youre saying mean things to him. How could you say something about his humanity! He has it! He definitely doesnt mean to bruise you, gripping your waist so tight that bruises form, its an honest mistake. But he has to prove it to you somehow that he is deserving of you. He adores it when he fucks you so good that you pass out. Pleas and gasp making an abrupt choked noise when your head hits the pillow. Doesnt mean he's gonna stop his hips from moving. He needs to prove to you that you are it. So he'll fuck you awake so he can remind you. No matter how much it takes.

Ignis- Wants to get inside your head first. To be the only thing you think about. Walks by you and sometimes bumps into you. Says he's sorry and touches you. makes sure that your mind drifts to him. He knows exactly where you're going to be at the exact time. Of course he's input cameras into every point in your house and office. He cant keep an eye off you for a second. What if that "partner" from the other cubicle comes by and hassles you again? He sees the way that man looks at you. Distractingly similar to how Ignis himself looks at you. But that guy doesnt care about you. Doesnt know what you like to eat or what flowers you like first thing in the morning. Or that you even prefer to be bent over the desk rather than pressed against the window. Probably doesnt know that your hole squeezes just a little tighter when someone walks pass. Has to press his hand against your mouth when you get a little too loud. Frown deepens when he thrust into you as hard as he can when your "partner" knocks on the door.

Ardyn- He's so giddy when you wake up and his lips are already on yours before your eyes open. He picked up the change of breathing and wanted to be ready for you. He can mark what belongs to him right? Gods he cant wait until he puts bruises on that pretty skin. He wants to hear you whine for him. You may be a resistant now, but you'll come around. They always do. He's seen the way your eyes flutter just slightly when he grasps your throat when youre being just a little too bratty. The way you beg gets him so hard- he wants to fuck you where you stand, but he's trying to be patient. Knows that one day you'll come to him crawling on your hands and knees with that cute little collar, leash in mouth, begging for him to fuck you. He can wait. He's waited this long hasnt he?

Regis- In the name of the throne, it has to be done. You have to be his. Does not matter your standing whether high status or low born. You were supposed to be his. The Gods told him so. Its a shame you were taken from your home by his very guards, but he knew you would have a better life with him. He would treat you right. Give you all the little toys your heart desired. He's wanted you for so long. How dare you ignore him? A king? He'd make sure you never step foot out of the castle again. For your own good. You deserved the best. And you would get the best too wouldnt you? His fingers, his mouth, even his time. He wants those beautiful face writhing in pleasure not pain, but if you dont behave, he'll take either.

[sailorhyunjinz]

I always wonder how skz would react to an s/o with a LARGE SEX DRIVE SHSBDBS idk like guys r usually super horny but imagine if u were hornier than them HAHA

BRRRAH QUICK REACTION POST!

warnings: mostly dom!skz x gn!reader. impact play, nicknames, hickies, masturbation, exhibitionism, overstimulation, slight dacryphilia, sex toys, daddy kink, riding, degradation, dumbification. 

Bangchan: 

The thing is not that he wouldn’t like it,,, more like he would be tired?

Sure,,, he has good stamina but he would more prefer longer sex sessions that are more intimate and romantic rather than a bunch of quickies.

but thats like... 95% of the time, the remaining 5% is dicking you down so hard you won’t be able to walk because “you asked for it, you dumb fuck”

BUT THATS RARE

you would really have to get him worked up in order for that to work

and even then he would only go for maybe 2 rounds

“c-chan... one more time~” you said after cumming for the third time that night. “y/n, arent you sleepy?” he says, chuckling. you shake your head, “just one more time!” you say all giddy to which bangchan sighed. 

Minho:

ok now hear me out, im not gonna mix astrology in here,,, but i am going to mix astrology in here lmao

this boy a scorpio

a scorpio

meaning his intimate parts rule over his body (JUST SAYING TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT)

so he loves this. A LOT

any opportunity to be inside of you he’ll take

he’s hella horny and would like a s/o that matches that aura so HEY! fits perfectly (thats what she said)

show any sign of a sexual act and he wont hesitate to slam you against a table

legit as small as licking a lollipop 

“stop that unless you want my dick in your throat” he says, not even looking up from his phone as the sounds of you sucking a lollipop fills the room. you don’t stop, no, you go even harder. he looks up from his phone. “is that a yes?”

Changbin:

ahh... binnie binnie is head over heals for this

he finds it extremely hot that you initiate the sex most of the time

it shows that you really want him 

and he likes attention and feeling appreciated so this works

also has kind of a firey attitude

meaning that he gets worked up real quick

just like minho it doesnt take much for him to notice your sexual signs

“binnie~ i need you” you whisper in his ear as he’s working on something on his computer. you drag your lips across his neck and nibble on his ear before he turns around and glares at you with dark eyes. “princess/prince wanna play that game huh?”

Hyunjin:

shy to initiate so this makes it easier for him 

his stamina is relativly high

but i feel like there would be kiiind of a gap between the two of you since he’d be completely exhausted after a couple of rounds but you beg for more.

leaving him with no other choice but to give it to you

since he loves you too much to say no ><

i feel like he’d make fun of you for it 

LMAO I DONT KNOW WHY BUT JUST HE’D FIND IT FUNNY THAT YOU’RE ALWAYS SO DESPERATE

“hyunjin,, please!” you says in the nicest tone you could muster but only being mocked by hyunjin copying you in an annoying voice

“HyUnJiiinNn~” you burst into laughter, hitting him playfully on the shoulder. “thats what you sound like y/n!!”

but nah most of the time he will take it but always with some playfulness first. 

Jisung:

HORNY TEENAGER JISUNG AGENDA

all the time

no matter where or when

some of yall are about to be real mad at me but it must be said HASHAHAH STOP CHER STOP

he just gives me this hormonal teenager vibe

and so there’s a lot of fucking in a lot of unconventional places

simply because his angel wants it

it even borders to him being even hornier than you but you find joy in that

you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve caught him watching porn or masturbating BECAUSE IT HAPPENED OFTEN

and everytime it would lead to heated sex that could last for hours

“h-help me y/n! dont just stand there s-staring” he says, blushing a bit as he openly strokes his dick infront of you. you shrug your shoulders, closing the bedroom door and inching closer to the warm boy.

Felix:

tough one to read... hmmm.... 

honestly he wouldn’t mind

sure he’d be tired 

and therefore he’d rather prefer seeing you ride a dildo or something

because then you’re satisfied and he doesnt have to do much

NOT THAT HE’S LAZY

just that he likes to cuddle and chill more than being inside of you all the time

he’s sensitive which has its pros and cons

pro: easy to get horny

con: easily overstimulated

WHICH SURE you’d find it fun to torture him by keeping him cumming over and over again

but poor boy would be crying in the end

which only added to your horniness OOP

“y/n,, s-stop please im begging you,, ahhgh..” he moans from underneath you, you putting him through his fourth orgasm which is causing him to shake and cry as you didn’t stop riding him. “mhm... but I wanna cum once more, not fair... you can cum so many times but I can’t! be a good boy and shut up, maybe i’ll let you go after this round”

Seungmin:

giving me that same energy that chan has

but this time instead of 95:5 its more like 65:35

meaning 65% romantic puppy that wants to take his time with you, roaming his hands all over your body and really connecting with you

and the other 35% well... more like relentless pounding, all covered in love bites and hand prints (im drooling)

he becomes all hard dom when he’s stressed and soo...

you get him stressed which ok you feel bad about but... he gets to release all his stress (and cum) on you and you get what you want 

DING DING DING! win-win situation!!

so yeah he would like it most of the time especially when you’re stressed and especially when you’re a brat

turning him on by rubbing on his lap but running away the next second

he likes to make you obey rather than you already obeying. 

he was watching tv peacefully when you suddenly plopped down on his lap, starting to squirm about when watching a tv show. he held you down by the waist. “shh stop” he says once with a bitter tone but you didn’t listen, only continuing to move and feeling his member getting harder. “Is d-daddy getting hard?” you coo at him with a mischievous voice to which seungmin sighed, his hands snaking around your upper body and wrapping around your neck, pushing your back against his chest. “little fucker wanna play with daddy”

oml why did this become so aggressive i have a lot of pent up sexual frustration ASHASHS

Jeongin: 

he’d find it really hot in the beginning

but what he didn’t realise was how tiring sex is 

yk teenagers! learning as they go (i like how im talking about this as if im older than him LMAO)

catch his search history being: “is it normal to have sex everyday” 

he’d be sore :(( 

and when he told you that he probably needed to just cuddle he felt bad because he always wanted to please you

but the two of you would find your ways around it

vibrators EHHEHE

especially those remote control ones

he’d just go ham with those I KNOW IT

because just like felix, you’d be satisfied and he could chill for the time being 

beg pretty enough and he’ll give you the real thing

“b-but i need you now jeongin! stop with that fucking controller!!” you try to snatch it out of his hand but fail. “say please” he says, looking at you with sweet brown eyes. “pl-pleaseeee~!” he melts into a puddle of blushes as he speaks “alright but only because you’re a good one” 

HEY THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN WRITING!! send in sum more, i’ll make them into short reactions like these because my requests for the “official” reactions is closed (will probably open shortly) but YEEEAH 

thank u anon for your very very smart brain and for requesting HEH >< 

also this is not proof read so ignore any mistakes OOP

[1kook]

some way, some how

jeon jungkook x (f) reader

Summary: Maybe you don’t know Jungkook as well as you thought you did. Maybe he doesn’t know you. Warnings: emotional constipation, toxic ex, internalized misogyny, jk has bad experiences w/his ex’s dad, one scene where jk throws up, brief episode of panic, mentions of terminal cancer (minor); smut; fingering, praise kink, face fucking, spitting kink, cunnilingus, unprotected sex on top of a car im sorry Misc: autoshop owner!jk, businesswoman!oc, slice of life, childhood crushes, friends to lovers, ex gfs, pining, country bumpkin pjm w/crush on oblivious oc, ex-bf kth but it’s not real lol Wc: 19.4k (wow!!!)

the spirit of auto shop jk possessed me n next thing i knew i was 11k into a drabble. if ur curious: the 1975 corvette, car at the end, the tweed suitskirt (not actually chanel ☹️sowwyyy) also: this is the longest fic I've written!!!!! clap for me!!!!! i proofread the first few paragraphs n was like thats enough professionalism for the day

inspired by ain’t no mountain high enough one of my fave songs ever🥺 the title is a lyric from the song bc i love it so much enjoy !!

The garage is mostly dark when you enter, the faint hum of a radio quietly filtering through the stagnant room, its source coming from the back wall, where the only light is. It’s a rolling lamp, shining down an ugly yellow glow onto the figure of one man.

Jungkook’s sitting in that same rolling stool he always is, the metal one that’s rusted beyond repair, the cushion so uncomfortably flat. He’s caught up in whatever paint job he’s been tasked with this time around, a classic muscle car from what looks like the 80’s. He’s humming along to the radio, so caught up in stenciling out his design that he doesn’t notice you creep behind him until you’re very purposefully rattling the tool cart beside him, a teasing “boo!” making him jump.

“Fuck, you scared me,” he gasps, rubs over his chest as if to check if his heart is in fact still there. You grin, brandish your bag of takeout out for him before he can lecture you on the dangers of startling people who work around very complex machinery. Instead, all he says is, “you’re an angel.”

Once you’ve got the food carefully scattered across his work bench, your cherry cola tucked next to a canister of gasoline like that’s the safest practice, Jungkook wastes no time diving into all the details of his project, the 1975 Chevy Corvette behind him. The longer you look at it, the more you feel you’ve seen it somewhere. Probably a car show, you presume.

“Purrs like a kitten,” he sighs dreamily, completely ignoring the way half his toppings slide out from the opposite end of his cheeseburger. You don’t, and you swipe a fallen pickle from his tray before he can catch you.

“A kitten?” You ask, glance over at the car. It’s desperately in need of a paint job, and you only realize this now as you stare at it more in depthly. The niggling feeling that you know this car is still there, but you ignore it in favor of indulging your best friend. “Don’t people usually compare cars to bigger, better cats?”

There’s a taped stencil running alongside the car, a thick stripe followed by a thinner one, and you suppose Jungkook’s trying to spice her up, give her back the same youthfulness she probably had in her prime. What better way to do so than by adding some classic stripes alongside it.

Jungkook hums, gulps down his soda noisily. “Not this one. Never heard an engine as soft as hers.”

You roll your eyes. For a minute, the two of you quietly chew through your burgers, the radio filling in the gaps while you analyze the car. You know this car, but you can’t remember where. Jungkook coughs into his palm, probably from trying to inhale his fries too fast like he does every time you go to the diner you’re eating from today.

The diner.

A mouthful of braces. A pretty waitress. A strict dad.

“Holy shit, this is Sojin’s dad’s car,” you inhale, the memories from high school suddenly hitting you full force. Jungkook chokes, out of surprise this time, and furiously goes to deny your claims. “This is totally his car. The one he tried to run you over with when he caught you trying to put her on the back of your bike.”

“He didn’t try to run me over,” Jungkook whines, and the tips of his ears are red from your revelation.

You glare. “Why are you fixing that asshole’s car for him?” You interrogate, the last quarter of your burger forgotten in favor of squeezing the truth out of him. You’d had enough of that treacherous woman and her equally deranged father causing Jungkook trouble, and to catch him still helping her now, almost ten years later, was enough to make a brain vessel pop.

He shrugs, avoids your eyes as he picks through his fries. The radio is still on, some tune you recognize from those old days at the diner when Jungkook had become so unbelievably smitten with the part timer that served you milkshakes every Wednesday afternoon.

He had been in love with her the moment he saw her, and the look in his eyes was only magnified by those dorky glasses he wore pre-lasik. You'd been his friend long enough, recognized the jump of his scrawny thigh beneath the table. Like a bunny, thumping in excitement at the sight of her.

Sojin was... full of surprises.

She was nothing less than a supermodel, long legs carrying her around the diner as if it was her runway. She was nice too, so you hadn’t originally had an excuse to dislike her. She was nice, and so endeared with your best friend that it was inevitable when they began dating. Her presence consumed the end of your high school careers, overtook the time that should have been yours and Jungkook’s last year before being thrown into adulthood. He decided on studying at a technical school nearby—per your encouragement to save money—while you travelled five hours out for your degree in business. That last year, when you had finally come to terms with your feelings, had been so painfully ripped away by Sojin and her never-ending list of teenage drama, and by Sojin’s dad and his overbearing need to police her and Jungkook every chance he got.

Jungkook still hung out—“Sojin was busy, do you wanna do something?”—but more often than not those hang outs consisted of Jungkook telling you about her and her dad, about how hard he tried to get into his good graces.

The bike incident had only been one of many. Times where Jungkook would put his heart—and life—on the line for that girl only for it to be in vain every time she broke up with him over the simplest things. You’d heard stories from Jungkook, all told with a tight smile, of a handshake that would bruise, a man chasing him with a bat, of a car following him to school. All things he put up with for a girl who didn’t care for him. One day, after Jungkook had grudgingly sat through an hour long dinner with her family, the stare of her father piercing through him, she broke up with him because she didn’t like how long his hair had gotten.

(If anyone were to ask you, he was handsome with long hair. Dreamy even.)

He cut it that same day.

As her childishness grew, you quickly came to dislike her. She strung Jungkook around, you thought, and just when you thought she was finally done toying with him and making his life difficult in the sneakiest ways, the damn kid started hitting the gym. His growing frame, toned arms and now straightened teeth had turned him into a heartthrob, and Sojin was just as aware of this as you were. “Don’t we look perfect together?” She’d ask, twirl around him like they were on the cover of a magazine and not standing on his chipped front porch.  

Needless to say, by the time graduation had rolled around you despised the woman. You absolutely disliked how she treated Jungkook, how she let her father treat Jungkook without ever stepping up and defending him. Granted, you didn’t know exactly what went on in her household behind closed doors, you’d seen enough of her uncaring attitude to want to ram her and her dad’s head against the hood of the car.

Which is why seeing the old car, in Jungkook’s shop nonetheless, was rekindling a boiling hatred in your chest. “That man should rot in hell for all he put you through,” you huff, glare at the car like it holds some magical connection to him and he can feel the intensity of your stare.

“___,” Jungkook scolds, swirls his cup around to distract himself. “He was just trying to protect his only daughter,” he defends, quietly, like it’s what he tells himself to justify all those years of mistreatment. Even when he and Sojin had continued through college, it had never stopped. You, being five hours away, couldn’t do a damn thing. “Besides, the guy’s old as hell now.”

You snort, finally breaking your staring match with the car. Glancing at Jungkook, he’s got that same forlorn expression on his face, the one he started wearing when he first came to terms with the fact that her dad would never like him. There was a time it was stuck permanently on his face, the pressure and the discomfort that came from the father of the girl you’ve dated for five years looking at you like you were nothing more than a speck of dirt on the bottom of his shoe.

When you came back from school, educated and confident, you almost didn’t recognize your best friend. Tall and broad, tattoos splattered over his arm. Hair long like you loved it, but eyes still as round and wondrous as they’d been when you were kids. He had his own place now, he told you, and you vaguely remembered all the times he mentioned him and Sojin moving in together, mentally preparing yourself to see that wench for the first time in a while.

Much to your surprise, there was no Sojin in sight. No lingering artifacts of her presence. Nothing that showed she existed in this space besides an ugly orange mug she’d given him for his birthday one year, tucked into the very back of his cabinets. They’d broken up, he explained. Almost immediately after graduation.

After stringing him along for the better part of five years, she had decided this wasn’t what she wanted. No, what she wanted was a man ten years her senior with an abundance of cash to flow. Jungkook hadn’t cried. Hadn’t even looked the tiniest bit upset when you ordered pizza and drank some beer, watched your favorite episodes of The Simpsons like you were seventeen and avoiding your homework again.

You stayed the night, a little too tipsy to drive home. Besides, Jungkook had a spare bedroom. It was a room beside his, just a full bed with a chest of drawers. You liked it, liked the scent of him surrounding you after only seeing each other for a couple weeks in between months of distance. You liked it, because when he shifted in bed you realized the beds were pressed against the same wall, and you liked it until the shared wall spared you no secrets, and you listened to him quietly sob into his pillow.

“Old or not, he’s still the devil,” you murmur, snapping back to the present where Jungkook is wheeling himself closer to the car again. “Where did you find that thing anyway?”

He stays silent, quietly pretending like he still has something to do on the car besides paint it. Then, “I bumped into Sojin at the store.”

You sigh, drop your head between your shoulders. You can only imagine what whirlwind of a sob story she had to throw on him to win this favor.

“Kook,” you start, gauging his reaction only from his backside. His muscles ripple beneath his dark t-shirt, his usual red jumpsuit knitted around his waist. “What happened?”

Again, silence.

You say nothing, let him sort through the hurt on his own while you creep up behind him, sliding your hands over his shoulders and pressing down on the cricks behind his neck. He melts into your touch, head lolling forwards as a quiet sigh escapes him.

“She told me she was low on cash, and she needed the car to get to work,” he confesses, and from his ducked position, his voice trembles. You roll your eyes.

“And the paint job?”

A particularly rough press of your fingers has a whimper escaping him. God, this boy needed to see a chiropractor and a masseuse soon. All that hunching over and under these cars was doing a number on his back.

“I… I figured I might as well fix up the exterior too.” Of course he would, you think, Jungkook’s heart was stupidly big and easy to manipulate. He would get so swept up in it sometimes, trying to do the best he can for everyone’s benefit that he’d ignore himself.

You sit in his confession, fingers digging into his skin for a few minutes as you consider what to say.

The mature adult in you, the logical half of you, wants to hit him upside the head, scold him for letting that wench into his life again so easily. You were going on twenty-six now, all three of you, and you didn’t have time to be fixing him every time that childish woman decided to toy with him. Granted, it’s been four years since you last saw her, since you heard him muffle his cries on the other side of the wall, and you liked to think Jungkook was a respectful adult of society now. He didn’t have time to get dragged around by self-absorbed women with insane fathers.

The other part, the best friend since childhood, wants to run away. Wants to pack Jungkook into a suitcase and take him far away from here and from her. Unlike you, who now lived in the city, Jungkook had stayed in your small hometown, a quiet place just outside the bustling city. It was difficult to ensure his happiness when you were always forty-five minutes out of reach. It would be so much easier to just take him and fly to another province, maybe on the beach, Jungkook loved the beach.

“Listen,” he says, successfully pulling you out from your spiral. “I know what you’re gonna say and I just wanna tell you it’s not like that.”

You blink, hands stilling on his shoulders. Your lack of movement allows him to spin around on his chair, gaze up at you with the same shiny gaze he’s given you ever since you were kids. “I’m just doing her this tiny favor. She looked...” he trails off, face scrunching to find the words.

“Like shit?” You propose, and he smiles. “Like flaming dumpster shit behind a club?”

Jungkook laughs, loud and beautiful. You want to kiss the mole beneath his lip.

“She looked bad, okay?” He settles, reaches forward to take your palm in his. You’re standing between his thighs, and you wonder how he would have acted if you were Sojin. “Don’t think things worked out with that CEO she was dating. I’m just giving her a push.”

You sigh, try to push those crestfallen sobs to the back of your head. “Okay,” you agree, briefly glancing back at the damn car. “You fix her car, and that’s it,” you state. Jungkook nods, makes a little X over his heart. He knows how much you hate that woman. “No funny business.”

“No funny business,” he agrees, then reaches down for a white spray can. “You wanna spray some dicks on it before I paint it?”

“Please,” you laugh, taking the face mask he offers you with a grin.

—

One day your car starts making a weird noise as you pull out of the underground parking garage of your building. It’s somewhere between a pig squealing and metal scraping. You’ve been around Jungkook long enough to know this is probably something to do with your breaks, something about them being loose or old, one of the two. You have a short day at work today. There’s repairs being done to the office you work at, so everyone’s been spending more time working from home.

You leave work a little after two pm, head pounding from the hour long meeting you sat through, the mediocre business proposals your boss had asked you to look through and file. There’s a hefty load of emails waiting in your inbox, mostly the interns requesting you write them a recommendation letter. You’ll have to look through those later, pick out the good ones and write them each a unique piece kissing the ground they walk on.

The scent of freshly fried donuts hits your nose as you pull into your old town; the bakery down the road from Jungkook’s has their windows open. You can already taste the sweetness on the tip of your tongue, the iced coffee cooling your insides as you sit and watch Jungkook work on your car.

Jungkook’s shop is on the corner of the street, takes up a huge chunk with it’s massive garage and driveway; the office area is tiny compared to the sheer size of the actual work floor. There’s music blaring through the overhead speakers, and when you pull in you recognize it as Jimin’s playlist.

“Morning, Miss,” the country bumpkin says, leaning against your car door as you rifle through your purse. “What’re you in for?”

“Hi, Jimin,” you reply sweetly, take his hand as he helps you out the door. You very vaguely explain the noise your car had made that morning, glancing around the shop as Jimin gets to work inspecting it. “Where’s Jungkook?”

Jimin’s waving over some other employees, all greeting you in their matching red jumpsuits. “Kook’s in the office,” he tells you, and it’s almost sensual the way his hand glides over your palm for your keys. God, you needed to get laid. “Has some lady friend in there with him.”

You pause, the bustling of the crew behind you fading into the background. Something inside you snaps, and you whirl around the garage, before catching sight of a 1975 Chevy Corvette, almost unrecognizable from how you’d last seen it. It’s bright red now, a color you only briefly saw before you’d left the other night, with two, lightning bolt racing stripes decorating each side. It looks new, almost in mint condition, and the fact it’s still here has you storming through the garage.

Your heels clack loudly, the crew moving to the side as you torpedo straight into the offices. You barely remember to greet the receptionist before you’re stomping straight into the main office.

There’s no knock, no warning given, before you’re flinging the door open, seeing exactly what you’d expected. 

“___,” Jungkook stutters, jumping onto his feet from his position on the couch. He looks frantic, wide eyes flickering between you and the woman sitting in front of him, her back turned to you. But you’d recognize that silhouette anywhere.

“Did you say ___?” She says, and she’s still as tall and as beautiful as you remember her. Had it not been for the heels you wore, you don’t doubt she’d tower over you. She flashes you a killer smile, lips carefully painted red. It almost looks murderous. “My! ___, you haven’t changed a bit,” Sojin exclaims, rushing around the couch to pull you into a tight hug. You don’t return it.

You let her cling to you for a second, before pushing her away as gently as you can by the shoulders. As much as you’d like to rip her in half, tear her apart for all she did to Jungkook, you won’t. You’re older now, elegant in all the ways you weren’t before. It would be a huge disservice to your maturity if you shoved your heel up her ass right now.

“It’s lovely seeing you, Sojin,” you smile, taking her hand in yours.

Besides, being a woman in business meant you knew better, more creative ways to strike.

“And your boyfriend?” You ask, tilting your head in staged confusion. You even glance around the office, like you’ll find the geezer hiding behind the potted plant or Jungkook’s frozen figure. “The rich one with the huge company? Did he come with you today?”

Her smile tightens, red lips pursed as she gauges you with those cat eyes that haunt your nightmares every now and then. “My ex-boyfriend,” she corrects after a minute, pastes a forlorn expression onto her features. “We’ve separated, and you know how it is for women like us,” she jests. “We need a man to push us along—“

“Do we?” You ask, think back on all those years of school, of studying and working and pushing yourself, all the time you spent investing in yourself for yourself. “I don’t think so,” you contemplate. “It’s really embarrassing if you can’t care for yourself without the help of a man. Almost like you don’t trust in your own abilities, and ride other’s coattails instead.”

A beat of silence. Two completely different worlds, and Jungkook hovering awkwardly beside you.

Two palms grasp your shoulders from behind, and when you turn Jungkook is smiling at you, forced and stressed like he can’t stand to be in this uncomfortable situation any longer. “Well,” he announces, pushing you behind him as he guides Sojin towards the door. “There was an issue with her car, so I’ll just check on it real quick, okay?”

You nod, feel empty as he takes her by the wrist, and not you. He hands her her purse, palm on the small of her back as they exit the office. When the door clicks shut behind them, you throw your own handbag at the ground, barely stop yourself from stomping like a child.

Instead, you breathe in, hold it, and exhale, just like your Tuesday yoga instructor taught you. By the time you’ve collected yourself a few minutes have passed, so you kneel down to gather your fallen lipstick tubes and cellphone from the floor, scooping them back into your purse.

Tugging the door shut behind you, you mindlessly wander down the hall, until you reach the small receptionist area and nearly get jumped by Kim Taehyung. “Holy shit, you won’t believe this,” he gasps, takes you by the shoulders and nearly shakes you until your brain falls out through your ears. You would have slapped him, had this been any other man, but he’s quite possibly the only man besides Jungkook you’d let jostle you like this. “You’ll never guess who just left the office with J—wait,” he pales, suddenly connecting two and two, your exit from said offices definitely a key factor in whatever conclusion he’s drawn. “You were in the office with Hwang Sojin and you didn’t kill her?!”

You huff, let him shake you again until you’re nearly tripping in your heels. “Yes, I know,” you groan, finally slap his hands away when you begin to feel this morning’s breakfast bubbling from all the motion. “I’m surprised too.”

“Wow,” Taehyung marvels, leans back against the receptionist desk even though the poor girl has told him time and time again not to. He ignores her, something he can do as second best friend to the boss. “Remember when she showed up crying outside his mom’s house and you threw a potted plant at her? Oh how the great have fallen.”

Rolling your eyes, you drift over to the plexiglass window in the office that looks out across the entirety of the garage floor. In the corner, Jungkook’s got the hood of the Corvette open as he works away on something, Sojin tapping at her phone beside him. “Why are you here, Tae?”

He steps beside you, tuned into the same scene. “Can’t visit my ex-girlfriend every now and then?” He teases, you groan.

“We dated for three days, dude, let it go,” you whine, and watch with rapt attention as Jungkook motions for her to start the engine. She does, and it purrs to life, soft and silky just like Jungkook said it does. She squeals and claps, launches herself into his arms in thanks. You look away.

“Yuck,” Taehyung gags and you couldn’t agree more. “Can’t believe you ended the best 72 hours of my life for that pinhead and the hussy attached to his hip.”

He shrieks when you pinch his side, and you take great satisfaction in the judgemental stare half the crew sends him through the glass. After all, they weren’t soundproof. “You embarrassed me and my brand,” he huffs, crossing his arms as the two of you return to watching Jungkook and the hussy.

“He’s not a pinhead,” you softly retort, watch him wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead as he waves her off. Sojin sends him a brigade of air kisses, none of which he catches. A sick sense of glee consumes you at the sight, but then he’s turning to stare directly at you and Taehyung through the glass, and the both of you quickly whirl away.

“His ability to find you in less than a second is so weird,” Taehyung shivers, and you ignore it, taking the candy from the bowl on the receptionist desk. She doesn’t care, having heard these conversations more than enough times to get the general gist of what you and Taehyung gossip about. You’re surprised she’s never mentioned it to Jungkook before.

Regardless, you listen to Taehyung complain about his life for a few more minutes, before Jimin’s sweet voice pops into the room. His ash blonde hair is all ruffled, and there’s something dark smeared over his otherwise perfect skin as he tells you your car is fixed. Taehyung bids you goodbye, and Jimin walks you back to your car out on the garage floor.

“All set, miss,” Jimin grins, puts a hand against the car so you don’t hit your head as you go in. You thank him, and don’t miss the way he lingers by your window.

“Is something wrong?” You ask, tilt your head quizzically. Jimin’s cheeks flush, and he looks shyly at the ground.

“Actually, I was wondering if—“

“___,” Jungkook calls, jogging over beside Jimin, who looks almost ashamed to be caught doing...whatever it was he was gonna do. Jungkook glances at him, catches him in some weird staring contest before crouching down to your window. “You needed your car fixed? Why didn’t you tell me?”

You blink, don’t know how to politely tell him he was too busy kissing the ass of his toxic ex-girlfriend to help you out. “Jimin helped me,” you smile, the same practiced expression you’ve mastered since college. You usually get by, usually trick people with that look, but not with him. Jungkook knows you too well, knows that look, and knows you’re holding yourself back. “You were busy.”

His lips part in surprise, tugged downwards with the hint of a frown. “I,” he stutters, looks at Jimin, who doesn’t seem that impressed with him either. “I… I would’ve came if you called.”

You tug your sunglasses out from their little case, slide them over the bridge of your nose as you strap your seatbelt over yourself. “Would you though?” You ask, flash him another polite smile before shifting your car’s gears. Jimin walks off, clears the path for you to exit, and with just Jungkook standing there, you speak freely. “I would hate to distract you from something important.”

—

Some of the proposals end up being better than expected, and after carefully sifting through them, your boss asks you to sit through presentations for the next few days. Your time gets consumed in graphs and budgets. There’s a multitude of businesses you have to look into, some big and well-known, and others small and local. You drive around the city one day, visiting business after business, until your ankles hurt in your heels and your cheeks hurt from all the smiling. Your only comfort is the nice Chanel skirt suit you’re wearing that makes you feel like the most important person in the room wherever you go.

By the time the week’s over, there’s a thin cut forming on the back of your ankles from all the walking you’ve done in your heels. You slump against your front door, tossing your heels in the vague direction of the closet before padding through your house.

You nearly scream yourself sore at the figure in your kitchen, hunched over what looks to be a hastily made cake with a number three candle. “Oh my god,” you seethe, turning the overhead light on to illuminate Jungkook’s grinning figure, dirty and sweaty from work. You glance at the clock on the stove; it’s only been about an hour since his garage closed.

“Surprise!” He exclaims, and you’re not the slightest bit amused when he begins humming the happy birthday song on a day that is definitely not your birthday.

When he’s done, you don’t clap and his beaming smile doesn’t waver. “It is not my birthday,” you calmly state, placing your leather padfolio on the counter.

Jungkook blows the candle out for you. “It’s the birthday of when we first met,” he explains, and gets to cutting the cake. How he remembers such a day, you don’t know. You do know that this is his mom’s birthday cake recipe, and you love that. “Can you believe it? Friends for almost three decades.”

“Almost,” you repeat, dutifully sitting across from him and taking the plate he offers. He nods at you like a bobblehead. 

His eyes are sparkly and big, like he’s drunk, and it’s only then you notice the red wine on the table, bottle open and halfway done. You set your fork down, grasp the neck of the bottle in your hand. “Have you been drinking?” You ask, even though the answer stares you right in the face. You frown. “You hate drinking.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, shovels more cake into his mouth to delay his response. “Needed it,” he offhandedly explains, nearly eats the candle but you jump forward to snatch it off his fork before he can.

“What do you mean?” You inquire. You’re not hungry anymore, too interested in whatever’s going on in his head to make him think he needs to be drunk around you.

Jungkook gulps, reaches forward for more wine but you cradle the bottle to your chest. You nearly gasp when he levels you with a real, stony glare, the expression out of place on his face. “Cuz you’re mad,” he huffs. “At me.”

There was a time you would coddle Jungkook’s every mistake, never let him think he was at fault for anything. You’d grown out of it shortly before high school, recognizing boys were stupid no matter how much you tried to prove otherwise. Since then, you’ve watched him get into trouble time and time again—Sojin being the prime example—and only intervened when absolutely necessary. Some part of you, the half that hates seeing him upset, wants to tell him you’re not. The mature part in you, however, doesn’t let that happen.

“I am,” you agree, watch his eyes widen almost comically at your admission. You set the wine bottle back on the table, leaning your chin on your palm as you level him with the most unimpressed gaze you can. “I’m furious, actually.”

He whimpers, actually whimpers like a kicked puppy, and you can almost see the metaphorical ears pressed against his head and the tail tucked between his legs. His lips are big and pouty, stained from the wine. You’d love to know what they feel like.

Jungkook’s vulnerability lasts all of three seconds, before he’s shaking himself out of whatever emotional pit his foggy brain has him in. “Well, it’s dumb,” he spits, and it’s your turn to sit in shock. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Excuse me?” You ask, incredulously, because this has never happened before. Are you overprotective and sometimes overbearing? Sure. Has Jungkook ever voiced discomfort with that before? Never. “I’m not telling you what to do,” you sneer, crossing your arms over your chest.

He rolls his eyes, pushes away from the table like a moody teen. You know it’s because he’s drunk, because he’s not himself, but you have to remind yourself that he obviously felt this way somewhere in his heart to voice it to you now. “You’re not my mom.”

You choke. “I’m not!” You angrily agree, pushing away from the table as well.

Jungkook snarls, “well you sure do love acting like her.” He picks up his plate, glances over at you with a look in his eyes that can only be likened to that of a sneaky cat, and then purposefully shoves the bread and frosting down the garbage disposal in the sink. You shriek, fly around the table and shove him away.

“What is wrong with you?” You seethe, push him away rudely with a hand on his face. Jungkook stumbles back, slips on the floor and nearly cracks his head on the corner of the counter. “Oh my god,” you exclaim, abandoning the sink in favor of watching the way his face twists up at the sudden motion, stomach contracting beneath his black t-shirt, cheeks puffing. “Oh god, oh god,” you stammer, tugging him to his feet with the strength only a panicked individual about to see an entire cake regurgitated onto their kitchen tile can have.

You’ve barely kicked the door to the bathroom open when Jungkook begins throwing up, gooey vomit spewing from his mouth and onto the floor. It touches your arm, and you shriek before shoving him in the general direction of the toilet.

“Ew, ew,” you freak, shoving your hand under the sink faucet to get that gross feeling away. You wanna vomit yourself, but you tell yourself there can only be one sick person at a time, and right now it’s Jungkook.

He’s got his head in the toilet, disgusting sounds echoing off the ceramic of it. By the time you’ve calmed down and washed your arm thrice, you move over to pull his bangs away from his face, letting him hurl in peace.

“I’m sorry,” he mopes, spews another round of birthday cake into the toilet.

You look away, blindly reach out to turn the bathroom fan on. “Mhm,” you nod, rubbing a hand over his back. Jungkook nods sadly against the toilet seat.

“‘M sorry,” he repeats, gags around nothing but the gross feeling left in his throat. “I-I know you just want…” a pause as he considers throwing up some more, “...want what’s best for me.”

“I do,” you agree, wipe a hand down the side of his face that he leans into. “Not trying to be your mom,” you assure him, and he snorts.

“Be a good mom,” he murmurs, so soft you don’t hear him. You hum, leaning closer and he repeats it. “You’d be… a good mom.”

Not knowing what to do with that information, you just pat his back until he falls asleep, cheek against the toilet seat.

—

“Woah, the sexual tension in this garage is off the charts,” Taehyung blurts from behind you, and you smack your clipboard against his chest. “Oof,” he grunts, rubbing his chest like it actually hurt. “You doing finances for him again?” He asks and you nod.

In an ideal world, Taehyung would leave upon finding out you’re busy. In this world, he simply leans into your personal space, nearly knocking you into an empty tool cart. “Oooh, an extensive list of all the money Jungkook’s stupidly blown this month. How much did he spend on neon signs this time?”

You relent, showing him the shop’s finances. Anywhere else, revealing a business’s finances without the consent of the owner would be a federal crime. Here, it’s the equivalent of showing Taehyung Jungkook’s browser history. “He spent how much on window tint?!”

“A lot,” you say.

There’s a whistle from across the garage, the shop’s resident country bumpkin Park Jimin standing at the huge garage doors with his hand on his hip. “No fraternizing, please.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Boooo,” he shouts, peels himself away from you to flick an impolite finger Jimin’s way. “He’s just jealous,” he tells you, and you frown.

“Of what?” You ask, and Taehyung nearly loses his shit.

“My precious ___,” he sighs, leans his forehead on your shoulder. “So beautiful and smart, yet so slow.” You flick the side of his forehead just as Jungkook strolls by and, seeing your attack, slaps the back of Taehyung’s neck. “Why do you guys hate me!” Taehyung exclaims, jumping at least five feet away from you and Jungkook’s giggling forms.

“How’s it going?” Jungkook asks you, completely ignoring Taehyung’s soulful cries as he glances over your shoulder at the clipboard. You tilt it his way, but he stands close anyway, until you can feel his breath huffing against the back of your neck.

“Okay, but you’re spending a lot of money stockpiling on things that haven’t shown signs of running out yet,” you explain, pointing at the window tint that had astonished Taehyung only a moment ago.

Jungkook grimaces, pink tongue swiping across his lip as he looks at the total amount he’s spent the last three months. “Well, it’s a good thing I have my accountant,” he grins, throwing an arm over your shoulder.

“Not your accountant,” you correct, “just a friend who doesn’t wanna see you run your business to the ground from overspending.”

Jungkook waves you off, and Taehyung tries to sneak into the receptionist office behind you, but Jungkook catches him with his free hand. “This is the life,” he sighs, wistfully gazing over the garage floor. It reeks of motor oil and car paint.

“Count me out,” Taehyung snorts, voicing your disinterest toward such greasy and smelly work. He tries to wiggle out of Jungkook’s hold, but the muscle bunny only straps an arm around his neck, until Taehyung’s squirming and clawing for air against the red sleeve of his jumpsuit.

“My own successful business, a shitload of sexy cars, and of course,” he pauses, squeezes the two of you tighter until you’re both groaning. “My two best friends.” The sap has the gall to peck the top of your heads, and that seems to be the final straw for Taehyung who rips himself away.

“Have this lovefest somewhere else, man,” Taehyung says, flattening his rumpled clothing down. “You’re really putting a nail in my reputation around here.”

Jungkook cackles, mindlessly goes to wrap himself around you from behind. “Your reputation has been trash since that scream you let out the other day,” he informs him, swaying the two of you back and forth. Your heart thunders in your chest, and you just barely manage to avoid Taehyung’s pointed stare.

“Whatever, I’m outta here.” With Taehyung peaced out, you’re left in Jungkook’s arms, gazing over his business like two old lovers. It makes your chest tight, so you quickly go to shake him off.

“We’re okay?” Jungkook murmurs, so soft you almost don’t hear. He’s got his hand wrapped around your wrist, thumb massaging over the bone there like he’s afraid you’ll bolt the second he lets you go.

You nod, tuck the clipboard to your side. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Those sad puppy eyes, pouty lips turned southward. You want to wipe that look off his face. He sighs, glances at where your skin meets and gives it a squeeze. “I’ve been an ass lately,” he settles on saying. “Said some mean things and ruined your bathroom rug—I’m sorry.”

You don’t know what to say.

Jungkook takes your silence as understanding, reaching down to hold both your hands in his slightly dirty ones. “It won’t happen again. I’d rather lose a million friends than lose you,” he confesses, and something about it feels too real, too raw. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You nod, the constricting feeling in your throat only tightening when he smiles at you, those gentle eyes and plush lips for only you to see. You want to kiss him, swallow him whole. Right here on the garage floor so everyone knows he’s yours.

But you can’t because he’s not.

You settle on swinging your arms between you. “Just don’t do anything stupid,” you warn him, narrowing your eyes playfully. There’s a heavy feeling in your heart, something akin to anguish, but you could never voice it out loud.

“I won’t,” Jungkook promises.

—

Jungkook visits again on a weekday, and you nearly send him straight home when he brandishes another bottle of wine in your face. “It’s nonalcoholic!” He exclaims before you can shut the door on him, foot lodged against the frame. You give in.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” You ask, curling up on the couch in just your shorts and huge t-shirt. Jungkook pops the bottle open, pouring the wine into two limited edition Shrek 2 cups you pulled out from the depths of your cabinet.

“Can’t hang with my bestie?” He throws back at you, snatching the remote from your hands before you can click on another episode of that dumb housewives show. You end up watching National Geographic, some documentary about the role of bioluminescent shrimp in the sea.

“Aw look, they’re kissing,” he cooes at a pair of seahorses that wander across the screen halfway through a shot of some school of shrimp. “How romantic.”

“Wonder what that’s like,” you comment, not thinking too much on the meaning behind your words until you can feel Jungkook’s stare pierce your cranium. “What?”

“You’ve never been kissed?” He blurts, and you choke on your wine.

“You were my first kiss,” you remind him, flush at the memory of the two of you sitting criss-cross applesauce on his bed, knees knocking in what was probably the worst first kiss in the history of first kisses.

Jungkook blinks. “Oh yeah,” he laughs. “With the Tony Hawk poster behind my bed, right?”

“The one and only.”

Jungkook hums, and the two of you melt back into the silence. Nice aquatic sounds fill the room, the camera panning over more colorful fish that Jungkook oohs at appreciatively. You don’t really pay attention, more interested in the way the wine swirls in your cup and the way you can feel Jungkook’s thigh pressed against your knee, like when you were thirteen and trying something new.

You know it doesn’t mean a lot to him. Just another silly childhood memory of you. Not like you have hundreds, thousands of them with each other. By the way he’d blurted the question, you doubt he even remembered it most days. But you did.

It plagued your mind all the time, the soft feel of his mouth and the trembling hand that had held yours. You wonder if he kisses the same still, lips gently puckered. He’s had years to learn, half a decade to get creative with Sojin, and the past four years of being a bachelor to explore more.

You’ve kissed too, plenty of guys who had no meaning and ones you thought would replace him. But it’d been a long time since you’ve let anyone into your bed, more content to please yourself without the overbearing weight of feelings and emotions to wrap around your throat.

Jungkook coughs, and you shake yourself from your thoughts.

He’s looking at you inquisitively, like he can’t get his usual read on you and would rather just ask what’s wrong. “You don’t,” a pause, “hang out with guys?”

It’s devastatingly cute, the way he asks if you’re fucking, and you want to pinch his cheeks. Instead you shake your head, try to hide the grin on your face from his inquisitive expression. “Just you and Taehyung,” you admit.

Jungkook nods. “Do you and Tae…?”

You shake your head furiously. “No! God no, we don’t do anything like that,” you clarify, the thought of Taehyung in your bed enough to make you want to gag.

Jungkook says nothing, just turns back to the documentary to watch more Nemos and Dorys flit across the screen. You polish off your cup of wine, leaning forward to settle it back on the coffee table. As you settle back into the couch cushions, Jungkook speaks again. “So you take care of yourself?”

You freeze.

“Yeah,” you admit after one complete meltdown in your head. Where was this coming from? Why did he want to know? You and Jungkook were close, but you never did this. You never divulged the details of your sex life, never bragged about who you slept with or how many there were. What was going on?

Jungkook doesn’t say anything after that, just turns his attention back to the tv screen, where you’re almost certain the sea horses from before are fucking. Not that you know what it looks like, but you hope at least someone in this room was enjoying themselves and not drowning in the mortification of having their life long crush ask them if they masturbate.

“So, do you use your hands or a toy?”

You choke, slap your chest to ease the pounding of your heart at Jungkook asking such a question. “E-Excuse me?” You ask, scandalized that Jungkook, your sweet and caring childhood friend turned Fabio, could ask you such a bold question about your personal affairs.

“What?” Jungkook says, like he truly doesn’t see the inappropriateness of the situation. He even raises his eyebrows at you, as if urging you to answer the question.

You sigh, fight the flush of your cheeks and stare idly at the cups on the table. “A toy. Hands don’t feel good,” you curtly reply, crossing your arms over your chest and straightening your legs off the couch, hoping that’s the end of his curiosity. This was enough to fuel your 3am anxiety meltdowns for the next five years.

Jungkook nods, and you can feel his penetrating gaze on the side of your face again. A great white shark swims across the screen. Jungkook strikes. “My hands feel good.”

“Jungkook!” You exclaim in horror (and excitement, but you’ll pretend it wasn’t there). “What has gotten into you?”

“What!” Jungkook defends, Bambi eyes looking at you like you’re the unreasonable one here. “We’re having a civil conversation in which I’m trying to open up your worldview.”

You’re flabbergasted. “This is not a civil conversation, what are you even talking about?” You scold, tug your arms around yourself like it’ll actually protect you from the words that don’t seem to be filtering out of his mouth properly. “Why are you so concerned about that?” You interrogate, hope your forceful tone will scare him away.

It doesn’t. Jungkook shrugs, some noncommittal i dont know sound. “I can’t be interested in what you get up to? What my best friend gets up to?” It’s the obvious emphasis on best friend that makes you step down.

“No,” you sigh, rub a hand down your face. “You can be interested,” you tell him gingerly. “We just never really… talked about... those kinds of things,” you rush out, turn away from him as the narrator on screen dives into the intricacies of bioluminescent shrimp in the animal food chain.

As if sensing your discomfort, Jungkook softens, scooting closer to you. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, too close and too warm. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says, places a palm on your knee.

“I’m not!” You rush to assure him, facing him head on again. His eyes are big and implorative still, and you wonder why he became stuck on that of all things today. “It just surprised me.”

His lips quirk to the side, an unsure grin that has you leaning into his shoulder. You sit in silence, the rise and fall of his body with every breath lulling you into a sense of comfort.

A false one that Jungkook zeroes in on.

The documentary’s wrapping up, soothing ocean sounds and wind instruments playing as the credits roll across the screen, when the hand that had been laying so comfortably on your thigh inches up. At first, you don’t notice it, writing it off as Jungkook just shifting around. You tell yourself it’s just that, until his pinky makes contact with the end of your shorts.

Slowly, you turn towards him, catch his mocha irises lustfully lidded as he toys with the hem. “Kook?” You murmur, so soft, barely there.

“Hm?” He replies, continuing to play with the edge of your shorts, until he gets brave and his fingers slip beneath, index finger just barely grazing the panties underneath. You gasp. “This okay?”

Stuck between your arousal and your common sense, you flounder for a response. He’s so close, and smells so good, curls brushing against your temple the closer he gets. You want him so bad, want him to find his place between your thighs and put those pouty lips to use. But you know it’ll make things different, change whatever it is you’ve had for the past almost thirty years, and you’ll never bounce back. Another brush against your panties, pointer finger wiggling it’s way beneath the fabric, and you’re choking out a “yes.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs, and something in your core tingles at the name, thighs clenching together. “Uh uh,” he chides, nudges them open. “Stay still for me,” he commands, and you do, for all of ten seconds, but then he’s pressing his finger on your clit, panties and shorts muting the sensation. Still, it makes you squirm, fingers clutching the couch cushion beneath you as you struggle to keep them open. “Too much?” He asks, and you shake your head no.

“I-It’s fine,” you whisper, and Jungkook smiles.

He pets you, almost wondrously, for a few beats, watches the way the muscles in your thighs twitch with every press against your mound. Eventually, he decides it’s enough. “Hands don’t feel good for you?” He inquires, your words from earlier obviously having left their mark on him. Slowly, you shake your head. He glances down at the fist you have on the couch, composed features sliding up your face. “Well, yours are so small, princess. Of course they don’t feel good.”

He manhandles you around, tugs you onto the couch until you’re laying down, legs sprawled on either side of him. Pleased with the arrangement, Jungkook glances back down to your bottoms. “These have to go,” he tells you, hooks his fingers in the waistband and abruptly yanks down, leaving you just in your t-shirt.

You go to shy away, but Jungkook stops you, palms resting on the insides of your thighs, thumbs pressing into the skin soothingly. “My fingers are long, see?” He says, raising a hand to wiggle his fingers at you. You nod, heartbeat thundering in your ears. “They’ll feel nice inside.”

You know they will.

You can tell he knows his way around a woman’s body just from the way his hands glide over yours, carefully like he’s mapping you out. Ever so slowly, one hand grows closer, until his thumb is gently circling your clit, and you inhale sharply.

“So wet,” Jungkook hums, his other hand traveling further down, until he’s spreading your pussy lips with two fingers, trailing them through the arousal that gathers there.

You’ve never been so attentively cared for, never had a man zero in on your cunt like it was his first meal in ages. Jungkook’s eyes are clouded with lust, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he watches your pussy lips flutter at his touch.

He swirls his hand over your clit, pressing down. The first sound escapes you, a soft whimper that has you clamping your hand over your mouth in embarrassment. Jungkook grins down at you, shifts closer to press a kiss to the knuckles over your mouth.“Don’t hide from me,” he purrs, pulling away and pressing a kiss to your neck.

You cry out when he gets back to it, massaging your pussy with gentle hands and a thumb against your clit to placate you. “Jungkook,” you choke out, and he beams at his name, takes it as a sign to finally slip two fingers inside. “A-ah,” you whine, arching beneath him.

He basks in your noises, leans close again to press a kiss beneath your ear, against your jaw. “This okay?” He murmurs, curling the fingers inside of you. You mewl, throwing your arms around him as he begins working you open. “How does it feel, baby?”

“G-good,” you pant, turn your head until you can bury your nose in his hair, drown even more in his all-consuming aura.

Another kiss to your neck, before he’s suctioning his lips right below your ear, nipping and sucking at the skin to brand you his. “You like my hands?” He husks, and the patch of saliva he leaves on your neck feels cold without his mouth there. You nod, and Jungkook rewards you with a soft smooch over the hickey he’s left.

His fingers inside you curl and scissor, brush against every inch of your walls until you’re quivering beneath him, gasping his name out. You could melt if his fingers weren’t holding you together. “So tight,” he groans, curling his fingers. The movement touches upon something sensitive within you, and you moan his name loudly.

“O-Oh,” you pant, wiggling beneath him as you try to feel that again. Jungkook lets you, watches you desperately rut into his hands. He drifts away, lets his tongue mouth over your breasts, licking until there’s a damp spot on your t-shirt, the flimsy house bra you’d worn and the t-shirt combined not enough to hide your pebbled nipples.

The drag of his hands against your pussy isn’t enough, the motions not quick enough. Jungkook glances at your twisted features, your quivering pussy, and then, ever so gently, ducks over you, puckered lips letting one, long glob of saliva touch down on your pussy, trickling around his knuckles.

“Fuck,” you choke, watch his tongue swipe over his lip to break the thin bridge that connects you too. Suddenly, everything is smoother, the combined lubrication of your arousal and his spit making the glide of his fingers sinfully slick.

Frantic for release, you lose yourself in him, ready to free fall into your pleasure so long as Jungkook is there to catch you. “That’s it,” he encourages, picks up the pace of his fingers inside you. “Come on, beautiful, let me see that gorgeous face of yours when you come.”

“K-Kook,” you sob, and he smiles against your neck. His fingers work fast, until your muscles are all pulled tight, waiting for that final push to unravel. You make the mistake of glancing down, only to be caught by that pearly smile and adoring gaze. You’re in heaven, you know you are.

There’s no other explanation for this—the way Jungkook holds you like you’re his, hands so gently caressing your most intimate parts. You’re almost convinced you’re having a fever dream, a sick, too realistic dream, but then Jungkook’s biting down on your shoulder through your t-shirt, subtly rutting against your thigh.

“Cum for me,” he purrs against your neck, and you do, sobbing as your orgasm rolls over you, the heavy weight of his cock against your thigh. “Jungkook,” you cry, so pitifully, it has him lunging forward, a kiss pressed to the corner of your mouth.

You feel sweaty and gross, unbelievably tired from the gentle way he opened you up. Blindly, you reach down, feel the hardness of his cock beneath his sweatpants, but Jungkook nudges you away. You huff. “Let me,” you whimper, reach for him again even though you can see the slowness in your movement. “Need your cock in my mouth,” you drawl, almost sleepily. 

“Shh,” he soothes, lips pressed against your neck, where he’s still licking and sucking over every inch of you. You whine. “You don’t have to do a thing, gorgeous,” he assures you, “just wanted to make you feel good.”

—

Work gets stressful shortly after. There’s a new batch of interns coming in this season, new faces who will mess up your coffee orders and jam the printers for a good few weeks. There’s normally a team of employees who train them, a mix of relatively older people from different departments who show them around; a girl in the finance department, the one who usually trains them, is on maternity leave. With no one else to fall back on, the head of the department pushes the duties off on you, claiming your flexibility and work ethic make you the perfect candidate for such a role.

Normally you’d thrive at the praise, eat up every single word like it sustained you. In a way, it did. It was nice to be appreciated and recognized for your hard work, to be thought of so highly, especially in a male-dominated company. However, this time, you know it’s out of convenience that the head kisses up to you, and you end up begrudgingly taking the role.

The gaps in your schedule you’d normally spend relaxing or catching up on other projects are filled with bumbling interns, calling for help every chance they get. It’s like they’ve never done anything on their own, this group, always asking you the correct way to do this, the right way to do that. You haven’t mentored interns in a while, so you spend the first day breezing over old powerpoints and print outs you made years ago. You remember why you’re not fit for mentoring when one of them asks you how to navigate Excel. You nearly rip their head off.

There’s so much going on, you barely get time to see Jungkook, let alone text him. You saw him once the morning after, stack of pancakes on your kitchen table as he rushed you off to work. The shop didn’t open for another hour. He was sweet, kissed your forehead as you left, but he’s always done that. You didn’t have time to talk about whatever the night before was, or what that made the two of you now.

On Friday night, one week into your nightmarish role, you pull into the shop. You'd like to convince yourself it was routine, visiting the shop, but that’s a lie. You desperately miss Jungkook. 

 Most of the garage doors that are usually pulled open during the day are shut, save for one. The last of Jungkook’s employees are leaving, bidding you adieu as you step out of your car. Park Jimin is there, repairing some rickety car in the back corner.

“Boo,” you call playfully, and Jimin doesn’t flinch, merely pulls his head from out of the hood to flash you an easygoing smile.

He whistles at the sight of you. “You look like you’ve been through one of helluva week,” he says, and you, despite your strong personality, feel yourself blush at his comment. Jeez, did you look that bad? Jimin doesn’t elaborate, just pulls out a stool for you to sit on beside where he’s working. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You glance at the plexiglass, the offices hiding down the hall. Jungkook could wait, you presume, settling down beside him. Your skirt tugs up as you settle onto the pleather seat, so you cover your legs meekly with your purse. “Work’s been crazy,” you explain, and Jimin laughs at the obvious.

“You’re telling me,” He hums, and you roll your eyes playfully. “What’s going on at work?”

What hasn’t been going on, you think to yourself, before launching into a full retelling of your new horrendous position, of all the interns with their clueless eyes and useless notebooks. Jimin chuckles, indulges you in a few comments here and there that only fuel you on. He’s just about done with whatever he’s doing to the car at the same time your story wraps up, explaining how you found yourself here, desperate for Jungkook to whisk you off to that arcade you loved as kids. “Jungkook?” He asks, and you nod. “He left a while ago.”

You freeze. “Huh?” You say, dumbly. You almost want to laugh at your own impulsiveness, for showing up without sending him a text or a warning to let him know you were coming. You almost do laugh, but then you remember you and Jungkook never did that anyway. Hell, he showed up at your house a few weeks ago unannounced and drunk. The two of you were hardly the type to plan ahead, so it was weird for him to not be here. He’s been at the shop almost every night since it’s opened, the days he’s not usually a holiday.

“Jimin…” you begin, glancing at the receptionist window once more. “Where’s Jungkook?”

Jimin shuts his tool box, kicking a cart off to the side. “He left with that lady,” he tells you, doesn’t hear the way your heart rips straight out of your chest. No way. “Tall, pretty. Had that nice Corvette he fixed up a while ago.”

“Sojin,” you mumble, and Jimin nods.

“Think that was her name.” As if sensing your tumultuous thoughts, he steps closer, one hand reaching out to steady you. “You alright?”

“God,” you exhale, pushing yourself away from Jimin and the garage and the window. The stool rolls away, almost hits the side of another car but Jimin catches it. He rushes over towards you, watching you wobble in your heels.

“Honey,” Jimin says, steady and warm beside you. “Sit down for me, yeah?” He guides you to a row of seats against the wall, nailed into the floor so you can’t push them away and make even more of a mess. Not that that’s your concern, your mind and heart too preoccupied with thoughts of Jungkook lying to you, going out with that woman again, despite your obvious hatred for her and his promise to you.

Jimin disappears, rushes over to the other side of the garage before returning with a water bottle for you. He cracks it open, presses it into your hands, and then against your lips when you don’t move. “Drink,” he encourages, watching you with worried eyes that only grow more and more concerned the deeper you fall into your thoughts.

You want to cry and beat Jungkook up at the same time. You want to scream at him for lying to you after treating you so nicely, holding you so warmly. Instead, you gasp for breath, clutching your face in your hands like it’s the only thing that grounds you.

There’s a beep outside, chirpy and cute in the way only older models are, and you whip your head up, the headlights of the Corvette painting you in shades of yellow as it rolls to a stop, the tears you hadn’t felt glistening under the light.

Jungkook flings himself out of the driver’s seat, and a sob catches in your throat when Sojin steps out of the passenger seat. Jungkook shoves everything in his path to the side, carts flying into the few automobiles on the floor, tools clanging loudly onto the cement, and just as those arms you love so much are reaching out for you, there’s a hand on his chest stopping him.

“What did you do to her?” Jungkook snarls, pushing Jimin roughly to the side. Jimin, smaller but not weaker, holds his ground, clutching Jungkook by the material of his jumpsuit a second time. “Let— go!” Jungkook shouts, finally worming away from his employee.

He nearly trips before you, stumbling to his knees as he takes your quivering hands in his. “What’s wrong,” he asks, throwing a nasty glare back at Jimin who watches silently from the side. Sojin is still by her car, leaning across the driver’s side now. “What did he do, what did he say?”

You shake your head, dropping your head to tuck your chin against your chest. You hate this. Hate letting him or Jimin or Sojin see you cry. It’s not the person you are, not the self-made woman you claim to be as you cry over the same man who is unknowingly defending you from himself.

“Let go,” you whisper, hoarse and choked. You shake your arms, but he doesn’t let up.

“Tell me what's wrong,” Jungkook pleads, inching closer to you. His breath is warm and he smells like oil, just like he always does. He also smells sweet and floral in a way only a woman could. He smells like Sojin.

You sob, rip your hands away from and scurry blindly towards Jimin, who catches you in his arms despite the shock that paints his face.

Jungkook watches with an expression of hurt, watches you snuggle into the arms of another man over an issue you won’t tell him about. Jimin says nothing, just rubs his palm over your back. He gestures towards the red corvette, the woman standing by it and Jungkook takes the hint.

You hear the kitten-like purr as it pulls off, the silence that follows afterwards. You don’t know where Jungkook is, if he’s here or if he left with her, and you don’t want to. “Tell me he’s gone,” you beg Jimin, quiet gasps against his neck.

He nods, slowly lets you untangle yourself from his arms as the two of you stare over the empty garage. The Corvette is gone, and so is Jungkook. Before Jimin can tell you where he is, you’re wiping a hand over your face, embarrassed at the moisture it comes back with. 

“I take it he’s not supposed to be with her?” Jimin tries to joke. 

Neither of you laugh. 

You sniffle, process what just happened, how you acted. You’ve never felt that way before, never experienced such brutal heartbreak. 

You don’t know what you expected from Jungkook. In your heart, you convinced yourself what happened in your apartment was the start of something new between the two of you, a natural result of your long friendship. Realistically, you know you should’ve waited until the two of you spoke, discussed whatever happens next. But you’d spent the past week comforted by the fact you’d finally gotten to experience something like that with him, daydreaming about him every chance you got. 

Somewhere in your mind, you had convinced yourself your involvement with him would finally be what broke his connection with Sojin, the final nail that would make him forget about her. It’s painfully funny how such wasn’t the case. 

Jimin breaks you out of your thoughts. “You okay to drive home?” He gently inquires, and you turn your gaze over toward your car. 

Did you trust yourself to make it home without shedding a single tear? Absolutely not. But between Sojin and Jimin, you had let enough strangers see you fall apart over a man tonight. 

“Perfectly okay,” you tell him. 

—

The interns pick up on your sour attitude the week that follows. They don’t ask dumb questions, and don’t mess up your order. You talk them through a presentation, show them how to properly organize finance charts. There’s a slide that has clip art, a goofy dollar sign with a smile and shoes. Jungkook put it there when you first made the PowerPoint. After the little lesson, you go to the bathroom and try not to cry.

A week later, and the interns don’t need you anymore. They do well, and your boss praises you for being such a good mentor. You thank him and he lets you go home early.

Home is empty. Jungkook doesn’t show up unannounced, mostly because you’ve changed the number lock on the door. You want to eat salad today, for some reason, but don’t have any of the ingredients for it, so you walk to the supermarket a few blocks away.

The supermarket feels the same as it always does at night. That ghostly feeling of being watched in an empty aisle, the scratchy tune of whatever Top 50 radio station they settled on today. You get there and decide you don’t want salad anymore, so you buy ingredients for a stew instead, all of which you probably had at home.

When you step outside, the air around your bare thighs is cold. Summer was ending, which meant Jungkook’s birthday was coming up. You ball the receipt in your hand and fling it at the trash. You miss, so you hobble over to pick it up.

The trash is beside a red Corvette with two racing stripes.

“Hey,” Sojin says, arms crossed over her chest as she walks up behind you, sizing up your crouched form beside her car. “What’re you doing to my car?”

You breathe in, shake the crumpled up receipt at her, before stuffing it in the garbage. She says nothing as you stalk by her, and you’re back on the main road when she pulls up next to you, window rolled down to speak to you. “Get in,” she gestures, “it’s gonna rain.”

“No,” you say, and a fat raindrop falls right on your nose.

The door unlocks and you climb in, plastic bags crowded by your feet.

The drive is silent. You only live a few minutes from the store, and you point out an empty spot by the sidewalk for her to pull up to. A dry thanks is on the tip of your tongue, but you never get to say it.

“My dad has cancer,” Sojin says.

“That sucks,” you respond, feel bad right away and say, “I’m sorry.”

Sojin doesn’t seem bothered by it, shifting the Corvette out of drive and cutting the engine. “He’s probably not gonna see Christmas,” she adds, and you don’t know what to say. You don’t care about her or her crazy father.  “I wanted to do something nice for him before he, y’know.”

“Died,” you fill, and at that she glares.

“Yeah,” she huffs. “Before he died. So I fixed up his car. But the place I took it to didn’t know how to fix an engine so old, and ended up fucking it up even more.” You nod, she continues. “Then I bumped into Jungkook and—“

“Took advantage of his kindness,” you finish, remembering the twinkle in his eyes when he’d told you about their encounter, that day in the empty garage that seemed lightyears away. “Well congrats. Hope your dad liked it,” you sigh, push open the door and get soaked to the bone immediately.

“Wait!” Sojin calls, hopping out after you. She’s still as beautiful as she was when you were seventeen, even with rain soaking her entire being. “I didn’t ask him to repaint it, but that’s what my dad loved the most.”

You want to go inside, make your stew, and cry in it.

Sojin doesn’t seem bothered by the bangs that stick to her forehead or the water that washes down her spine. “When I told him Jungkook did it… he wanted to see him. Apologize and stuff.”

You snort. “Apologize,” you repeat, tightening your grip on your shoppings bags. “For what, Sojin? For almost killing him with this car or for treating him like shit for five years?” She says nothing, stares at the hood of the car like she doesn’t know what you’re talking about. “He was crazy for you, you know that? He would have done anything for you and not once did you stand up to your dad for him. You let that man call him worthless, stupid, a waste of space. And for what? For you to break up with him for some rich asshole who would never treat you half as good as Jungkook did?” You sneer.

The rain feels cold and your groceries feel heavier, so you whirl on your heel and make for your building entrance.

“He never liked me,” Sojin calls out, and you wonder if she even heard the second half of your emotional outburst. You turn to face her with fire in your eyes, and are only a little surprised at the sadness that paints hers. “He never liked me the way he said he did.” You could knock her teeth out.

“You’re stupid,” you spit, and she rounds the car at an insane speed until she’s glaring down at you over her perfectly sculpted nose.

“He never liked me,” Sojin repeats angrily. “He was always busy looking at you—for approval, for attention, I don’t fucking know. He would hold me and touch me but it never felt real. It always felt like practice for him…” she sniffles and your breath hitches in your throat. “We dated all through college,” she says like you don’t know, like you didn’t stress about it for years. “Everyday closer to graduation felt like a ticking bomb. Like he was just waiting for you to come back. To come home.”

You remember it.

The excited texts he’d send you everyday, the plans he made for you. Jungkook was more excited than your parents about you coming home. The five hours had done a number on him, and after four years all he wanted was to have you close again. You remember the hug in his driveway, the way his mom had told you he’d waited all day for you. It’s weird hearing it from Sojin.

Too overwhelmed, you decide to deflect. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” you murmur, and you’re surprised she hears it over the pouring rain.

A loud scoff. “You’re stupid,” she repeats back, jabbing a finger at your chest. You glare, and so does she. Like two animals in a cage you size each other up. “You’re stupid and ugly and I hate you,” she spits, and you drop your shopping bags to lunge at her.

You don’t swing, just grab her by the shirt and move to slam her against the wall, but she’s tall and a little strong, bony fingers wrapping around your wrists like spiders. “Why can’t you see how much he likes you?” She screams, like it hurts to admit it. “He’s been in love with you since forever, and all you’ve ever done is run away!”

“I never—“ you gasp, pushing her away from you. Sojin stumbles, but she doesn’t fall. “I’ve never run away,” you defend, heart beating in your chest too fast to be normal. “Some of us have careers and lives we want to live—I don’t want to depend on a man for the rest of my life!”

She growls, tugs at her wet hair like you’re giving her a headache. Stomping up to you once more, she pushes you hard with both hands, and you barely catch yourself in time. “He would have followed you to that fucking fancy school, but you told him it was better to save money here! Told him to not waste his time and just settle there! You did this to us—to all of us!”

You choke. Lightning flashes behind her, and for a moment all you can see is your gentle prodding, sitting behind him as he filled out applications, big wannabe business brain telling him the easiest way to save money for his auto shop was by going straight into technical school. The small frown on his face that day you’d packed for college, and the way he’d stood in your parent’s driveway until you couldn’t see him anymore, a little spec in your rearview mirror.

Sojin, sensing she’s made her point, says nothing. She scoops up your fallen grocery bags and shoves them into your trembling hands, stomping back to her car and pulling off with a roar, loud and ferocious, and nothing like a kitten.

The groceries in your bag end up in the trash.

—

Taehyung invites you to lunch one day, and you go. You’re starving and desperate to get away from work, where you’re paranoid everyone knows there’s something wrong with you. You meet up at a cute little bistro, and he smiles and hugs you when you arrive. You sit in comfort for all of two seconds before he jumps into his interrogation.

“What’s going on with you and Kook?” He asks, casually flipping through the menu. Your hand stills around your glass of water, and you eventually set it down without ever taking a drink. Your mind instinctively maps out a lie, but Taehyung has known you a while now, knows the quirk of your lips when you’re about to lie your ass off. “Don’t lie to me. I haven’t seen you at the shop in almost a month. And he doesn’t go out,” he mentions. “I think he spent four nights at the shop before I made him go home.”

You deflate.

Too embarrassed to explain, you flip through your own menu, and when the waitress comes you order the first words your eyes focus on. Taehyung doesn’t push you, just patiently gazes out over the bustling street.

Finally, you break. “We… did a thing.”

“Uh huh,” he nods, reading some ad on the side of a bus that passes by. “Need you to elaborate, babe.”

You squirm. “We… fooled around,” you say for lack of more appropriate wording. There’s a family sitting beside you, and you’d rather die than let some nooby pre-teen listen to the details of yours and Jungkook’s night.

“You fucked?” You choke, make a loud sputtering noise like it’ll drown out Taehyung’s voice to the other patrons. “What’s wrong with that? We all knew it’d happen sooner or later,” he shrugs.

“No,” you seethe. “We didn—I didn’t.” Taehyung rolls his eyes, the same way Sojin did that day on the sidewalk. You almost throw your glass of water at him. “We…” you sigh. “We did a thing, and then the week after he went out with Sojin.”

Taehyung scowls at the mere mention of her, so the glass of water is returned to its coaster. “Really? He went out with her right away? He’s cancelled.”

You nod, rubbing your hands over your face. “He… her dad has cancer and is literally on his deathbed so she wanted to fix up his car for memories sake, which he loved, so he wanted to apologize to Kook and thank him for fixing up his car,” you rush out, and now Taehyung chokes, water spewing out of his nose. You shriek, drawing everyone’s attention as you pat down your soaked blouse. “Tae!”

“I’m sorry,” he cries, wiping at the sting in his nose. “He-she, what?!” You ignore him, focus on battling the damp spot on your blazer. “God, that’s crazy,” Taehyung snorts, winces at the feeling in his nose.

After the two of you have settled, the manager kicks you out for your inappropriate conversations and childish behavior. You leave with your tails tucked between your legs. Taehyung holds your hand as he walks you back to your workplace, you quietly fill him in on all the other details surrounding yours and Jungkook’s fallout, from your breakdown in the garage to your weirdly dramatic confrontation with Sojin. “Well,” he claps, slamming a hand down on the traffic light button, even though both of you know it doesn’t work. “That explains a lot of things.”

“Yeah,” you agree, pushing down the crosswalk when the light finally changes of its own accord. “Do you,” you pause, feet glued to the sidewalk. “Do you think she was right?”

Taehyung glances back at you, so small and unsure in the midst of a bustling crowd. He smiles, sweet and soft. Rare coming from him. His free hand ruffles the top of your head, and he brings you into his chest. “Babe, the hottest guy in your grade was intimidated by scrawny, pre-muscle bunny Jungkook. I’m pretty sure he feels some type of way towards you.”

Your lip wobbles dangerously, and you bite down on it to stop. Taehyung pats your head, barks at some old guy when he yells at the two of you for standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

When you’re outside your office, you speak again. “You were not the hottest guy in our grade, by the way.”

Taehyung snorts. “I totally was.”

—

You hideout for the rest of the week.

On Friday night, you finally have the balls to show yourself again, and you hop on the highway leading out of the city before you can overthink it. The buildings slowly melt away, replaced with cozier homes, tinier shops, and by the time you’re pulling up the street, you’re deep in doubt again.

It’s not that late yet, only a little past sunset, but the garage doors, usually open to the street, are all shut. You frown, pull around the block, reverse into a spot across the street. Locking your car, a gust of wind nearly trips you as you cross the street. The front office is dark, metal shutters pulled over the entrance.

Eventually, you stumble around until you find the tiny backdoor squeezed beside some dumpsters, grateful for the key Jungkook had given you so long ago.

Just as Taehyung predicted, a pair of red jumpsuit clad feet stick out from beneath a car. A nice car, an even older Corvette than Sojin’s dad’s, still shiny despite the model it is. It looks like a show car with the way it glints at you, black paint almost glossy. The only light in the entire garage is a lamp, positioned over the area where the legs are working, and a flashlight that occasionally beams at you when the holder loses his grip. No music today, just the hum of a rotating fan. You creep over.

Jungkook’s humming a song when you get to him, foot tapping idly on the ground. You suck in a deep breath and nudge his foot with the tip of your heel. You have exactly two seconds to jump away when he abruptly rolls out from beneath the car, concentrated features scanning quickly around until they land on you.

The garage is still, until Jungkook jumps into action. “___,” he stammers, stumbling to his feet. The rolling board drifts away, bumping into the corner of the metal table beside you. “Hi, um,” he flounders, brushing his fingers through his hair, palms wiping over the front of his pants. Finally, “hi.”

The bad bitch Chanel skirt-suit you’d worn today fails you for the first time in a long time. Your hands feel sweaty, so you clutch them behind your back. “Hi, Jungkook,” you exhale, and all the emotions you’d swallowed for so long, the feelings that tightened around your chest and throat like boa constrictors, come oozing out, until all you can see is his puckered mouth and twinkling gaze.

He coughs, tries to casually lean against the car, but greatly miscalculates the distance. “What, um, what brings you here?” He asks, foot tapping nervously against the ground.

There’s a box of takeout on the floor he tries to subtly kick beneath the car, and a plastic bottle of soda that makes a loud noise when he tries that too. You twist your lips, watching the anxious shuffling of his feet. You breeze over his question, plaster a tight smile into your face, and ask your own question; “how long have you been here?” Tentatively, you lower yourself onto a rolling stool. “It’s late,” you state the obvious.

Jungkook’s leg bounces, and he pats his hand over it nervously. “Um, an hour? Just working on something,” he answers, cheeks warm as his eyes flicker everywhere but you. “What brings you here?” He repeats, and you know you can’t deflect it this time.

Shrugging half heartedly, you wait for him to finally look at you. When he does, he almost looks away but the glint in your eye stops him from doing so. “We need to talk,” you finally say. Jungkook visibly deflates, lips pulling into a thin line. You contemplate letting him relieve his thoughts first, but you came here with a point to make, for questions that needed answering, and you’re scared one word from him will wash them all away.

“Listen,” you start, smoothing your hand over the edge of your skirt. “I know something weird happened between us, and then I kinda freaked out on you, but… I need you to tell me the truth.”

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate. “Always.”

You swallow, try to push back the frustration that builds in his throat. “Did you ever even like Sojin?”

Jungkook blinks. “Huh?” A snort. “You’re joking,” he snickers, wipes at faux tears in the corner of his eyes, before your unsmiling face registers and he’s schooling his features. “___, I did like her. I dated her for five years. How could I not like her?”He says seriously, like he can’t believe you would ever question such a thing. 

You exhale, pick at your fingernails. “I met her,” you admit, and Jungkook’s face twists in confusion. “At the supermarket last week. She said you never liked her.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Of course she’ll think that—we’re exes. I doubt she remembers all our best memories,” he sighs, turning back to organize his tool cart like he’s done with this conversation.

Raising to your feet you call his name again, and he hums absentmindedly. “Sojin said you never liked her because you were always chasing after me,” you accuse, laying all your cards out on the table. Your claim startles him, and you watch as he jostles half the tool cart with his surprise.

“She, what?” He huffs, cheeks as red as his jumpsuit. He forces out a laugh, airy and tight like you’re starring in your elementary school play again and the nerves are eating him up. “I-I don’t know why she’d say that.”

He’s flustered, obviously so, as he scoops the metal tools back onto the cart, bumping into three other things before settling back down on the floor to roll under the car. He pushes himself under, and you sternly call out, “Jungkook.” He freezes.

You strut over, brush your hands behind your skirt as you crouch beside him. “Always,” you quietly remind him. Jungkook says nothing. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve grossly misread the situation, if this was just another one of her schemes to drive the two of you apart.

Slowly, Jungkook appears from under the car. There’s a new stain on his cheekbone, brown and slick. He sits up, wide eyes tracing over your features likes he’s trying to seal them in his memory. “Yeah,” he admits, lips twisting as he watches the surprise take your features, before he’s lolling his head back to stare at the ceiling, leaving you to stare at the column of his neck.

“I do,” Jungkook admits, pushing through his emotions. It’s hard for him to confess, you realize, watching the way his Adam’s apples contracts and his jaw twitches from having to say so. “I like you so much it hurts.”

His confession leaves you feeling weird. On one hand, you want nothing more than to spring yourself on him and kiss his face until the stray oil marks are gone and replaced with the outline of your lipstick prints. You want to smother him and hold him, let him know he’s yours, always has been.

On the other hand… it’s sad. Going on thirty years and never did the two of you guess your feelings for each other. You doubt either of you are good at hiding them, with the way everyone seems to have known except you two. Maybe you don’t know Jungkook as well as you thought you did. Maybe he doesn’t know you.

A hand touches your knee, and you return your attention to his downtrodden appearance, chin tucked against his chest. “Please,” he murmurs. “Say something.”

You say nothing.

Tentatively, you reach a hand out, run it along the side of his head, through his mane, chocolate waves touching his cheekbones. He almost looks like when you guys were kids, round eyes watching your every move. Your hand continues down the back of his head, cupping the nape of his neck comfortingly. Jungkook leans into the touch, even though his shoulders are tense. You soothe your fingers over the tight muscles in his neck.

“Since when?” You inquire.

Jungkook blinks, lets your palm trace along his jawline and cup his cheek. “Since you dated Taehyung when we were sixteen.”

Mentally, you curse every deity in existence for putting Kim Taehyung in your life. “God,” you groan, burrowing your hands in your palms. Jungkook, surprised by your reaction, rolls closer, moves around until you’re crouched between his long legs. “Since me and that pinhead dated for twenty minutes?” You repeat.

Jungkook shifts closer, rubs your back. “It was 65 hours, actually,” he corrects, and the exact duration of your relationship makes you cringe. “I… counted.”

Small and shy, almost embarrassed. You glance back up at him. “Why?” You prod, and Jungkook’s cheek flush, palm stilling.

“Uh,” he starts. “I was nervous? That you two were in it for the long run. And I, I don’t know. It was easier to just count,” he lamely finishes, and his dangly earring whips around with him when he avidly avoids your gaze.

You sigh, catch his hand in yours. “Tae and I would have never lasted,” you tell him, remembering all the times the guy made you pick him up from one night stands in the last few years. “He wasn’t who I wanted.”

His foot jumps, toe tapping against the wheel of the car next to you. He wants to ask, you know he does, but Jungkook was quite possibly the only other person on this planet who could overthink something more than you.

Deciding to ease his worries, you give his hand a squeeze. “It was you,” you confess, feel like an elephant lands straight on your chest. “It is you,” you correct.

His forehead knocks against yours, hard, and you hiss at the bump that probably forms. “What the fu—“

“Tell me it’s not temporary,” Jungkook pleads, eyes crinkled in worry. You’re going cross eyed from trying to look at him like this, so you flit your eyes off somewhere to the side. His hand is heavy in yours. “Tell me you’re not just doing this for closure, or because you want to see what it would have been like, please,” he begs, “that would be so fucked up, because I’m so in love with you I actually think I might die.”

The dramatic confession makes you painfully warm. You nod, your lower lip trembling at the way he looks at you, like you single-handedly controlled this entire world with a flick of your wrist. “I-I love you too,” you parrot back, the first time you’ve ever said it, the millionth time you’ve ever thought it.

Jungkook visibly relaxes, pulls away from you to drop his head on your shoulder instead. Your legs are starting to cramp from the tight crouching position, ankles wobbly in your heels. His hair smells good still, despite the hours he’s probably spent beneath a car, and you gingerly pat the back of his head.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and you repeat it. “I love you,” he says again, and you repeat it. “I lov—“

“Me, yes, I’ve heard,” you cut him off, smile at the snort he releases, and when he turns his head, his lips brush against your neck. You’re instantly thrown back a few weeks, to that night on the couch with the limited edition Shrek 2 cups and the wine; the gentle touches that left you trembling for weeks. You inhale quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him away.

His eyes are too soft, face too relaxed as he stares at you. “My legs hurt,” you tell him, quickly getting up. You whirl around, facing the car and digging through your purse like you suddenly have something to do.

“Oh,” you gasp, watch two arms wind around your waist, the dirty red jumpsuit contrasting against the tweed material of your high-end Chanel jacket. Jungkook sighs lovingly by your ear, snuggles his face into your neck. “W-we should go out,” you blurt, nerves jumping when he squeezes tighter, burrows closer. “To celebrate!”

Jungkook hums. “Yeah?” His voice is too low. You’re in trouble. “Celebrate what?”

You squirm, breath catching in your throat when he presses you closer against the hood of the car. “Um,” you shakily exhale, hands splaying out over the sleek surface of the black hood to steady yourself. It’s so shiny you can almost see your reflection. “U-Us!” You finally manage to exclaim.

A kiss against the side of your neck, and your spirit just about exits your body. Your knees feel weak, and you're just about ready to throw another mediocre excuse his way, when something warm and wet traces up the column of your neck. “Kook!” You gasp.

“Shh,” he murmurs, deep voice instantly soothing over your nerves. His hips nudge against your behind, and you jump at the bulge that presses against your lower back. One hand unwraps from around you, gliding down your arm sensually until he’s trapping your fingers on the hood of the car with his own. A swift kiss against your ear. “You owe me, remember?”

You flush, remember the filthy promises your list-addled brain has spewed that night at your house, the almost erratic development of your thoughts as you became consumed in the thought of him. Reminisce on the prod of his fingers against your cunt, his hot breath against your ear.

Suddenly, Jungkook whirls you around, traps you with his gaze as two hands flutter to rest on the small of your back. He’s looking down at you with those lovesick eyes, hooded with lust as they trace over the dip of your Cupid’s bow. “You’ll do that for me, won’t you?” A soft brush of his mouth against yours, pouty lips guiding you through a kiss, until you’re sighing against him, and he’s pulling away.

Numbly, you nod, almost hypnotized by the soft smirk that overtakes his features as he pushes you down, watches you sink to your knees before him. The concrete feels cold and hard beneath your knees. His jumpsuit is knotted around his waist, and you shakily unravel it, the elastic waistband staring you in the face afterwards.

“Take your time,” Jungkook croons, hand coming to rest on the side of your face, knuckles brushing over your skin delicately.

You tug it down, and one flash of that underwear band has your nerves flying out the window. You shove his t-shirt out of the way, let your hands trail over the ridges of his abdomen in your haste. He helps you by tugging it over his head. With that gone, his black boxers stare you in the face, and you yank those down with no hesitation.

“Jesus, baby,” Jungkook chuckles, though it’s choked off when you grasp his engorged cock in his hand. You should be surprised, marveling at the sight, considering it’s the first time you’ve ever seen him like this. But you brain is working overtime, too immersed in the vein that runs alongside it and the tip that throbs back at you. Later you can worship it, you think. Right now, you needed it down your throat.

The tip is flaming and swollen, his cock still growing plump in your hold, your hands slowly dragging up and down the length. You lean forward, press a gentle kiss below the mushroom head, trail kisses down the length until you're meeting your knuckles, and trail them back again. Jungkook sucks in a tight breath, leans to rest his palms on the car behind you, as he watches you on him.

A head of precum escapes, and you lunge for it, swirl your tongue in and around the slit on his cock, until his entire body tenses up. “Fuck,” he grunts, watches you ease his cock into your mouth. You groan at the stretch, the drag against the corners of your lips making your eyes roll backwards. “___, baby, a little more?” He asks, voice hoarse as he watches you sink down further on his cock.

You comply, close your eyes and focus on relaxing your throat. There’s a hand on the back of your head, impatiently pushing you down his length. “Shit,” he cries, unconsciously ruts against you. You gag, and he shushes you with a caress against your cheek. “Sorry,” he huffs, “just a little more for me, okay?”

Eyes squeezed shut tightly, you let him push you down until his cock hits the back of your throat and you can’t take anymore. The prod against your throat has tears springing to your eyes. “Gonna move now,” Jungkook announces, thumb brushing away the tears that collect in the corners. “Be good.”

He drags himself out, your saliva coating every inch of him, and when just the tip is resting on your tongue, he shoves back in. You whimper, palms digging into his thighs. Jungkook brushes a hand down your hair, soothes you for all of two seconds before he’s pulling out and doing it all over again. He picks up the pace, loses himself in the feeling of your hot mouth around him, tongue dragging over his cock.

The feeling in your throat burns, each thrust of his hips against your mouth making your jaw more and more sore. But god, it feels good to have him so close, his scent swarming your sense, groans like music to your ears. You want to please him, want him to feel as good as you did at your place. You want it even more now that you know how he feels, know he’s probably thought about this before.

A brutal thrust has you gagging, throat contracting around his length. “Shh,” Jungkook sighs, the fingers buried in your hair flattening out to run over your head. “Doing so good for me, beautiful.”

You bask in the praise, let a hand flutter down to the apex of your thighs, pressing down to relieve some of the pressure. Jungkook groans, rolls his hips against you and keeps you there for a second. Your throat spasms, his dick pressed hotly against it, and you feel your panties grow embarrassingly sticky. Eventually, he draws back out.

“You like this?” He hums, rutting against you faster now, nose brushing against the sparse hairs on his pelvis with every slam of his hips. You nod around a gag, eyes clouding with tears, lips slippery with saliva and precum. One particular thrust is so hard, it nearly sends you knocking back into the car, Jungkook’s hand on the back of your head barely saving you. “Fucking hell,” he spits, “look so pretty with my cock shoved down your throat, princess.”

You moan around him, feel a subtle twitch against your tongue before he’s pulling himself out. “Shit,” he cursed, pushing you away as he goes to grab his own dick in his hand, tugging at it like a madman. “Wh-Where?” He asks, and you stare dumbly at the sight of him playing with himself, almost don’t realize he’s asking you a question.

You take too long, scramble for words too long, and even if you did have one your throat is far too sensitive yo answer. Jungkook grows impatient. Pulling you closer by the collar of your Chanel suit jacket, tugging it open until the flimsy buttons snap, and the tank top you wore beneath comes into view. He aims the tip of his cock towards your sternum, and a few jacks later, he’s coming, cum spurting against your chest. You watch the cum trail down between the valley of your breasts, until the feeling comes to rest against the inside wire of your bra, sticky and gross, sliding along the underside of your boobs. “Shit,” Jungkook repeats, eyes furrowed over you.

Your knees ache, and you nearly trip when you stand up, steadying yourself against the side of the car. Jungkook seems to regain his sense by then, hand trailing around your waist. You meet his eye, and almost immediately turn away, the blood in your face rapidly rising.

Jungkook laughs. “Don’t get shy on me now,” he teases, gets too close and your noses bump. “Sorry,” he smiles, too shiny and bright for the sinful acts you just committed in an auto shop.

“Put your dick away,” you huff, let him nuzzle closer to you, and when he doesn’t move to tuck himself into his pants, you go do it for him.

Jungkook frowns, swats your hand away. “This dick has places to be,” he informs you, and you scoff.

“Refractory period,” you remind him, and he rolls his eyes.

“Well I’m not exactly gonna stick it in you this instant,” he drawls. “Gotta stretch you out first.”

You go to complain, tell him he doesn’t have to over exert himself. Truthfully, with Jungkook you feel like one good session was enough to sustain you for weeks. After last time, your skin had flowed for an entire week. But then his hand is slithering up your backside, sneaking under your skirt to grab a handful of your ass.

There’s quickly drying drool collecting at the corners of your mouth, saliva from when he’d fucked your throat just a few moments prior, that he kisses away. His mouth slots over yours, and your heart and pussy both flutter at the kiss.

It’s gentle and sweet for all of ten seconds, his mouth moving against yours until you feel the wet press of his tongue against your bottom lip, tracing along until you open your mouth. He wastes no time shoving his tongue past your lips, letting it dance with yours as he pulls you closer, hands gripping the globes of your ass. You let him lick his way into your mouth, more and more saliva catching in the corners of your mouth until he’s pulling away with a wet pop.

He pulls away, doesn’t stray too far, proud smirk crossing his features at the sight of your slicked lips. “You liked that, didn’t you?”

“Huh?” You ask dumbly, tongue mindlessly swiping over your lips.

Jungkook’s eyes track the movement. “The saliva,” he clarifies. “The spit. You liked it at your place too,” he reminisces, moving in on you again. “Liked watching me slobber and spit all over your body. Isn’t that right, baby?”

You blush, discreetly rub your thighs together. “I-I do,” you admit, willing the warmth of your face away because at this distance he must certainly feel it.

Jungkook nods, doesn’t say anything else as he captures your lips a second time. He doesn’t bother with the gentle prodding anymore, jumping straight into tongue right away. He’s messier, letting his saliva coat your lips and drip down your mouth, and as messy as it is, you love it. You whimper when he pulls away, but gasp when his hand tugs at the hair by the nape of your neck, pulling you back until you’re looking up at him.

“Open,” he murmurs, and you do, tongue pressing against your bottom lip.

It should be disgusting, the rev of his throat, the sound of his saliva collecting, and the way his jaw shifts when he’s got enough. It should be filthy, the way he shoots it down your open lips, the way it splatters against the back of your throat. It should be gross, but god do you love it. “Swallow,” Jungkook commands, and you do, feel his spit drip down your throat like it’s your own, whimpering at the feeling. A quirk of his lips. “Good girl.”

You have to bite down the pride that grows in your chest.

Jungkook’s hands continue their mapping out of your behind, eventually ending with a hard squeeze that has you squealing. Automatically, your back arches in surprise, breasts pressing against Jungkook’s chest. He smirks down at you.

“Bet you taste good,” he says, pressing a kiss against your cheek. “Let me taste?”

“Please,” you beg, nearly losing your shit when he lifts you up onto the car, the cool metal making you jump, heel on your foot nearly kicking the side view mirror clean off. “Wait, Jungkook,” you sputter, glancing down at the sleek metal. “This is someone’s car.”

Jungkook ignores you, pushes your legs apart to slot himself between them. His palms run up your legs, over your thighs, until they’re toying with the hem of your skirt. Mocha eyes glance up at you, as if daring you to question him again, so you promptly zip your lips shut. The skirt goes, ever so slowly, over your thighs, bunches up at your waist until he’s staring at your lace panties.

He presses a kiss against the inside of your thigh, nose faintly brushing against your skin. The kisses trail over your skin, until he’s hovering over your panties, and he’s staring like a man starved. He gives no warning, suddenly leaning down to press his mouth over your party-clad folds, nose flush against your clit. “Kook!” You squeak, hands flying to clutch at his hair.

Jungkook mouths at you, drags his tongue against your panties until they’re soaked in both your essence and his saliva, just how you like. A hand slithers around your leg, wrapping around until he’s got a firm grip on it that he uses to hold it open.

“J-Just take them off,” you gasp, squirm when his mouth moves towards your clit, lapping against you. “Please,” you cry.

He doesn’t.

Jungkook tortures you with those kitten licks, muted through your panties, until you’re begging him to stop, to take them off and do it right. He loves it, you can tell, dazzling smile peeking up at you every time you tug against his hair, until finally, he’s had enough.

The underwear comes off, dangling uselessly by your ankle, and then the show really begins.

“Wait,” you choke, head falling back against the hood of the car when he finally gets his mouth on you, suctioning his lips around your swollen clit. The niggling reminder that this is some stranger’s car he’s eating you out on rings in your brain, and perhaps that’s what makes it more exciting.

His mouth is warm, tongue flicking over your sensitive bud like it’s candy and he needs the sugar. The sounds are so loud and wet, the squelching of your pussy every time he pulls off a pop that resounds throughout the garage. He pampers your clit for what seems like hours, switching the movements of his tongue every time he gets the chance until you’re quivering.

When you think he’s done, he’s not.

Fingers slide up your thigh, featherlight, as they reach your drenched cunt. They drag over your lips, and you mewl, feeling the muscles jump and tighten at his touches. “Jungkook, please,” you moan, rolling your hips against him, but it’s hard and everytime you move, you feel the sweat on your skin weigh you down, glued to the metal beneath you.

The first finger breaches you, just the tip of his index slowly wiggling inside. You muffle a moan in your palm, and Jungkook pulls away with a huff. “No hiding,” he warns, slowly lowering back to your cunt with a stern glare. You nod, but can’t help it when his second finger pushes its way in and you bite down on your knuckles.

“Oh,” You sob, body quivering as he begins scissoring his two fingers inside you. With your attention focused on the digits sheathed inside you, he pulls away from your clit, bestowing one final kiss against it that has your foot kicking out wildly. “Th-there.” His other hand catches your palm in his, presses it against the metal by your head.

Jungkook smiles, curls his fingers around until he finds the soft spot inside you that turns you to jelly. “There we go, beautiful,” he purrs, pushing himself to his full height, leaning over your trembling form. “So sweet for me,” he sighs, licks his lips like he’s remembering your taste.

“I'm gonna,” you choke, become hypnotized by the dark cloud in his gaze, the arrogant smirk on his lips. He curls his fingers, palm brushing against your abandoned clit. The touch makes you jump, nerves tingling.

“Cum for me,” he encourages, silky tone swarming your head as your pleasure slowly washes over you. It’s probably the most relaxed orgasm you’ve had in your entire life, his low voice and delighted eyes guiding you through it, until your entire body clenches, dissolving in a puddle of contentment. Your arousal surges around his fingers, trickling down onto the metal.

“Oh, Jungkook,” you pant, overwhelmed from the touches and the kisses. Jungkook’s smile gets swallowed by your greedy mouth, desperate for more kisses now that he’s made you feel like this.

The kisses only placate him for so long, and when he presses his body against yours, there’s an awfully hard cock that slides against your dripping cunt. “Think you can go again, gorgeous?” He murmurs against your jaw, nipping at the skin on the way down. You nod, eyes falling shut at the warmth you feel in your bones.

Jungkook kisses your neck one last time, before leaning back once more to line himself up.

This was a scene straight from your teenage fantasies, a dripping, shirtless Jungkook at full mast between your thighs, looking at you so lovingly. It makes your heart thunder, imagining how long you could have been doing this if you weren’t both so stupid. As if reading your thoughts, Jungkook rubs a palm over your thigh, eyebrow quirked. You nod his concern away, squirm closer until the tip of his cock nudges against your hole.

“Fuck,” Jungkook sighs, moving his hands to your hips as he slowly pushes in. His fingers, bless their intentions, could have never prepared you for the size of Jungkook’s cock, thick and veiny as it pushes inside. You whimper, clawing at the hands on your waist that stop you from impaling yourself on it fully. “Waited so long for this.”

“Then fucking do it,” you beg, nearly pass out when he shoves in harshly at your tone. “J-Jung—“

“I got you, baby,” he assures you, jostles you until you’re flush against his cock, clit brushing against his pelvis. Your back arches, and Jungkook slips his arm around you, the other lingering on your waist.

Every subtle shift has him brushing along your swollen clit, and you sob at the sensation, begging him to move. He complies, changes his stance to make it easier, and finally begins thrusting into your throbbing pussy.

“So good,” he huffs, eyes zeroed in on where the two of you meet. You would have looked too, if your body hadn’t felt so completely boneless beneath him, the grinding of his cock sending shocks of pleasure up your spine. “So pretty and mine.”

“Yours,” you choke, heart swelling in your chest at his words. It’s almost animalistic, the way he ducks down to bite at your neck, like some animal staking its claim, and you like it. You like it because it’s all you ever dreamed of for so long. “Faster, Kook,” you urge, wrapping your arms around him.

He does as you say, slow and careful thrusts transitioning into a fast piston that would have had you bouncing out of his reach if he wasn’t holding you so tightly. “Fuck,” he chokes, lost in the way you clench around him, lips dragging against his cock with each thrust. “Baby,” he grunts, sweat trailing down his temple, eyes furrowed shut. Eventually, his head falls into the crook of your neck, his weight pressing down on you uncomfortably, subtle ridges on the hood making you ache. At this point, you’re too far gone to care. “All I ever wanted,” he gasps.

You could cry, right now and he’d pull out right away, big heart fretting over your emotional well-being. Which is exactly why you hold your emotions in, let yourself get fully immersed in the feeling of Jungkook pounding you against some stranger’s car and not the inevitable emotional crash you’ll have later.

He fucks like he’s waited all his life for this, and you guess he sort of has if what he’s saying is true. You have no doubt it is, and when his lips suck a mark against your neck, you feel like you’re in heaven. “Almost,” you pant, legs wrapping around his waist tightly. Jungkook nods, his hair tickling your jaw and neck, as he picks up the pace. Your cunt swallows him up every single time, suctions him in until he’s shaking, and so are you.

It can only last for so long, your heart and body eventually reaching their peak, and you unravel. His arms are there to catch you, to pick up the pieces and hold you together. You want to cry, you really do, and when the coil in your stomach snaps, you finally do. “I love you,” you sob, and Jungkook shudders, glances at your tear-struck face to push himself off.

“Love you too,” he mumbles, grinds his cock against your spasming folds one last time, and comes mid-thrust, cum spurting inside you. He holds you, just like you knew he would, as you come down from your highs, hot breath fanning across your skin.

You feel warm, loved, and in love, body trembling in sensitivity afterwards. He’s pulled out since, soothingly rubbing a hand against your side. You’d like to say you wouldn’t be anywhere else, but one shift reminds you of where you are.

“Shit,” you groan, taking in your surroundings before letting your head fall back against the hood. Jungkook hums, round eyes looking your way. “We really just confessed and had sex on some stranger’s car.”

Jungkook snorts, leans away just the slightest to look you in the eye. He’s lost in thought, chocolate irises swirling as they drink you in. “Say thanks to Taehyung,” he finally says.

You roll your eyes, and when you shift beneath him, your sweaty skin sticks uncomfortably against the metal hood. “Yeah, let me thank Taehyung for dating me for three days and awakening your crush,” you huff sarcastically, resigning yourself to your new life stuck against the hood of some classic automobile from the 50s. Jungkook laughs, tucks himself back into his underwear. “Thanks Taehyung, for your noble sacrifice ten years ago that allowed me to fuck Jungkook on some stranger’s car—“

Jungkook hums, snuggles closer to you. “Tae’s car.”

“—after confessing our—Taehyung’s car?” You shriek, sitting up with the strength of three football players, Jungkook toppling off you. “Oh my god. No.” Jungkook rubs his elbow where he knocked it against the hood, looks at you with solemn eyes. Slowly, a smirk crawls over his features. “No,” you gasp, mortification crawling up your spine. “We didn’t.”

He tugs you off the car, tugs your skirt down when you wobble on unsteady heels. “Yup,” he says, pops the end of the word like a child. “Say hello to Taehyung’s new car!” He exclaims, patting the hood you just defiled. “Straight from the car auction he went to this morning,” he beams.

“Oh my god,” you groan, covering your face with your hands when you finally spot the puddles of... something on the black hood. “This is terrible.”

Jungkook ignores you, wipes up the mess with some napkins from his takeout bag, but there’s already some that's dried, only fueling your mortification. “Not like he’ll find out,” he shrugs, then narrows his eyes at you. “Or will he?”

“No!” You stutter, carefully rounding the car as if inspecting it for any more signs of the treacherous things you and Jungkook did on or around it. “I-I won’t tell him.”

“Uh huh,” Jungkook teases, settles on that rolling stool and pushes himself towards you. There’s a hand easing itself around your waist, tugging you between open legs. Still in shock, your hands flutter around his neck, muscle memory causing you to immediately begin massaging the skin there.

Jungkook sighs into the touch, eyes falling shut. “Too bad Jimin’s not here,” he sighs, and you visibly see his nose grow in arrogance. 

“What? Why should Jimin be here?” You ask, pushing your fingers against the knots in his neck. 

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed, one-eyed glare. He scoffs, “maybe you are as dumb ad Taehyung says.” And then, “hey!” when you tug his ear. He isn’t upset, just tugs you closer until his face is buried against your stomach. “You know country folk like him marry on the spot right?”

“What are you even saying,” you huff, burying your hands in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging his head back to properly look at him. “Why do you care who Jimin marries?” He doesn’t bother answering. 

Instead, Jungkook sighs into the touch, an easygoing smile thrown your way, and for a moment you forget about the trauma Taehyung will have when he inevitably learns about this. “This is the life.”

[ariespellz]

hello, good day !!! i wanted to request a monogamous and romantic matchup ^_^ i'm transmasc he/him and my sexuality leans towards men mostly. i'd like canon universe! i imagine myself having an anemo vision and polearm user from mondstadt, so i prefer someone from mond (it's my comfort region </3). my main love language is physical touch both giving and receiving, and sometimes quality time (giving). i like showing people my interests and hobbies, like showing them a movie or book, talking about certain topic in detail, etc. my favorite trope is definitely friends to lovers; i need to have a strong and intimate connection with a person to be sure i want them in my life, i love the inside jokes and knowing every detail about each other, taking care of e/o and the casual displays of affection.

personality: i'm pretty extroverted, very very passionate about my hobbies and likes and generally very funny. i'm a friendly person with everyone and i love having new fun experiences. i wear my heart on my sleeve almost all the time and i can have a lot of energy with the right people. i have a habit of analyzing/observing everything and everyone around me to the point where i notice many things that other people don't. i value loyalty above everything else, and im very protective and affectionate with my close friends and family. i have a strong moral compass but often worry about what other people might think about me for it; still i wish to inspire and encourage other people to be the best version of themselves : ]

hobbies: i love love drawing digitally and traditionally, especially making new characters and fanart. i like fiction and science-y stuff in movies, books, tv shows, anime, etc. i'm also a beginner at piano but i enjoy it a lot! i love music that makes me feel a lot of emotions and artists that are very passionate on their songs.

for some extra details i'm an enfp 7w6. my sun sign is leo, pisces moon, aries rising, gemini venus.

i hope that's good enough !! your works are SO so beautiful and sweet and they make my brain go soft and smooth no thoughts <3

hi hi!! thanks for requesting (and for the compliment :')) it made me smile so hard hehe)

after careful consideration, you've been paired up with...

... BENNETT !

my little mew mews. you're so cute I SWEAR.

your high spirits always make his day better, and he's always so nice and kind and he gets shy when you hug him and UGHH<3

you're the reason the cavalry captain and sister rosaria believe in true love. when they train you two and see you interact??? they have to repress a GENUINE smile. that's your power on people.

his dads love you. you are their new kid now.

even the people who usually avoid bennett like to watch you two interact.

you just,, ignore his bad luck!! and when asked about it, you're always honest.

"even grocery shopping is an adventure with him!"

and yeah that's true.

he's a bit dorky but we love him that way hehe.

his preferred love languages to receive are quality time, words of affirmation, and physical touch.

to give i guess the five of them? maybe a preference for quality time. but because he knows you like physical touch, he does his best<3 (he's a bit awkward about it, because he's scared something will happen ಥ‿ಥ)

he's inexperienced, and sometimes pure chaos, but still 100% worth it

FIRST STEPS: meeting.

there wasn't an "official meeting" per se. you both knew each other, either from getting a glimpse of the other in the city, or from the people's stories.

"the unlucky guy" you thought when someone mentioned him.

"the cool adventurer" is what his mind went.

out of curiosity (or boredom. maybe both), you found yourself asking katherine about him. she mentioned his adventure team, and how it needed members, an you pondered about it.

"i'll talk to him. and if he's nice, i'll join."

the first conversation went pretty smoothly. both of your extroverted personalities made it not-so-awkward.

you had approached him after he killed a few hydro slimes near windrise.

"hello! you're bennett, right?"

"oh, hi!" he looked bashful. "and you... uh... (y/n)?"

"that's right! it's nice to finally meet you"

he was easy to get along with.

yeah, a thunderstorm shook you both out of nowhere, and some abyss mages teleported right next to you when you found shelter...

but that was all part of the experience!

the uncertainty, the thrill, and a companion who is just as adventurous as you...

yeah, that sounds perfect.

"why didn't i talk to him sooner?" you both think.

and so, benny's adventure team now had two members.

FRIENDSHIP: spending time with one another.

adventures with bennett were never dull. something was bound to happen.

and maybe it was thanks to those experiences that you two soon became inseparable.

he (somehow) got the cavalry captain to train him with the sword, and wanting to do the same, you chased sister rosaria around until she accepted to do the same with your polearm.

(totally not because she likes your chirpy nature)

she wasn't very talkative, or especially nice, or even sober most of the time, but she was more patient than you expected.

oh, and when the two cryo users got together? bennett and you had a blast.

domains with him were awesome, even if the artifacts were mediocre at best.

you two could communicate with glances, reading one another like an open book.

so it wasn't had for you to tell when he was upset.

he had been unusually quiet today. you two had met up in 'cecilia garden', intending to farm for materials. he was there physically, but very... out of it.

"ah, don't worry!" he chuckled, scratching the back of his head. "i'm just a bit tired today." you didn't want to doubt him, but he was a bad liar.

it didn't take him long to tell you what happened

apparently some guy in the guild snapped at him

as much as that angered you a bit, you knew comforting your dear friend was more important

"he can say whatever he wants. i love spending time with you! you're great!" you ruffle his hair a bit and he giggles. "the domain can wait. let's go back to my place and play board games. we can invite fischl and razor!"

ah... good times, good times.

he loves your artstyle! he doesn't know a lot about drawing, but he can assume how hard it must be

so he's like, your n°1 fan

SERIOUSLY.

he'll praise every single line you draw on a paper more than the Mona Lisa, and he means everything wholeheartedly.

"sorry, bennett! i have to go home early today." you were stretching after an afternoon of training.

"it's fine! i'll see you tomorrow?"

"yeah!"

kaeya smirks as rosaria starts to drag him to the tavern

knowing damn well what he's doing, he turns to bennett right before he leaves and says something like "you two are a cute couple."

bennett did not sleep that night.

ADVANCES: feelings and confession.

let's be honest here:

you don't have to be a genius to tell wether or not bennett has a crush on you, even if he says nothing about it.

he becomes twice as clumsy AND his luck is even worse than usual

and that says A LOT

kaeya feels a bit bad about what he caused (maybe he should've let the guy live in ignorance?)

rosaria finds it both amusing and cheesy (and a bit adorable, if she's being honest)

fischl tries to help, but her weird wording makes it had to figure things out (oz has officially given up on the topic, and there is no way you're translating that)

razor thinks nothing of it, which (ironically) makes him the most helpful one (he offers his honest opinion and advice. something in the simplicity in them makes it reliable).

"but, let's reflect." the cavalry captain interjects, giving you room to talk. you had come to his office some minutes ago, and by now, you had completely forgotten the reason.

after months of hanging out, of inside jokes, of laughs and silences...

...did you truly see him as a 'best friend'?

it was so casual for you to think about how nice would peppering kisses across his face be

or the burning desire to walk side by side with your hands intertwined

and--

oh no.

"oh yes." kaeya says.

so you get up immediatelly, shutting your mouth after those blabbers came out.

he's smug about it, too.

he didn't need alcohol to get you to talk!

you stammer, nervous for once. his smile has reached his eyes at this point. he makes a gesture with his hand, dismissing you.

"go get him, tiger!" he exclaimed with a (weirdly enough) soft expression. you thank him with a shout.

using your vision to help you glide, it doesn't take you too long to spot the one you were looking for.

"bennett!" you call out, breathless. he stops in his tracks and fischl, who was next to him, looks at you full of confusion. "we need to-, i-, uh..." you send fischl a look and she realizes your intentions. she smirks, excusing herself briefly before leaving.

at that, bennett got a bit anxious; twiddling with his thumbs and kicking the ground beneath him lightly.

"so, we've been good friends for some time now, and i think i might have a crush on you?" you clear your throat as his eyes widened. "and you don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but i'd like to take you out sometime. like, a date?"

great day for the both of you.

DATING LIFE: how your days as a couple are.

he is the sweetest man out there.

it's not that different to how your friendship was, but now you get to kiss and cuddle him

so i'd say it's better

as stated before, he gets really shy with physical touch, even if he likes it a lot. you'll have to ask him to return it at first

also, you won't have a single normal date (poor guy :'))

he's super supportive and always encourages you! he manages to convince barbara to help you with the piano lessons (if you hadn't been able to do so before) and sometimes you go to concerts together

by the way, kaeya feels like a proud dad (kinda. we all know how strange the guy can be /hj). rosaria would rather die than to admit it, but she's very happy for you two.

fischl congratulated you two in the most poetic way you've ever seen. hand gestures included. oz was more humble about it, but still gave his best wishes

honestly? the people of mondstadt already treat you like you were married

it gets weird sometimes but they have no bad intentions

OH AND HIS DADS

OH BOY

they'll tell you either every single story about bennett being unlucky or how he talks about you in embarrassing, excruciating detail (embarrassing for him lmao. you have the time of your life).

your lucks balance out every once in a while and you have a nice afternoon outside without any surprise attacks

overall, you inspire him a lot. you have a good-hearted nature that makes him feel safe around you

he's a great bf, super caring and loyal :(<3

you two are so sweet. i want to adopt you (so does the entire city) /hj.