#inspired by me bc every time this song pops up i get hit by a truckload of emotions and nostalgia

[miles--to--go]

Life is Strange fans when Obstacles by Syd Matters comes on

[tododeku-or-bust]

who are your fave musical artists? <3

So I like a lot of people, but I'm a pop person so I really only like hits 😅 I gotta do better, I know.

1. The Weeknd! Yeah I know, I was mortified at that show we don't mention too. But music wise... My man. The one for me. I'm sorry. There's only one album of his I don't favor (sorry, echoes of silence) but the rest?? I've found something to love on all of it. WILL blast. His music got me through undergrad. His music has inspired my entire fanfic career. His concert was my self birthday gift. And he donated 4.5mil to Palestine. And he beefing with Drake. A man of many flavors and I find myself enjoying them all.

2. Lil Nas X! I've been rooting for him since the beginning. Every time he drops a booty banger I'm in there. J Christ was on repeat. His album was on repeat. I played Montero (The Devil's Extended Version, naturally) on repeat just to get his streams up and into my Spotify top 5. Industry Baby inspires me and gives me goosebumps every listen. It has been an honor to be Black and Queer right now.

3. Taemin! Lmao not me admitting I like this man on main. It's odd with him fr, bc he's like... All or nothing for me. Either the songs a banger (Guilty) or I'm turning that shit AWF (The Rizzness). But the songs I do like, I REALLY like. So he's a staple on my list.

4. EXO! Same idea with Taemin fr, but more gracious bc they're more likely to drop a banger than they aren't. I wish I'd known about them as a teenager, my ass would have pleaded to go to South Korea 🤣 if they ever decide to do one more tour 👀 I'm in there.

5. GloRilla! I don't listen to a lot of rap and hip-hop as much as I do pop, but I love Miss Gloria Hallelujah. Her music is so full of affirmations for me, fr. I love it. It's so fun and like... It reminds me of how people will ignore a positive message just bc they didn't like how it was said (which happens A LOT with Black people). Obv everything ain't wholesome but like... She says some cool stuff and I like that! If I need some confidence, imma turn me some her on!

[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.”

[adorethedistance]

A Pretty Good Bad Idea - Owen Joyner x Reader

JATP masterlist

Warnings: swearing, peer pressure kinda, very mild n fluffy

Words: 1865

Summary: Touring with the Julie and The Phantoms cast as a dancer has been the best time of your life, and the only thing that could make it better is the reciprocated affections of a cute, blond drummer.

A/N: So this piece is 1) inspired by this interview and 2) entirely self indulgent. It’s something I haven’t been able to get out of my mind every time I’m doing warm ups, and putting it down on ,, digital paper is my only way to get rid of it lmao. I hope y’all enjoy bc I know this scenario makes me really happy and I love sharing my joy with y’all.

I let out an involuntary whine when I roll forward into my almost-center splits. My hips are so sore from yesterday’s performance I had to force myself to start stretching in the first place. Getting a head start, I arrived at the concert venue an hour earlier than call time to get my lengthy stretching routine out of the way before the other girls show up. Slowly but surely, the rest of the dancers arrived and we began getting ready together.

“I have a speaker!” Tori announces to the room upon entering which makes me jump up from my seat.

“Yes! May I do the honors and bless y’all with my musical theatre playlist?” The rest of the group cheers, exposing themselves for the theatre kids that we are. After hearing the chime that signifies the speaker-phone pairing, a few seconds pass before “Cell Block Tango” begins to play. The entire group feigns outrage but we know all the words and soon indulge in such shameful pandering. A good pre-show playlist is what really gets me amped up for performing and after yesterday’s queue of ‘today’s hits’ pop, the musical theatre is a nice change of pace.

Since I’d gotten here so early, I decided to do my makeup before stretching and I still had time to spare. The only thing left for me to do was to get in costume but I’d wait until a little closer to showtime so that I could still eat and drink for the time being. This also meant I was free to roam and bother other people as they got ready, doing what I’d done almost an hour ago.

“So, Y/n?”

“Hm?”

“What’s going on with you and Owen?” I feel my breathing halt for a microsecond before looking up at, one of the other dancers and also my friend, Ella. My eyebrows are cinched in confusion as I try my best to figure out what it is she’s getting at.

“I don’t know, Ella. What is going on with me and Owen?”

“Oh come on. Your Instagram story from yesterday?” Oh. That.

“We just went to lunch?” I seemingly ask more than state.

“Yeah. Just the two of you. Don’t hold out on us, we wanna know what’s going on!”

“Really, Ella, there’s nothing going on. We’re just getting to know each other better.”

“Just getting to know each other better? Or getting to know each other better?” Tori butts in, dusting her cheeks with a subtle highlight.

“The first one?”

“How many times have you hung out?”

“Just the once.”

“Are you planning another date?”

“It wasn’t a date-”

“Do you want us to help wingman you?”

“I really don’t-”

“Hey.” The rapid-fire of questions cease when the gang of us look up to see Owen himself standing in the doorway.

“Speak of the devil,” Tori snickers as the rest of the girls slowly disperse and smugly resume doing their makeup. Owen makes a face in reaction to her comment but chooses not to pry.

“Could I borrow some hairspray? This one piece of hair won’t stay.” Despite each of the girls having a full can of hairspray on hand, nobody makes a move to give him the product, indicating that I should be the one to help him out. Rolling my eyes at the look Ella is giving me through the mirror, I stand from my chair and hand Owen the can of hairspray. He then looks straight ahead and moves to use the product but I stop him before he can.

“What’s your plan?”

“What?”

“Are you just gonna spray the piece?”

“...yeah?”

“That’s not gonna work since the rest of your hair already has product in it. Can I help you?” Owen nods amiably and takes a seat after I gesture for him to sit in my chair. I then realize my mistake as I need the comb on the grey countertop, and have to consequently reach past Owen in a way that wouldn’t be so compromising had I not worn such a low-cut top. Thankfully it’s over as fast as it began, and walking to the sink in the corner of the dressing room, I run the cool water over the bristles. It isn’t until I turn off the tap that I notice how eerily quiet the room had gotten. None of the girls are talking, attentively studying my every move as I cross back to Owen.

“Is this Chicago?”

“Uh, yeah, We’re listening to my musical theatre playlist though, not the whole soundtrack,” I respond in spite of the nervous laugh that falls from my lips. The slight slouch in Owen’s posture doesn’t help me to see what I’m doing clearly enough. Using my index finger and an upturned palm, I tilt his chin up to get a better look at his hair, willfully ignoring the fact that he’s staring at me right now.

Still, silence fills the room as I take the wet comb through the front section of his hair where the stubborn strand won’t stay put. Once the water binds the pieces together, I grab my can of hairspray and struggle to uncap it. The outside is slick from god knows what, but thankfully Owen doesn’t let me struggle anymore and holds up his hands to wordlessly offer his help. I hand him the can, and he pops the top off after barely struggling. Handing the can back to me, he holds onto the lid, and the entire exchange remains completely silent.

I have to work quickly in my next step, but it’s not enough to distract from the fact that everyone in the room is watching me intently. Holding the aerosol can away from the crowd of people, I put some of the product on the comb and quickly work it into Owen’s hair while it’s still wet. Once the comb has formed his hair to my liking, I stop brushing it through in fear of the now dry hairspray ruining the shape. Then, I use my left hand to shield Owen’s eyes from getting any product in them before spraying the offending area to seal in my hard work.

The sound of a cell door sliding closed signifies the end of the song, and I wait for a second, eagerly anticipating the next song to play. Upon hearing the staccato piano notes of “Bad Idea” from Waitress, a smile appears on my face.

“I love this song.” Lunging back on my right leg, I create a little distance between us to make sure I didn’t completely butcher the rest of his hair, singing as I do.

“It’s a bad idea, me and you.”

“I know, I totally agree.” Pleasantly surprised by his joining in, my smile grows bigger.

“It’s a bad idea, me and you.”

“I’ve never known anything so true-”

“It’s a terrible idea, me and you.” The effortlessness that the two of us find in harmonizing is a genuine shock and an absolute thrill all at once. Once Owen sees how excited I am by his joining in me, it’s like a switch had been flipped; the two of us immediately slip into Actor Mode and begin to sing the song as if we were performing it on a Broadway stage.

“You have a wife.” I take a small step back out of the character’s hesitation.

“You have a husband.” Owen mirrors my action.

“You’re my doctor-” I cross my arms across my chest, but release my right hand to gesture to Owen standing in front of me.

“You’ve got a baby coming-” He uses both hands to gesture back to me in my ‘pregnant’ state.

“It’s a bad idea, me and you,” the two of us turn slightly away from facing one another in false bashfulness. When the music picks up, the two of us avidly step toward one another to come together. In perfect synchronization, I grab Owen’s forearms and his hands face upwards to hold onto my elbows.

“Let’s just keep kissing ‘til we come to.”

“Heart, stop racing, let’s face it-” Owen pivots his step out to the side to face forward, extending his right arm which cues me to turn into him and take his other hand to spin out.

“Making mistakes like this will make worse what is already pretty bad.” Then he extends his right arm forward, and I turn into him once again.

“Mind, stop running. It’s time we just let this thing go.” Instead of spinning out again, I stop in front of him where he wraps both of his arms around me.

“It was a pretty good bad idea,” in our harmony I cast my gaze upward to see Owen staring right back down at me, and I feel like I’m seeing stars, “Wasn’t it though?”

The two of us continue dancing and singing with one another as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It’s only the two of us, here and now. The other girls in the room don’t miss the way I seem to smile like never before, and I sure as hell don’t miss the way my stomach fills with butterflies. When he holds me so close and dear for each intimate moment of the song, I’m seeing stars. A bold happiness consumes me, the same happiness I felt when Owen and I laughed over lunch in that small pizzeria.

The final harmony draws the song to a close and when it finishes, the two of us fall into a breathless kind of laughter.

“I didn’t take a big enough breath for that last part.”

“Me neither.”

“Your hair stayed intact.”

“I must have a pretty good stylist.”

After recovering from our laughter the two of us wind up in a palpable stupor as we stare into one another’s eyes. A few blinks and my trance is broken, I become aware of our surroundings.

“I should get dressed soon, and you definitely need to get dressed.” Owen nods still somewhat breathless.

“Yeah. See you later for pulse?”

“Save me a spot,” I joke as he backs out of the threshold of our dressing room. Leaning against the doorframe I watch him disappear into his assigned dressing room with a small smile still lingering on my features.

“Just getting to know each other my ass!”

“What the heck was that?”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to wingman you?”

“Do you even need a wingman after something like that?”

Turning on my heel, I face the bunch of insatiable dancers and shake my head in disbelief.

“We were just acting, you guys.”

“Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“Maybe you were acting, but he sure as hell wasn’t. Did you see the way he was looking at you? He is totally in love with you.” Ella shakes me by my shoulders.

“He’s just a really good performer is all.”

“When is your next date?” she completely ignores me.

“Okay-”

“Oh, and I want to be the maid of honor at your wedding-”

“It was just a song, Ella.”

“-Oh my god you guys are gonna have the cutest kids! I mean, your hair with his eyes and cheekbones? Ahh! The cutest.”

***

A/n: the way that being on tour isn’t the most unrealistic part of this fic, but instead Owen actually knowing the lyrics is? Work diva.

Taglist: @caitsymichelle13​ @kaitlyn2907​ @itz-jas​ @crybabyddl​ @kcd15​ @kinda-really-lost​ @calamitykaty​ @morganayenneferburnham​ @n0wornever​ @dream-a-little-bigger-x​ @mrstodorooki @vicesvsvirturesfanfic @curlybrownhairedboys​ @amazinggracy​ @kaitieskidmore1​ @asdfghjkl-fanfics​ @ghostlygreenbean​ @juliefromaustralia @merceret​ @jemimah-b99​ @ifilwtmfc​ @thesweetestsinner​ @imsydneywalker​ @lovesanimals​ @thebloodthirstyvampress​ @bumbleberry-pie​ @losers-club6​ @tefilovesreading​ @dmcfarland1​@joynerxmercer @kexrtiz​ @talk-on-the-street​ @phantompogues​ @konciousdreamer​ @sunsetcurvej​ @warmnesss0ul​ @celestialmolina​ @lilyjoyner​ 

[queerofdenial]

rules: tag ppl you want to get to know. i played fast and loose with the categories here, it’s 2 am and i am on so much melatonin rn

tagged by: @nakedmonkey, @softdeb, @trying-to-get-somewhere-real

favorite time of year: autumn! not only is it my birthday szn (narcissist) but the weather is perfect, i look GREAT in warm tones, and it means that ski season is right around the corner and i no longer sweat profusely all day every day

comfort food: right now it’s yaki udon, but i suspect that’ll change soon…solid runners up are dumplings, life cereal, and a fried chicken sandwich from the ghost kitchen near my apartment.

do you collect something: i had MASSIVE funko pop vinyl and snow globe collections as a kid that are now stashed away in my parents basement. currently it’s shot glasses and postcards of the places i’ve traveled to since moving out.

favorite drink: for a long time it’s been kentucky mules with jack honey, but i’ve had some banging paloma’s recently (my local dive makes them into slushies) and that might just top the list.

favorite song: of all time? as the world falls down (david bowie) from the labyrinth soundtrack, inspired my first real tattoo. close second is raspberry beret (prince) bc that was my mom’s go-to hype number when we would have dance parties growing up.

favorite song (currently): i’ve been slowly working on a public concept playlist for an avadeb sweet home alabama AU for a while now, and a couple of the songs on that im obsessed with — specifically mansion of misery (miniature tigers) and pears (weston estate) which have both hit especially hard since s2 started. they’re both about hiding behind your walls and watching your heart crumble while waiting for them to just let you back in and promise to be better. ouch.

fave fics: i was gonna do all hacks but decided i couldn’t pick and also everyone else’s posted all of them and i’m not about to sit here picking favorites like they’re my CHILDREN don’t make me do that so here’s some fics from Not Hacks:

a fine line - hunnyfresh; the ice is getting thinner - @nakedmonkey (you wrote this ficlet literally a decade ago pal i STILL go back to it at regular intervals) ; most like a marsh-fire - quickyoke ; the secret’s in the telling - pyrophoric ; to this day the best thing i’ve ever read is that one hp femslash epic that hasn’t updated in six years, iykyk.

tagging: (this is a lot less than 9, i’m so late to the game and simply too lazy to remember all of y’all who’ve done it so whoops if you have i ain’t searching thru a hundred blogs) @actualhumancryptid @electric-eccentricity @damelucyjo @drpinkky @sarahstreep7 @niche-escort

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for Friends to Lovers with Rodrick Heffley

Rodrick Heffley x reader

warnings: mentions of a bad home life

a/n: YALL I FUVKING DID IT AND IM TERRIFIED OF THE REPERCUSSIONS

prompt: y/n and rodrick have been friends for a long time, so long boundaries seem to be blurred

you’ve actually known rodrick since elementary school

it all started when he asked you to join his band

“i can play drums, you can play the tambourine because that’s the only other instrument i have! it’ll be wicked!”

your band lasted a week and only had one gig, it was for rodrick’s parents

who LOVED you by the way

they somehow permitted you to sleepover almost every other day, you practically lived at their house

FOR YEARS you did this

terrorizing lil greg

“what’s he gonna do, pee his diaper?”

“rodrick!!!”

always trick or treating together, exchanging candy when you got back go his house (or occasionally yours)

you guys didnt like hanging at your house, your parents were kind of....a lot to handle

starting middle school together, wreaking havoc on all the teachers

rodrick did it to impress you, according to mr. and mrs. heffley

but he’d give you a stupid little smirk from across the classroom after he got scolded so you believed them

whenever anyone gave you shit at school, rodrick wouldn’t hesitate to step in and show them who’s boss

“rodrick, you’re gonna get detention again!”

“yeah, well, i’m not gonna let them be mean to you”

you went to his house after school most days, sometimes you’d get there first while he was in detention

mrs. heffley had after school snacks

“y/n, why don’t you play some video games with greg while you wait for rodrick to get home?”

playing wii sports with greg, who cried when you won

you also had time to do homework while you waited, rodrick usually copied afterwards

when rodrick came home, he’d drag you to the garage to show you his drum skills

he hit himself in the head with his drumstick

“ooh, that’s gonna leave a mark”

next step was high school, which was a weird step up

but you guys had each other

you still spent most nights at the heffley residence, but you had to sleep on the couch instead of on the floor in the attic (aka rodricks lair)

“you two are growing up, so we think it’s best that you don’t sleep in the same room together, right?”

rodrick emptied one of his drawers for you to put your clothes in

but you still end up stealing his clothes half the time

“i wish i could be mad, but you wear all of my clothes better than me”

subconsciously doing couple-y things without realizing it

like rodrick would pull you closer to him when you two were together, put his arm around you, give you his jacket, etc

“are you guys serious? you’ve got to be dating!” -everyone

“rodrick, when are you and y/n going to get together?” -mr. and mrs. heffley

the answer was always the same: “we’re just friendssssss”

watching his band practice and cheering him on no matter what

you’re his guest vocals ☺️

when he got the van, it was a whole new world for you guys

you could go out wherever whenever

(with parent approval usually)

“wanna go ride around for a little while? hit a gas station and get a bunch of candy?”

“do you even have to ask?”

watching scary movies in his room

“platonic” cuddling in his bed

stuffing your face in the crook of his neck during scary scenes

“come on, y/n! it’s not that bad!”

him having to hold onto you for comfort so you’d keep watching with him

sometimes falling asleep together and his mom or dad coming to check on you later

“alright, time for bed! y/n, you get your usual couch...”

laughing your ass off at rodrick when he messes with greg

manny loves you, sometimes rodrick is jealous of the attention you give to his baby brother instead of him

rodrick scooping you up in his arms when you least expect it, never fails to make you scream

“hey there, hot stuff”

“you’re impossible!”

roller skating together, he held your hand the whole time bc he was worried you’d fall

his friends ENDLESSLY taunt him over your relationship

when he makes plans with others, he always says “let me ask y/n first” which just SENDS his friends oh my god

“dude, that’s your s/o!”

“no, they’re not! shut up!”

hating being apart a lot its so stressful

sometimes you’d have a pretty hard time at home and show up to his house at odd hours, but you were always welcome

you have your own key

“hey, what’s wrong?”

“my parents...they’re just the worst”

rodrick knows its bad when you start crying

he took you up to his room and played some music (quietly as not to wake the house)

you laid on top of him while he rubbed your back and told you that he was there for you

dozing off on him, as per usual

dude, the amount of pictures you have? astronomical

you playing his drums, the two of you going 🤘, an actual nice picture of you guys, him carrying you on his back, kiddos on your first day of school by year, you kissing his cheek “platonically”

comforting him when he was having his own hard times, whether it be an argument with his parents/greg, difficulties with musical inspiration, or anything else

“come here, you need a hug”

“i need several”

“you’ll get ‘em”

talent show! talent show! talent show!

you completely cussed out the rest of his band before they went on bc they had the audacity to replace him

but greg managed to save the day

“greg, my dude, give me a high five, that was awesome”

he wasn’t actually half bad but like, his mom kinda stole the show

more joyrides in the van

absolutely BLASTING the music in there while you and rodrick sat on the floor in the back and ate the taco bell you’d just picked up

“dude, you gotta try my potato griller, it’s a godsend”

“okay, but try this slushie, its so good. i mean, not as good as a 7-eleven slushie, but it’s up there”

finishing your food and laying in the van for another hour bc you just loved each other’s company

but after sitting together alone for so long, you felt like there was something left to do, what was it?

you and rodrick were moving around a bunch and ended up next to each other sitting against the wall of the van

you looked over at each other and hesitated before leaning in to kiss

and you guys kissed for a while

okay, so, you made out on the floor of his van with led zeppelin playing in the background

✨magical✨

it wasn’t awkward or anything, just long overdue

okay it was a little awkward actually

“well, that was” *clears throat* “that was cool or whatever”

“yeah...wanna do it again?”

“oh, for sure”

not like it was a surprise to anyone when you announced you were FINALLY dating

“wait, you guys just started dating? i thought you’d been together for like, at least 5 years” -mr. heffley

“this is great! obviously, we’ll need to set up some boundaries so that everyone is comfortable and safe, but yay for young love!” -mrs. heffley

“gross” -greg

mrs. heffley wrote a column in the newspaper about you titled “my teenage son’s fantastic significant other”

not much changed after you and rodrick got together, just kissing, “i love you’s” and more teasing from friends and school faculty

“we were all rooting for you two, actually!” -the teachers

summer vacation with him

it was always SWEET

going to the pool together, he’d usually lay out on the chairs with you but you were able to drag him into the pool a few times

“come onnnn, it’ll be funnnn”

“you’re lucky you’re cute”

hugs from behind!!! kisses on the top of ur head!!!!

PROM AH HAH HAH

seeing rodrick in a tux was too funny for you, you almost couldn’t stop laughing (especially at the eyeliner he insisted on wearing)

but he just couldn’t stop staring at you

“rodrick!”

“what?! you’re stunning!”

honestly, prom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be

you danced like maniacs for a few songs and ended up ditching early on

but you did end up renting a bunch of movies and getting tonssss of snacks and changing into pajamas as soon as you got to his house

im talking popcorn, candy bars, ice cream, cans of pop, chips, chicken nuggets and so on

and also passing out on each other

“i think i love you a little more, i didn’t know that was possible”

“i have that effect on people”

he makes u breakfast before his mom gets the chance though

“pancakes? for me?”

“i put chocolate chips in them too, you’re gonna love them”

(they were a lil bit burned, still good tho)

you guys really did just spot on get each other

okay but i know you also roast each other sometimes so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

relationship goals, honestly

fresh outta ideas 🤠 goodnight

[poodlejoonas]

Inspired by my BC Fan Week dad!Joonas short: the rest of the guys as uncles

@the-killer-queenie​ just sent me a darling DM with her own ideas of it and now I want to add more: the other members as uncles (and Joonas as a dad). And if you’re cool with it, I included your original DM that inspired it at the end.

Also, perfect timing because there was a discussion of BC dad/uncle headcanons in the Violent Pop server while I was cleaning, so this one’s also for you guys 🥂

Under the read-more for length:

Joonas:

His first reaction when he found out he was going to be a dad was pure fear. He doubted that he would ever be a good one and that he would end up ruining his daughter’s life. While the anxieties lingered (and still do, even with her here), he learned to grow into the idea. He became super protective of his girlfriend, calling every chance he got while he was either in the Netherlands or on tour to make sure that she was comfortable. She got annoyed super fast by how fussy he was, but she understood that he was excited and anxious and only wanted the best for them. He was the one to suggest the name Sohvi and started calling her by it long before she was even born.

Despite finding out about the pregnancy in April, they waited until almost the end of June to make the news public. It was a big all-in-one announcement: a small gender reveal at home with a cake and a letterboard with her birthday and initials (name was kept secret until she arrived). This all conveniently happened before the tour so the crowd went into the show knowing about her. As much as he would have loved to invite his girlfriend to more summer tour shows, he wanted to make sure she wasn’t overexposed to the heat and stress of being in a large crowd. When she does come to one of the shows in Helsinki, he sets her up with an air conditioned room backstage. Every time they were sitting next to each other, he would instinctively hold her belly. Whenever he was at home, he would sing to them so Sohvi could hear his voice. Eventually, she would kick when he started singing, almost like she knew he was there.

Joonas would be a fantastic girl dad! The night before every tour, he lets her paint his nails any color she wants, and he refuses to take it off no matter how messy it is or how chipped it gets. It becomes like a tradition for them, mostly so she can get used to the idea of him being gone for long periods of time. When she can come to local shows, she does the make-up for him and the rest of the guys (the ones who wear it, at least). They play an acoustic version of one of their songs (something like My Heart is a Hurricane) for whenever she can join them on stage; it’s a small break for the ones who aren’t playing and a chance for her to see them perform without noise-cancelling headphones.

He takes super adorable pictures of and with her, and whenever he posts something of her and her mom together, he calls them “his girls.” He would also certainly have her name and her birthday (November 15) in Roman numerals tattooed over his heart. Every year around Christmas time, they take a family weekend vacation to Rovaniemi to visit Santa’s village. In all, he would surprise a lot of people - and himself - by fitting into the role so well and so quickly. He’s not a perfect dad, but he tries his best.

The “responsible” uncles:

Tommi:

Tommi would almost certainly be her favorite uncle. He’s just such a massive teddy bear in general that she loves whenever she can get a hug from him. When they go out as a group, especially to festivals, he carries her around on his shoulders so she can feel tall and see the other bands perform better. I get vibes from him that he’s the best cook out of the group, so whenever he’s on babysitting duty, he makes her the best meals. He likes to wrestle and playfully rough house with her to make her laugh. It’s not uncommon for her to fall asleep while he’s holding her because he’s that comfy to rest on. After the Bass Incident, he became the top candidate for being her godfather.

Olli:

You know, until last week, I thought that Olli would be the best choice for being her godfather, but after the lost bass fiasco I don’t think he can be trusted with a child lol. But he’s still one of the responsible uncles regardless! When she’s super young, sometimes she gets him and her dad confused with each other because their hair and instruments look so similar (see also: this vine). He’s the one who likes to take her out to the park and then get ice cream with her afterwards. He also has zero shame about letting her put a tiara on him and invite him to her tea party, and he plays along with it too. When he’s on babysitting duty, he reads her stories and sometimes narrates them with different voices.

Aleksi:

He’s the chill responsible uncle. He works so often that he rarely ever gets time to hang out with her outside of the studio like the others do, but they spend the most time together while he works. He holds her while he works at his laptop and lets her watch the cool colors and coding scroll across the screen. He’s the first one to volunteer to hold her if Joonas has to go in the other room to record his parts, and typically the first one to volunteer to take care of her last-minute. When she gets a little older, between song editing sessions, he’ll open a fresh file and let her “record” her own songs. Of course, they almost never leave his laptop, but it’s the thought that counts.

The “irresponsible” uncles:

Niko:

Okay, so Niko is one of the “irresponsible” ones but almost certainly a little better than Joel at the job. What puts him in this category is that he swears like a sailor even when she’s in the room because he forgets that kids are sponges and absorb everything they see and hear. He also has no problem throwing some chicken nuggets in the oven and calling it a day, so he needs to be reminded that she has to eat more than that. But he’s still a loving uncle, he just needs someone to help him babysit lol. He lets her play with his hair when they’re hanging out together, and when she gets older, he teaches her how to play the piano. She loves when he sings to her and she’ll request certain songs from him. He’s also the uncle who encourages her to just talk and talk (building up her communication skills) by pretending that they’re gossiping together (“oh really? what did he do next? tell me more!”)

This post is totally Niko, by the way:

Joel:

Joel... love this boy, but he’s without a doubt the least responsible of the uncles. It’s mostly because he can spend maybe an hour and a half maximum with her before he hits a wall of exhaustion and is ready to send her back to her parents. When he’s with others who can help him take care of her, he can hang out with her a little bit longer. He also has no idea how to actually hang out with a child in a kid-friend context. Admittedly, he was the least excited to find out that she was coming because he thought that meant Joonas was going to leave the band. He needed tons of confirmation before he warmed up to the idea of becoming an uncle. But that doesn’t make him a totally bad uncle. He treats her like a member of his own family as well and he’s great at making her laugh. He’s also the first to jump to her or Joonas’ defense on Instagram if tabloids (or someone like That Bitch Archie Cruz) make defamatory comments about them.

The original HC:

[green-socks]

Hungry Eyes chapter 5

Pairing: Benny Miller x OFC (Dirty Dancing AU)

Summary: Dirty Dancing but Benny is Baby and the dance instructor is a female OC, Jolene. Benny goes to a holiday resort with his family and somehow ends up spending his time dancing and falling in love! This part is practicing the famous lift and like Eye of the Tiger training montage type moments.

Words: 2.1k

Warnings: None.

Notes: This fic is my own little world where I go when I need to. What you see on paper is only a bit of what happens inside my head, but it is what it is. I try. Inconsistent af about posting this bc my muse is a very "it's for me to know and you to to find out" type of gal, so I just follow her lead. Right now she's saying dance, Benny, dance, so he dances. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4 | MASTERLIST

The next few days continued with more dance lessons whenever they could.

Benny had experience with working out. A lot. He pretty much did that for a living, after all. So he knew he shouldn’t get frustrated when some new bit of information didn’t immediately stick to his mind. And yet it was hard to keep himself from stressing out, because there was a time limit, and he didn’t want to let Jolene and Patrick down.

They had the steps mostly down already, now it was about getting the routine to look like dancing- tying the steps together as fluid movement. Jolene kept saying that it was about the feeling, but Benny was having some trouble with that. It wasn’t easy to try and express feelings while all his brainpower went to focusing on remembering where to step and where to look and what to do with his hands at any given moment.

On the fourth day of practice Benny finally started letting loose, and he noticed he was actually having sort of fun with it. They had had a whole lesson on how to feel the music and let it guide you as much as your muscle memory. Apparently, the music told when there was room to breathe and where to be precise and hit the right accents. Jolene made him practice same bits over different songs to make him focus on the different beats. Once he got the feel of that down more, it became easier to make the whole choreography flow better.

Patrick also came in to help them practice and fine-tune the performance, since he knew the part better than Jolene did. Benny had some trouble with turns and keeping his form at first, but his fight training combined with Patrick’s tips helped with those. Some parts were truly starting to go well, and it was beginning to come together. They were extremely sweaty and exhausted all the time, but happy to be making progress. Benny’s legs were tired, arms tired, feet blistered - “dancer’s feet,” Jolene told him - but despite all that he was having a great time. He thrived on the challenge and physicality of it all, it made him feel alive.

He did still feel guilty about spending less time with his family, and instead spending late nights working on the choreography and occasionally popping into the entertainment crew’s parties. Most of the crew had really taken a liking to him, and even Patrick was slowly warming up to him. Only Jolene was still a closed off, not really volunteering anything personal about herself outside of the dancing they did. They still got along fairly well - they understood each other. They both had a strong work ethic and their teamwork got results.

But their teamwork wasn’t always smooth sailing, of course.

One of the parts Benny was struggling with was a serious and tender moment in the beginning of the choreography that required them to be very up close and personal. He couldn’t stop snickering and making jokes or just bursting out laughing and not doing it properly. Jo got annoyed at him for that, because she thought it was a stupid thing to be stuck on, and she had felt a little like he was somehow mocking the choreography, making it seem silly. But the truth of it was that Benny was a bit afraid of how intensely he would feel things if he let himself be completely serious and truly try to live the moment, be vulnerable. He didn’t know if he could keep his emotions in check.

-

There had also been a small argument on the fifth day when Benny had complained about a part he didn’t like in the choreo, and Jolene was having none of his sass. The frustration and stress had started getting to her, and she had snapped at him about not taking it seriously enough and not learning quickly enough.

And Benny had bit back, “Hey, I’m doin’ this just to help you and your friend! And we haven’t even tried to go through the whole thing yet, we haven’t practiced the lift at all, so how do you expect me to get it all if I can’t have the full picture?!”

Jo had seethed at him, breathing heavily for a moment, until she had said, “Fine. You have a car?”

--------

That’s how they had ended up borrowing Benny’s brother Will’s car to drive to a place where they could practice the troublesome lift.

Jo had most of the day off, so she decided now was a good time to go and work on the lift, since it would be best to practice it outside the resort. Benny made jokes and laughed at her when she had to adjust every setting on the seat and mirrors of the car to suit her much shorter frame. Jo was used to hearing jokes about her height but somehow, she didn’t mind them from Benny. She found herself surprised at how easy she felt in his company, the argument from before long forgotten already. With the radio playing and both of them joking around, she started driving toward a secluded beach nearby.

Jo noticed that it was much easier to talk with him now that they were alone together and removed from the context of training for a moment. She found herself opening up about her background in dance, how she had started and how her dream was to open her own dance studio someday. She also told him about her family, how she didn’t see them often because her younger brother was in college far from her and her parents had retired and moved to Australia. Benny was a surprisingly good listener, letting her talk and asking questions, seeming genuinely interested in her. Before she knew it, they reached the destination.

-

Under normal circumstances she would have started with some balancing and trust exercises, but they were past trust exercises, and Benny’s fight training meant he had great balance, so she decided to jump into the thing itself right away.

“Okay. We’ll just- go for it. I’ve shown you the video of what it’s supposed to look like, I’ve shown you where you’re supposed to put your hands and everything. We’re good to go, right? Or do you have any questions?”

“No.. I think I know what to do in theory, at least..” Benny says, rubbing his beard nervously.

She took a deep breath. Okay. There was nothing to it but to just try, it would be fine.

But after tumbling down to the grass a few times Jo realized it wouldn’t work, because they were both holding back for fear of falling. She was afraid of Benny not being able to lift her and then hurting him when he had to bear the brunt of the fallings. And Benny in his turn was scared of hurting her. There was also the added difficulty of their height difference - Benny would have to lift with his legs a lot more, and she would have to adjust a lot from what she was used to with Patrick, too.

So, they would have to make sure the fall was less scary..

“What if we get into the water? It’s safer to fall down there at least,” she suggested.

“What? You serious?”

“Yeah! What, you scared or something?”

Benny rolled his eyes at her childish taunting but shrugged and started taking his shoes and shirt off.

When she had first met him a few days ago, she had dismissed him as just some random dude crashing their party - a seemingly pleasant dude, sure, but nothing special. But now, given the opportunity to admire his back and arms without having to focus on being a dance instructor first, she couldn’t deny the view was very.. inspiring. She had seen him shirtless before because they did work up quite the sweat dancing in the summer heat, and the guy seemed very comfortable with his body. It was different, though, in this new environment and this new, more relaxed energy between them. It was a nice change of pace, truth be told.

Benny started opening his belt and Jo stopped in her tracks.

“What are you doing?”

“If you wanna deal with my brother when we return his car with the seats all wet, be my guest, but I learned to not get any fluids on his car seats when I was sixteen,” he said seriously, shaking his head while pulling his jeans off.

“…You know what, I’ll take that chance. I’m keeping my shorts on,” she said, thinking of the not-covering-much-at-all underwear she had on.

“It’s totally fine, I have a hoodie you can sit on. Plus, he wouldn’t even know how to be mad at you,” Benny smiled.

They got in the slightly chilly water, Jo determinedly not looking at Benny until they were deep enough.

-

“Alright, let’s try again!”

The added support of the water was a big help, and after a few tries they managed a perfect lift for a moment until Jo lost her balance and dived into the water.

“Yes, yes! You did it! That was so good!” Jo shouted after she resurfaced. “I lost my balance, but you did it!”

Benny’s eyes seemed to light up, and the next few times he tried even harder. Jo had noticed during practices that Benny was good at following orders when working out, and that he responded to her stricter coaching really well. But she had also noticed that when she praised him, he seemed to get an extra boost of energy, and usually performed even better after that. It was as if the hard training kept him focused and sharp, but a few compliments helped free his creativity more. She wanted to keep the compliments genuine though, and not overdo it.

They still ended up underwater more often than not, but they were starting to get the hang of it at least. They were both tired and had wet hair plastered to their faces as they stood there catching their breaths before a new try.

Benny brushed his hair back from his eyes in the way men do in commercials and Jo found herself staring. He looked unreasonably good like this when she was sure she was a total mess. His blue eyes were shining brighter than the water, and the droplets on his chest made her eyes follow their trajectory downward. Oh boy was she staring. How to stop, though?

“Hello?” Benny’s voice was trying to pull her out of her thoughts. “Jo?”

That was the first time he had called her that, and not her full name. She lifted her head to meet his gaze again, and she was sure her face greatly resembled a tomato.

She didn’t know what to do to save the situation when she was so obviously caught ogling. So she splashed him.

Benny spluttered. “Oh, really? That what you wanna do?” he asked with a big grin.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jo said, and splashed him again.

“Sweetheart, you’re gonna regret that,” he laughed, and started swimming after her.

Then it was a mess of screaming, laughing, splashing, trashing, and wrestling in the water. Jo was breathless from laughing and the exertion, and she couldn’t remember having that much fun in weeks. She was no match for Benny’s strength, though. He caught her, lifting her up and threatening to throw her back in the water. (Which was essentially what they had done all evening, but this was a different situation entirely.)

“I surrender, you win!” Jo managed to shout out through her giggles.

“Hah, told ya!” Benny gloated as he lowered her back to stand on her own legs.

Suddenly it hit Jo how near each other they were standing, and how very little clothing each of them were wearing, especially Benny. And this was no training situation anymore.

She cleared her throat, avoiding his eyes. “One more go with the lift?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

But the sun was already setting, and it was getting chilly, so they only tried a couple more times before calling it a day.

-

They drove back to the resort, Jo sitting on Benny’s hoodie to protect the car like he promised. The radio was playing again, both of them still making jokes and talking, but this time there was also a different kind of tension in the air. Tomorrow they would have time to practice a little during the day and then it would be time for the performance. But Jo wasn’t sure the tension she felt was just performance jitters.

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

tagsies: @writeforfandoms @starlightmornings @lorecraft @niki-xie@salome-c @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @sgnjimmy @marvelousmermaid @velocibee @killyspinacoladas

[akaashiclub]

girls chase boys ☇ t.k.

☇ pairing: tsukishima kei x fem!reader

☇ genre: fluff, oc is an absolute babie who has no shame, tsukishima goes from ‘she’s annoying’ to ‘she’s aight’ to ‘i may be lowkey in love w her it’s nbd tho’, oc will literally not give up, tsukishima is still a first year (word count: 4.1k)

☇ synopsis: usually when experiencing such a soul-crushing rejection, one would give up on their feelings, right? right?

☇ a/n: i binge-read some haikyuu fanmanga and i was ~inspired~ plus like... this trope?? persistant bubbly x uninterested cold is?? literally everything?? (playlist link: here)

“i like you!!!”

you kind of felt like the main character of a shoujo, with the wind making your hair dance in the air

standing face to face with your longtime crush

(and by longtime, you mean about two months)

that’s when it all started

no— it was earlier

the orientation ceremony

all the first years standing in neat, organized rows, listening to the principal give a welcoming speech

at least, that’s what you were supposed to be doing

in reality, your eyes were trained on the 188cm tall blonde in the row in front of you

you couldn’t see the stage— also, you didn’t care

bc ~he~ was in front of you

tsukishima kei

you learned his name later when you discovered you were in the same class

and he sat in the adjacent row, one seat forward

the absolutely perfect position to stare at his side profile the entire class

and that is exactly what you did for two months

that and gathering info on him

tsukishima kei, 188.3cm (now 190.1), born on september 27th, best friends with yamaguchi tadashi, #11 on the karasuno volleyball team

and then there you were, confessing your undying love to him

...or something like that

“no thanks. not interested.”

usually, that would soul-crushing enough to make them leave him alone

not you <3

the giggle that escapes your lips makes his eyebrow twitch on confusion for a second

“that’s okay~” you respond. 

(that’s okay ?)

(what the fuck kind of response is that being rejected ???)

(yours!!!!)

you’re exhaustingly persistent, as tsukishima comes to find out

or should i say—

“tsukki~!!” 

the hair on his neck rises when you flounce into homeroom with that sing-song tone

you plop down into the seat in front of him (key note: not yours) and rest your elbows on his desk with a little grin

“don’t call me that,” (he doesn’t look up from his book)

“what~! why not?”

“only my friends call me 'tsukki’”

you snort, scooting a little closer

“that’s mean. how many times have we walked home together, and we still aren’t friends?”

“you followed me home, i didn’t consent.”

“‘followed you’?” you pout. “we live on the same road, naturally we’d walk home together,”

he doesn’t respond, just flips to the next page in his book

“do you have volleyball club today~?”

ignored. 

lol

she stays strong!! she doesn’t give up in the face of adversity!!!

“you don’t have to answer, i already know you do.” you chirp. “it’s boring walking home without you... maybe i’ll come with you today~!”

it’s like talking to a wall

(a very cute, 190cm, blonde, glasses-wearing wall.)

(🥰)

instead of responding, he puts his headphones on and keeps reading 

a small exhale escapes your lips, and one of the girls in the next row over leans towards you

“y/n... i think it’s a lost cause...”

“he’ll come around eventually,” you shoot her a smile, and then turn back to tsukki

you lean forward, reaching towards his head and tugging the headphones down around his neck

and when he looks up (he does within an instant), you shoot him a sly smile

several students around you gasp

after all, who would dare bother tsukishima with his headphones on??? that’s some instant death shit

“move.”

“i like being this close to you though,” you tease

and he rolls his eyes, standing up and heading for the exit of the classroom

the shock in the classroom — that you’re still ALIVE — is clear

your friend from before gapes 

“y-y/n what are you playing at??”

“courtship,” you sigh dramatically, and hop to your feet to chase after the blonde monster

“tsukki~!! are you getting lunch?? wait for me~!!”

everyone on the first floor knows: it’s become the norm to see tsukishima, book in hand, headphones around neck, and followed by a chirpy pipsqueak 

even yamaguchi doesn’t stick as closely to him as ‘tsukishima’s lapdog’ (as you’ve started being called by the fellow first years) does

the nickname doesn’t really bother you

after all, it’s just a reminder of your determination and refusal to give up

which is a virtue, in your mind!!

some people feel bad for tsukishima, constantly being bothered by you for weeks on end

others admire your stubbornness

and one group of people you can always count on supporting you are the karasuno volleyball club <3

ever since you started showing up to their practices 

and all their practice matches and official games too

they all befriended you

but you grew tired of just sitting and watching tsukki on the sidelines, so you asked coach ukai if you could help out during practices!!!

there can’t rly be ... three managers... so you suggested retrieving balls or being tsukki’s personal assistant

he saw right through you <3 

but it’s ok bc he thought it would be entertaining and agreed

tsukki: angy

even when he’s annoyed he’s cute tho <33 and you make sure to tell him that <333

and so! you get tsukki’s water, towels, etc etc (ofc u help other ppl too when they need it but tht’s what the two managers r for... tsukki is ur #1)

the other players are like 0.0 she’s kinda scary... but cute at the same time doe... 

one day you’re in a particularly good mood (aka: a bad day for tsukki lol)

“tsukki~!”

“don’t call me that.”

“i want to tell you something,”

the whole gym is kinda just 👁️👄👁️ waiting to see what happens

“what? i need to change, hurry it up.”

ur inner monologue: kdNNN even when he’s mean he’s cute!!!!

but anyways:

“i like you,”

hinata, kageyama, tanaka, noya, literally everyone: 😳😨 mf what—

sugawara’s like “oh god he’s just reject her and crush her heart... right in front of EVERYONE—”

“not interested.” tsukki says, and his tone isn’t any less cold than usual

u kno that anime lightning effect when the character’s body is joLtED...

tht’s everyone else in the gym

tanaka and nishinoya are highkey ready to let you cry into their jerseys when—

you laugh

you right after being mercilessly rejected: 🥰

you can’t help it !!!!! it’s not discouraging you ok??? you alr knew what he’d say!!! but you had to tell him <3 can’t let him forget tht he’s the ✨love of your life✨

entire gym: s h o o k

“did she just  l a u g h??”

“is she okay?? no srsly”

“what... just happened”

tsukki walks off, water bottle in hand

you follow after him, bouncing on the soles of your feet 

“don’t forget your towel~! want me to wipe off your sweat~?”

“no thanks.”

cue fading banter between you two as he goes to change his clothes

he has to be like hOe GeT oUT for you to not go into the locker room lmfao damn... thirsty bitch... same tho

later tanaka and noya (feat. hinata who just wants to be included) jump tsukki

“shE LAUGHED WHEN U REJECTED HER??? IS SHE OK???”

“she confesses to me every week. she’ll do it again. it’s not that big of a deal.”

“not thAT BIG— can u imagine if kiyoko liked us that much.... ”

(cue tanaka sobbing)

tsukki was right tho

after the third time you randomly confessed to him in front of them they were just like

same shit different day, anyways rolling thunder

but they still highkey adopted you

so they go grr grr when tsukki rejects you all cold and shit

shockingly tho??? the more you confess the less it’s “not interested” and more just “*sigh*”

is this... PROGRESS???

but the zero braincell triad cornered him again in the locker room one day 

(it’s their trademark)

(nishinoya) “so why do you keep rejecting her??”

(hinata popping in) “yea she’s super dedicated and helpful!!!”

(tanaka lowkey shuddering) “she’d probably let herself get hit in the face w a volleyball if u asked”

(and tanaka would be: correct)

(but anyway)

“she was annoying,”

“she... ‘was’ annoying???”

“... she IS annoying”

“tsukki... do you possibly like her??? but you’ve gotten so used to rejecting her that it’s automatic now??”

tsukki’s like V.V

“you’re reading too much into it,”

sage!nishinoya is about to probe deeper but at that moment you pop your head around the corner of the locker room and shout

“tSUKKI~!!!”

and they all scatter to hide themselves while shrieking

except tsukki, who is already clothed and gives zero fucks lmao

but anyways!!! a couple weeks pass and takeda got y’all set up with a practice match !!

with who?? nekoma!!!

hinata is like 🤩🤩 kENMA!!

only players and members of the club are supposed to go rly....

but you’re like “??? i’m tsukki’s personal assistant are you trying to take away my rights??? i’ll sue you” and coach ukai gives in sdjfkf

“tsukki can i sit with you~?”

yamaguchi about to sit there: 👁️👄👁️ bruh

tsukki doesn’t say yes but he also doesn’t say no :D

 “what’re you reading?”

“english book,”

you’re like: wait— mf hold up... did he actually just answer ??

tsukki simp mode: ACTIVATED

“can i see??”

“you’re failing english, you won’t be able to read it.”

“ouch,” you pout, but there’s a small smile on your lips. “but how’d you know i was failing english?”

he doesn’t respond

“i guess it is unfair that i know everything about you and you don’t know anything about me...” you sigh

“you don’t know everything about me,” he retorts, still not looking up from his book

hehe~ gotcha

“oh? test me,” you grin, scooting closer to him

“don’t wanna.”

“you’re just scared i do know everything,” you say smugly, trying to bait him

“bet you don’t know everything about me!!!” hinata pops up from the seat in front of you

“you’re right, i don’t,” 

(he pouts and disappears again)

“tsukki~” you whine. “tsukkiiiii~ i’m bored.”

“so?”

“can i wear your headphones?”

“no thanks. i don’t wanna get headlice.”

you scowl. “mean,”

you bite your cheek, staring a hole in the side of his head but he doesn’t even blink

if tsukki could major in ignoring you people, he’d have straight A’s

fortunately, you have ways to counter this

“kei~~” you whisper a little too close to his ear, and he jolts up

you try not to let the amusement show on your face, but you can’t help it

glaring at you, he pulls his headphones off his head and puts them on yours

“now be quiet,”

“mm~” you chuckle

a couple hours later, you pull into the parking lot of nekoma

the friend groups pair off, and kuroo makes a beeline for tsukki, only to catch sight of you

“hey four-eyes— who’s this?”

tsukki glances down at you, to which you shoot him a sugary smile

“dunno,” he says, and walks off

you wave to kuroo with a sunny grin

“i’m y/n~! i’m tsukki’s personal assistant and future wife~”

his eyebrows rise, and with a quick bow, you bounce after the blonde

once the group is all in the gym, practice jerseys are handed out and you help yachi and shimizu prepare the water and towels

you’re about to make a beeline for tsukki, when someone calling your name stops you

“y/n! wanna get me some water?” kuroo calls

you only blink for a moment before hopping to it, darting across the gym

for the rest of the day, kuroo is constantly calling for you—

“y/n! can you wipe the sweat off my neck?”

“hey, y/n, get me some water~”

“y/n!”

“y/n, over here!”

and by the time the several hours is over, you haven’t gotten to speak to tsukki once 🥺 snnff :(

when you finally get a free moment, you look around for him, but he’s nowhere to be found

sad face :(

and then !!!! turns out nekoma paid for bbq for everyone 🤩🤩 cats are so generous

and somehow??? you find yourself surrounded by nekoma players???

“here y/n, want some of my bbq?”

“no, take mine!!!”

“do you want any fruit?? i have some!!”

“you were so helpful today!! how’d you stay so energetic the whole time??”

you flash a smile, ready to charm the shit out of them, when a voice interrupts:

"hey, personal assistant.”

your eyes light up, bc you’d recognize that salty ass voice anywhere!!!

the guys around you part to reveal—

“tsukki!!!” you squeal, maybe a little too excitedly

“aren’t you supposed to be assisting me?? get me some food.”

you shove your plate into the free hand of one of the nekoma players (his name was... liam? lief... lev?) and dart to get tsukki something to eat

when you hand it to him, you flash him your most dazzling smile

“eat up! you worked hard today~”

he eyes you silently before digging in, and you smile absentmindedly while watching him

“why are you staring at me like that?”

“because i like you,” you respond without hesitation

he averts his eyes, but doesn’t say anything mean 

your stomach flips a little 

i’m coming for you, tsukishima kei.

on the ride home, you’re once again sitting next to him, and he gives up his headphones without a fight this time

you’re so tired from running around helping kuroo all day that you find your eyelids getting heavy as tsukki’s music plays in your ears

you try to subtly lean on his shoulder but he pokes you away 

you glare at him, pouting, but settle for leaning against the headrest

and then, you’re drifting off

..

and you’re having a strange dream

a pleasant dream, with fuzzy corners and honey-colored light streaming across the scene, but still strange

in this dream, he’s kissing you

it’s not like you haven’t had dreams like this before, it’s just that this one feels so much more vivid

and yet blurry at the same time

even when the dream ends and you blink back into consciousness you can still distinctly feel his lips against yours

his glasses brushing against your cheek

his fingers interlacing with your hair

a warm smile curls up your lips as you grasp lingering wisps of the dream, when—

“you’re drooling.”

your eyes snap open and you jolt up, furiously wiping the side of your mouth

“am not!!”

tsukishima blinks uninterestedly from the empty bus aisle, arms crossed

“dreaming about something vulgar?”

you grin, resting your chin on your palm

“would you like to hear ab—?”

he’s just “nope,” and turns towards the exit

hopping out of the seat, you follow him

“it was such a nice dream,” you sigh

“must’ve been, if you were drooling that much.”

“i was not—”

and then you notice something

everyone else is already gone from the bus

“wait a minute... did you wait for me?”

you hear a scoff

bUt hE dOEsNt DeNy iT

“you WAITED for me!!!!” you exclaim, happiness radiating off you in waves

“if i’d left you on the bus, nishinoya and tanaka would’ve killed me if i didn’t,” he says curtly

but you are, after all, the human equivalent of ‘this sign can’t stop me because i can’t read’

or that tiktok trend 

tsukishima: i don’t like you, i only waited for you because i was literally forced at gunpoint 

y/n: 🎶i waited for you🎶

the next day, it’s practice as usual at the karasuno gym

but?? sniff sniff someone is here that shouldn’t be

this rando first year has been pacing around right outside the gym entrance

and all the vbc members are like 👁️ whomst?

and when you finally arrive (right along behind tsukki)

he yells out your name

and holds out a bouquet of flowers <3 how cute

“y/n, um— i, i know you don’t know me but i’ve liked you since the orientation ceremony!!! i think you’re really pretty and cute and smart—”

cue a quiet scoff from tsukki, “if she’s his definition of smart, then how dumb is he?”

cue sugawara jabbing his side (sugamama is protective of his child y/n)   

“—and i know you like tsukishima, but i hope you’ll give me a chance!! i can make you happier than him!!”

at this point, everyone in the gym is watching like 👁️ oh?? TEA?? 

and is that... is that an aura of raging irritation coming from tsukishima?? 

you open your mouth to politely reject the guy, when

literally out of nowhere tsukki just  a p p e a r s

“hey, idiot. aren’t you supposed to be my personal assistant?? go set out the volleyballs instead of flirting,”

you dip your head and smile apologetically at the guy before heading towards the store room

and after that, you notice tsukki is a bit harsher, a bit more off his game, a little more easily irritated than usual

during a free moment, you nudge tanaka

“doesn’t he seem like he’s in a bad mood??”

zero braincell tanaka is like “??? isn’t he always like that??”

“no... something is definitely off today...”

what . could it be . i wonder .

every time you try to do your usual “tsukki~!!” he just turns away and ignores you

doesn’t sound too out of the ordinary, but you can just tell something is wrong

you still have no idea why he’s acting like this by the time practice ends

and when you go to the locker room to find him (so y’all can walk home together), he’s already gone :(

so, a little more droopy than usual, you head out

only to be surprised by a voice when you step outside

“took you long enough,”

you whip around to see tsukki leaning against the wall with crossed arms

he clicks his tongue and then sets off

and when you don’t immediately follow him, he glances over his shoulder

“are you coming or not?”

sdjfksjsdkjfsdjf smmpdfhsdf !!!!!!!

it’s just one sentence, and it doesn’t really mean anything

but hearing the words makes something incredibly warm bloom in your chest

you grin

“of course i am,”

that feeling lasts well into the next morning, but is replaced by a nauseating knot in your stomach when you arrive at school

because everyone’s whispering about one thing:

“tsukishima got called to the principal’s office!!!”

“whaaat ! why??”

“i heard he was caught with the answers for the upcoming exam!!”

your stomach . clenches

and before anybody can say another word, you’re sweeping out the door and down the hall

and in less than 30 seconds, you’re slamming open the door to the principal’s office

the principal and tsukki both look up, equally shocked at your sudden appearance

“y/n, what—”

you ignore him for the first time in your life

“sir, i need to tell you something.”

the principal is just like “... ?? can it wait??”

“no, it can’t.” you take several steps forward “the test answers, they—”

“y/n, don’t—”

you ignore him for the second time in your life again

“they’re mine,”

the principal blinks 

“then why was tsukishima found holding them before class??”

“yesterday, they must’ve fallen out of my backpack. he probably picked them up without knowing what they were, so please don’t punish him,” you bow. “punish me instead,”

.. y/n dumb bitch

yea, you’re suspended for two weeks

and ofc there’ll be a mark on your record

plus you’re automatically given a fail for the upcoming exam so you’ll have to retake it later oof....

but as much as all that sucks, you don’t regret it bc you’d rather take the fall than let tsukki be wrongly accused and suffer for it

but honestly the break from school is kinda vibes 🥴

don’t even think about the homework you’ll have to make up

your phone is blowing up with texts from your friends

including your surrogate dads and moms from the karasuno vbc 🤧 they’re so worried about you

you’re sad you have to miss practice for such a long time but... you don’t regret your decision

“y/n!!” your little sister knocks on your door “one of your classmates is here for you,”

“‘kay!!” you call back, checking the time

shidt bitch time flies when you’re watching anime alone in your bedroom

you hop up and open your bedroom door to come face to face with the one. the only. tsukishima kei

your eyes are like O.O 

“tsukki??? what are you doing here??” you grin “are you here because you’re worr—”

“no,” he cuts you off “i’m here to deliver your homework,”

“you could’ve given it to my sister, y’know,” you tease. “why’d you come all the way to my bedroom?? you missed me, hm?”

he doesn’t answer, instead surveying the room before sitting down on the edge of your bed

you blink, surprised he didn’t comeback with a cold retort

“tsukki?” you ask quietly, sliding into your desk chair

after a moment of silence, he fixes you with a stoic gaze

“why’d you lie?”

“because... because i couldn’t let you take the blame for that. i don’t know what happened, but i know you weren’t cheating. i know it.”

“neither were you. what’s the difference?”

you press your lips together in a frustrated pout

“the difference is that it’s you!!! i’m mediocre. i’m not outstanding. i’ll go to an average college either way, and it’ll be fine. but you..! you’re so smart!! and talented!!! you could do anything you want!!! you could get into an elite college!! the last thing you need is for some stupid misunderstanding to sully your transcript—”

“y/n—” he tries to cut in, but you bulldoze right over him

“— and i know you probably think what i did was useless and unhelpful, but i don’t care!!! i don’t care about a mark on my transcript, or being suspended, or failing all my exams, or even being expelled—”

“y/n—”

“— but i absolutely refuse to let that happen to you!! you’re too special for—”

this time, it’s not him speaking that interrupts you

this time, it’s him kissing you

you nearly combust on the spot

tsukki— tsukishima kei is kissing you

he’s leaning over you, with one hand on the chair’s armrest and the other steadying your head with his fingertips

your stomach does several full somersaults 

and then, all too quickly, he pulls away and returns to his spot on your bed

you stare, eyes wide as saucers, mouth slightly agape

“w— what was— why did—”

“you wouldn’t stop talking,” he mutters, eyes focused a little too hard on the wall

for a moment, you’re too shocked to move

and then your 🥰tsukki🥰 mode activates

and you just fuckin LUNGE at him

“y/n??? what—!”

kisses!!! kisses on his cheeks!! his nose!!! his forehead!!!

and shockingly he doesn’t?? push you off??

me heart just skipped a beat wjdkfjs

he’s just like “y/n, you’re fogging up my glasses, please stop,”

“i refuse!!!! i’ve been waiting months to do this!!!!!”

once he manages to de-suction you from him, you fix him with doe eyes and a cheeky grin

“hey, tsukki??”

“.. what?”

“i like you,”

he blinks

adjusts his glasses

“make sure to finish that homework. i’m bringing tomorrow’s homework too,”

as he’s leaving, you hope he can feel your glowing smile on his back

the next day, you get a message from the school letting you know that your suspension and other punishments have been retracted

as the real culprit of the cheating was found

an unannounced locker-search discovered several exam cheatsheets almost exactly like the one tsukki found in the locker of a student, and the school realized their mistake <3 how nice of them

and that meant you were free to return to school, name cleared!!!

the volleyball club was eagerly awaiting your return

so when they saw tsukki arrive for practice, they expected you’d be following right along behind him

but instead???

you were koala-ing on his abdomen

“bro... did you carry her all the way here like that??”

“the real question is why he allowed it,”

you shoot a blinding grin at the guys 

“he can at least do this much for his girlfriend~!”

the entire gym is like WhA T !!!!! 

“hE SAID YES???”

“nope,”

“he... asked you out?? then??”

“also no...” 

“did he at least tell you he liked you...?”

“...”

“NISHINOYA STOP SHE’S TEARING UP,” sugamama to the rescue

you let go of tsukki and half the team goes IN on him

“dude wtf!!! she got suspended for you and you didn’t even at least tell her you like her???”

“not just suspended, almost expelled!!!”

“yeah that!!!”

“i say we kill tsukki,”

“tanaka no,”

“GUYS!!” angry!daichi makes an appearance “it’s time for practice!!!”

grumbling, the team disperses

you’re about to head to the store room to help get out the practice equipment, when—

“y/n.”

you turn “hm?”

he’s silent for a moment

“i wouldn’t have kissed you if i didn’t like you.”

your face flushes a deep red

but then he adds, “either time.”

either...? time...?

W A I T

your eyes POP OUT

“that— that wasn’t a DREAM???”

he doesn’t answer, just heads onto the court

but you think you see a slight smirk

and maybe... just maybe?? 

his ears are a little more red than usual.

[ri-ahhh]

what about drunk y/n bluntly saying all the things he wants to do to gray and he’s shocked bc she’s usually really shy. ( inspired by the first lines of pu$$y fairy by jhene) “ i like to suck when i’m drunk” “i like to fuck when i’m drunk”

Loud music thuds in every corner of the West Hollywood house you and Grayson walk into for a random party he had been invited to earlier that day. Ethan had chosen to stay at home, but you and Gray both needed to get out of the house, and while parties weren’t really his scene, socializing felt like a better alternative to Netflix tonight. 

Grayson daps up his friend that’s throwing the party and introduces you to him. He seems nice enough, but you barely catch his name before he’s excusing himself to greet some other people that have just walked in.

You catch Grayson’s eye and lean close to shout in his ear so he can hear you over the YG song blasting through the speakers nearby. He smells even better this up close than he had in the car, clean and masculine with that woody undertone that’s just a permanent part of him now. “Do you see anyone else you know?” 

He shakes his head, switching places with you so his mouth brushes your ear now. You’re sure he can feel the shiver his warm breath and too-close proximity elicits, but you’re glad it’s potentially dark enough for him not to see the goosebumps flaring across the skin left exposed by your simple bandeau top. 

“Not yet!” he says, and his huge hand places itself on the small of your back as he lifts his head to inspect your surroundings. His long fingers radiate warmth and calm your nerves a bit as you also take in the features of the house you’re in. It’s big, but not a ridiculous mansion or anything, which makes you feel a little more comfortable about being somewhere that you know literally nobody else. 

Until Grayson speaks again, that is. “Are you good by yourself long enough for me to go piss? I’ve been holding it since I got in the car.”

‘No!’ screams the petrified introvert inside you.

“Of course,” smiles the rational grown woman you pretend to be most of the time.

He grins back at you gratefully. “I’ll be like, five minutes tops,” he assures, moving his hand from your back to your hand and giving it a squeeze. 

You cling to his fingers until they’re forced to drop away with the distance between you, and watch his broad body thread through a crowd of fellow partygoers as he follows the handwritten sign with an arrow labelled ‘bathroom -- you puke, you clean.’ It’s pathetic how much you miss his presence already, but it’s not like this is the first party you’ve ever been to; if there’s any safe place at a house party for the single person to go, it’s the kitchen.

You’ve only made it a handful of yards away from where Grayson left you when suddenly a large someone stumbles into you, his drink sloshing precariously in his solo cup.

“Woah!” he says, holding his drink up and away as he glances down at you, clearly tipsy. To your dismay, some of whatever is in his cup has spilled onto your jeans, but you try to just chalk it up as a party foul without getting too annoyed. “Sorry about that.”

“You’re good,” you offer with a polite smile, brushing off some of the droplets that cling to the denim stubbornly. At least now you have another excuse to get to the kitchen and preoccupy yourself with something until Grayson returns. 

The guy blinks and looks you up and down unashamedly, and you fight not to roll your eyes. He can only be described as a Chad, looking every bit the frat daddy with his Supreme t-shirt, snapback backwards over his too-long hair, and alcohol-induced predatory gaze. 

He offers you his hand, and out of instinct you take it, but instantly cringe at how clammy it is. Being too nice to douchebags is definitely one of your character flaws. “I’m Brad.”

You can’t help but laugh at the irony, because of course he is, but he must take it as a flirtatious giggle or something, because he smiles back at you. “What’s your name? I’ve never seen you at these things before.”

You tell him against your better judgement, and Brad does that thing where he pretends not to hear. He pulls you by the hand still clasped in his and brings you closer to him, as if to hear you better. This time, you can’t stop your annoyed eye-roll, telling him again with finality and pulling away quickly. If Grayson’s closeness that way made you shudder with desire, this guy makes you do it with disgust.

Really, you just want Grayson again. You need him.

You finally rip your hand out of his grasp and give him a tight smile. He starts to speak again, but you cut him off. “Well, it was nice to meet you. I’m gonna go find something to clean myself up with.”

Whether he’s just an idiot asshole or because of the alcohol flowing through him, Brad doesn’t take the hint. “Aw, beautiful, I said I’m sorry! Let me come with, and I’ll make you a drink to make up for it.”

“Dude, I literally just told you my name,” you say, unable to help yourself as this guy’s douche-meter hits record highs with that. “Thank you, but I’m good. Please leave me alone.”

You turn on the spot, but you can feel him following close behind. Luckily, the kitchen is only one room over, and even more in your favor, Grayson is already there, shining like the beautiful angel he is under the recessed lights.

He meets your eyes when you walk in, and you give him the bug-eyed ‘save me’ look that you hope translates to boy as well as it does to girl. He cocks an amused brow, but then his eyes fall behind you and see Brad trailing you like a lost, horny dog, and he frowns immediately. 

“Hey,” he greets, opening his arms to you at once as soon as you wiggle through the other minglers between you. You fall into them and sigh in relief, so happy to see him that you stand on your tiptoes and plant a warm kiss to his stubbled cheek.

“Hey,” you return, pulling back and looking up at him with a smile. His eyes are still locked on Brad, who has stopped in his tracks but not walked away. “Brad here spilled some of his drink on me by accident but doesn’t seem to think I’m capable of cleaning up myself.”

“Nah, I was just gonna make you a drink, babe, remember?” he slurs, narrowing his beady blue eyes at Grayson, like there’s even an ounce of intimidation behind them.

Grayson scoffs, and shifts so he’s squared up with Brad. He keeps his arm slung over your shoulder to hold you against him protectively, and you hold onto the hand of that arm with one of yours while you wrap your other arm around his back. Both of you glare at him. “Okay Brad, first of all, don't fucking call her that. Second, what decade are you living in? What girl nowadays is gonna take a drink from a random, sketchy guy she doesn’t know? Walk away and leave us alone, please.”

“What, is she your girlfriend, bro?”

“Yeah, she is,” he retorts without hesitation. Your heart drops, and you look up at him with surprise. His jaw is set tight and it makes his profile even sexier than usual. “Go be creepy with your own friends now. And leave the other poor girls at this party alone.”

Grayson looks down at you and cups your cheek. This whole lie has caught you completely off-gaurd, but you’re catching on to what he’s doing. You nod nearly imperceptibly in consent, and Grayson dips down to capture your lips in his for the first time ever. They're warm, soft, pliant, and perfectly insistent against yours. If Grayson is capable of anything chaste, this is it, but there’s still a heat behind it you’re all-too familiar with. This isn’t a ploy kiss; there’s something there, and neither of you are able to stop now that you’ve started. 

You trace the seam of his lips with your tongue to beg entry, and he opens willingly. His hand slips from your cheek to the back of your head, clutching a handful of your hair and tipping your head back to allow himself better access to your mouth as his tongue takes dominance, just how you imagined it would so many times late at night. 

“Uh, Grayson?”

Both of you are startled apart, and jerk your heads to the female voice just a couple feet away that had interrupted you. Brad is gone, but a beautiful dark-skin girl with piercing eyes the color of cinnamon stands there with her arms crossed and a perfectly done brow arched high on her forehead. Clearly, you had interrupted them first.

“Nadia!” he exclaims in surprise, clearly having forgotten she was even there before he kissed you. His chest heaves as he fights to catch his breath and you blush when he swipes his thumb across a patch of your saliva clinging to his lower lip. “Sorry. I, uh --”

“You didn’t tell me you have a girlfriend.”

It hurts your heart to do it, but you look at Grayson and step away. Who knows how long he’s been talking to this girl before tonight; who are you to come between that right now? 

“I’m sorry, I’m not his girlfriend. He was just helping me get rid of that gorilla that followed me in here. You know how some guys are. They respect a man’s ‘territory’ more than the girl just telling them no.”

Nadia’s pretty features soften some, and she sighs. “Yeah, tell me about it.” She looks at Grayson, standing there still somewhat sheepishly. “I have to go. Call me when you get...this sorted out.”

“I --”

“It’s okay, Gray. Trust me.” Her eyes linger back and forth over the two of you. “Figure it out, and call me.”

She leaves the two of you with a small but friendly smile that confuses you some. You heave out a sigh. The night has definitely taken a turn for the dramatic, that’s for sure.

You long for a stiff vodka soda to settle your mind, but there are too many external factors that make that a bad idea right now. You’re suddenly aware that there’s still many people in the kitchen, but they're all impervious to two random people making out next to them. 

You snatch a couple cans of ginger ale off the huge collection of mixers on one of the countertops, and hand one to Grayson. He pops it open gratefully and chugs a huge swallow of it, burping into his hand. You can’t help but giggle, and take a more dainty sip of your own can. You still wish it had alcohol in it, but it’ll do.

It’s like he can read your mind, stuffing his free hand in his pocket. “You know, you can have a drink. I really don’t mind.”

You lean back against the counter and look up at him. He’s blushing, from embarrassment or arousal, you’re not sure. You know your heartbeat is still thumping in your panties at the lingering feel of his lips on yours and his hands trailing over your body. Something has inevitably shifted between the two of you, and Nadia was right: you need to figure it out. 

You’re not the most outspoken person all the time, but if there’s one thing you hate more than putting yourself out there, it’s leaving heavy things up in the air. You take a deep breath and scoot a little closer to him. 

“I know. I just...don’t trust myself to be even remotely tipsy around you right now.”

He looks at you, confused. “You don’t trust me?”

You suddenly remember his complete lack of experience with how alcohol can affect more than your motor movements and decision making. It’s endearing.

“I said I don’t trust myself,” you correct with a smile, reaching up to brush his flop of hair out of his eyes. “I liked that kiss. It made me want more.”

Grayson swallows. “Yeah?” he finally says, a little dumbly.

You giggle. “Yeah. Like, a lot more.”

A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, and he shuffles even closer so you’re pretty much trapped against the counter and his thick, muscular body. Despite the fact that you’d have a harder time escaping this than you did back in the living room with Brad, you feel more free and confident than ever. 

“Like what?” he asks, setting his can down behind you, planting his hand on the edge of the counter next to your hip.

You smile and allow your hand to rest on one defined pec through his thin shirt. You can feel his heart beating strong and fast, matching your own. It gives you the courage to put it all out there.

“Like... take you to the car and suck your dick; like, have you fuck me once we get home.” You look up at him through your lashes, pleased to see him sufficiently flushed and flustered by your words. “Like, go on a date?”

Your fingers have trailed over the hard ridges of his abs and settled on the edge of his belt, tugging on it playfully. Grayson gasps and looks at you with wide eyes and a disbelieving smile as he snatches it away in his own, bringing your fingers to his lips. “Easy. Wow, I can’t decide which of those I want to do most.” He looks back a little and narrows his eyes. “Are you sure you’re not drunk.”

You laugh and shake your head, taking your hand out of his and wrapping it around the back of his neck. “Nope, that’s all you baby. But who says we can’t do all of those, tonight?”

Grayson smiles brightly, and interlaces your fingers. Your ginger ales get abandoned on the counter as he starts to drag you through the throngs of people. “Let’s fucking go.”

[daehgub-bughead]

I hope I'm not bothering you, so feel free to ignore this, but I yearn to know: if you had full creative control of the show, how would you run season 5? You can pick and choose whatever leaks you want to include.

So it's better late than never. Seriously for don't answer before and make you wait I didn't forget it I just this was more difficult than I expected every time I saw the white page on my computer I didn't felt the inspiration or have the energy to do it but it's 3 am, I can't sleep sooooo

let's started:

*jughead won't be alcoholic *Veronica isn't married *that awful song doesn't exist, that dint happen was just a collective nightmare instead veronica sings "I kissed a girl" to betty bcs I want to. * maybe is unpopular but I'm not excited for the idea of all working on the high school post-time jump give me glee flashbacks and I hate it. * I will ignore all the new interviews, stills, spoilers. I choose delusion. * I use the phrase "rebuild the truth" a lot Even when I hate it I will give more priority to the cheating storyline and the arcs of the characters how this will affect not only their relationship romantic/friendship. I would put a really heart-heart conversation between Jarchie, Beronica, and Barchie; Ba comes clear apologizing bcs they make a mistake and being sincere with JV. Talking about Ba I dig more into their thinking, motivations, and feelings for both, Give to Archie his point of view and give MORE priority to the core 4 trauma and how they deal with it. And then try to figure out how it could move the plot of the mystery like maybe when Jughead finds out about the kiss he tries to distract himself and go more into the mystery as we see before. Archie's having the things clear in the end but Veronica choosing herself first and deciding that break up would be the best even when it would hurt both. I would show a bit of their life's out on Riverdale Just to the end of the episode, there's some reason everybody comes back to the town probably related to the death (I still think that pops will die). Veronica would be a successful businesswoman, she is an icon in New York and dates a beautiful woman called Rebbeca but when veronica decides to come back to RVD they break up, bcs Rebecca wants to take a time to work on herself, and Veronica comebacks to Riverdale to take control again of pops and start to work with Tabitha remodeling pops maybe and maybe try to become it a franchise. I'm not sure what I would do with Archie but the writers either, so I'll keep the firefighter storyline but he would use a shirt all the time bcs I'm tired of seeing KJ on shirtless (at this point is every man of this show) also he will take total control of Fred's construction company. Veronica contracts Fred's company and varied start to spend more and more time together and try to be just friends while finding their way back to each other and obviously angsty, pining, longing maybe a bit more of angsty and Pining Archie fight for V love. I'll give Toni the screentime that she deserves and let her shine for herself I would like that the show makes justice to the choni/Toni storyline this season but I learn don't get my hope up with this show focusing on the Toni family and her backstory more and making her an individual character again. I'll love to see more musicals moments Vannesa and drew singing together, and Toni and fangs being on a band give to me now. I think first I will talk about ba and then about betty. Love triangle: No más eso no sirve. So I will end with that before time jump they will still felt guilty and regretful for hurt JV and lose them. Archie always be the boy that betty dreamed of for too long and Bettys will always have on Archies heart also they don't idealize each other anymore but still, they will love each other but in a different way.I'm not against the show exploring new relationships and least to betty dating someone else I always expected that the writers will explore ba at some point, I just expected something different, so I'm not against ba dating post time jump for any reason that the writers could think but the thing I would do its ba talking about their feelings for one another, discussing how to live could've been if he never rejected her (not so much bcs Jason was already death, anyways) make a what-if episode/ or an Au episode where Archie don't reject betty but ultimately in that episode it is shown that they are better off as friends & that the road not taken still would lead to bugvarchie.

One thing that I love about the s1 is that in a way or another everybody was involved in the mystery the core 6 with Toni and the serpents could be a good way to get information. One of the points of the season will be the redemption and the rebuild of the seasons so I will go to a semi-slow-burn with the friendships of the shows, I never feel what I supposed to feel for Jarchie but one of the things that I love about some fics saw the rebuild of beronica friendship so I would put so much effort on that and put more moments when we could appreciate the friendship of the core 4 to make it feel more genuine.  Veronica will forgive Betty when seeing how much betty misses her and try to fix the things between them.

As a lot of people do I think that bughead won't break up pre-time jump, Jughead will forgive betty and they will try a long-distance relationship I would like to say that they will leave the cheating behind we would see them being happy and walking to the sunset and live happily ever after but a cheating storyline for them breaking up for the distance doesn't feel good to me so the cheating will affect their relationship and they will try to get over it but it will be a little factor+ the distance and all the responsibilities that have on the university combined make them realize that the timing isn't right, time apart for growing individually, met other people, so they talk about and decide that break up is the best and have a friendly break up.

I think that betty would meet a lot of people some serious relationships other not so serious she will meet some idiots sadly wemet some idiots (that she later will tell veronica and they would laugh together about the looser that stood up Betty and didn't see her on that beautiful readdress) and some really nice guys, Charmings that will care about her and he will want her but sadly the things won't work out. Betty being an FBI agent I'm in, betty being a full badass I'm in, her struggling to follow the rules of the FBI I'm in that's the betty that we love. I have not problems with our favs having difficult times I would keep him having writers' block but not one hit writer I will go to him having problems to find the inspiration to write the end of the story that he starts a long time ago. And for Jessica even when I would like to see jealous betty it seems that every relationship at the beginning of the time jump its borrow time and that's unfair for her so they will be together like 2 or 3 eps max, I think Jughead will love her but on a different way that he loves betty and their relationship seems that isn't on a good moment since the beginning so betty being again on jughead life will be just little factor on their relationship I would put betty investigating the disappearance of Polly and jughead with the Mothman they investigating in different paths until the next episode to see that their investigation is related and start to work together. I'm here to see bughead being single for a time, see their relationships as friends then I will go to the undercover/fake dating/kissing for a cover route I will go for angst, the pining, jealousy, Longing looks, and denial of their feelings and there would be conflict both being scare pf their feelings, let the walls that the build after years being apart down until they can hide the fact that never stop loving to each other. Also, I add this of last moment while we explore bughead future I would show more about bughead backstory, go more into their friendship and pre-pilot relationship, they reading together young Jughead pining for young betty I'm a sucker for that.

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

The Leppard Albums: A Summary

(inspired by Every Beatles Album)

Happy Saturday night everyone

The Def Leppard EP

Joe is 19 and just wants to ride a motorcycle okay

Groupie fantasy

Zeppelin lyrics meet Rush with an underappreciated bass line

On Though the Night

IT'S!!! ROCK!!! N ROLL!!! BABEY!!!

Joe is 20 and just really doesn't wanna work in a factory anymore okay

pls D; girl D; stop D; hiding D; your D; pain!!

another... groupie fantasy... I think? ...???

Leppard in Space

Joe is 20 and just wants to write something edgy okay leave him alone

STEVE 👏👏👏 FUCKING 👏👏👏 CLARK!!!! 👏👏🔥👏🔥👏👌👌

the original groupie fantasy but it's been re-recorded

girl?? make up?? your mind???

let's be mysteriously edgy ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Zeppelin lyrics meets Rush but it's been re-recorded (but don't worry they still kept the underappreciated bass line)

High N Dry

everyone in this band is a slutty bottom and this is the song that proves it

we have Mutt Lange now and this is the song that proves it

drONK TIEM

betcha didn't think we could write a ballad, did ya ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

STÊVË!!!!! 👏👏👏👏 FÜCKÎÑ!!!!!! 👏👏👏👏👏 C L Ã R K!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥👏👌👌🤙👏👌🔥👌🎉🎉

underappreciated and that's all there is to it

noooo don't go you're too mysterious and sexy hahhaha

oh god Dx oh god no Dx we don't sound like this anymore we swear Dx

betcha thought we stopped writing Beowulf-esque pop songs didn't ya ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

🚫🚫⛔👎🚫🙅‍♂️👎🚫⛔🙅‍♂️⛔ *Joe tearing his throat up for 2 solid minutes*

Pyromania

IT'S ROCK!!!!!! N ROLL!!!! BABEY!!!!!!!1!!!!1!!1!! AGAIN!!!!! 😆😆😆

the Classic Rock Fandom™ in a nutshell 😓

INTRODUCING PHIL 👌👌👌 FUCKING👏👏 COLLEN 🔥🔥🔥

betcha thought we abandoned the idea of doing a ballad didn't ya ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Joe's back at it again with the edgy songs and is getting a lot better at it too

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ∆ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Gunter 🙃 Glieben 🙃 Glauchen 🙃 Globen

the most underappreciated song on this whole entire fucking list sorry I don't make the rules

Alright, WHO in this band wants to be in a porno >:C

Joe's back at it yet again with the edgy songs but it's even BETTER this time

Hysteria

Girls Girls Girls ALL WOMEN ARE QUEENS ANAKIN

🎸we!!! fucking!!! love!!!! glam rock!!!!!! and african drum rhythms!!!!!!!!!🥁

we're not furries we swear we're just kinky D: also fuck you DJs here's some false endings

we haven't made a ballad that HURTS yet so here we go (with an underappreciated bass line)

the song that invented "( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)" (AKA when you cram for a test the minute before and end up getting 100%)

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)😏( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)😏( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

S T E V E 😭👏👏 F U C K I N 😭😭😭 C L A R K 👏👏👏😭👏😭

nooo don't shoot me you're too kinky hahaha

a song about rioting and being #punk, but the only crime the man singing it has ever committed was getting a speeding ticket when he was 19/20

oh. oh shit. oh god. holy shi- I can't believe... ...we just accidentally made the most perfect song to ever exist :o like seriously- people are achieving nirvana as we speak I'm not joking I think we went too far with the perfection this time guys

THIS SONG IS ABOUT S E X AND WE AIN'T BEING SHY ABOUT IT EITHER LET'S FUCKIN GO BABE-

Don't 👏 give 👏 me 👏 love 👏

Adrenalize

gkKLglldlflhlADKSLALLFLSS 😆😆😆

I fucking love my wife uWu

fkKMglgllsLLslgflephpGLDLPT 😆(͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)😆

We're just gonna get extremely romantic and passionate for 4 minutes and 3 seconds if that's alright with you (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)

this album was the most painful thing any of us have ever had to do, so here's the most serious song we've ever done to date. Steve ✊ Fucking ✊ Clark ✊ -n-

now that our mental breakdown is over, we're gonna get extremely passionate and romantic again but for a lil longer this time aiight 🤙

one of us has a protection/ownership kink but we're not gonna tell you who

you know what this album needs? a little bit more pain

we're layin down the line (and by that we mean we want sex)

we're layin down the line pt.2 (we still want sex btw)

Retro Active

Beowulf songs are back babey 🤙

I'll say that again if I have to^

we!!! still!!! fucking!!! love!!!! glam rock!!!!! we even covered something to prove it!!!!!!

Joe has now officially mastered ballads

I fucking love my wife part 2: she's a badass top

While Joe was off mastering ballads, Phil studied the blade

We covered something else bc again!!! we fucking!!! love!!! glam!!!

We rewrote Joe's motorcycle song bc we now realize it was cringe af (and it was an excuse for Joe to talk to Ian Hunter so that made him happy)

Joe has now officially mastered edgy/serious songs

it's a total bop but oh god. No. Please. No. Oh God. No. Don't. Please. No. Pls. No. Oh god. Don't.

This should've been on Adrenalize and you can Fight Me On That

Phil studies the blade (electric version)

Joe masters ballads (electric version)

Vault (there's only one new song on here so that's all I'm doing)

babe nooooo D';

Slang

Epic edgelords part 1

Epic edgelords part 2: Phil wrote it this time

everyone in this band is a slutty bottom and this is the song that proves it Volume 2: Electric Bugaloo

soft breakdown :'c

hOT DOGGITY DAMN JOE'S VOICE HOLY HELL TAKE ME N- *clears throat* I mean introducing Vivian Campbell :3 aND THERE'S A BASS SOLO MMMM 🤤🤤👌 THIS SONG IS JUST SEXY FUCKIN LIFT ME UP AND-

Phil's marriage isn't going too well

in fact, no one's marriages are going too well

severely underrated bop

We're still not over Steve's death and we never will be :c

Joe makes edgy ballads his bitch yet again 👏👏

severely underrated banger 🔥🔥🔥

Euphoria

wE STILL MAKE FAST BOPS IN CASE YOU FORGOT 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

Holy shit I didn't know Joe could hit a note that high

The 90s sucked for us but we'rE STILL HERE BICH 🖕

Can we pls give Sav more songwriting space on albums thx 😭💗

everyone in this band is a slutty bottom and this is the song that proves it Volume 3: Even Sluttier This Time 😏

totally different from everything we've ever done and WE 👏 MADE IT 👏 OUR 👏 EDGY 👏 BITCH

uwu but it's sad so it's actually umu

partying like it's 1999- oh wait, it actually is 1999

*hugs Viv and scREEEEEEEEAAAMMS*

Phil studied the blade and attacks you with it

*gets escorted into the back of a police car* IM GUILTY!! I'M GUILTY!!! I'M NOT INNOCENT!!! 😫😫😫

whatever edginess we couldn't fit into Paper Sun we put into this song instead

we're entering the new millennium as Kings and there's nothing you can do about it 👑🖕

X (Ten)

Stand on a balcony at sunset when you listen to this one

(insert Vizzini saying "INCONCEIVABLE" here)

the big UwU

I got ghosted and it’s actually a lot more dark and depressing than I thought also I wish I was never awake

soft and edgy and sad acoustic dads

F-U-C-K SPELLS F- I mean L-O-V-E spells love uWu

babe nOOOooO I'm sorry I suck so much DD;

this sounds like out if Work It Out and Day After Day had a kid

we're gonna have a Funky Good Time whether you like it or not 😎

E D G E L O R D S 2 0 0 2

we can't decide if we want this album to be edgy or uwu so we're gonna make it both

the same passion as Tonight but less sexy and more (you guessed it) uwu

E D G E L O R D S 2 0 0 2 P A R T 2

Betcha thought our emo phase was over didn't ya ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yeah!

bops have been and will ALWAYS be something we have mastered- even if the song we're playing isn't ours

SAV'S TIME TO SHINE

betcha thought we couldn't cover a Blondie song, did ya ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Phil's just getting nostalgic about London it's fine 👍

don't worry joe's still sCREAMIN

in which we make this song a million times better than the original

WE LOVE ROXY MUSIC SO MUCH WE CANTEXPLAINWEJUSTLOVEHEMRMFLGPHPH

we're letting Joe have his moment ok just let him have this 👨‍🎤

yeah we like Free- so whAT??

okay NOW we're letting Joe have his real moment- he's been waiting for this moment ever since he was like 12 okay just. let him. have this just. this one time. pls.

in which we confuse literally everyone by making them think this is a song that we wrote

we just need ONE more bop, okay? Just ONE more we swear then we'll stop being fanboys (for now...)

we'll be right back, it's Bow Down To Thin Lizzy Hour

*Phil tearing up his throat for 4 and a half solid minutes*

Songs From The Sparkle Lounge

this one's actually kinda dark and heavy? :o

honky tonk time 🤠🤙

FINALLY ONE OF SAV'S SONGS IS THE MOST POPULAR SONG OFF AN ALBUM 🙏🙏🙏🙏😩

FINALLY WE HAVE MORE SAV MATERIAL I LOVE IT SM ;∆; !!!!

Phil's songs are severely underrated tho pls give them more attention

it's time for one (1) badass religious song and if you don't like it then you can Fuck Off kindly 🙃

This whole album is "Songs That Were Written By Phil and Viv and Sav" heaven

I think sometimes people forget that we, even as a band, are fans of the Classic Rock Fandom™ too, and we feel the same pain as the other fans :'^)🤙

Joe's three minutes of fame on this album

Joe's three minutes of fame on this album part 2

Viv's songs are severely underrated tho pls give them more attention

Mirror Ball (bonus tracks)

we grabbed fate by the balls and screamed fUCK YOU 🖕🖕

We are still Kings™ in case anyone was wondering 👑🖕

✨PHIL BELIEVES!!!! IN!!!!! LOVE!!!!!!!! AND!!!!!!!!!! BELIEVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!✨

Def Leppard (Self Titled 2015)

Is this song about playing a live show? Probably. Is it also about having a fight? Is it also about angry sex? The world may never know.

Okay this one just absolutely SLAPS, periodt.

bootleg Another One Bites The Dust

*SOBBING* THEY'RE ALL SINGING LEAD I'M-

being badass, That's The Power Of Love

don't worry, we still know how to be Poetically Edgy

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'm *bump bump* hooked on a feeeeling

I've Got a Spiritual Romantic Boner

Can't Keep Away From The Flame edginess gets crossed with some Zeppelin charm and badassery

someone in this band is fucking piSSED 😠😠😠😠

we're gonna @ someone tonight fellas

sAV OH MY GOD BABYYYYY 😰😰😭😭😭😭 DO YOU NEED A HUG

what if we tried to cross newer Metallica with Nickelback 🤔

what if we turned this into We All Need Christmas three years from now... 🤔

Bonus: Personal Jesus/We All Need Christmas

Viv really wanted to cover ABBA but everyone said no so he settled for cowboy goth™ instead

What better man to write a warm and fuzzy Christmas song than the warm and fuzziest man alive (Sav)

[spicykoreantatertots]

Spine Breaker

Pairing: Jimin x Female Reader

Word Count: 959

Rating: PG

Genres: SFW, College AU

Summary:  You have to team up with dance student Jimin on your art project. 

Warnings: Taehyung says mean things about Jimin bc he doesn’t know him. :(

A/N: This is part of my new drabble series that I’m doing for ficswithluv’s Bulletproof Bingo! 24 drabbles in 12 days so I can get that blackout before the deadline. See my challenge post here and the master list here! Message or send an ask to be on the taglist!

This has not been beta read, please be kind. 💜

~~~~~~~

Today is the most excited you’ve been to go to class all semester. As a freshman in art school, you aren’t actually creating as much art as you thought you would be. There’s so much history and theory to learn before they even hand you a set of paints.

The only class that actually lets you create, Drawing 1, is starting a new unit today. Moving on from Still Life to The Human Body. It’s not easy to capture the curves and lines and life of a human body, but that’s why you love it. It’s a challenge. 

“I heard they’re pairing us up with students from the Dance Program for the unit project.” Taehyung, the boy who usually sits next to you, sits down and leans over to continue talking. “Do you have any friends in dance?” 

“No... why?” Students continue filing into the class, chattering about the upcoming project. 

“I heard we get to choose our partners. I’ve got a friend, Hoseok. He’s an amazing dancer and he’ll be fun to work with.” Taehyung is already doodling vague human-like shapes on his notebook.

“I don’t know anyone in dance.” Taehyung waves you off, everything will be fine. Surely not every art student has friends in dance. Right?

Wrong. After a brief introduction of the Human Body unit, the professor ushers in the dance students. You eye the line of students at the front of the room, trying to find someone who looks friendly. You see a few familiar faces from around campus, but most people seem to be avoiding eye contact. 

When the professor allows everyone to pick their partners, the room becomes chaotic. Everyone makes their way quickly to their friends. Unfortunately most students immediately match up and before you can even catch your breath, you are face to face with the last dance student. 

He is the most stunning man you’ve ever seen. His body is lean, muscles visible under his form fitting clothes. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of designer sunglasses that are probably worth more than your entire wardrobe. His face somehow has a sharp jawline and beautiful full cheeks. And his lips... 

“I’m Park Jimin.” He says, handing you a slip of paper with his name and phone number. “Text me to set up a time to work on the project. I spend most of my time in practice room 13, so we’ll probably meet there.”

“I, uh, okay.” You were about to introduce yourself too, but he’s already walking away. Taehyung approaches you once Jimin is gone. He pats your shoulder, comforting you. 

“Park Jimin, huh? Good luck with that...” He trails off.

“What do you mean by that? Do you know him?” You question as you make your way back to your seat. 

“No, but I’ve heard he’s a brat. Did you see his outfit? He’s rude and entitled and I’ve also heard his poor parents work two jobs each to pay for his school and yet still he spends his money on designer clothes.” Taehyung explains. You turn the slip of paper Jimin gave over in your hands. He can’t really be that bad, can he?

You: Hey, this is Y/N, I’m your partner for the art project. [1:57pm]

You: I’m fine with meeting you in your practice room, but what time and day is good? [4:31pm]

You: Hello... [8:32pm]

Jimin: I was practicing, sorry. If you’re free tomorrow stop by anytime between 2pm and 11pm. [9:02pm]

You: Okay, I’ll stop by after class. Around 4? [9:05pm]

There’s no response after that. Are you really supposed to believe he was practicing for seven hours without checking his phone. Maybe Taehyung was right about him after all.

Standing in front of practice room 13 in the dance building, you’re feeling a weird mix of nervous and annoyed. Jimin seemed very disinterested in this project. All he has to do is hold a pose and let you draw, but apparently that’s asking a lot. 

You take a deep breath and knock on the door. After waiting about thirty seconds, you knock again a little louder. Then the door opens quickly and Jimin pokes his head out. He’s sweating. 

“Oh. It’s you. Come in.” He opens the door and steps aside so you can enter. Jimin is wearing some sweats, still looking like a greek god. His face is clear of sunglasses, so you get a chance to see his eyes. Much like the rest of him, they are beautiful. And surprisingly kind. 

He walks over to his bag and jacket in the corner near the stereo system. He grabs a water bottle and wipes the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. You find a spot near the door to sit down.

“Do you have any poses in mind?” You question him as you get your sketch pad and pencils out. When you look up, Jimin is watching you carefully. 

“Why don’t you watch me dance and then we can discuss.” Before you can respond, he cues up a pop song and moves to the center of the room. 

He begins by moving his arms slowly, delicately. But as the music builds, his dancing becomes more intense, using his whole body, hitting each beat with precise movements. He twists, spins, jumps, and pushes his body to the extreme. The passion in his eyes makes you second guess everything negative you’ve heard about him. 

The song ends, Jimin is breathing heavily. 

“Did you find any inspiration?” He’s wearing a smirk across his face and you notice that your mouth is hanging open, you’re amazed and it shows. Working on this project is going to be even more challenging than you thought. 

~~~~~~~

Stay tuned for part two! (Filter 😉)

~~~~~~~

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Check out my masterlist here and the series masterlist here. I’m always looking for betas and friends so send me a message! :)

[ikjun]

your tags on that harry styles post are my exact thoughts !! niall and louis and especially zayn have grown so much as musicians and have continued to push themselves and all of them = liam are respectful of the other band members. harry is fine - his music is good, but not outstanding - but we all know that if he wasn't as conventionally attractive as he is, he would not be this popular. and side note - it's great that he's wearing dresses and whatever, but the dresses he wears are not it. like that one for the vogue cover to give an example. anyway speaking of fleetwood mac, i'm going to be performing silver springs on saturday (singing while playing the piano) and i haven't started practicing rip. as in ive never done a full run through of even just the vocals and i've come up with most of the piano part in my head but i've never actually tried playing it lol

ok i am answering this before snoozing and don’t ask how and why i am still awake but i will !!! not !!! let this ask go to rot in my inbox bc i am not online. first of all you’re gonna kill it next saturday and have the perfect song choice and I KNOW how talented you are and you will do so well !!!! i am rooting for you, musical icon fren of mine 💕💕💕

second of all, legit this. legit this. i like harry’s albums just fine. there are a few standout tracks and esp. the first album was a big grower for me but they’re fine. it’s not awful music or whatever. my issue lies with the laisser-faire attitude harry and his fans have among other things, partly bc he never had to work for anything in his life while every industry person in his orbit basically has (or did the work for him). partly bc his public persona and concept has been inflated that it basically doesn’t need him to do anything. slap a sticker on a guitar, call it activism and a day. wear dresses a few times and call it the evolution of fashion or whatever boundary-shattering schtick his media team and the general public and his fans have come up with now.

but like … nothing about it is original. several artists and just plain people have done it before him. why does his hive of fourth-wave internet feminism fans see how he can wear a skirt once and just go back to his usual day with a few dumb comments on the internet and that’s it? when there have been people doing so years and times before him and have been hurt and harassed and worse for it — just so he could wear one without worry or care and call it experimenting.

why does he get to act like the reincarnation of david bowie or even prince when there are artists already acclaimed by these musicians that don’t get the same role call when carrying this legacy? lorde has been bowie’s protégée and janelle monáe is known for her bond with prince, but whatever. who cares. i will give him the fleetwood mac rehashing bc he is friends with stevie, but then again harry wouldn’t know the chain exists if it weren’t for niall. just how harry wouldn’t know fashion or cohesive artistry or influential album creation exists if it weren’t for zayn, who has released consecutive and genre-marked, praised solo works since he left the group. deserving of all the hype harry gets. deserving of more than what harry gets, actually. i don’t care much for liam or louis, but within the group both had more musical integrity and put work in harry could only dream of. louis actually makes good pop music, liam knows how to write a catchy hit, so there.

virtually everyone in this group is more interesting then bland harry, who by god how can anyone think is attractive? and the worst thing is that the other guys mostly (or partly) have credited their roots and inspirations and the group multiple times while with harry it has been fucking crickets since day one all while he acts like he created the group on top of ripping everything in his solo work from queer culture without ever acknowledging that either. it’s what i call my least favourite case: throw money at mediocrity and see what it can do.

[catboyminato]

punk!Minato brain rot at 2 am headcannons isn’t this quality content

do I wanna know and daddy issues as a person

he has an undercut bc I said so 🔫

probably gets dress coded like every day tbh (that’s disgusting and rude ❤️ his fit is incredible 😌)

leather jackets and doc martens type beat

probably customized his Gekkoukan uniform so much it doesn’t even look like a uniform 😭😭

canon: hello my name is minato nice to meet u ig

this Minato: why the FUCK do u a have a gun and can I try it and what the FUCK is going on out there what is that ugly ass green that graces my delicate eyes

Mitsuru “oh wow! I hate him.” kirijo

SEES has a fuck jar for every time he says fuck

minato, opening a door: what’s up fuckers

Minato, making a sandwich: where the fuck is the bread

Minato, watching TV: what the fuck im not crying it’s just dusty as fuck in here

SEES, broke: pls,,,,stop

“kIrIjO-sAn wHeN dO i gEt tO bLoW sHiT uP”

extremely disappointed that his persona is Orpheus he wanted smth cooler

“who the fuck plays a Lyre?? what the fuck is this?? intro to theatre?? give me the cool big scary one that popped out of u rn” —Minato Arisato

Orpheus: :,(

“fuck the system and eat the rich”

“what about Mitsuru-Senpai?”

“eat. the. rich.”

Mitsuru absolutely despises this man with a burning passion

junpei thinks he’s cool (and is jealous but who wouldn’t be tbh)

yukari thinks he’s refreshing compared to miss “I SiGneD YoU uP fOr SUMMEr ScHool” and mr “pRoTein”

now she’s stuck with mr “good morning everyone, *looks at Mitsuru* not you though, you can choke”

at least he has a sense of style 😽

he doesn’t like Mitsuru (omg what gave that away 🙀)

he thinks she’s 1. too stuck up 2. is rich and eat the rich and 3. is partially the cause of this whole mess 😻

no longer boy with headphones he’s boy with foul mouth 😌

lowkey kinda smart but you’d never be able to tell

✨tattoos ✨

literally always coming back to the dorm with bruises and scratches and nobody knows why

spoiler: it’s bc he’ll hear ppl talking shit about his friends (yeah even Mitsuru🔪) and will beat the shit out of them 😼

he got into a brawl in the hallway with 5 kids after he heard them talking shit about Shinji after he died ❤️ as he should king

Shinjiro and Minato said “tough on outside but softies on inside” rights and that’s what they bond over 😽

they’re lowkey pretty close and bc I said so Minato met Shinji early after exploring that part of town he’s in

now they’re punk buddies 😼 (is Shinji punk agsjashajsh oh well ❤️)

Minato would actually die for each and every one of SEES even if he doesn’t show it

the tough guy facade was born from his parents death as a coping mechanism so he never got hurt again 😝

Minato “im a motherfucking wildcard bitches” Arisato

peircings 😼

he looks scary we know but you’d never guess he spends time with like a 9 year old and buys her dinner and listens to her problems (we stan)

we love a man who can sit and listen 😌✨

yukari saw him buy Maiko takayoki and decided “hmm this is new” and thus began the cycle of “hes not so tough after all”

Junpei’s “he’s not so tough after all” was him spending time with the elderly couple who runs Bookworms 😌

Akihiko noticed how, if he could, Minato would take hits for teammates

someone tried to mess with Fuuka and he sent them to the ✨h o s p i t a l✨

fuukas realization was when the scary looking boy who cuffs his jeans and has tats made friends with her 😽

Mitsuru’s took a hot minute bc uhhhhh slowburn 🤠

hers was how he continuesly tried to help the student body even tho they rejected him bc uh he’s kinda ✨s c a r y✨

which was like?? interesting to her tbh bc these were the kids who dubbed him the outsider and yet he still strived to help them 😾

so she made the twink part of student council

and he kinda went off ngl 😀

and that’s on being a valuable asset ✨

although he only calls Mitsuru “daddy issues” which pisses her off ❤️

her personal ✨d i s c o v e r y✨ is him lending his blazer (HAJSHS the “blazer” covered in pins and chains 😭😭 which is ripped in some places 😽) one day as an umbrella 🥺

“you’ll catch a cold, daddy issues”—says the bitch soaking wet after letting her use his jacket

when he’s a gentleman 😫

when they get past the enemies stage to friends 😩

mitsuru thinks his perspectives are outlandish and refreshing

“just say no tf”—his answer in being told she needs a fiancé

did he lie tho 😭

apologizes for being a dick 🤩

will beat the fuck outta anyone who disrespects his rich friend ❤️

haha kinda scary when he’s mad ❤️

what’s that wipes blood from mouth while smiling aesthetic cause that’s him

fashionable king we love to see it

ceo of smirking

ceo of “hey daddy issues”

ceo of “fuck”

he got his earring stuck to his pillow once and only Shinji knows

“Does it fucking look like I read?” —Minato arisato who read the entire twilight series and is an Edward stan

akihiko likes to brawl with him cuz he thinks his street fighting style is nifty

can literally hear him from a mile away due to his loud ass chains and boots (stealth 0 ❤️)

has small monochromatic Arcana inspired tattoos littered around his torso (it’s a game of where’s Waldo 🤩)

“I don’t listen to pop.”—says Minato on his way to listen to One Direction

Mitsuru likes to ask what each tattoo means (sometimes it’s just like “idk i saw a guy I beat up once have it and I thought it was cool 😼”)

“rude boy” (what not based off the rihhana song where did u get that 🤠) is Mitsuru’s nickname for him

likes collecting pins 🤠

has way too much jewelry yukari will just steal some occasionally 💀

lowkey self conscious about being seen with Mitsuru

lmfao imagine seeing this punk who only wears leather jackets, doc martens and ripped jeans holding hands with the literal polar opposite of him

taking 🖤🩸🛹 and ❤️📚💳 to a whole a new level

he thinks she can do better and doesn’t want to tarnish her name 🤧

mitsuru learned from him it’s not her obligation to give two flippity flying fucks and WILL hold his hand as they walk down the hallways 😌✨

LMFAO imagine ure just a regular student and all of sudden the student council president who owns the whole damn school walks in wearing the foul mouthed blue haired punks jacket 😭

“What in the wattpad”—Gekkoukan

“what in the goth x prep”—SEES

Minato has fine ass eyeliner sorry I don’t make the rules ❤️

in conclusion punk!minato is best Minato

[404fmdtaejin]

famed idol life / career meme

notes: once again, a big mega post because i didn’t want to flood dash with answers. thanks to everyone that sent in!! 

1. what is your favorite single you’ve released?

“solo wise? i’ve only released one solo portal song, which was a self-written song called that’s okay. well, bc forced that one on me when they took pages from my diary — still, my only one solo release, and that’s the favorite since i’m left with no other option. in regards to group? everyone knows, amigo or not — my favorite will always be view. something special about that time, i tell you.”

2. what are your favorite b-sides/non-title tracks you’ve released?

“since i haven’t released any songs by myself other than the one mentioned before, i’d have to go through decipher’s discography. lovesick, odd eye, prism, honesty, stranger, better off — there’s a lot to sift through in the past few years. unfortunately, there’s a point where my interest had started weaning off idol-dom, and you can observe that when i stopped paying attention and interest into what decipher did conceptually after 2016. at least the enjoyment was fun while it lasted.”

3. what is your least favorite song (title track or b-side) you’ve released?

”that’s an easy one. you take any b-side we’ve released in the past few years, and that probably makes the list. the comeback with the b-side shot was awful. that’s probably the worst, in my head. never was a fan of that comeback, now that i think of it — i call it the dark blip of decipher’s early career. perhaps it’s just ambivalence at this point that i have no real strong feelings towards bsides nowadays.”

4. if you could do a duet with anyone in the industry, who would you choose? what do you think of your/your group’s concept?

“i’d want to do a duet with duri — we’ll have a tale of the oldies. the two 1990 liners inside bc’s walls doing a ballad song. though, duri would have to take the high notes on that one seeing as how he’s a power vocalist. there’s rarely times where i’m able to keep in touch or have people around my age, and for that — i’m always grateful when i come across that. we’d manage something interesting given the same age, and the ballad concept.”

5. what do you think of your/your group’s concept?

“decipher doesn’t really stick to a concept, and i suppose our concept has always been to branch into new avenues. there’s good things and bad things about it, obviously. we’re given new things to try, new stylings, and what not. however, we’re also subjected to that risk in case it doesn’t turn out how bc envisioned. to put it short — it’s either a hit or miss.”

6. what is one thing (a concept, a genre, an outfit, etc.) you would least like your company make you do?

“decipher’s novelty in the industry is that we’ve been here so long that we’ve managed a lot of different concepts. from the house pop to retro vibes, even spring ballads in soft tunes — we’ve done it all. the least? i’d say another electronic heavy music where we’re dancing like madmen. i wouldn’t mind a powerful choreography to show i can still ‘hang’, but to the sounds of techno-ish music? i don’t think so. at least, not with my age.”

7. what one thing (concepts, genres, styling, frequency of comebacks, etc.) would you like to change about your current career as an idol?

“i don’t want to comeback so frequently — it seems we’re coming back more frequently than other rookies. it would be nicer to stay back and relax while we let the hoobaes have their time to shine. genres and concepts aren’t really on the top of my list to complain about, though i would enjoy an old throw-back to decipher’s glory days where we’re given something newer. perhaps, that’d be enough to rejuvenate my attitude towards the industry.”

8. if you could be in any idol group, which one would you choose?

“with my age, i don’t think i’d fit any group. perhaps, i could assimilate myself to knight, but the bad boy niche doesn’t really match mine. say, i was a few years younger — then, you’d have me inside charm. i think i’d do a pretty good left and right if you ask me.”

9. if you could say one thing to your ceo, what would it be?

“i respect the business model you form. however, i’m still trying to understand it when applied to me. thirteen years, and i have yet to sit down and have a conversation with you. it’d be nice to have one someday.”

10. if you were auditioning for your company today, what would you perform for your audition, or what would you change from your original audition?

“my audition was so long ago. fourteen, fifteen years now, and that’s nearly half of my life. i wish i could remember parts — but there’s only the snippet of a ballad i sang, probably kim bum soo. all alongside some awkward dancing that bc shaped me up for. i’d probably pick a sung sikyung song instead.”

11. if you could do any special stage, what would it be and who would it be with?

”call it a weird match, but i’d have a set with duri, andy, joohwan, my maknae and jiah. well, those would be the people i’d know well enough to collaborate with, though the outcome might not be as promising as i initially thought. case closed, never make me do a special stage.”

12. what career opportunities would you like to pursue that you’ve yet to, or what achievements would you like to obtain that you’ve yet to?

“maybe a bit of variety? i’m completely happy where i am with acting, though it’d be better if decipher’s comebacks were rarer. however, i’m taking what i can get and variety might be a chance to show the side that doesn’t get shown when i’m playing a role on tv. i’ve heard from some people that i can be funny at times.”

13. if you could become a model or ambassador for any brand, what would you choose?

“as much as i like high fashion, i haven’t done any modeling in regards to brand deals with high fashion. a luxury brand would be nice — i hear prada has changed with the entrance of raf simons. i’ve been into the streetwear look lately after itaewon class, so that would be a current go-to. otherwise, i think i’m happy promoting good feel and credit cards.”

14. if you could be on any variety show, which one (or which type of one) would you want to be on?

“i live alone would be my first pick. only because i’ve decorated my house nicely recently, and haven’t had a chance to show it off to many people as i’m not home as often these days. however, that’d require an off day and i don’t have many of those lately. i think people would be shocked to see what i do when i’m around my house, lounging and rarely moving around.”

15. if you were offered the chance to become a ceo of an entertainment company, new or existing, would you take it? why or why not?

“as much as i’m leader of decipher, i don’t think i could handle leading a company. i wouldn’t want to become a ceo. it distracts from my own schedule, and i’d be too focused on my company rather than the hobbies and interests that appeal to me. sure, i’d make more money — but what’s more money on top of the money i already have? it’s counterproductive and i’d rather do what i like doing.”

16. what changes would you implement if you were the ceo of your company?

“each company runs on a specific pattern of events, and there’s a reason for that. a reason why routine shapes each group, so i wouldn’t necessarily change much. my trainee year was difficult, but it also fostered friendships within the group that i consider irreplaceable. the only change i can think of? maybe getting to know my artists rather than staying far off.”

17. what do you do to relieve the stress of idol life?

“i work out. i run a lot, and go to the gym as cliche as it sounds. but each role requires me to be in top shape, and after all that i’ve found a love for working out each morning. other than that, i like to shop and cook, even walk my dog. normal things any other person does on their day off. by the end of the day? finishing it off with a cold beer becomes my saving peace.”

18. what tips would you give to a trainee about to debut?

”push through it because it’s only a matter of time till debut happens. the trainee years are taken for granted, and you need to learn to treasure those moments. once debut happens, there’s no looking back and you’re constantly on the move — so, you’re better off enjoying now. also, don’t be afraid to approach sunbaes. we’re all in the same boat, been there and done that, so let us help where we can.”

19. what was the hardest part of being a trainee?

“singing while running around the room? i remember running too many laps, out of breath belting a high note. looking back, it was probably the time i thought i was going to end my trainee career right there and run to my parents. other than that? learning to live with others? i’ve lived a blessed life, and i’ve never had to share a room with anyone. that felt like a culture shock.”

20. did you enjoy the lifestyle of a trainee or of a debuted idol more?

“call me weird, but i’d say the trainee life. there was something special about those days, and now i’m so many years in my career and i miss the days crammed in the dorms. i don’t think there’s anything like it. the structure of it, the tears of joy and sadness all into one — every emotion all there. it’s rare moments like those i’ll never get back.”

21. what one song or album by another group or soloist would you have liked to release yourself?

“i’ve heard a lot of songs, but i heard a song recently by a charm member. one of the solo projects of dai, and his song let’s love was something that made me want to release music as well. maybe, it’s just inspiration just at that moment, but the song was something i enjoyed listening to. knight’s tempo was also something that i wish decipher was given, just because there’s a certain spark when it comes to the song.”

22. describe your dream sub-unit (members and concept).

“my dream sub-unit? does that relate to in-group or out of group? for the sake of this question, i’ll keep it in-group to simplify things. i’d like to keep our main vocal, myself and our lead rapper only because the maknae already has his thing in champion — though conceptually, i’m not sure what we’d be able to do. something non-dance related, i’d hope. perhaps, a power house vocal because i know our lead rapper can belt a few notes better than most main vocals of other groups.”

23. out of the following six options, would you rather be allowed to play a major hand in the lyrics, production, choreography, styling, music videos, or concepts you release?

“no lyrics, production or choreography. i’ve never been talented in that market, and maybe that’s why i don’t take part in any of these things. instead, i’d keep to the styling, and music videos — though, i don’t have an artistic eye. perhaps, i’d keep to styling as it lies most with my interests. my members might get bored of wearing the same dress shirts and slacks for each comeback.”

24. which of the two other companies (out of bc, dimensions, and gold star) you are not currently signed under would you rather be an artist in?

“none of the other two. i’ve said it time and time again that i’m loyal to bc — i might complain about it, sure. but in hindsight, i don’t see myself being in any other music company. now, if you had asked me in terms of acting? then, we’d have a different story between namoo, artist and vast.”

25. what is your least favorite part of being an idol?

“there’s no breaks, not for age. there’s little opportunity to cease the past, and continue on a new future. instead, i’m always tethered to the role of an idol, and despite how much i try — they still reel me back in each time for another comeback. on top of that, some songs don’t age well with time — decipher has a few of those. yet, because they’re fan favorites, i have no choice but to dance and sing along as if it’s 2009 again.”

26. what is your favorite part of being an idol?

“ironic, but there’s a lot of opportunities to try new things. i wouldn’t have thought of cf modeling or acting, if it weren’t for the opportunities presented to me. as a result, i’ve found a new enjoyment in an acting career due to the idol life. plus, along the way i meet different people to give me new insight — suppose it keeps me young again.”

27. would you rather be incredibly famous with a terrible reputation and hated by most or be fairly unknown with a good reputation and adored by those who know of you? why?

“i don’t know how to answer this one because being incredibly famous with a terrible reputation is just a cheapened output of your career you’ve built thus far. that would simply become a life unenjoyable, so by default i suppose i’d rather have the latter. fairy unknown with a good reputation because that way, you have a basis to build yourself up.”

28. what moment in your career are you proudest of so far?

“i’d either attribute it to parasite, which did win a lot of accolades not only in the country but out or i’d give it to the recent baeksang nomination for the dramas i was in. i don’t think i’d ever predict the success of stories i had a pleasure of working on. in retrospect, it was nice that so many people were able to relate and get along with the characters i was given the honor of portraying.”

29. what have you learned about yourself and/or society since becoming a celebrity?

“i’m no longer an extrovert. in fact, i’m more of an introvert. i used to think i was an extrovert, and one time i was when i was busy running around getting assimilated to those new faces. however, over the years, my circle’s only run short and i’ve been given little things here and there that make me want to preserve my small circle of people i’ve gotten to know along the way. i don’t like going out and partying, and much rather have a night in with dubu in peace.”

30. what would you like to change about how society views or treats idols?

“it’d be nice to be given more freedom — but isn’t that what everyone wants? i’m talking about stepping into something without facing backlash, or how we’re seen as approachable because we’re public figures. it’d be nice to sit down and have a meal without the thought of dispatch finding who i’m with, or scrutinizing any of my friendships. there should be some level of normalcy given, and i think that’s the least anyone could ask for.”