#it looked so funny to have them speak right after each other

[merveloyd]

<prev

Quine Harley wanted to give back to the community that helped her through so many hardships, so she put her degree to use and started offering complimentary therapy to anyone who needed it on the weekends. Her most recent client was odd to say the least, how he always wore that mask, how he always asked about patient confidentiality, how he only introduce himself as 'Joker', how long it took for him to open up, it was all very intriguing to Quine. Eventuality he started speaking casually with her and she realized how funny he was! One thing led to another and they decided to go out for coffee. A couple dates later she opened up about her family troubles, how her brother had died in prison a couple months ago.

One day he took her to an abandoned mall, he told her it was a special place but she didn't expect it too look like a city, he led her through the mall until he was stopped by someone who started arguing how he didn't want to bring her into this before stopping when he saw her, it was her brother, they don't know how long they hugged each other. Later they started catching up, he explained how they needed a doctor but how they couldn't really pay her, she accepted, Joker started speaking more openly to her after that about what he did, how he was always under threat by insane villains, Quine stopped him and asked him to clarify. He talked about their elaborate schemes, how deranged they were while she thought about how they showed such obvious signs, how they needed serious help, how she could maybe help them and how the least she could do was try. He was surprised by her but joyfully agreed to make her a costume, she was kinda excited for this, after all, she loved clown since she was young.

She wants to let the villains and goons heal and hopefully make allies, let them spill their anxieties and worries to The Harmless Harlequin.

Grey Bruce was eternally grateful for Mr. Bruce's generosity, he was so lucky to have been picked out of all the children from the orphanage, he overheard the children words laced with pity how he was a 'tax write-off' but what did they know? He was sure that under his uncaring exterior Wayne was a kind man at heart. Mr. Bruce was quite the busy man, Grey rarely saw him around the mansion, anytime he needed something one of the many butlers would provide, they were all named Alfred for some reason that he didn't quite get. It took a couple of months before he found Mr. Bruce in a strange cavern bellow the mansion, he was half wearing a bat costume and looked shocked to see him.

He revealed his secret persona of The Madbat to Grey, how he offered vicious criminals a change to reform themselves and contribute something of value to society at large, how the public perception of him was a necessary evil so he wouldn't be unnecessarily idolized, how the damage he caused was only necessary to stop even greater damage and how he wanted Grey to join him. Grey was amazed, here was a great opportunity to prove his worth to him! Mr. Bruce entrusted him with a suit of armor that has been in his family for generations, Grey thought for a moment that it looked similar to the dozens of armors lining the halls but he dismissed that thought as Mr. Bruce entrusted him with his loyal bodyguards. The armor was clunky so Grey decided to modify it, he took inspiration from the bird watching he used to do with his folks back at the circus, he treasured every memory he had of them.

You can count on Madbat's right hand Crimson Shrike to take care of the vicious criminals of the night.

the sidekicks

[delulupunk]

How the batboys react to you only speaking in meme references:

Dick Grayson

This is the Robin who used to unironically use turns of phrase while busting crime lords with Batman, so of course he’s going to match your energy. If you say “What the fuck Richard?” He’s just going to reply something even sillier.

“They are my crocs.” He does this in the most deadpan tone and these two memes aren’t even related to one another.

He loves it though and finds the funny way you react to situations similar to his demeanour so you bounce of each other very well. It leads to the pair of you having meme wars- you try and outdo each other in how many memes you can reference.

“Bethany I made BiScUiTs!”

“Look at all those chickens!”

“So no head?”

The pair of you now have inside meme jokes that you say to each other, that earn you weird looks from everyone else when you say them to each other. Mainly because the combinations barely make any sense. However it brings you two closer and sometimes helps break the ice after an argument.

“It’s Wednesday my dudes…”

…

“AHHHHH!”

Jason Todd

Jason isn’t much of a social media person anymore. He tells everyone he finds it jarring and that it’s like peer pressure on steroids. He only uses Pinterest for book recommendations. So you can only reference memes that went viral before his death, at the beginning of your relationship otherwise he just ignores you.

When he does recognise a meme he’ll either roll his eyes or give you an annoyed, yet affectionate smile. Over time though as he notices you making more relevant meme references with your friends, he finds himself getting jealous. Jason wants to experience that with you.

So he pushes aside all his reservations with social media and watches as many meme videos as he can. Eventually he tries incorporating them into your conversations, albeit sheepishly as he’s unsure of himself.

“Brother Eugh?” He’ll state in a reluctant tone and you’ll just laugh and say it right back.

Tim Drake

Tim is far too focused on being a detective to watch memes, instead the way he relaxes is by doing something that still stimulates his brain in a way, so he’s a fan of puzzles.

“You look like the polite cat sometimes.” You told this to him once absentmindedly and he looked at you like you’d grown two heads. He immediately researched it and saw some similarities. You continued the meme reference when you bought him a puzzle of the polite cat for his birthday. It was safe to say he wasn’t that impressed. However he finished it in record time.

Whenever you quote any memes though he gives you a factual answer, “Roadworks mean that construction workers are fixing the road.” In retaliation you begin sending him all the memes you reference and then one day he just starts saying them. At first you’re shocked and he doesn’t do it often, but he’ll have a smug smile on his face every time.

Damian Wayne

Due to Damian’s harsh upbringing from the league of assassins he isn’t well versed in meme culture.

“What is aura? How have I lost -10,000? What was my starting amount?” He takes your meme references too literally, but when you offer to show him some and explain them he accepts. He’ll scoff and tell you he was only doing it to humour you, but in reality he wanted to regain some of his childhood and he felt this would be a good way to do it.

This bitch empty… yeet!

“She could have hit an innocent bystander with that.”

“I think she did Damian.” You play the video back a million times just to see whether or not she had.

He doesn’t ever reference memes back to you or say them in the first instance. Despite this he learns when you’re most likely to quote them and which one it would be. If you choose not to he’ll raise an eyebrow and ask you why you hadn’t. He wants to make sure you haven’t stopped because of him, he likes it he’s just not sure how exactly to show it.

When you do quote memes to him, he’ll have the ghost of a smile on his face. You’ll only see it if you look closely.

[ancha-aus]

SansNautica Sneak Peak - The Selkie and the Shiver

here is a tiny drabble from the gangs point of view :3 @0p1er0 because you wanted a tag when i did these lmao

*--------------*

Horror watches as pup looks around anxiously.

Killer looks amused as he circles the cuddlefish “It is okay Crossy! We will find your little friend.”

Cross just looks more stressed “This isn’t funny Killer! He is not a strong swimmer and now everything is even more aggressive with it being their mating season. The reapers normal mating area was ruined by that big ship. They will move more into the shallows to do their own nesting and I don’t want Little Flippers to get caught by surprise by that!” Cross wriggles his hands together as his tentacles lash around anxiously.

Horror goes to his mates side and nuzzles him “We will find him. If he managed to make it this far he will be okay for the day it took for you to get us and for us to start searching.”

Cross looks unsure as he rubs his hands. Horror understands of course. If Cross is right about what he think happened to the other it would bring back a lot of bad and traumatic memories for Cross. Horror is so proud of him for being able to push through all that hurt and be willing to help the other.

Dust yawns as he lounges on a ledge “We can split up. Search the area near the surface. I doubt he will want to go deep if he is a bad swimmer and with fish being more aggressive.”

With the plan laid out they get to work. Horror makes sure to check each cave system. He himself knows better than to go into them but if the other really doesn’t know this planet he may think it is safe and get cornered.

Horror makes sure to keep his eye out. He needs to be alert and-

There!

Horror sees a strange kinda land dweller form shoot out from a cave with a crashfish hot on his trail. Horror rushes over and hits the crashfish with his tail before it can explodes on little flippers.

At least Horror assumes this is him.

Horror nears him but he can see that maybe Little Flipper leans back a bit. Horror watches as the other starts to sink. It is clear the other is cautious about him but Horror thinks this is him.

“Are you okay?” Horror tries as he keeps his distance.

That is when Horror sees pup rush over “You found him! Oh Horror thank you!” he focusses on the other and looks so happy at him. Cross reaches for the other’s head but pulls his ahdns back quickly as he looks slightly embarrassed “Sorry. I just… sorry.”

Little Flipper looks slightly in his direction. Maybe to see if it is really okay? To see if he is really safe? But then he removes the little head part of his skin. Maybe pup had a point with him being a weird selkie of some kind.

Cross looks so happy as he speaks “Oh you are okay! I was so worried. Don’t just swim off okay? I may not look the part but I can protect you just fine.” Little Flipper seems happy with Cross’s happiness as the other seems to laugh soundlessly.

Right… Cross mentioned that Little Flipper may have been forced to adapt to land… leaving him unable to fully communicate in the water.

Horror notices of course when hie other two mates join him. The three of them watch Cross happily interact with the other.

Dust hums and mutters “I can see why Cross calls him Little Flipper. Guy is tiny.”

Killer snorts “For real. He is even tinier than you Dusty.” And he grins as Dust sends him a glare.

Horror just watches their mate interact with his new chosen as Cross starts to nudge and guide Little Flipper towards them. Little Flipper looks at them but looks shocked as his eyes shoot between all three of them. He has very large sockets and his face is very expressive. Maybe this won’t be too hard to manage without communication after all.

There is caution but mostly there is curiosity on his face. He studies their tails and it is clear he is more intrigued than actually worried. Horror also gets why Cross is worried about Little Flippers now. The little guy may not have nay survival instincts after whatever happened to him.

Cross looks so excited “Guys. I assume you figured it out but this is Little Flippers!” he looks so proud of himself.

Dust snorts “We figured. And he is little alright.”

Killer laughs “A little cutie! I can’t believe you were going to keep him hidden.”

Cross sputters “I wasn’t! I was just going to make sure he was a bit more comfortable first.”

Horror hums and shoots Killer a look “Be nice. Don’t be too much.”

Killer pouts but before he can answer Little Flippers raises a hand and gives it a little wave. Very friendly and curious than. Smart enough to figure out he is being introduced and is trying his best to go along with it.

Cross then looks at Little Flippers and waves at the cave. Trying to understand why Little Flipper would risk something like that.

Little Flippers frowns as he seems to think and look around. Probably trying to look for a way to get his own message across. He ends up pointing to some fish stalkers off in the distance doing their complex half fighting half dancing mating ritual before he points at the one of the normal egg nests for some rabbit rays and lastly he points at the cave. Looking very satisfied with himself.

Horror frowns as Killer speaks up with a snort “He can’t possibly be confusing fish mating season with his own? That is so stupid.”

Dust disagrees with a shake of his skull “I don’t think it is stupid. If Cross is right about him still having to learn everything concerning himself. It isn’t weird to look at other sea creatures and just copy what they are doing. To get a general feel for it.”

Cross looks nervous “So he is nesting? Without realising what it means of includes?”

Dust shrugs “Not exactly nesting. He is just imitating the other fish I think. But I am not sure.”

Killer frowns “Then we should stop him right?”

Horror frowns and speaks slowly “No… I don’t think it is a good idea to stop it… He is learning about himself and his instincts. If his instincts are telling him to hide and nest because o the other fish it is best to just let him experience it… And to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere near others who could hurt him while his instincts are fragile and he is learning.”

Cross looks excited “Then we help him! we can find him a safe spot and get him comfortable. Help teach him what to do when he feels this way!”

Killer snorts and looks amused “You just want to sneak in some courting and wooing while you can.” Cross looks embarrassed but doesn’t go against it.

With their plan made they look around thinking and muttering about possible places. It is Dust who reminds them that there are always caves in the kelp forest that aren’t used as the stalkers themselves prefer nests out of the open and nothing goes there as the stalkers are territorial.

Horror watches Killer swim near Little Flippers and touch the thing attached to his back. Little Flippers turns quickly and looks unhappily at Killer.

Cross notices and rushes over “Killer don’t do that! He needs that to swim and he may be hurt!” Killer shurgs with a grin before nuzzling Cross’s chin and circles him as he keeps giving Cross nuzzles. Then Killer makes his circle include Little Flippers and pushes the tiny being near Cross. Cross yelps and quickly snatches him and stabilises him before glaring at Killer “Killer!! What did I just say?!” Cross then is quick to check Little Flippers.

When they are side by side it is so obvious that Little Flipeprs is well... little. His skull is much smaller than Cross’s and the length of his arms are shorter. Horror isn’t sure how big the other’s ribcage is and he doubts he will feel safe enough soon to show his complete landdweller form like other selkies can. But Horror can only guess that if he wear a mer like them he would be at most half of Horror’s size…

Little Flipper looks at Cross and gives him a signal with his hands and a smile. Maybe to show he is fine? He doesn’t seem hurt or bothered. Cross shoots Killer one more warning look but Killer looks smug as he relaxes back.

One of the stalkers growls in the distance and they can see Little Flipper tense up and look around anxious.

Little Flipper pushes off of Cross and uses his shoulders to get higher in the water as the little tool on his back starts working. Dust is luckily fast as he just gets near the other and takes hold of him and tugs him into the kelp forest.

Cross looks panicked but relaxes as soon as he sees that it is Dust who has their little future mate.

They all follow Dust’s lead as Dust knows these areas best from his own exploration. Little Flippers can’t really keep up but that is why they just keep him with them. Easy enough and he seems excited about it as he watches how their tails move and how easily they swim. Horror wonders if the other knows what he misses or what those people have done to him by forcing him to adapt…

Dust finds them a few options and they check them out critically before settling on a bit of a bigger one. Mostly because they need to all fit to be able to work.

Cross finishes his inspection and nods happily. Seems like they found a place that Cross finds up to standards for his little friend. Cross is the one who gets Little Flippers inside. He seems to look around and like it well enough even if he looks a bit unsure.

Well Little Flipper had been nervous in the kelp forest with all the stalkers nearby but they will just have to make sure he knows he is safe. He lets himself sink to the sea floor and stands on his legs.

Cross swims over and smiles “And? Do you think this will work for your nest?” and he waits.

Little Flippers looks around the cave again before giving a tiny sweet smile and nods. Clearly understanding what they had been doing for him or at least getting it enough to accept.

Cross looks so excited and Horror can see he is close to nuzzling Little Flippers before stopping himself. Then he goes to them and nods “Okay! He accepted this place. Lets get to work.”

Killer grins and stretches “I will get some pretty things and some plants to light this place up when it is night. We don’t know his night vision situation.” And he rushes out.

Dust yawns “Will get stuff for nest.” And he gets ready to leave.

Cross shouts after him “Not just metal scrap! Also kelp!” he gets a confirmation back.

Horror smiles at Cross and nuzzles him “I will get food. You get started with the nest and keep Little Flippers company?” Cross looks so relieved and nods.

Horror gives him another nuzzle and swims off. There had been something worrying him. Little Flipper seemed vulnerable and fragile. Just looking at him and Horror got the feeling he could he hurt easily. Which makes him worry about the illness that the visitors from long ago left for them to deal with.

Horror searches the area and sees a peeper with the enzyme trail. He quickly catches it.

They have no idea if he is already sick or ate something that has the sickness. Horror hopes that by giving him these they can at least neutralise it or make it not harm him even if he carries it like all of them. Make sure he is okay.

Horror considers how many to get and decides to just keep catching them when he sees them. In the end he has six and he considers if it is enough.

He doubts it is enough for a long time but it should be enough to give him a bit of a boost and nudge his body and health in the right direction.

Horror decides that for now it is enough. They can always catch more of these for him tomorrow. He turns back around and goes back towards the small hidden cave.

Horror makes sure to only get nearer when he knows he isn’t being followed. No need to stress the little nesting selkie out by bringing aggressive predators near.

He gets into the cave and can’t help but smile. Seems like the others already finished the nest and made sure Little Flippers is comfortable in it.

Little Flippers shoots him a curious look while the others all happily greet him. Dust going as far as to give him a greeting nuzzle.

Killer snorts as he tilts his skull “You were in the mood for peepers today?”

Horror shakes his skull as he answers “It are the once with the golden trail. We don’t know how the illness left by the precursors will affect him. Best to give his body and health a tiny boost just in case.”.

Cross nods as Killer looks at him in awe “I hadn’t even thought about that! Good thinking Horror!”

Horror nods before slowly going close to the nest. Trying to make sure he doesn’t trigger any distressed instinct in the other. But Little Flippers just seems curious and watches him go closer.

Once he is right by the nest he offers him one of the good peepers. Little Flippers looks at it before looking back at him. Waiting.

Killer groans “Why isn’t he taking it?”

Horror watches as Little Flippers starts to watch Killer and he makes sure his voice so soft “Because he isn’t used to this Killer. He is still trying to see what he probably can and can’t eat. Don’t be mean to someone who is trying to learn.” His speaking seemed to have caught Little Flipper’s attention as he watches him again.

Eventually Little Flipper ends up taking the peeper. That is good. That is progress.

Horror slowly shows bringing his hands closer to his teeth and biting down on nothing for him. Showing him to eat it.

Little Flipper pulls a face of disgust and tried to give the peeper back to Horror. Horror just pushes it back to Little Flipper. It is his. But this does reinforce that Little Flipper hasn’t been eating the right food. Horror saw those tiny fangs. Not perfect but very much able to bite through raw meat.

Little Flippers looks at the fish with clear distaste before looking at Cross and offering it to him.

Cross looks thorn as he looks at Horror. Horror shakes his skull. Cross sighs before looking back at Little Flippers and pointing between the food and him. Making it clear it is for him.

He even glances at both Dust and Killer but hey make it obvious with their own staring that they expect him to eat it himself.

Little Flipper keeps looking unhappily at the fish. Turning it this and that way to look at it from different angles. A small annoyed little grumble leaves the tiny guy and Horror can’t help but find it adorable.

Eventually he raises it to his teeth and bites into it. The face of discomfort and disgust turns surprised as the exact thing happens that Horror thought would happen. Him being able to easily take a bite and get a piece of meat of the fish. Still he pulls away from the fish and chews the mouthful. The unhappy look turns more surprised as he chews and shallows.

He blinks a few times before staring at the peeper full of shock.

Yeah… Horror gets it. Eating what your body needs when you haven’t been able for a while is unbelievable good.

Little Flippers looks angerly at the fish and mutters some words as a few bubbles of air leaves him. Clearly displeased by the fact the food turned out to be good and feeling betrayed by this change of events.

Killer and Dust start to laugh and chuckle and Horror shoots him a disapproving look “This isn’t funny. He most likely has had anything yet that his body actually needs. Don’t laugh at him.” which just causes them to laugh more even as Cross looks disapproving at them as well.

Then a peeper hits Killer right in the face. Horror turns and sees Little Flippers looking annoyed at Dust and Killer. His arm outstretch to show he threw the fish at them.

Dust looks dumbfounded before his laughing fit just gets worse. Cross sighs but grabs the peeper and brings it back to Little Flippers. After inspecting it Little Flippers keeps eating his first fish.

Horror smiles as he watches the other “I understand why you did it but please don’t throw your food. You need to energy it gives you.” Little Flippers just shrugs as he keeps slowly nibbling. Little Flippers eats just the meat before he moves to throw the only half eaten peeper off to the side but Horror stops him. Pointing at the fish and back at Little Flippers. The other freezes and Horror points at the uneaten organs. The parts of the fish which holds the most of the deeply needed enzyme that Little Flippers need.

Little Flippers looks horrified and shakes his skull again but Horror just nods. Seems like he was with landdwellers. They always throw away parts of the fish or meal that are just fine to eat. Poor guy hadn’t even been allowed to finish the meals he needed. Little Flippers shakes his skull again.

Horror is thinking about what to do when Killer laughs “Tiny picky eater isn’t he?” and he swims over. Little Flippers glares at Killer and aims the half-eaten peeper. Ready to make good on the threat.

Killer snorts and points to the peeper “It is okay little sweety. Just give me it okay?” and he holds out a hand. Little Flippers watches him before first picking up a rock before giving up his weapon. Horror chuckles as he watches Killer look beyond delighted.

“Oh hell yeah little sweetie is a little spitfire!” He holds up the peeper as Little Flippers starts to aim the rock in warning. Killer waits it out and Little Flipper slowly lowers the rock again. The Killer turns to the peeper and digs lightly around and manages to get the stomach out easily enough. Killer grins and holds it out to Little Flipper. Who looks beyond disgusted and shakes his skull stubbornly.

Killer grins as he inches closer “Oh it is okay sweetie.” He coos as he gets nearer “It will be so good for you.” Little Flippers clearly disagrees as he stares with pure disgust.

Killer keeps cooing and trying to encourage the other to take it. Little Flippers shoots Cross a look and Cross looks so guilty as he points between the stomach, Little Flipper and his teeth. “I know you don’t like the idea buddy… but you really need it.” Little Flipper remains stubborn and shakes his skull again.

Killer frowns as he looks at Cross “I don’t think he will take kindly to me force feeding him. Even if it would be better for him to eat this.”

Cross frowns before smiling “Oh I know!” he rushes over and smiles at Little Flippers as he starts pointing at a few things in quick succession. Little Flipper looks considering as he seems to think it over.

Horror shoots Cross a look “What did you say?”

Cross smiles “He has this tool thing that gives him information. I tried to imply that you guys would be fine with him using it in trade for him eating the meal!” he looks relaxed “It is fine. He already used it on me and it doesn’t hurt or harm us in anyway.”

Little Flipper ends up nodding but looks mad about it. Cross is so excited and clearly can’t stop himself as he nuzzles Little Flippers. His whole being purring as he mutters full of praise “Thank you. You are so good. I am so happy you are willing to eat it.” Little Flipper just looks very confused about the affection given to him.

And isn’t that just a sad thought? That he hadn’t just been starved of food but also basic affection? Dust and Killer both seem to agree with him.

Little Flipper pulls out his little tool as Cross smiles “Okay! lets do this! Just hold out an arm.”

Killer blinks but nods “sure.” He swims over and holds out an arm. Blue light comes from the tool and reflects slightly off the bone. Then Little Flipper looks excited at the screen before tilting his little skull.

Killer grins as he holds out the other hand “Your turn little sweety.”

Little Flippers looks so unhappy about this but takes the little ball of nutrients. Then he just pops it in his mouth with a tense face.

Surprise and annoyance on his face. Much like it went with the fish itself.

Killer looks at him sadly but is met with an angry face on Little Flippers face. Killer gets the message however and backs up even if he keeps frowning. Probably finally starting to realise just how little food Little Flipper must have been getting for him to be this surprised by the most basic food source for them.

Horror keeps his voice soft “Hey… it is okay. ready for your next fish?” and he holds out the next peeper. Little Flippers stares at it but takes it and starts eating without complain.

By the time it gets to the insides Little Flippers pauses before moving towards his little hand fins. He nudges the skin and- huh. He undoes the hands?! Showing normal skeleton hands underneath. He can remove different sections of his skin? Horror is intrigued as Little FLippers lays the skin hands on the side of his newly made nest. Then he starts messing with the peeper until the stomach pops out and he eats it whole this time.

After a bit of signing and pointing they manage to make it obvious the eye and pretty much all of the fish is also fine to eat. They do find out that Little Flipper’s teeth aren’t strong enough to crush the bones to eat as well. Horror hopes that with time he recovers enough to gain that strength.

They keep giving him fish as they all relax as Killer gets them their own meal to eat. Little Flippers doesn’t even seem to realise that he is softly purring as his body gets the badly needed nutrients and energy.

By the time that they managed to get Little Flippers to eat the last fish it is already dark and Little Flippers looks kinda dazed and tired. He probably had been swimming looking for a nesting area for a long time before they found him. Maybe he had even been swimming and searching for a safe spot since Cross saw him last.

A small yawn escapes him and Little Flipper seems annoyed before just giving it up as he starts to mess with the tool stuck on his back and-

A click and it is loose.

No! Little Flippers needs that to swim!

He just looks at them confused with the tool in his hands before pointing at the small clips in his skin. Looking completely integrated and part of it and Horror feels sick in his stomach.

Did those… creatures seriously alter his selkie skin? Not just branding it with their sign was enough but also edited it? Horror is happy none on that ship survived. How dare they hurt Little Flipper so much?

Little Flippers puts it to the side of the nest before rolling up and getting comfortable. Horror can see both Dust and Cross look anxious as the little selkie gets comfortable. He very quickly closes his sockets and is asleep within moments.

Safe and sound. Well-fed and comfortable.

Cross looks anxiously at them “What do you guys think? About… what I thought? Do you think? It is like I thought?”

Dust frowns as he thinks “I am not sure… but it fits. His behaviour how he seems surprised to eat things he likes and are tasty. The way he didn’t seem to understand that we were even building the nest. It does seem like something or someone was keeping him from being allowed to use his instincts.”

Killer crosses his arms “He didn’t even want to eat even when he was clearly hungry… like what must happened to cause that? He didn’t even want to try eating the fish… It is like he enver ate fish before.”

Horror hums “Maybe he just never ate it raw before? I know that Farm used to have to cook and make his food. Process it before he could eat it… maybe whoever had him or where he was treated food like that?” it doesn’t make Horror happy. Because it means he still didn’t get what he needed.

Cross frowns as he rubs his hands “So I was right?” he looks close to an anxiety attack.

Dust is quick as he nuzzles him “We don’t know. And we won’t know until we can ask him. Until then we can help him.” then he looks at Cross teasing “You really just want to keep him don’t you?”

Cross looks beyond embarrassed but nods “I like him a lot…”

Killer snorts “I am down. Little spitfire is cute.” As he lounges not in a hurry.

Horror hums “We can ask Nightmare if he can join the group. Maybe ask him to all for Dream.” As Dream had powers to enable landdwellers to communicate underwater he may be able to help Little Flippers as well.

Cross looks hopeful “Maybe they can do what they did for Farm!”

Killer shrugs “Who knows. We can ask.”

Cross looks a lot more relaxed as he lays close to Horror to snuggle for a moment. They will just remain near the other for now until things are a bit calmer. Then they will go back to Nightmare and discuss what they know and think.

Horror is sure they can get this to work.

*--------*

[tiramisuucakeee]

A VERY BAD REP, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN ★

( 420! reader x playboy! heeseung )

IN WHICH : at an exclusive private school in the city, where rich kids thought they ruled the place, heeseung finds out the girl who cheated off of him on an exam and could probably get him expelled, has an even worse reputation than him, and she doesn’t seem to care about what he thinks or says.

WARNINGS: drugs, sexual content. +18.

BTW: tried my best to represent my king fanon suna rintaro in y/n. i haven’t smoked in so long….. it’s been 30 years (2 weeks)….. i’m starting to forget the feeling (girl got sober) ….. ok so basically i dramatized everything cause it’s a fanfic okay, don’t think i take all the stuff i wrote pls and ew i wil never ever write smth like this again, i’m a fluff writer TT

WC: i aint counting allat

read more !

they say opposites attract, even in love, and for him, it’s always been true. he’s into quiet, delicate girls, the type who never speak up and just go with the flow. but no matter how sweet they are, heeseung drops them without a second thought, like they’re nothing more than a momentary distraction after getting what he wants from them. so how did he end up in a situation where it was him doing the chasing? he never really thought he'd have to, ever.

it was almost funny, laughable even. he, of all people, accused of copying on an exam? and now facing the possibility of being expelled if he didn’t find a way to make it right? it was the kind of mess he never imagined getting into.

yes, he was a player and toyed with girls’ feelings for his own benefit, but that was it, he would never dare to stain his behavior record and affect his reputation with the school. he knew his family would kill him if he did, they were the type to always put on a face for others and everyone thought they were this perfect little rich family of three, that went on the most expensive trips and could buy anyone and anything.

he could still remember the teacher’s harsh words blaming him for this. ‘miss y/n has an impeccable record of approved grades in my subject, while you, mister heeseung, barely scrape by. and in this exam, it’s your first grade above a 90. you both share the same exact answers, the same solutions. that leaves me to think you copied off her. i suggest you stop denying it and accept the punishment of suspension. if not, i’ll have no choice but to speak to the principal about expelling you from this school. and your father won’t be able to save you from this one again with donations.’

heeseung slammed his locker shut with a fury, the sound echoing down the empty hallway as the final bell rang. his mind raced, thoughts spiraling. what was he going to tell his family if he actually got expelled? his family reputation couldn’t fix this. the idea was unthinkable, impossible. he wasn’t about to let something he didn’t do ruin everything. he wouldn’t accept it. not without a fight.

he’d stolen the cheat sheet, that much was true. but copying off another student? he would never do that. he had his pride, after all. the problem was, he had no idea how you’d ended up with that paper. how did you get your hands on it? and why the hell had you not even thought about changing one single answer to be slick? his mind was racing, but he wasn’t about to let anyone think he was that stupid.

heeseung had never even bothered to look your way since you got to the school a year and a half ago in your leather jacket and sunglasses. your parents knew each other but you weren’t the type of person he’d ever hang out with. he did know about a guy having a fling with you, and honestly, it almost drove him insane. word has gotten out you had almost driven him to the point of seeking professional help to be sane. but that wasn’t even the worst thing said about you. even with your father’s reputation and money, you weren’t safe from being on people’s mouths as the daughter he never wanted.

what made everything even more difficult was that he had no idea how to make you admit it was you. he didn’t have your number, didn’t know anything about your schedule except for the one class you both shared. confronting you in person seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. he couldn’t risk you turning the whole thing around, making him look like the bad guy while you played the victim. it would be just his luck.

he had never felt so completely taken advantage of. it was always him who used people, who knew how to manipulate them into giving him exactly what he wanted. yet here he was, losing his mind over a girl he’d never even spoken to. it was ridiculous, and it pissed him off.

as the next day rolled around, he was still consumed by it. before the first period, he stood by the stone lion statue on the entrance of school, leaning against the wall next to jake and sunghoon, waiting for karina and wonyoung, as they mindlessly talked about a new prada backpack sunghoon bought yesterday. but heeseung’s mind kept drifting back to the mess with you, he tried to push it aside, focusing on the usual routine. still, the more he tried to forget, the more it nagged at him.

just as he was about to ask jake about you, since he always seemed to know everything about everyone, he stopped himself. no way was he going to ask his friend for help and look uncapable of solving things. he needed to figure this out on his own. instead, he turned his thoughts to how he could find you before the shared calculus class at the end of the day. he had to get to the bottom of this, and fast.

"heeseung!" a cheery voice called out, pulling him from his thoughts. he looked up to see karina dragging wonyoung along, both of them heading toward him, their little red-bottom heels clicking against the pavement. karina flashed him a big, playful smile and waved enthusiastically, her energy cutting through the tension that had been building all morning.

“damn it, it’s too early in the morning for this,” heeseung muttered, rolling his eyes as they approached. jake, who had been watching the whole scene with a smirk, nudged him in the ribs. “that girlfriend of yours, man,” he teased. heeseung just shot him a glare, clearly not amused.

the two girls made their way toward them, but just as they were about to reach the group, a loud, roaring engine cut through the morning air. before anyone could react, a sleek motorcycle zoomed in, blocking their path. the rider revved the engine once more, making it clear they weren’t going anywhere until they dealt with them.

"woah, what’s goin on?" sunghoon asked, clearly impressed by the person who had the guts to stop karina and wonyoung in their tracks. he wasn’t the only one taken aback. everyone was staring as the motorcycle came to a halt. little did they know, the rider was someone heeseung had been obsessing over all morning, someone who could probably ruin both karina and wonyoung’s face with just one single punch. the tension in the air shifted instantly, and heeseung felt his heart race, but not for his girlfriend’s safety, instead, for the person who rolled around.

the motorcycle she was riding was imposing, big, dark, and matte, with electric blue accents. the kind of bike that screamed power and danger. it looked like something straight out of a movie, designed to intimidate, just like its rider. there was a certain energy about her, something that made everyone around tense up instinctively. she didn’t need to say a word to command attention. her presence alone was enough to make even the most confident shrink back.

but they still stepped closer, followed by a crowd of other students who knew exactly who was under the helmet. everyone was eager to see what would happen next.

you pulled off the black helmet, letting your hair tumble out as the cold morning air hit your face, sharpening the already obvious irritation in your expression. there was an undeniable edge to your aura, something fierce and untouchable, like you thrived on chaos and didn’t care who knew it. the way you stood, calm but dangerous, with an almost predatory confidence, made it clear you weren’t here to play nice. karina glanced around, clearly uncomfortable in the middle of a confrontation she’d rather avoid, but she couldn’t deny what she had just done, not going unnoticed by you.

not letting her get the first word, you swung off your motorcycle, your movements sharp and deliberate. "you bitch, are you insane?" you shot at her, pointing a finger directly in her face. the students around you quickly scrambled, eager to capture what might turn into a full-blown fight. for the students watching, it was like something straight out of a teen movie. the popular ‘it girl’ of the school facing off against the infamous ‘bad girl’. a label you despised even more than the people who threw it around. the rich kids were convinced you were a bad person just because you got high 8 out of the 7 days of the week, dressed in black and liked to waste your money getting inked.

"what are you talking about?!" karina stammered, stumbling back as she grabbed wonyoung’s hand, who seemed ready to shrink behind her in panic. they both looked like dolls, dressed in couture clothing and expensive hair accessories.

you scoffed, the memory of what happened earlier still fresh. "don't play dumb with me," you shot back, eyes narrowing. "you're the one who threw food on the road to school from your little convertible. god, are you even intelligent enough to drive?!” karina’s face flushed with embarrassment, not thinking you would actually confront her like this, and for a moment, she looked like she might deny it. but instead, she opened her mouth. "well, i guess i should have thrown it at you then, instead of the road, since you always like to be dirty, don’t you?” she laughed, looking down at your worn out shoes, which were sluthered with mud.

"dirty?" you cut her off with a bitter laugh. "you want to talk about dirty?" your voice dripped with sarcasm. "i’m not the one with half of the school’s dicks down my throat, while embarrassing myself chasing a guy who, the only thing he likes about me is fucking, because it’s the only time i will stop being annoying, how ‘bout that?”

“well, it’s a shame that you don’t have a face pretty enough to even attract a normal guy’s attention. i have seen you hanging around with those shaggy and dirty stoner animals from your old school you call men, having sex in the middle of an alley, all high and out of their minds, huh,” she insisted, pointing at you up and down.

“you’re so full of shit karina, and it’s sad. as if you’d ever find someone that actually likes you, to listen to you talk for more than ten minutes.” you threw her a pitiful look. the students around you shifted uncomfortably, some of them glancing at each other as the tension in the air grew thicker. wonyoung, still holding onto karina’s hand, looked like she was about to step in, but karina pulled her back. “i don’t care what you think, i’m rich, i’ve got tons of friends and i’m pretty, and you have always been jealous of me, just what is your problem?”

you stepped closer, your gaze never leaving hers. “like i care about your dad’s money wash karina, don’t get too carried away, it takes more than money to make someone feel less than you,” you smirked, looking at her up and down. you stepped dangerously closer quickly, making her stumble back once again and shriek, gripping onto wonyoung’s arm even stronger.

“but it will pay your facial reconstruction bill if you keep fucking with me, got it?” you said quietly, but with a force that made the words hit harder than anything else. before she could snap back, wonyoung pulled at her sleeve, whispering something in her ear. karina hesitated, then exhaled a long breath. she wasn’t stupid, karina has seen what ‘kinds of people’ you hang out with, and how bad the other person gets out of a fight with you, she was always quick to insult you, but never to continue fully.

"okay, fine. you want to clean your little tricycle?" karina said, trying to act nonchalant, taking out a huge bill from her purse. "here, i don’t care, just go back to where you came from." you took the bill karina handed out harshly, splitting it in right in the middle, making her gasp, and look at the money falling on the ground, feeling totally humiliated.

not saying anything else, you turned back and mounted the motorcycle again, revving it in a way for the students around to step back, and open way for you to continue your morning, not daring to get in your way. you sped off, the roar of your bike fading into the distance of the parking lot. the boys lingered for a moment before finally making their way over to karina and wonyoung, concern written all over their faces. "you girls alright?" sunghoon asked, glancing at both of them.

karina shot him a frustrated look, her arms still crossed defensively. "yeah, whatever. i'm fine," she muttered, though her voice was tight. wonyoung stayed quiet, looking more shaken than usual, as if still processing the encounter.

the boys exchanged a few more words of reassurance, but heeseung barely heard them. his mind was miles away, consumed by the memory of you. your sharp words, your defiant stance, the way you’d made it clear you weren’t to be messed with. he couldn’t shake the image of you. he couldn’t let it go. not now. heeseung was used to being in control, used to getting what he wanted without a second thought. but you, you were different. there was something about you that made him want to find out more, something about the way you handled the whole situation that had him itching to confront you, face-to-face, but he knew he couldn’t, not unless he wanted to hear karina yell at him nonstop in a fit of jealousy.

"you good, man?" jake's voice broke through his thoughts, and heeseung looked up, blinking. "yeah," he said, trying to shake off the feeling. but deep down, he knew he wasn’t really fine.

as the day went on and classes shifted, lunch break came to an end, and before long, it was time for the dreaded calculus class. you sauntered to your seat at the back of the classroom, right by the window, and dropped into the chair. with a bored sigh, you pulled out your phone, scrolling through it without a care, eyes barely glancing up. it was weird seeing you stick around this long on a school day. usually, you’d slip out early or roll in late, and no one ever said a word. you never had too many absences, always acing every exam. and for that reason, the teachers didn’t question it, because you had this way of making it look effortless, like the rules didn’t even apply to you.

as the class dragged on, something landed softly on your desk, just a small note. you glanced over and saw the girl next to you, the one with the big round glasses, her eyes wide with nervous energy. the second you looked her way, she flinched, shrinking back into her seat. she quickly pointed to the guy sitting next to her, her face practically pleading for you to read whatever nonsense he’d scribbled.

you gave him a weird look, your brow raised in silent confusion, before you slowly unfolded the note, your fingers moving deliberately as if you had all the time in the world. it read, ‘what do you think you’re doing? why did you copy off of me on the exam?’

you snorted at the message, and instantly, the memory hit you. it was the first time you’d let yourself go, forgetting about grades, staying way too long at some random house drugging yourself with something new, until blackout, two days away from home in your ride. you hadn’t made it back in time to study, so you did what you had to do. you texted a contact at school to get you the test. lucky for you, he knew someone in your class who had managed to steal the cheat sheet, and just like that, you had it in your hands.

‘none of your business’ you wrote back, your fingers moving quickly as you folded the note and slid it over to the girl. she hesitated for a second, then took it from you, passing it to him discreetly like it was some kind of underground deal.

a few moments later, the note came back to you. you unfolded it, and your eyes scanned the words. ‘you have to admit you cheated off of me, i’m risking expulsion.’ as if you actually gave a damn about his risk. you shot him a cold glance, then made a subtle motion with your hand, signaling for him to follow you out of the classroom, while you carried your belongings, not planning on returning.

after a few seconds, he finally slipped out of the classroom, meeting you in the empty hallway. "hey, so i really need you to admit you cheated off of me, i could get suspended, even expelled, and i'm not willing to take that kind of punishment for you," he started, his voice full of desperation. but you didn’t let him finish. you raised a hand, cutting him off, and his words trailed off as he stood there, waiting for you to say something.

"i’m sorry, who even are you?" you asked, shaking your head, genuinely confused. "i’m still trying to figure out why you think i’d ever admit to cheating on a test for you." your voice was casual, like the whole situation didn’t even faze you.

"because you did," he said, his tone dripping with self-righteousness. "it’s the right thing to do. you need to get suspended for cheating off of me." he smirked, as if he was the one holding all the power now. "and if you don’t, i’ll just tell them i caught you fucking someone in the bathroom for the test answers or something. you wouldn’t want that, would you?" that made you laugh.

"okay, listen, mr. whoever-you-are," you said, raising an eyebrow, "i’m not doing shit for you. after all, it’s my word against yours, which i’m guessing doesn’t mean much, considering you're the one getting blamed for cheating." you leaned in, a smirk playing at your lips. "and as for the fucking thing? i’ve been caught plenty before. the worst they’ll do is throw me in detention. so go ahead, do as you please." you poked his shoulder, the gesture almost mocking. he stood there for a second, his smile fading as he processed what you'd said. you could tell he wasn't used to being called out like that, or having the cards reversed, but then he leaned in, his voice lowering, like he was trying to pull some kind of play.

"you know," he said, his tone smooth, "a pretty girl like you... you don't really want to be known as the one who got away with cheating. people would start talking, saying you’re not enough for a school like this, wouldn't they?" he stepped closer, his eyes scanning you like he was sizing you up, "but hey, i get it. you don't want to get caught up in more drama. maybe i can help with that... if you just admit it was you."

this couldn’t be happening, you just wondered how in the world did this guy not know of your reputation, he was embarrassing himself so much at the moment. no boys in school got near you for that exact same reason, and here he was, thinking he could word his way into manipulating you, as if you didn’t know how to play your own game. you were known for being this maniatic crazy bitch with a motorcycle, who hang out with ‘lowlifes’, knew how to fight and that was only useful to get drugs from, also probably slept around with teachers because they didn’t think you’re smart enough to study. you’ve been told so many things, that what he said didn’t even bother you.

you rolled your eyes, clearly unimpressed. "oh, so now you're trying to play the good guy card?" you laughed dryly, leaning against the lockers. "nice try, but i'm not some stupid girl you can sweet-talk into doing something."

he chuckled, clearly not giving up. "come on, baby," he said, his voice turning smooth and almost coaxing, "we both know you like the thrill of a little risk. how about we make a nice deal, you admit it was you, and maybe we... hang out sometime. you know, just us. could be fun."

you raised an eyebrow, rolling your eyes again. "wow, really? you are so considerate of me, but no, i don’t want your reduce reuse recycled dick, i'm not interested."

he stepped closer again, trying to intimidate you, but you weren't moved. you just pushed him back with a lazy finger, eyes never leaving his. "you clearly don’t know what you’re doing, or even how to talk to me," you said, voice dripping with mockery. "i'm not impressed. i’ve seen your type a hundred times. and it's honestly fucking pathetic."

he frowned, his jaw tightening, but you didn't care. you weren't here for his tantrums. "seriously, you think this is gonna work on me?" you continued, your voice low and sharp. "you're the one who's gonna look stupid if you keep pushing this. i'm not gonna admit. and if you keep threatening me, we can always settle this another way, i’m sure you know how to fight with those big boy muscles right?" you squeezed his arm, making heeseung shudder, almost feeling a tingle.

you turned to leave, tossing him a final glance over your shoulder. "good luck, though," you added, your voice flat. "i'm sure your suspension month will be really fun." you tossed over your shoulder, voice dripping with sarcasm. "but don't worry, you probably already have a few girls your way to help you feel validated and accompanied."

heeseung just stood there, watching you leave and soon disappear onto another hallway, probably escaping classes. but that did not worry him, we couldn’t let himself worry over a girl like you. you would clearly never fall for his words. guys like heeseung, we’re almost like easy prey for you. too weak and easy, thinking they dominated the whole world, fucking around with girls, throwing massive parties and golfing every sunday with their dad. when in reality they probably didn’t know how to unclog a toilet.

they pissed you off so much, he pissed you off, and now your day was ruined. so almost two hours later, you found yourself on a complete different town to the south, entering an worn out house, kicking the door open. the house brought back many memories, too many. from when you lived here, and not back with your father, in a place you didn’t belong.

"who's here?" a slurred voice called from the kitchen, barely cutting through the thumping music. the place reeked of stale smoke and something sharper, like bleach or chemicals. dim, flickering lights barely illuminated the clutter, casting long shadows over cracked furniture and empty beer cans. scattered on the floor were people, sprawled in various stages of oblivion, some twitching, others motionless, all trapped in their own haze. the walls, stained and peeling, seemed to pulse with the low vibrations of the bass, as if the house itself was barely holding it all together. the house which was previously your mother’s, was now just a usual abandoned place that your friends utilized to hang out in.

"damn, this place is a mess. why didn't you wait for me?" you muttered, stepping into the kitchen. your friends were slouched around a grimy breakfast table, barely looking up as one of them finished snorting white lines off the edge. the counter was littered with crumpled pink blunt wrappers.

"yo! gigi, stop the music!" yeonjun shouted, sniffling as he shot up from his seat, stumbling a bit before he lurched forward to hug you. he almost tripped over his own mismatched-socks covered feet, but when he finally reached you, he inhaled deeply, as if your scent, clean and free of any substances, was a breath of fresh air in the chaos of the room. his grip tightened for a moment, his eyes flickering with a mix of relief.

"i’m not your bitch," giselle muttered, rolling her red-ish eyes as she leaned over to turn down the blaring music. her long acrylic nails clicked sharply against the plastic radio, the sound cutting through the tension in the room. she barely looked at yeonjun as she did it, her expression more annoyed than anything else.

you laughed at her comment, shaking your head, and then moved to hug her, pushing yeonjun off you in the process. he stumbled back, slightly irritated but too dazed to really react, while giselle’s stiff posture softened just a little as you wrapped your arms around her. her eyes flickered with something close to annoyance, but there was a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. you pulled away from giselle, giving her a teasing look. "so, what's the plan for tonight?" you asked, shifting your attention to the other strangers in the room, as they lazily got back to their own little worlds. yeonjun was still rubbing his nose, barely paying attention, while giselle just shrugged, taking a drag from her cigarette before flicking it into an ashtray.

“we’re hitting that party in the hill later,” she said, her voice flat but laced with anticipation. "gonna get crossfaded, maybe do a little more. jay’s been asking about you non-stop, by the way." she giggled. you raised an eyebrow at that, crossing your arms. "jay?" you repeated, a little surprised. you didn't think he’d be the type to obsess over anything, let alone you. "what does he want with me?"

she leaned back in her chair, a mischievous glint in her eye. "he’s obsessed you and your dumb tattoos. that night you two spent together? yeah, he can’t stop talking about it.” she paused, letting the words hang in the air like a secret. “guess he’s got a thing for you.”

you snorted, leaning against the counter, trying not to let it bother you too much. it was funny, people you’ve slept with always seemed to fixate on your exterior. but jay? he was a different story. you didn’t really care about whatever weird little crush he might have, though. he was now from a different crowd, and would never cross that line to be with you.

“he does know i changed schools right?” you said. your new school was a whole different world, elite, private, a playground for the wealthy and connected. kids with silver spoons, flashy cars, and tailored suits. a lot of them were insufferable, like karina, but you didn’t mind. it was easy to stand out, to be yourself in a place where most people just followed the rules. since your mother disappeared and your dad took you back, you’ve been placed in a world you don’t belong, and clearly don’t mind not belonging.

they had their porsche, you had your r7. they had private security, and you had your little hello kitty knife. but here, with giselle and the others? it was different. a lot more laid-back, the students knew how to have fun without all the airs and graces of your new world. they were down to earth, fun, and honest, none of the pretentious bullshit that came with being surrounded by rich kids. they had their flaws, sure, but you loved hanging out with them. it was like coming back home after a long trip to a hotel casino, where everyone was more concerned with status than actually living.

giselle noticed the shift in your mood and grinned, as if reading your thoughts. "i know, i know," she said, her voice softened, almost sympathetic. "but, hey, you're still cool with us. we don’t care about your new rich kid school. we’re just down for a good time."

"yeah, alright. i’m down. just don’t expect me to get too crazy, my dad’s expecting me before five am, he knows how shit goes here,” you let out a quiet sigh, glancing over at yeonjun who was now half-focused on his phone, tapping away furiously with his thumb. "so, i’m guessing you’ve already got the stuff lined up for tonight?" you asked, a smirk tugging at your lips.

he looked up at you, still slightly dazed, and nodded. "yeah, i texted my guy next door. he’s got everything we need. should be ready by the time we leave."

“don’t worry, i’ll go,” you didn’t need to ask twice. despite your better judgment, you were already used to this kind of thing. you pushed off the counter, giving giselle a nod. "i’ll be back in a minute, you both stop inhaling shit and try to sober up, i’m not a babysitter," you said casually, already walking toward the door.

"take your time, don't get too caught tho," she called after you, voice almost playful, but with that edge of concern. the door slammed shut behind you, and you stepped out into the cold evening air. it wasn’t far, the dealer’s place was literally next door, tucked behind a run-down convenience store that no one seemed to go into.

the door to the small house was already cracked open when you arrived. you knocked lightly, stepping back to make sure no one would spot you. a moment later, a guy with messy hair and a hoodie poked his head out, his eyes scanning you quickly before he motioned for you to come in. "yo, what’s up?" he greeted, his tone laid-back but sharp, like he had done this a thousand times before

“yeonjun sent me," you said, slipping inside. you didn’t need to say much, his face lit up as soon as you mentioned the name. yeonjun was a regular here, always popping in for one thing or another. the guy didn’t ask too many questions, which was fine by you. "right, right," he said, disappearing into a cluttered room at the back. you heard the rustle of plastic, the clink of glass. he returned with some small bags of pills in his hand, sliding them across the counter. "this should be good for the night. tell yeonjun he owes me. i threw a little present in there for you, pretty."

you nodded with a smile, taking the bag, your fingers brushing against the cool plastic. it was always the same, but you still hated the feeling of this whole transaction, sketchy, rushed. "thanks," you muttered, seeing a little extra, and slipping the bags into your jacket pocket before heading back toward the door.

"catch you later," he called after you, and you didn’t bother to respond.

as you headed back toward the house, the night started to feel more like a blur of its own, the sun setting into a canvas of dark and light colors.

when you pushed the door open again, giselle was already eyeing you, her arms crossed and a smirk playing on her lips. "got it?" she asked, and you gave a quick nod. "yeah, we’re good to go," you said, tossing the bags onto the table where yeonjun had plopped back down. he gave you a lazy thumbs up.

the party was exactly what you’d expect from a house like this, small, run-down, but buzzing with an energy that could only come from a group of teenagers living for the night. the kind of place where people got high, drunk, and fucked without any care in the world. the walls were covered in posters and graffiti, the floors littered with empty bottles and crumpled cans. music thudded through cheap speakers, competing with the chaotic chatter and the occasional shout of someone daring someone else to do something ridiculous or threatening to start a fight.

when you, yeonjun, and giselle arrived, the front door was wide open. keeho was standing there, practically bouncing with excitement, already tipsy from whatever he’d been drinking. his hair was an absolute mess, eyes slanted and tired-looking, and he had lipstick stains all over his neck, but his grin was infectious as he waved you over.

“yo, rich girl! you made it!” he exclaimed, his voice a little slurred, and he pulled you all in for a quick, sloppy hug. "was starting to think you forgot about me, we gotta get you three started!" without missing a beat, keeho grabbed a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka from the floor and shoved it into your hands, urging you to take a swing. his laugh was loud and carefree, and it felt like you were already swept into the madness. you hesitated for a second, but then shrugged and tipped the bottle back. the burn of the alcohol hit the back of your throat, sharp and bitter, but it didn’t matter.

giselle grinned and knocked back her own drink, wiping her mouth as she handed the bottle to yeonjun, who eagerly took a swig, his eyes already glazed over. keeho’s grin only widened, as if he had orchestrated some kind of victory. “hell yeah, let’s go!”

you all pushed past him into the house, the noise of the party almost overwhelming at first. in the main room, there were already people sprawled on couches, a couple of them making out in the corner, while others lounged around in various states of intoxication. the air was thick with the scent of weed and sex. “okay, so, knowing you yeonjun, hotboxing only in the basement bathroom, i don’t want to repeat what happened last month in my room,” keeho turned to your group with a serious face all of a sudden. yeonjun rolled his eyes and started arguing, and giselle joined in, making you leave the scene relentlessly.

as you wandered further into the house, you spotted jay almost immediately. he was leaning against the wall, a drink in his hand, his eyes scanning the room until they landed on you. the second he saw you, his entire demeanor changed, his gaze locked onto you with a sharp intensity, like you were the only person in the room. you couldn’t help but notice it. there was something almost obsessive in the way he watched you, his lips curling into a small but knowing smile. you weren’t sure if he was just drunk or if it was something more, but you knew he wasn’t just here for a good time. he was here for you.

“hey,” jay said as you approached, his voice low and a little too eager, like he was trying to hide just how much he wanted to pull you into his orbit. “glad you showed up. i wasn’t sure if you would.”

you raised an eyebrow and took the drink from him, taking a sip, already sensing the weird energy from him. "you act like i'm some kind of mystery," you said, your tone light, but there was a hint of warning in your voice.

jay just laughed, though it sounded a little nervous. he shifted, trying to get closer, but you didn’t exactly encourage it. "no, no. i mean, i was hoping you’d show up," he said, clearly not even noticing how desperate he sounded. "i don’t know. i just... i couldn’t stop thinking about you." his words hung there in the air for a moment, too heavy for what was supposed to be a casual conversation. you glanced away, trying to shake the awkwardness of it. he was just supposed to be a random hook up, and now he was obsessed.

"yeah, i’m too sober for this, i need a minute," you cut him off, shrugging his hand away, your tone sharper than you intended. the last thing you wanted right now was another round of jay following you around again. you managed to slip into the bathroom, the noise of the party muffled behind you. the moment the door clicked shut, you let out a sigh of relief, leaning back against the door for a second, trying to shake off the weight of jay’s attention.

reaching into your pocket, you pulled out your phone, hoping for a distraction. you had been waiting on a text from your motorcycle repair center all night, hoping they'd finally gotten back to you about the part you needed. just as you started scrolling through your messages, trying to ignore the distant thumping of bass and the muffled laughter from outside, you heard the bathroom door creak open behind you. before you could even turn around, you felt a hard bump against your shoulder, someone colliding with you unexpectedly.

"hey!" the voice was sharp, and the tone was ready to unleash a curse. but then, the voice shifted, a more amused, almost playful note creeping in. "wait, hold up, you're cute."

you blinked, turning to face the girl who had crashed into you. she was standing there, eyes still wide with what could’ve been irritation, but her lips were curled into a smirk now. she looked like she was about to say something more, but the words faltered when she took another quick look at you. she was a couple of inches shorter than you, her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail, with eyeliner that looked like it had been hastily done, smudging a little at the edges. she wore a worn-out band tee, black jeans, and had that 'i don’t care' attitude.

you raised an eyebrow, still holding your phone, but not making any immediate movement. "thanks," you said dryly, not sure if she was being sarcastic or genuine. “ryujin,” she continued, “and you are?”

“y/n, y/n l/n,” you introduced yourself, almost sounding too righteous.

“you good y/n?” she asked, her voice almost too soft, the kind of softness that could break you without a word. “fuck no, i lost my friends and i need to get high right now,” you laughed, running your hand through your hair.

“oh really?” before you could respond, ryujin was already in front of you, close enough that you could smell the alcohol on her breath, feel the heat radiating off her body. “i can help with that,” she whispered, and there was something about the way she said it that made your pulse spike. she was clearly offering something more than simple. she was offering you something you hadn’t tried before.

she reached into her pocket, pulling out something small, a needle. you froze, your chest tightening, but the pull was still there. you weren’t thinking. you were just so desperate, it would happen again, you would take something from a random hot person. the needle gleamed in her hand, sharp and cold under the dim lighting. you didn’t need to ask what it was, she didn’t need to explain. you could already feel it, the ache of wanting something to take you somewhere else, to make this noise in your head stop. you were sick of it.

her eyes flicked to yours, dark and knowing, like she could see straight through you. "you sure?" she asked, but there was no question in her voice. it was more like a dare. your breath hitched, your heartbeat louder than the music. you looked at her, and for a split second, everything felt still. her eyes held you captive, like she was waiting for you to decide whether to break or not. and then, without saying anything, you nodded.

she didn’t hesitate. one swift motion, and the needle was at your arm. the sting was sharp, more real than anything you’d felt. the rush of it hit you instantly. a sudden heat spread through your veins, like fire lacing under your skin. the world around you blurred, the noise fading into the background. you felt something.

it was almost too much to handle, too quick. your body jolted with the rush of it, the sense of floating, of being untethered from everything. and then, before you could even catch your breath, ryujin was kissing you. it was hard, messy, raw. her lips were insistent, pulling you deeper into the chaos, as if she was swallowing every ounce of your pain. it wasn’t gentle, it was desperate. like she wanted to take everything from you and leave you empty, but at the same time, filled.

you kissed her back, caught in the haze, your body responding before your mind could catch up. the high was creeping in fast, too fast, but it felt good. it felt like everything was finally softening, the noise, the pressure, the expectations, all of it was dissolving with every second that passed.

when she finally pulled back, you were breathless. the world was spinning, but in a way that felt almost right, like you weren’t out of control, but floating in some kind of blissful wreckage. “that’s better,” she whispered, her voice low, smoky, and satisfied. “kissing makes you not feel how much this bitch hurts,” she laughed “or so i’ve been told.”

you just stared at her, too buzzed to say anything, but feeling a kind of calm you hadn’t known in what felt like forever. the pain was gone now, swallowed by the buzz, the heat, and the way she looked at you. like you were both on the edge, and neither of you cared whether you fell off. the rush from the needle still pulsed through your veins as you stepped out of the bathroom, feeling a bit unmoored, like your body was drifting through space. the party felt louder, the music a distant thump in your chest. everything was hazy, like you were floating, and the crowd around you seemed to blur, their faces indistinct. you were just moving.

without thinking, you found yourself at the center of the living room, where bodies pressed against each other, the air thick with sweat and smoke. you let the beat pull you in, letting go of the last vestiges of control. you didn’t care anymore, about anything, anyone. you just moved, your body responding to the rhythm like it had a life of its own, and for the first time tonight, you felt alive.

you danced with strangers, faces you didn’t recognize, their hands on your hips or shoulders, the energy bouncing between you all like an electric current. their movements were reckless, free, and somehow, it felt like you belonged here, in the middle of this mess. the high made everything feel vivid. intense. like every touch, every glance was magnified.

a guy leaned in close, his breath warm on your neck. you didn’t pull away, letting him get close enough to whisper in your ear. you could barely understand what he was saying, but his hands were on your waist, tugging you closer. you let him, lost in the sensation of being wanted, of not caring what anyone thought. your body was moving like it was made for this chaos. you didn’t think. you just felt.

the music shifted, the bass pumping harder, and for a moment, everything became a blur of neon lights and sweaty bodies, spinning like a dizzying cyclone. you let yourself get swept up in it, lost in the noise and the movement, until you couldn’t keep up anymore. the energy in your legs started to fade, your body heavy and tired. you were buzzing too much to care, but eventually, your feet were no longer dancing, just shuffling you toward the edge of the room.

you stumbled to a couch, sinking into the cushions with a long, relieved sigh. the room around you seemed to shift, the music muffled now, everything distant, like you were underwater. you tried to keep your eyes open, but the pull of exhaustion was too strong. you just couldn’t fight it.

your head sank into the back of the couch, and in a matter of seconds, you were out, completely, utterly gone. the noise of the party continued around you, but you were far away now, floating in the quiet of your mind, somewhere where nothing could touch you. the high, the spinning, the chaos, it all faded to a distant hum. you were weightless, drifting in nothingness, as everything slipped away.

you woke up the next morning to the harsh sound of someone shouting, the words barely making sense at first. “everyone get up and get the hell out!” keeho’s voice rang through the room, piercing the fog of sleep that still clung to you. blinking, you squinted at the blinding light creeping through the window, the ache in your head reminding you of just how much but so little had happened the night before. and you tried to suppress the feeling of vomiting.

you barely had time to process everything when keeho appeared at the door, his eyes wide in sudden panic when he saw you sitting there, a disheveled mess on the couch. “wait... you’re here? yeon and gigi were crazy looking for you last night,” he stammered, clearly flustered. you could tell he hadn’t noticed you before, hadn’t realized you’d passed out here.

“yeah, i think someone gave me dope, ‘m not sure,” you muttered, trying to shake the sleepiness from your mind. “could use some clothes though. i didn’t exactly plan on crashing here and i gotta get my ass to school or my father will actually kill me.”

keeho nodded quickly, his face flushing in embarrassment as he glanced around the room like he didn’t know where to look. “yeah, yeah, no problem. i’ve got some stuff, just go to my room. there’s a drawer with girl clothes from... you know. just grab whatever.” he gestured to the hallway.

you stood up, a little unsteady on your feet, and made your way toward his room. it wasn’t far, but the house felt like a maze now, the remnants of last night’s chaos still hanging in the air. the stale scent of alcohol and smoke clung to everything, and you could hear people stirring, mumbling groggily as they shuffled about, trying to piece together the aftermath of whatever they did.

keeho’s room was a mess too, clothes and half-empty bottles scattered across the floor, papers crumpled on his desk. you spotted the drawer he mentioned and pulled it open. inside, there were a mix of clothes, some definitely not your style.

you pulled out a small crop top, the fabric soft against your skin as you slipped it on. the shirt hugged you in just the right way, but the way it exposed a sliver of your tattoos on your side gave you an odd sense of power. something about the ink on your skin made you feel more present, more you, even in the haze of everything that had gone wrong in the last month, not listening to your brain. you quickly grabbed a pair of athletic shorts from the drawer, the fabric light and comfortable, though they were a bit tight on your hips. it didn’t matter. you weren’t here to impress anyone.

you didn’t know what you were expecting to feel in that moment, but it certainly wasn’t this. it was a weird mix of exhaustion and emptiness, and so thirsty. but at least you weren’t in yesterday’s clothes. stepping out of the room, you took a deep breath, preparing to face the aftermath.

keeho was still in the living room, shouting at people to get out, his tone half-annoyed, half-caring, like he was trying to maintain some level of order in the madness. he saw you and gave you an awkward wave. “yo, you good?” he asked, trying to act casual.

“yeah, just tired,” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. “where’s the exit?”

keeho pointed to the door and went back to yelling at whoever was still sprawled on the couch. you weren’t in the mood for much interaction. just get out. get back to the north. you walked toward the door, weaving through the mess of bodies and vomit. the cool morning air hit you as soon as you stepped outside, the bright sun already making the world feel like it had reset itself. everything was sharp, clear. the chaos of the night felt distant now, as if you were waking up from a bad dream.

you tried not to think about it as you walked away from the house, the reality of last night still buzzing in your head. you pulled out your phone and called an uber, the cool screen a brief distraction from the foggy mess of your mind. as you waited for it to arrive, you kept thinking about the night. about the haze, the people, the weird feeling of everything slipping through your fingers. you needed to forget it, or at least stop accepting drugs from friendly girls in bathrooms, you had to stick to smoking-only, or your body would end up on the cover of a newspaper with a bad name. you slid into the back of the car when it arrived, the familiar hum of the engine lulling you into a kind of dull trance as you made your way back to the city.

the ride was quiet, a smooth hum of traffic and soft music in the background. it didn’t take long to get back to the luxurious academy, but as you stepped out of the car and walked through the heavily guarded gates, you could feel the eyes on you. people were already filing into the backyard tables for lunch, and you were late, again.

you didn’t care, though. you didn’t care about anything right now. the school was a blur of clean clothes and sharp faces, everyone looking polished and perfect, the exact opposite of how you felt and looked. you ignored the stares, walking past a couple of your classmates who were giving you the side-eye, their whispers barely audible over the din of voices. but you could feel the weight of it. the judgment. the fact that you weren’t exactly like everyone else here, and they knew it.

you made your way to the lunch hall, where your only acquaintance was already sitting, glancing up as you walked in. chaeryeong’s eyes flickered between you and the time. you slid into the seat across from her, barely noticing the food she'd saved for you. you didn’t have the energy for the usual small talk or the smiley faces she always wore.

“are you okay, y/n?” chaeryeong asked softly. you still couldn’t figure out why she stuck around. maybe it was because you’d protected her in some way, kept her safe from karina and her ridiculous mean girl act. chaeryeong was too kind, too good-hearted. she didn’t deserve any of that. you nodded without thinking, just going through the motions. you took a bite of the sandwich, but the food was tasteless, like everything else was. somewhere deep down, you knew you had to get your shit together, but for now, it was easier to keep pretending that everything was fine.

the real reason why you started being even more reckless than before was simple. you missed her. and you hated yourself for it, for missing your mother, the one who abandoned you a year and a half algo. a part of you wanted to believe this was all a plan for you to move in with your rich father and get yourself a place in society, but deep down you knew she found another family with one of the hundreds of men she slept with every night to be able to pay rent. not like you were actually hurt, though. everything you did, every choice you made, was for her. you liked to think she was in a better place now, not living off of selling herself. in your mind, you had to be your best version, just for her. not for that father you have, which was the first one to actually leave, after hearing the news of your mother being pregnant with you. but karma got him, and now he was stuck with you.

he just lets you be, lets you invite your friends over and make a mess. after all, he has maids to clean up after you. but you weren’t about to be that much of a burden, which is why you pushed yourself to excel academically. your mother always said, ‘every single person is a nobody, no matter how rich or poor. the only thing that makes us different is our drive to be better for ourselves.’

you stand up abruptly, pushing your chair back with a little too much force. "i'm going for a smoke," you mutter, barely looking at chaeryeong. before she can say anything and tell you how drugs are ruining you, you’re already heading out of the cafeteria, your steps quick and determined. you make your way to your locker, your fingers fumbling slightly as you pull out a couple of blunts, the familiar smell of them grounding you.

sliding past the neat hallways, you cut through the back of the school, where the gym equipment is stored, away from the eyes of teachers and nosy students. it’s quiet here, the air thick with the scent of rubber and old wood. you light up without hesitation, the first drag hitting your lungs like a small relief. for a moment, it's just you, the world outside fading into the background. you then take a slow hit, the smoke filling your lungs again, and for a second, it feels like everything slows down. you exhale, watching the thin trail of smoke twist and curl in the air before disappearing. the taste is bitter, but it doesn’t matter. it’s the quiet and that’s important right now.

until it wasn’t. from the corner of your eye, you catch movement, footsteps crunching against the gravel. you look up, and there he is, the guy from yesterday. the same cocky grin, the same aura of someone who’s too used to getting what they want. he was dressed in a faux-fur jacket.

“what the hell…” you watched him get closer, his nose slightly scrunching at the smoke coming out your mouth.

"looks like we started on the wrong track," he says, leaning against the chain-link fence with that insufferable smirk still on his face. "name’s heeseung," he adds, like you should be impressed.

you blink, connecting the dots in your head. heeseung. the rich kid. the usual playboy. and then, it clicks, he’s with karina. the thought hits you like a cold splash of water. of course. he’s here because of her. to bribe you, maybe, or to mess with you, make you look bad in front of everyone. you exhale, the smoke swirling between you as you size him up. "what d’ya want?" you ask, your voice flat, not bothering to hide the growing annoyance.

he wrinkles his nose, taking in the air like he’s just stepped into a dumpster. "really smells like shit here, and you look even worse," he says with a disgusted chuckle, glancing around like he’s considering whether or not to leave. you can’t help but laugh, the sound rough but genuine. ‘he really is a piece of work,’ you think, watching his discomfort. without missing a beat, you take another hit, leaning back against the wall as you blow out the smoke. "maybe it's just you," you say with a smirk, your voice teasing but cold.

heeseung raises an eyebrow, clearly not expecting that response, but you can see the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. he’s not as untouchable as he thinks. heeseung’s eyes flicker down to your exposed arms and stomach, the tattoos that snake along your skin, and you catch the shift in his expression. he’s staring, but it’s not the way he was a second ago, this is different. "did those hurt?" he asks, his tone almost tentative, like he’s unsure if he should even ask. you raise an eyebrow, glancing at him like he’s just asked the dumbest question in the world.

you stare at him for a long second, then pull in a slow breath. "what do you think?" you say, deadpanning. "of course they did." he blinks, suddenly awkward, rubbing the back of his neck. "right. uh..." he trails off, his gaze flicking around like he’s trying to find something else to say.

"are you cold?" he asks finally, his eyes narrowing slightly at your lack of layers. you’re barely dressed for fall, your shirt thin and your shorts almost too small for the weather. the chill in the air seems to be getting to him more than it’s getting to you. you snort, the sharp edge of your laugh cutting through the tension. "worry about yourself," you mutter, pulling another drag. it’s not like you were cold, it’s more that you weren’t going to admit it to him.

he watches you for a moment, brow furrowed, clearly not buying it. his eyes flicker between your face and the way you’re standing. "yeah, okay," he says, though it sounds more like he's humoring you than agreeing. heeseung takes a step closer, his hands slipping into the pockets of his hoodie as he looks at you with a mix of concern and reluctance. "you know, if you really aren’t fine, i could always-“ he cuts himself off, glancing away for a second, as though considering something before shaking his head. "never mind. it’s not that cold anyway, right?"

“stop trying to make small talk, hedeun-“

“it’s heeseung,” he interrupted, visibly bothered at you getting his name wrong.

“it’s whatever, just tell me what you want, i don’t like spending much time with people like you,” you sighed. “what are you really here for?”

“i heard you sell,” heeseung started, making you let out a loud laugh. “if all you wanted was to smoke, you could’ve just asked me to share, i’m not a monster,” you extended your blunt towards him, but he declined. “i also heard about your mother, and about your old school, and everything about it,” he swallowed, nervously fiddling with his hands, contradicting with his harsh exterior. you raised an eyebrow, the edge of a smirk pulling at the corner of your mouth as you listen to him, the words rolling off his tongue with a strange mix of nervousness and something else, like he’s trying to explain himself but doesn’t really know how. it’s not exactly what you expected, but it’s almost worse.

"is that so?" you reply, voice flat but laced with a quiet venom. you cross your arms over your chest, leaning back slightly as if the conversation doesn’t deserve your full attention. "so, you did all this… research on me, huh? i bet everyone had a lot of nice things to say." it was a weird situation, when you changed schools, all the girls were all over you, excited for a new girl, but as soon as they saw who you were, they escaped, not wanting anything to do with you besides get some smoke and pills.

you couldn’t blame them, you didn’t want to hang out with them either. but karina stayed, until you made the ‘mistake’ of dating the guy she liked at that moment, and since then, she made the promise to destroy your life, if only she could even try.

he seems to falter under your gaze, his eyes dropping to the ground for a moment. "i just... i wanted to understand. i wasn’t trying to judge you or anything. i just..." he rubs his hands together, clearly uncomfortable. "i guess i just thought it’d make sense to know who you are before, well, before we talked again."

you can feel the sharpness in the air, his attempt at an apology or explanation almost laughable. you don’t need his pity. “so, you went and found out about me. what now?”

he looks up at you, a bit of guilt coloring his expression, but it’s hard to tell whether he’s more upset about the fact that you’re not impressed, or that his research didn’t give him the right answers. "i just-" he stops, rubbing the back of his neck again, looking more like a kid who’d gotten caught in a lie than a guy trying to make amends, secretly trying to manipulate you. "i didn’t mean to come off like that. i just... i don’t know how to read you."

your eyes narrow, sizing him up. "well, you can start by not making this about me. whatever you think you found out, that’s your problem." you tilt your head, voice going a little colder. "you’re not the first to assume shit about me. and everything i told everyone on this place about me, is barely the surface, so you can do with that what you want. but i’m not here for your guilt trip."

for a moment, it looks like he might say something else, but he just bites his lip instead, clearly unsure how to break through the wall you’ve just put up. and you’re fine with that. heeseung had no idea why you were being so hard. why he couldn’t get to you like he could with other girls. for some strange reason, he seemed drawn to you, almost as if you were here to save him from the horrible destiny that it is to be with karina. but you didn’t seem the slightest interested in him. and he hated that. he hated the fact that he felt like you were unconsciously pulling him in, but he couldn’t do the same to you.

only, that he could. and he was doing it. you could see it in his eyes, the sparkle for the unknown, you were almost an escapatory for him. from his rich kid, player, facade or maybe his own true personality. you felt the extreme change in demeanor he had since talking to you yesterday, after realizing you weren’t like the girls from his school. he seemed way more open today, and way more relaxed. but you weren’t about to be his little side distraction in his perfect, cushioned life. you weren’t just some novelty.

"good conversation, heeseung," you muttered, clicking your tongue as you stubbed out the blunt against the cement wall you were leaning on, then started to walk away. before you could get too far, you heard him call after you. "hey, wait up!"

you turned back to find a faint desperation in his eyes. "sunghoon's throwing a little something tonight, and i know you don’t usually hang with people like us, but you should come. we might need some of that stuff you’ve got." he gestured to the blunt in your hand. it was almost endearing, how he treated something so simple like it was a secret, like it was taboo. the gap between you two seemed clearer than ever.

“i’ll make sure to get you something good, i hope you can handle it,” you gave him a small smile. heeseung watched you walk away, the weight of your words hanging in the air between you. he was used to girls like karina, who flattered him, who followed him, who played by the rules of his world. but you? you were something else. something he couldn’t quite figure out. he didn’t know why, but something about you made him feel off-balance.

‘you’re not an escapade. you’re not just some distraction,’ he thought to himself, eyes narrowing in confusion. you’re different. something about you. you could ground him. he didn’t know what it was. it wasn’t just the exterior, the rough edges, or the way you didn’t give a shit about his family name or his money. it wasn’t just the way you made him feel like he wasn’t the center of the universe for once. it was everything. the way you looked at him, like he was nothing special, like he was just another guy in a long line of guys who thought they could buy their way into your life.

“but i’m not like them,” he whispered, his jaw tightening, for some reason, he felt as if your opinion about him mattered, as if it would validate him and differentiate him from everyone. his fingers itched as he replayed the way you shut him down, how you were so effortlessly cold, so indifferent to everything he usually took for granted. it drove him insane, but in a way that made him want more.

heeseung's thoughts were interrupted as he heard footsteps approaching. he turned, and there she was, karina, dressed in her usual sleek, effortless luxury. she was all polished skin, perfectly pressed clothes, and a kind of beauty that seemed more crafted than natural. every strand of her hair was in place, her makeup impeccable. she was the kind of girl who seemed born to be admired, the kind who could walk into a room and instantly own it with just a smile. "there you are, baby," she said, her voice smooth and warm, but with an edge of impatience. "i've been looking for you everywhere." her eyes flicked over him, a slight frown pulling at the corners of her lips, probably because she found him standing alone. she wasn't used to seeing him like that. the usual crowd of hangers-on was missing.

heeseung barely acknowledged her greeting, his mind still half on you, half on the uneasy tension you left behind. "yeah, here i am," he replied, his voice distant, distracted. karina raised an eyebrow, noticing his disinterest. “what's up with you? you look like you're a million miles away.” her tone was soft, but there was an undercurrent of concern, or maybe just curiosity. he wasn’t acting like himself, and karina was used to having his full attention.

heeseung felt the instant need to go back to his facade, and gave her a smirk. “i’m just thinking,” he shook his head. karina’s eyes narrowed slightly. "thinking about what?" she asked, as if she wanted to understand what had him in this strange mood he changed all of a sudden. he hesitated, looking off into the distance, towards the empty tennis courts. he didn’t want to bring you up, but something in him pushed him to. "actually," he started slowly, "i’ve been wondering... why do you hate that one girl, y/n, so much?"

karina’s eyes flickered briefly, a subtle shift in her expression that heeseung didn't miss. for a moment, he saw something, just a flash, of discomfort in her gaze, he had been around enough girls to start to notice things like this. it was fleeting, but it was enough to make him pause. she straightened, regaining her composure almost immediately, but he could tell. ‘she’s jealous,’ he realized. not just of you, but of the fact that he was talking to her about you. about you, and not her.

karina stiffened, but only for a second. the smile on her face didn’t falter. ‘it’s fine,’ she thought, ‘don’t overreact. he’s just talking about her because she’s interesting. he’s not actually...’ she couldn’t quite finish the thought. she didn’t want to risk making a scene, not when she was so close to keeping things exactly the way they were. she needed him. she couldn’t let you take him away from her. so she would do her best to portray you as someone horrible.

"i don’t hate her," she replied after a beat, her voice a little too controlled. "i just don’t get her."

heeseung raised an eyebrow, unimpressed by her attempt to deflect. "you’re not fooling me," he said, his tone soft but insistent. "you don’t like her. why?"

karina let out a quiet sigh, her gaze shifting down, away from his eyes. she was debating whether or not to say what was really on her mind. finally, she spoke, her voice low. "she just… waltzes into any group, any situation, with that awful motorcycle and a hand full of drugs, and everyone loves her. no effort. she doesn’t have to try. and i hate that."

heeseung frowned, confused. "what do you mean? i don’t get it."

karina’s eyes flickered with something darker now, the frustration seeping through her composed exterior. "i mean, i work for everything. i work for people’s approval, for their attention, for their affection. i have to try, i have to be the right kind of person, say the right things, look the right way. and then she shows up, all… whatever she is, and everyone just falls over themselves for that druggie. no trying. she doesn’t care about any of it, and still, she gets everything." her voice grew harder, colder, as if she was speaking from experience. "it’s like she doesn’t even have to try, and that’s what pisses me off."

heeseung couldn’t help but study her face, watching the jealousy simmer in her eyes. it was subtle, almost masked by her cool demeanor, but he could see it now, clear as day. karina was used to being the one people admired, the one people worked to impress. and you, someone who didn’t play by any of the rules, someone who didn't care, had that same magnetic pull, without any of the effort. and it bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

karina stiffened, her lips curling slightly. "that’s exactly the problem," she snapped. "she doesn’t belong here, and she thinks that just because her father finally acknowledged her, and suddenly she’s super rich, she can act however she pleases. but it’s not like that."

the thought made him uneasy, but he didn’t show it. instead, he shrugged, his gaze drifting back to where you had disappeared. "i don’t think it’s the money," he muttered, almost to himself. "i think she just is. and maybe that’s what makes her different."

karina didn’t respond. she simply stepped closer, closing the distance between them, but he could feel the slight shift in the air, the way her usual easy confidence had faltered, just a little. "whatever you say," karina finally said, forcing a smile back onto her face. "but just remember, she’s just a low life addict, that’s all she is, and will ever be. you don’t want to get too close to someone like that."

heeseung didn’t meet her eyes. instead, his gaze lingered on the spot where you had walked away, and the words from earlier replayed in his head, the ones that had stuck with him the most, ‘i hope you can handle it.’

later that night, heeseung found himself at sunghoon’s house, though his mind was somewhere else entirely. the mansion was alive with the thumping pulse of bass-heavy music, laughter, and the clink of bottles being passed around. it was the kind of party sunghoon always threw, lavish, high-energy, packed with people who were either too drunk to remember their names or too wealthy to care about anything else. people were dancing in the living room, some on the massive leather couches, others sprawled across the marble floors, playing some ridiculous drinking game. it was a familiar scene, people letting loose, showing off, and pretending to forget the rules for a few hours.

but none of that mattered to heeseung right now. he was standing off to the side, leaning against a wall, a drink in his hand but barely touching it. his mind kept drifting back to you, the way you’d walked off earlier, the way karina’s words had lingered in his head. there was something about you that gnawed at him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that tonight would be the night that would reveal something important.

he didn’t even know if you’d show up tonight, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. would you? would you show up, walk through the door with that effortless confidence, and completely flip the energy of the room without even trying? it wasn’t even about impressing people. it was the way you didn’t need to try. you just were. and it was like you could walk into any situation and make everyone else’s chaos feel like it was secondary to you.

he tried to shake it off, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check for something. nothing. his friends were blowing up the group chat, but none of it caught his attention. it was a flurry of photos, plans to leave with a girl, someone complaining about the music being too vulgar, but nothing about you, because you weren’t part of his life. maybe that’s why he kept looking around the room, scanning the crowd, hoping, wishing that you would suddenly appear, even though he knew he was being ridiculous. you probably wouldn’t even care about coming to a place like this. too many people trying to impress each other. too much pretending.

he threw back the rest of his drink on one of sunghoon’s exotic plants, setting the glass down on the nearest table, feeling his mind drift further from the party. he leaned against the wall again, the chatter and music blurring into the background, but his focus remained fixed on the front door. he kept wondering if you'd walk through it.

across the room, jake appeared, grinning wide, holding up two shot glasses. “heeseung! come on, man, stop moping in the corner and have some fun.” he raised his eyebrows, urging him over. heeseung waved him off, still distracted. “i’m good. just got a lot on my mind.”

“yeah? don’t let it ruin the vibe, dude. you’re at a party, not a therapy session.” jake clapped him on the shoulder and turned away to rejoin the crowd. heeseung’s eyes flicked over to the front door again, and he felt that familiar twist in his stomach. ‘she’s not coming,’ he thought, but the doubt lingered. the weird hope that maybe, just maybe, she would show up. ‘she doesn’t belong here, and she doesn’t want to belong here,’ he told himself. this world’s not your scene. but that thought only seemed to make him want to see you even more.

for a moment, he wondered why he cared so much. why was he fixated on whether you’d show up or not? it didn’t make sense. he barely knew you, and yet everything about you felt like a puzzle he had to solve. and now, standing in the middle of this extravagant, noisy party, he felt that pull again, the one that made him question everything, including himself.

he glanced at the door again, half-expecting to see you walk through, but nothing. just the same crowd of people, laughing and drinking, playing their games. maybe you didn’t care about these kinds of parties. maybe you didn’t care about any of this at all.

heeseung pushed through the sliding glass door that led to the backyard, escaping the chaos of the party. the cool night air hit him like a splash of water, and he took a deep breath, trying to clear his head.

the backyard was quieter, but his mind was still buzzing. he was leaning against the brick wall near the pool when he spotted karina on the other side of the yard. she was laughing, leaning into some guy with slicked-back hair, a smile too perfect to be genuine. the guy was clearly into her, his hand resting a little too comfortably on her waist, but karina didn’t seem to care. she was toying with him, teasing him, her eyes glancing over at heeseung for only a second, as if she was trying to make him jealous, but he wasn’t bothered.

heeseung didn’t care. not tonight. the sight of karina flirting with someone else didn’t stir anything in him. he didn’t even feel a spark of jealousy of that guy not being him. it was strange, but in the back of his mind, he kept thinking about you, about how you didn’t fit into this world at all, and yet, you seemed to have more of an impact on him than anyone else in the room.

he was about to turn back to search for jake, when the sound of raised voices cut through the air. it wasn’t just loud, it was intense.

he turned, his curiosity piqued, and followed the noise toward the front of the house. he didn’t know what was going on, but something told him it wasn’t good. as he rounded the corner, he saw the commotion, a guard-like guy, probably hired by sunghoon, was blocking the front door, holding his hand out like a wall. and there, standing just a few feet away from him, were you, fuming, your hands raised in defiance, and your expression unreadable but full of fire.

heeseung’s heart skipped a beat. he couldn’t believe it. you were actually arguing with the guy, not giving a damn about the way he stood there like he owned the door.

“i can’t let you in. you’re not on the list mr. park provided,” the guy was saying, his voice deep and dismissive, clearly not taking you seriously. you, however, didn’t care about his rules or his attitude. "i don’t care if i’m on that fuck-ass list or not, let me in," you snapped, leaning in so close your face almost brushed against his. "move out of my way before i make you."

heeseung watched, a little impressed, a little surprised at how you held your ground. you weren’t backing down for anything, no one was going to push you around. the guy was trying to reason with you, but you weren’t having it. before things could escalate, heeseung walked up, cutting through the tension with his calm presence. the guy looked at him with confusion, but heeseung ignored him, instead turning to you.

“hey,” he said, his voice cool but loud enough for you to hear over the noise. “it’s fine. let her in.”

you stopped, glancing up at him with a look of surprise in your eyes, like you hadn’t expected him to step in. but then your face softened slightly, and he gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod, signaling to the guard that it was okay.

"i said it’s fine," heeseung continued, keeping his gaze on the guy who was still hesitating. "she’s here with me."

the guard’s eyes flicked between you two, clearly unsure, but he finally backed off. “whatever,” he muttered, stepping aside. “but you’re on thin ice, lady.”

you didn’t even acknowledge the guy’s words. you turned without a second glance, and motioned for your friend to follow your lead. “gigi, let’s go,” you said, the confidence in your voice as clear as day.

heeseung blinked, surprised by the sudden appearance of the girl who had been standing quietly behind you the entire time, playing with her nails. you both were dressed in tiny dresses that revealed too much, clearly ready to go somewhere else after this. giselle wasn’t as loud or bold as you, but there was something in the way she carried herself with her salmon colored pin-straight hair and long nails, that suggested she was just as comfortable in her own skin. she followed you without hesitation, taking slow steps toward the door.

the two of you walked together like you didn’t even notice the opulence of the house, the flashy people, or the music blaring from inside. you seemed completely indifferent to the party scene, to all of it, and heeseung couldn’t help but admire it and wonder how had he not noticed you before. while everyone else was caught up in the noise, the drinking, the pretension, you and giselle were just there. not needing anything from this world. not caring about any of it. you only seemed to care about yourselves, about the quiet between you, and maybe that was the most fascinating thing about you.

heeseung was about to say something, but you didn’t even look back at him. instead, you pushed your way through the crowd with your friend, making your way to the kitchen without a second thought. he followed, but kept his distance, not wanting to intrude.

you weren’t here for the party. you were here for you, and he couldn’t help but wonder how long he could keep watching from the sidelines before he, too, would be drawn into whatever world you existed in.

“alright,” you sighed, taking a few small plastic bags from your bra, and a cigarette box. you weren’t any kind of professional underground dealer, but you were still cautious, if not, word would get to your father and it would be a mess.

“i got you, ice, it’s the powder by the way, i got molly, those pills with happy faces on them, and weed… oh, and we pre-rolled them for you, they’re kind of fat, i’m really nice like that,” you smiled at heeseung, seeing him stare at you.

“you good?” you asked, “i didn’t bring anything else, i don’t think you’d even know how to take it,” you stepped back, crossing your arms.

“oh, yeah, yeah, that’s good,” he shook his head, snapping out of his trance. “can i scan-pay you?” heeseung asked, realizing, of course, he didn’t have any cash on him.

“yeah, it’s alright,” you said, pulling out your phone and typing in an amount before switching to a qr code for him to scan. for a moment, you considered scamming him, but decided against it. it would’ve been easy, he didn’t even ask about the prices.

once the payment went through, you flashed a quick, satisfied smile back to giselle. you could already feel happier knowing you would get out of this mansion. as you began to turn away, heeseung’s gaze shifted, his eyes landing on someone across the room. “hold on,” he muttered, scanning the crowd. he spotted jungwon nearby, leaning casually against the wall, chatting with a few people. heeseung grabbed the bags from the counter and stepped over to him.

“hey,” heeseung called, catching jungwon’s attention. “take this to sunghoon, yeah?” he passed the items over, his tone nonchalant. jungwon raised an eyebrow, looking at the bags before meeting heeseung’s eyes. “man, the things you get yourself into for a girl.”

heeseung shrugged, offering a half-smile. “it’s for me. just get it to him. he’ll know what to do.”

jungwon gave him a nod, slipping the bags into his jacket pocket. “got it.”

heeseung’s eyes followed you and giselle as you made your way toward the door, his steps quickening as he caught up with you just before you reached the curb.

“hey, where are you two headed?” he asked, voice casual but with a hint of concern. you looked at him, a little surprised to see him following. “we’re going to the south,” you said, glancing at giselle. “there’s a car race. about half an hour away, and since i had to come all the way up here for you, we’re hoping to make it to the after party.”

heeseung nodded, his gaze lingering on you. “i’ll drive you,” he said, his tone suddenly firm. “we wouldn’t want you, both of you, getting into any trouble out here.”

you raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but too high to argue. you glanced at giselle, who was lighting another blunt, and let out a sigh. "fine," you said, already feeling the weight of the night catching up with you. "i’m not in the mood to call a cab and waste money." giselle shot you a look that was part judgment, part annoyance, but she kept quiet. you could feel her disapproval, but you were beyond caring at this point.

heeseung led the way, and you followed without a word. when you reached the driveway, your eyes widened slightly at the car parked there. heeseung’s car was a sleek, black sports car, the kind that turned heads without even trying. it was polished to perfection, the curves of the body glinting in the dim light of the streetlamp. it was the kind of car that screamed wealth, effortlessly.

“is this yours?” you asked, though you already knew the answer. it was the first time something he had impressed you. heeseung smirked as he opened the passenger door for you. “yeah. pretty sure it’s faster than any cab you’d get out here.”

you shook your head, sliding into the leather seat. giselle climbed in at the back, sitting with her arms crossed, clearly not impressed. she still had that cold, distant air about her when it came to heeseung and his “scrooge mcduck” world.

heeseung didn’t seem bothered. he slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and the low purr of the car’s power seemed to cut through the tension in the air. as he pulled out of the driveway, the smooth hum of the car filled the silence between you all.

it was an uncomfortable ride, but at least it was fast, and you weren’t wasting money on a cab. you stared out the window, the city lights blurring by, while giselle stared ahead, looking as unimpressed with heeseung and his world as ever. heeseung, on the other hand, kept his eyes on the road, his expression unreadable. the drive was smooth, fast. but even as he focused on the road, his mind kept drifting back to you.

he glanced over at you, your face illuminated by the streetlights, your expression unreadable. and for a brief second, he realized that he didn’t want this ride to end. he didn’t want to stop being close to you, even if just for a moment.

as you got closer to the south side, the vibe of the neighborhood started to change. heeseung could feel it in the air. the buildings were older, the streets narrower, the houses less pristine than the ones he was used to. the gleaming luxury of his own world felt miles away. his fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings, a slight unease creeping in.

you glanced over at him, sensing the shift in his energy. “you okay?” you asked, eyes narrowing slightly as you noticed him tense up and grip the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. heeseung didn’t respond at first. he just kept driving, his gaze flicking between the rearview mirror and the unfamiliar streets. it was clear he wasn’t used to this. “yeah,” he said, his voice cool but there was something off about it. “just... not exactly my usual neighborhood.”

you gave him a knowing look, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of your lips. “don’t worry,” you said, your voice light but with an edge of seriousness. “i’ll protect you, whatever happens pretty boy.”

heeseung shot you a glance, eyes flicking over to meet yours, before rolling his eyes. “i don’t need protection, thanks,” he muttered, but there was an almost imperceptible tension in his jaw that gave him away.

you could tell he was uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just the drive. his world and this one were different in every way, and he was out of his element, but you didn’t say anything. it was clear enough without needing to spell it out. heeseung took a turn down an alleyway, the pavement rough and uneven. he parked the car next to a few other vehicles, feeling the weight of the decision. the streetlights here weren’t as bright, and there was a certain stillness in the air that felt too quiet for comfort. his mind flashed briefly to the idea of getting robbed, but he pushed the thought away, shaking his head.

“don’t take it personally,” you said, reading his discomfort easily. you and giselle climbed out of the car, both of you moving with purpose. “come on,” you said, glancing back at him. “the after party’s just down the street.”

heeseung hesitated, but finally stepped out of the car. the low hum of the engine idled in the background, the sound of the city slowly creeping in around him. he walked behind you and giselle, trying not to seem too out of place as you led the way out the alley.

the party was just around the corner, and the closer you got, the louder the music became. from a distance, it looked like any other chaotic house party, but heeseung could sense the difference. the people were rougher, the energy sharper. it felt like a different world, one he had no real experience in. you shot him a glance over your shoulder as you reached the front door. “you’re fine,” you said, almost as if you were trying to reassure him, though you both knew there was no guarantee of that. you gave him a small smirk before pushing open the door.

heeseung paused at the threshold, looking around. this was a place where he didn’t belong, a world where people didn’t care about money or status. it was raw, unpredictable, and everything in him wanted to retreat, but something kept him standing there. you had pulled him into this world, whether he liked it or not. heeseung followed you and giselle into the backyard, where the atmosphere felt more relaxed, but still lively. the yard was filled with groups of people gathered around, casually chatting and laughing. the air was thicker here, filled with the mix of cigarette smoke and the low hum of music coming from the house.

heeseung couldn’t help but feel out of place as his gaze landed on two guys, who were lounging on a bench, laughing with a couple of girls. their casual demeanor was in sharp contrast to the tightly wound posture he’d been carrying since arriving. they noticed him immediately, their eyes flicking to him, then back to you and giselle. noting he was one of ‘yours.’

“girls, you bailed on us tonight,” keeho pouted.

“we told you we were going to sell at one of y/n new classmates party. your little suicide car race isn’t that important,” giselle rolled her eyes kicking keeho’s shin with her heel, making him hiss.

yeonjun raised an eyebrow and smirked at heeseung, who was still tense, and looked like a mannequin from a golf store. “yo, man, you look like you’re about to shit yourself already. what’s with the stiff face?” he asked, clearly amused by heeseung’s discomfort. keeho chuckled, looking at him with a knowing smile.

“you’re here with her, though,” keeho added, tilting his head in your direction. “so, you’re alright, huh? wasn’t expecting to see you here, rich kid.”

you laughed at his comment, taking giselle’s blunt and taking a drag out of it.

heeseung wasn’t sure how to respond. he wasn’t sure why he felt so out of place. it wasn’t like he had anything against the people here. still, he couldn’t shake the tension in his shoulders. “yeah, just not... used to this,” he muttered, glancing around at the unfamiliar scene.

you caught his eye, noticing the tension that still hadn’t fully left him. with a small grin, you spoke up, your tone light but firm. “don’t sweat it. i said i’d protect you didn’t i? you’re fine. just enjoy the night.”

yeonjun laughed and leaned back, gesturing to the people around him. “we’re bro’s, right? just have a good time. you’re with us now,” he said, his smile more welcoming than teasing.

you and heeseung exchanged a quick look, something unspoken passing between you before you broke the silence with a small smile. “want a drink?” you asked, your tone casual but with an undercurrent of something more, like you were offering him a way to settle in, just a little. heeseung hesitated, glancing around at the people milling about, some laughing, some lost in their own world. he still wasn’t quite comfortable, still felt like an outsider, but the offer was simple enough. he nodded slowly. “yeah. sure.”

you led the way over to a small table where drinks were being passed around, beer cans, a few bottles of cheap liquor, and what looked like a mix of makeshift cocktails. the scene felt different than the polished, curated parties he was used to. you grabbed a bottle of something brown and poured it into a plastic cup, handing it to him. “you’re unlucky, i don’t have any fancy cocktails,” you said with a half-smirk, leaning back slightly as he took the drink.

“thanks,” he muttered, eyeing the cup with a little wariness before taking a careful sip. it was strong. way stronger than he expected, and he quickly forced himself to swallow, trying not to show that it burned. heeseung took another drink, feeling the warmth spread through his chest as the alcohol hit him. the tension in his body started to loosen, but his mind kept swirling around the question that had been nagging him ever since you first crossed his path.

“why are you staying with me?” he asked, his voice quieter than usual, a little more curious as you two settled down on two plastic chairs. “why not go back to your friends? seems like you’d rather be with them.” he watched you for a second as you absentmindedly looked around. for a moment, you didn’t answer, but then you met his gaze, your eyes soft and a little more open than usual, like you were letting him see something deeper.

“because i knew you wouldn’t feel comfortable by yourself,” you said casually, but there was something in your tone, something almost kind, that caught him off guard. you shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but he could tell it was, at least to you. heeseung blinked, surprised. he hadn’t expected that kind of answer. it wasn’t what he’d imagined, especially with how standoffish you'd seemed earlier. you weren’t trying to be here out of obligation, or to entertain some rich kid from the party.

and then, as the silence stretched on for a second, he noticed something in your manner. something that shifted, just a little. your body language had relaxed, your words were slower, more open. heeseung's gaze narrowed, and he took a longer look at you. “wait a minute,” he said, voice a little more cautious. “you’re high, aren’t you?” he laughed.

“yeah, i’ve been for the last ten minutes,” you admitted with a small laugh, your words softening at the edges. “it’s just the same thing i gave you, though. don’t get all worried on me.”

“so you’re... this you?” he asked, motioning vaguely to the two of you, to the situation, to everything happening around you. “not the one back at the school?”

you shrugged again, but this time it was more relaxed. “yeah, i guess so,” you said, eyes flickering away for a second, like you were deciding whether to share more or pull back. but then, you met his gaze again, almost like you were daring him to say something about it. “i thought i’ve always been me, but now that you mention it. i guess i kind of act with some sort of resentment to you guys,”

he took another drink, then looked at you, his voice softer this time. “why’s that?”

“hard feeling,” you said simply. “family things, but it’s all handled.” you lied, not wanting to open up to him completely yet. there was definitely a change in him, and you noticed it. and in his eyes you could see the slight desperation and need. it was his new demeanour that made him different. you couldn't explain, because words couldn't even clarify what was starting to lure you in.

“heeseung, seriously, i’m opening up to you, and you keep looking at me like you want to fuck,” you said out of nowhere. he instantly tensed up and looked away.

“i’m sorry, i didn’t realize,” he said. it was obvious he didn’t want you to think of him as a player anymore, he was actually trying to please you now. you let out a soft, teasing laugh, leaning back in your chair, knowing exactly what you were doing. you decided to play into his usual game just enough to give him a bit of satisfaction. "do you?"

heeseung immediately turned toward you, eyes widening in surprise as he caught the playful glint in yours. he knew exactly what you were hinting at, but he still tried to keep his cool, pretending to be unfazed. "huh?"

"do you… want to fuck?" you asked casually, watching him with a challenge in your eyes.

his breath caught for a split second, but he quickly composed himself. he opened his mouth, unsure of how to answer, and hesitated. "i… don’t know," he muttered, trying to play it safe, though his voice betrayed a slight crack of uncertainty. you couldn’t help but laugh softly, your head tilting back as you let out a short snort. you met his eyes again, smirking. "what do you mean you don’t know? is it really that hard to say what you want?"

heeseung shifted uncomfortably, clearly trying to play it cool, but the nervousness was obvious. and it was so very clear that he wanted it. he ran a hand through his hair, his gaze flickering away for a moment. "what even is your point y/n?"

you shrugged nonchalantly, your tone lighter now. "nothing, just asking."

after that night, things were different. heeseung wasn't the same. he wasn't playing games anymore, not the way he used to. it wasn’t like he’d suddenly become someone else, but around you, he changed. that distance he always kept, it started to shrink.

you could feel it in the way he acted, the way he’d look at you sometimes when you were talking in class or lunch with your friend, like he was listening for real and not just pretending. he was less guarded, more real with you.

you started meeting up behind the gym often. no one ever really saw you, and that’s how you both liked it. the air was always a little warmer there, the kind of quiet where you could actually talk. you’d smoke, and he’d sit with you, talking about everything and nothing at all. and even when the conversation would die down, there was this comfortable silence between you two. the kind that felt easy, like you didn’t have to fill every gap with words.

one day, he even just showed up at your door, standing there with his dad, holding a gift basket. you froze when you opened the door. heeseung, here, with his dad, visiting your dad. it was almost laughable. you never thought you’d see the day, but there he was, a little nervous, but still trying to act cool.

"uh, hey," he said, like it wasn’t the most awkward thing ever. "my dad was going to visit your dad... said something about business visits or whatever, so i came with him."

you blinked, still processing, then stepped aside to let them in. after that, you both started to realize how much closer you’d gotten. things weren’t just about secret meetings anymore. they were about knowing each other, understanding each other in a way you didn’t before.

heeseung wasn’t a player anymore, not around you. he wasn’t hiding behind any walls or pretending to be something he wasn’t. it was like he was finally letting himself be seen, and you liked that. a lot.

even with all the changes, even with how much closer you two had become, there was still that one thing hanging between you. heeseung was still with karina. it wasn’t like you didn’t notice it. the way they would still walk around school together, the way she’d smile at him when he passed by. there were no obvious signs of trouble, no cracks in their relationship that you could see.

even though heeseung would drop little hints, those quiet, uncertain words when the two of you were alone ‘i’m thinking about breaking up with her…’ it never seemed to go anywhere. he would say it with a kind of vulnerability, like he was testing the waters, like he was hoping you’d say something that would push him in one direction or the other.

you couldn’t help but feel frustrated. there was this constant tug-of-war between what he said to you in private and what he did when the world was watching. it felt like he was trying to keep one foot in both worlds, but you couldn’t help feeling like you were left waiting in the middle, unsure if you were just a momentary distraction or something more. you told yourself you shouldn’t read too much into it. that he was confused, that maybe it wasn’t the right time, or maybe he didn’t have the courage to make the change. but every time he’d tell you he wanted to leave her, you’d see the conflict in his eyes, that quiet desperation to be understood, to be seen. still, he never followed through. he never made the choice.

you stayed friendly, maybe out of habit, maybe because you weren’t quite ready to let go of the connection you’d built. you let him tag along when you hung out with your friends down south at the house. a spot that was more a sanctuary than anything else, away from the world, away from expectations.

heeseung still had that rich boy aura about him, the one that made him stick out in a crowd of worn-out jeans and streetwise attitudes. but your friends didn’t mind. they were good with him being there, even if they teased him a little. mocking his clean-cut appearance, joking about how his designer clothes didn’t exactly fit the vibe. they liked him well enough, though. it was obvious he wasn’t as comfortable with them as he was in his own circles, but he did try. and they did notice how close you’d gotten to him.

“look at mr. fancy pants over here,” yeonjun would joke, nudging him as he sipped on whatever drink was put in front of him. “you sure you’re not lost, rich boy? this isn’t exactly sushi bar territory.”

he’d smile, a little awkwardly, trying to laugh it off, but there was always a flicker of discomfort behind his eyes. he wasn’t like them, not really. they knew it, and he knew it, but it didn’t matter as much when he was there, surrounded by your friends, just being with you.

you’d catch moments, though. quiet ones when he was staring off into the distance, or when his laugh felt a little too forced. you knew it was because he was still stuck. still torn between two worlds, two lives. and you were tired of being in the middle of it. though, what ou didn’t know, that for him it was much more than that. he was stuck between two girls of different worlds. karina and you.

karina wasn’t someone he actually liked, he was just with her for his reputation and his family. but still, he was with her. and you, you were absolutely everything to him. you were the trouble that came along with bad decisions and the reward that came after them.

it all came crashing down one night when you and your friends were hanging out at the house, like you’d done countless times before. the air was thick with smoke, the sounds of laughter and music filling the dim-lit space as everyone just tried to forget for a few hours. it was supposed to be like any other night, a break from everything that weighed you down. but then, out of nowhere, the door slammed open.

sirens wailed in the distance, but it was already too late. the police stormed in, uniformed and angry, their boots pounding against the cracked floors, their voices demanding silence. they didn’t give anyone a chance to react before they were ripping through everything. throwing aside old records, scattering things off shelves, knocking over bottles.

"this is a raid," one of the officers barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. "everything’s getting confiscated."

your heart sank as they swept through the room, destroying everything. things you had no idea they’d even care about. all the memories, the things that had made this place feel like home, were being taken apart right in front of you. your childhood, your sanctuary, was crumbling.

you stood frozen for a second, not sure what to do, but your instinct kicked in. no way in hell. this wasn’t right. you couldn’t let them destroy it all. you rushed forward, intent on stopping them, shouting at the officers to stop, to leave, to just go away.

"who the hell do you think you guys are?! this is my house! you can’t do this!" you screamed, your hands shaking with adrenaline as you tried to push past one of the officers to get to the old furniture, the things that meant something to you. everything in this house had a story, a memory. and they were tearing it down, trying to find something.

but before you could get too far, a hand grabbed your arm, pulling you back. it was heeseung, his grip firm but gentle as he yanked you away from the officers.

“stop,” he muttered urgently, his voice tense. "you’re not gonna win this. they’ll arrest you, they’ll make it worse." even if he was slightly scared, and terrified of getting himself arrested and the word getting to his father, he had to take care of you. he just wondered how they found out about this place, a drug raid was almost impossible, you were within the legal bounds.

you were almost angry at heeseung for not letting you go. in that moment, as the officers trashed everything that meant something to you, the anger bubbled up inside. how could he stand there, calm and collected, trying to hold you back, when everything you cared about was being destroyed? it felt like betrayal, even though you knew deep down it wasn’t his fault. he wasn’t the one doing this.

you tried to pull away from him, your heart racing, your mind spinning. "let me go, heeseung!" you snapped, your voice sharp and furious. " i can’t just stand here and watch them do this! they’re destroying everything!"

but he held you tighter, his grip unyielding. “i’m not letting you make things worse. not like this,” he said, his voice tight but calm, like he knew exactly what you needed, even if you didn’t want to hear it.

you yanked your arm again, almost reckless with frustration. your pulse was pounding in your ears. “why? why are you stopping me? i can’t just let them-” you broke off, your voice cracking. you didn’t want to admit how scared you were, how helpless you felt. in that moment, you realized, there wasn’t anybody there for you. the house of your mother was being searched, and she wasn’t here. and you knew you’re father wouldn’t care.

his eyes softened, and for a moment, you thought he might let go. but instead, he pulled you closer, his voice dropping to something gentler, but firm. “because if you go after them now, you’re just giving them more reason to hurt you. to make it worse. this isn’t the time.”

you hated that he was right. you absolutely hated it.

it wasn’t just about the stuff. it wasn’t just about the house. it was the fact that it all felt like a reminder of how much you didn’t have control over. the way things kept slipping through your fingers, no matter how hard you tried to hold on. you looked up at him, your chest rising and falling in sharp breaths. “they can’t just take everything,” you muttered, the anger still hot in your throat. “this was my life. my memories. this house is all i am.”

heeseung didn’t say anything right away. he just looked at you. like he really understood. he got it, even if you weren’t sure you could let him. finally, he exhaled slowly. "i know. but this isn’t the way to fix it."

you stood there, your body still tense, but slowly, you started to feel the reality of the situation hit you. he wasn’t letting you be reckless because he didn’t care. he was trying to protect you from making a bigger mistake, from getting hurt. from losing more. with a heavy sigh, you slumped against him, the fight draining from your body. you weren’t sure if you were more angry at the situation or at yourself for feeling so helpless. but in that moment, as the chaos continued around you, all you could do was lean into him. just a little, because you knew you couldn’t do this alone.

after the chaos of the raid, everything seemed to move in slow motion. the police had confiscated everything they wanted that seemed suspicious, leaving nothing but a wrecked space behind. they’d taken their time, ensuring that no one was left with any trace of what used to be there. when it was over, the officers had turned their attention to you, with blaming guns in hand.

you hadn’t even realized they were going to search you until they were doing it, their hands cold and impersonal as they patrolled your pockets, your bag, your shoes. your heart hammered in your chest, and you were still shaking from the adrenaline, from everything that had just happened. everything felt surreal, like you were watching it happen to someone else. but the reality of it hit hard when they finally let you out of the interrogation room, their eyes on you like you were some kind of suspect.

you stood outside the police station, the weight of everything pressing down on you. the air felt colder now, the harshness of the situation settling in. you were free to go, but the damage had been done. you felt exposed, like a part of you had been torn away that you couldn’t get back. but you couldn’t stay there anymore. the night had stretched on, and you just needed to leave.

as you stood there, trying to process the mess that had been made of your life, you heard someone approaching from behind. you didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. his footsteps, the way he moved, the tension in his gait, it was heeseung.

he walked up to you, his face serious, eyes darker than usual. "are you okay?" he asked, though you could tell he wasn’t asking just out of concern. he was searching for something else, something deeper. you didn’t answer right away. you couldn’t. instead, you just gave a tight nod, your throat too tight to speak. but then he said something that made your stomach drop.

“it was karina,” he said.

you blinked, confused. “what do you mean?”

heeseung exhaled sharply, shaking his head slightly, like he couldn’t believe it. "she’s the one who called the cops. i know it. she slipped up when i talked to her a couple of minutes ago, she somehow knew i was here.”

a cold feeling swept over you as everything clicked into place. karina. karina had followed him all the way to the house, had gotten the cops involved. it made sense, but the realization didn’t make it hurt any less.

“she did this?” you asked quietly, your voice hollow. you didn’t need to say much more. it was all there. you didn’t actually believe it was possible for someone to be such a horrible human being. heeseung didn’t respond immediately. his jaw clenched, and you could see how much it was bothering him. how much it hurt him to admit it, but he couldn’t deny it.

"yeah," he muttered, his voice low. "i didn’t want to believe it at first, but... it’s clear now." he looked at you, his expression almost guilty, like he was carrying something heavy. "i never wanted you to be caught up in that. i never thought she’d go this far. i broke up with her, she kept bothering me about being here."

you turned away, looking out into the night, the cool air stinging your face. "so what now?" you asked, the words coming out flat, tired. heeseung stepped closer, his voice more earnest now, as if he wanted to say something, to fix things. "i don’t know," he admitted quietly. "i never wanted it to be like this. i don’t want to lose you... but i don’t know how to fix this either. i don’t want to hurt you."

you glanced at him, feeling the weight of the moment. part of you wanted to scream, to say everything that was building up inside, but another part of you just felt... defeated. because the truth was, even now, with everything that had happened, you still didn’t have an answer. and maybe that was the problem. you could feel it. the tension that had been there for so long. the feelings that you couldn’t fully express, that he couldn’t seem to acknowledge. and here you were, caught in the middle of it all.

“you’ve already hurt me, heeseung,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “but i guess... i guess i’ve been letting you. because i still don’t know how to walk away.”

heeseung’s expression faltered. "i never wanted you to feel that way."

you shook your head. “you don’t get it, do you? it’s not about what you want anymore. it’s about what’s already happened.”

he didn’t have a response. all he could do was stand there, looking at you like he wanted to fix things, but knowing he couldn’t. because when it came down to it, the choice had never been yours. and it sure as hell wasn’t his to make anymore.

for the next few days, you avoided heeseung like the plague. and he couldn’t get close to you. everytime he tried, something got in the way, his friends, responsibilities. and you were fine with that. you just had to accept that everything that happened with him was just a slip up, and you’d soon be in your usual bad girl exterior, ignoring him one again.

but it wasn’t that easy. not with karina still out to make your life impossible. she was still angry at you for whatever reason. angry enough to confront you again.

“how are you doing, y/n?” karina pulled out a chair in your empty lunch table, sitting down neatly on it.

“what the fuck do you want?” you spat, annoyed by her presence. you could already feel the stares of students and teachers, as they were informed of what happened.

“geez, calm down, we wouldn’t want you to get a violence complaint and get sent back to the police station, wouldn’t we?”

that was all she needed to say, the single words that came out of her mouth. and she was face down on the ground. you pressed your knee on her back, keeping her grounded, as your hand made her face keep contact with the dirty floor. “you keep fucking messing with me karina, i told you i wouldn’t let it go.”

from a table not to far away, heeseung sat with his friends, watching the scene intently, and for once, heeseung felt himself worrying about a girl. not karina, but you. for once he felt the need to protect you, even if you were already capable on your own.

a small drop of blood from her perfect skin was enough to make you land yourself in the principal’s office. after the fight in the cafeteria, everything changed. you were suspended for your actions, the consequences of that impulsive moment catching up with you. karina had pushed you too far, it was messy. it was ugly. and now, it was your reality.

you spent the next week alone, mostly, apart from that day your father made you attend rehab, because for some reason the school requested it, there you met some nice people. the suspension meant missing school, being grounded and missing your friends down south who kept spamming your phone, and also being forced to face the aftermath of everything. it was a strange kind of isolation. you hadn’t expected to feel so disconnected. the chaos of the fight, the anger you’d been holding back for so long. it all felt like it had burned itself out in that one violent moment. and now, there was just the quiet, with nothing left to do but think.

one afternoon, as you sat on your huge balcony, smoking a cigarette, since your father confiscated everything else, you tried to let the smoke clear your head. you watched the world outside, the fancy cars in traffic passing below, people going about their business, and it felt almost surreal. like everything that had happened. the raid, the fight, was part of some other version of your life. but you couldn’t forget. you couldn’t ignore the tension in your chest. the weight of everything you’d lost. even if you didn’t want to admit it, even if you didn’t want to feel it, you still missed him. you missed the parts of him that were real. the ones that made you feel like maybe, just maybe, things could be different. but now, with everything laid bare, you realized it was never going to be the way you wanted.

you sighed and flicked the cigarette to the ground, watching it burn out as you leaned back against the railing. it was quiet here, just you and the world. it gave you space to breathe, to think. but still, your mind kept returning to heeseung. to the way he’d looked at you in the hallways before everything went south. to the way he used to make you feel seen. and even though you were angry at him, you still couldn’t shake the thought ‘maybe i miss him more than i should.’

you were lost in thought when the doorbell rang, snapping you out of your haze. no one ever came to your house except your dad, so the sound was unexpected. you walked to the top of the stairs to see who it was, but when you saw the butler let heeseung inside, your stomach dropped. what the hell was he doing here? after everything, after you cut him off. he still showed up. frustration hit you immediately, and you turned to leave, heading quickly to your room. but heeseung wasn’t giving up that easily. you heard his footsteps behind you as he called your name. "hey, wait!"

you didn’t stop. you just pushed harder to get to your door, slamming it behind you and locking it. but you knew he was still out there, still following you.

“please, can we talk?” he said softly through the door. you stood there, fists clenched, torn between wanting to scream and wanting to know why he couldn’t just leave you alone.

you hesitated for a moment, but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave him standing there. you unlocked the door and let him in, and he stepped inside, his gaze immediately scanning your room. it was quiet, almost sterile. nothing like the space you had shown him at your old place. there were no personal touches, no signs of the messy, chaotic you he’d seen before. it felt different. distant.

heeseung looked around, his eyes softening with something like regret, but before he could say anything, you snapped.

“you have no right to come back into my life like this, like you own the place!” you shouted, your voice shaking with anger. “after everything, after you- ugh! you can’t just show up here, acting like it’s nothing!”

he took a step back, clearly taken off guard by the intensity of your words. but you didn’t care. the frustration, the hurt. it all spilled out in a rush. “you didn’t fight for shit, heeseung! you never did. you just kept going back to karina and that made her destroy my life! so don’t come here now, thinking everything’s fine!”

his face tightened, but he didn’t speak. he just stood there, looking at you, trying to find the right words. but you couldn’t let him speak. not yet.

“you don’t get to do this,” you spat, your chest heaving. “you don’t get to just fix it after everything you’ve done.”

heeseung didn't say anything. he just stepped forward and pulled you into a kiss-fast, intense. you froze, feeling all the anger and frustration you'd built up dissolve in that moment. it wasn't gentle, it wasn't soft. it was his apology, his regret, all packed into one. you tried to push him away to keep talking, but he didn't let you. instead, his hand gripped your wrist, pushing you against the wall, and it made everything inside you twist. when he pulled back, his breath was heavy, eyes searching yours.

“i will cuss you out heeseung, for everything, maybe not just now,” you breathed out, making a small grin appear on his face.

his hands gently traced the contours of your figure as his gaze remained focused on you. he was tender, careful, his lips leaving soft, lingering touches, wanting you to remember only the feel of his kiss. "i've missed you so fucking much, you don’t even know…" he murmured, his thumb grazing your jaw. "me too," you replied softly, pressing your lips against his again.

his hands quickly went to the hem of your shirt, his experienced fingers peeling it shirt off your warm body, a small sigh leaving his lips as they trailed against your neck, leaving open mouthed kisses along it. your breathing got heavier as he sucked hard occasionally, very clearly trying to leave marks.

“fuck, slow down, i’m not going anywhere,” you let out a small breathy gasp, feeling his sharp teeth numbing on your skin, then his soft lips pressing against the spot, almost delicately. you moaned lightly as heeseung slid his knee between your thighs, feeling him smirk against your sensitive skin. “yeah, i know.”

heeseung then moved you both to the edge of your bed, gently letting you rest on your back, your head landing softly against the pillows, still very much aware of how much you needed his mouth back on your body.

he resumed to trailing kisses down your chest, through every single line of dark ink on your body, until he reached the hem of your shorts, looking up at you with those dark doe eyes, that drowned in need. “just relax, can you do that for me?” heeseung slowly started to take off your bottoms, as you sighed out “uh-huh.” he pulled them down your legs, throwing them away from your sight.

“just like that,” he slipped his hand through your white laced underwear causing you to shudder. as his soft fingertips brushed against your cunt. your chest immediately tensed feeling his index and middle finger rub down your clit, your wetness coating his fingers.

heeseung captured your lips into a hungry kiss, distracting you for a small second as he pushed two fingers deep inside of you, reaching up. but soon enough, he had you gasping for air against his mouth, as he moved them quicker, his thumb pressing against your clit, sending a warm feeling through your body.

your hand gripped the soft silk sheets, the other on his shoulder, feeling him so deep inside. your hips buckled unconsciously, wanting to get even closer to him. “fuck,” you whispered, dryly moaning, getting the overwhelming sense of cumming start building up.

heeseung kissed the corner of your mouth one time, before going down on you, his hot tongue leaving a wet trail against your skin, and then he replaced his thumb, sucking on your swollen clit, while his fingers still worked their way into you. his eyes observed how you reacted, almost as if hunting you down. it all felt too much, many sensations at the same time, they had you struggling with your words in between moans, as the knot inside your stomach tightened but quickly gave up, “fuck, ‘seung- mhmm, i’m gonna-“ you whimpered, feeling your legs start shaking, making heeseung go impossibly harder on you.

he fingered and sucked you until you came down your high, making sure to lick his fingers clean, not wanting to get your bed dirty, even if it would in a few seconds. you could feel him getting more hard, as he pressed his hips down against your plush thigh to get a bit of friction. a smirk spread across your mouth because you knew you were the reason why.

“come on, let me see your face, pretty girl,” he grabbed you with his other hand, turning your hot face towards him, almost grinning in victory when seeing your half lidded pinkish eyes, as if you were drunk from arousal and his touch. he bored into your face, as if looking at a piece of art, “you’re goddamn beautiful,” he uttered.

“yeah, i know,” you told him, making him laugh, while using your hands to unbutton his pants, starting to slide them off. heeseung noticed this, looking down at your actions then back up at you with a smirk, “and you’re telling me to slow down,” he said with a devilish tone, helping you take off his clothes, ever so slowly, torturing you with the time.

you threw him a warning look, as he propped up, still on top of you, and took off his shirt as well, letting you see his slightly tanned skin, clear of any love bites that soon would coat him. heeseung hovered over your body, watching intently how he deeply buried himself inside of you. he wouldn’t let you do any of the work, it was going to be him.

you felt him pulsate inside of you, your walls stretching out for him due to his size. it was almost painful to feel too full at once. heeseung was trying not to go crazy over how warm and tight your were, suppressing the need to fuck you with everything he had here and now, before starting to move slowly. he went as deep as he could, and once you got used to the feeling of his dick inside you, heeseung started thrusting in roughly, enough to send spams through your heat, to your body.

“fuck, you’re so good for me,” heeseung groaned, and he took advantage of your position under him to make particularly strong thursts, tightening his grip on your waist, his expression full with desire for more, to get lost in you. and your face didn’t make it better, you looked so needy and high from him at the same time, it made him want to fuck you endlessly, and lose control.

his hips kept slamming with yours mercilessly, and you felt yourself aching, wanting to cum once again, letting out a loud inevitable moan. heeseung was pressed by your walls, as he approached his edge soon, taking the moment to pound into you quickly, almost making himself a whining mess.

you whimpered into his mouth due to the overstimulation he caused you with his thrusts, a knot ran through your legs and you didn't know how much longer you could resist, you felt unbelievably full from him. your warm breath made him lose even more concentration, as he mindlessly came inside of you, coating your insides, still throbbing and moving slowly into you.

when he finally stopped and cleaned you up carefully, heeseung dropped next to you, turning to watch your profile. he raised his fist, getting your attention, and you gave him an odd look before joining your own first with him in the middle in a fistbump, even if you felt like you were about to give away into sleepiness. “atleast that’s better than making stuff awkward,” you sighed, looking up at the ceiling, only dressed in your shirt and a new pair of underwear, feeling a small tug in your throat from being dry.

“hey, we need to get up, i was planning on taking you out,” heeseung said, poking your arm playfully. he couldn’t be serious, wanting you to leave the comfort of your bed after not being able to feel how to walk.

turning your body to your side, you looked out of the glass panel that was your window, noticing the sky get darker “you’re crazy, i’m not doing that right now, let me be,” the words left your mouth tiredly, groaning as you adjusted your position.

heeseung shook his head, hearing a small breath from you, telling him you were in already dream-land, way too far for him to get ahold of you. and he was sure it would always be like that, that he would be the one chasing you, and he didn’t mind, because after all the bad decisions, he was knew he could handle it, the bad reputation and everything that came in between.

BTW: this is saur embarrassing, if it doesn’t get atleast one note, i will delete my whole account istg. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 also, not proofread. i’m not reading all that stuff again. ew.

EXTRA:

masterlist.

[wisteria-lodge]

Hi! I would like to ask this Narcissa seems to love Lucius and Draco, cares for them and appears to be a family oriented person but how come it is stated in her wiki that she despises the Blacks, wouldn't this imply she considers herself more of a Malfoy and I mean why would she despise the Blacks when it comes to blood purity/superiority, I don't know the correct term but don't they practice/talk about it more/the Blacks prioritize it so shouldn't she be proud of being a Black?

So I just want to say real quick that the fanwiki is not always... accurate. It includes a lot of data from the games, interviews, interviews with the actors that I would never count as canon, and it's also written by y'know, fans. it's actually pretty funny to read through the entry on say, Lucius, and be told that he was a "high achieving model student" and "his talent in potion-making even earned him a place among Slughorn's elite Slug Club." (right. it was definitely just the potions.) I'm learning that he "favours a more elegant, refined technique when he engaged an adversary and generally demonstrates great form in his duelling style." [citation: Jason Isaacs is pretty]. And while we're on that topic "it is likely that his looks might have improved upon the fall of his former Master." Very important that we know Lucius gets hot again after the books.

My guess is that this is the bit you read:

[text id: Narcissa had a close relationship with her oldest sister Bellatrix despite their differing temperaments and personality traits. Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did. The ones who dared defy their family's beliefs, such as her older sister Andromeda and cousin Sirius Black, leading her to ignore and disown them.]

I don't know about this. Maybe Narcissa and Bellatrix were close at some point, they do use nicknames to refer to each other, but in the timeline of the books there's a LOT of friction.

Narcissa is actively trying to get Bellatrix to "leave [her] alone" during the Spinner's End chapter (which is what the snippet up there is citing.) Bellatrix is... unhelpful about the Draco situation, saying things like, “If I had sons, I would be glad to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord!" She's also blaming Lucius for the Department of Mysteries fiasco, which Narcissa is pissed about:

“Don’t you dare — don’t you dare blame my husband!” said Narcissa, in a low and deadly voice

We also see some sort of power struggle between them later on, in Malfoy Manor:

“This is my house, Bella, you don’t give orders in my —”

In the books, I don't think we get any details about how Narcissa specifically feels about Sirius, or Andromeda. There's this:

“I expect Potter will be reunited with dear Sirius before I am reunited with Lucius.”

Which is just a very Narcissa way of saying "you're on thin ice." I guess the "dear" feels slightly mocking. But she's also actively threatening Harry, so not the most representative moment. We do get this from Bellatrix:

“We — Narcissa and I — have never set eyes on our sister [Andromeda] since she married the Mudblood.”

But... she is also speaking for Narcissa, and panicking in front of Voldemort. This might not even be true.

As for the wiki saying "Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did" - that's such an odd sentence I kinda feel like there must be a typo in there. I'm not sure there's any evidence in the books that Narcissa despises the Blacks.

(I mean I do think, in a fun headcanon way, that you can make a case that she went subtly low-contact with her family after she married Lucius. The Blacks seemed to have a pretty toxic family dynamic going on circa the first war, and one thing you can say about the Malfoys is that there's a lot of love there, and as a family unit they seem solid. Maybe Narcissa did start to think of herself as more of a Malfoy than a Black. (Maybe her Malfoy-blonde hair isn't natural...)

I also think there's something going on with the house elves. The Blacks clearly have a culture of house elves, and the Malfoys... don't? Like there don't seem to be any house-elves there once Voldemort takes over (and I mean, Dobby was such a *stunningly* bad security breach, I'd be shocked if there were.) But the house seems to run just fine, while hosting a bunch of Death Eaters, Snatchers, and prisoners. Makes me think Dobby was the *only* house elf, and that he was originally a Black family house elf who came over with Narcissa when she got married. In that case, I suppose the decision not to get more might mean something. But all that's just me having fun with the worldbuilding. )

[houkagokappa]

The small microclimate conference was fun! It was my first conference and I'm super grateful my supervisor signed me up for it, it's so cool and useful to see what sort of research other people are doing and how they're presenting it.

It started out amazingly when the person I happened to sit next to for the welcome speech greeted me, asked me about my project and revealed that bryophytes are his favourite group of organisms. Turns out he's a huge bryophyte lover from Sweden and I've actually come across his papers when I've been going over the literature! Then during the poster session, there were people who came to our poster specifically to talk about bryophytes which felt really good, since they're only a small part of our group's research otherwise. Yet, there's so much interested in them, and I got to reply to questions about what sort of methodology to use, which was neat.

I also met another student there who I've been in touch with through email, thanks to my supervisor talking to her supervisor and realizing we were both working on bryophyte photosynthesis and setting us up for some email correspondence earlier in the summer. She was really nice. Then I also met an old colleague from the autumn survey, who I remember well for a change, because she was a bit chaotic but super endearing. I talked to her a lot and it was cool to realize how I do actually have a wide network of contacts, and how I keep expanding it!

The conference was also tough because I'm not used to getting up that early and the days were long and PACKED with new information, so I'm glad it's over. I'm also glad I pushed to get my measurements done earlier in the week, so I get tomorrow mostly off, because I'll be working again on Saturday.

[babyleostuff]

── OLYMPICS MASTERLIST

[🌊] DISCIPLINE: SWIMMING

PAIRING: swimmer!mingyu x swimmer!fem reader GENRE: fluff, friends to lovers(ish), idiots that doesn't realise the other one is in love with them too, mingyu is a tease but also down bad WARNINGS: the reader gets hurt (hits her head, nothing too descriptive), mingyu is a hottie WORD COUNT: 3k

SYNOPSIS: what will it take for you and mingyu to finally understand that you're literally meant to be?

natalia's note: @wonijinjin the broad back and bulging biceps are for you

“i can’t do this anymore.” 

mingyu's words hit you like a speeding train. 

you quickly lifted your head from where you were looking at your fingers splashing the water, facing your best friend. 

“w-what?” you asked, horrified. “what do you mean?” 

his shoulders dropped, causing the water to ripple around your bodies, and you couldn’t shake off the feeling that you wouldn’t like what he was about to say next. 

“i can’t do this anymore. i can’t watch you lose again and again,” he sighed, and dived under the red lane line, emerging a second later right next to you. “it’s,” he took a breath, “heartbreaking.” 

with how close he was to you now you didn’t have a choice but to look up, which was stupid because come on - you were in the water. a wole ass swimming pool. like, he could literally submerge himself a little bit more and you’d be eye level, but no. kim mingyu had to flash everyone in the damn room with his godly sculptured chest and shoulders. 

you mentally scolded yourself for losing the last ounces of your dignity over a man, because why was it so hard for you to peel your eyes off his pecs? and a quiet voice inside your head was telling you that mingyu didn’t do this by accident - he knew how it affected you. but it shouldn’t. you were best friends after all. 

and best friends didn’t look at each other’s chests. and wide shoulders. and bulging biceps. 

“then stop being such a bitch, kim mingyu,” you cleared your throat, suddenly very interested in the purple “paris 2024” banners over his head. “if it’s breaking your heart then that’s your problem, not mine.”  

mingyu rolled his eyes, and quickly lifted his hand to splash water at you, making you shriek. what a shame god didn’t bless you with quicker reflexes, so you could cover your eyes at least. it was funny how people used to tell your coach that it would be for the best to split your training sessions because you didn’t get on well with each other, while in reality you got on well a bit too much. 

“uh, excuse moi?” you cringed at his horrible attempt to speak french, “you’re calling the three time world champion and two time olympic gold medalist a bitch?” he put his hand over his heart. 

“then why don’t you want to race with me anymore?” you practically whined. “are you afraid of getting beaten by a girl? would that do damage to your reputation in the olympic village?” you giggled at his unamused stare. “i’m sure the gymnasts would be very disappointed to find out you’re not as big and strong as they thought,” you pouted at him, mockingly. 

“i told you baby, i don’t want to see you lose again, simple as that” mingyu put his hand on your shoulder. “can’t you race against ava or liv?” 

you weren’t sure if it was better to go underwater or to call for the medics at this point. this infuriatingly hot man just called you baby for god’s sake and he had his hand placed so close to your neck it felt as if he was cradling it. luckly you could blame the cold water for your shivering. the worst part - you were 99% sure you saw him make out with alexa before going to paris, so all of the sweet words and gentle touches were platonic. 

they meant nothing. 

which… were you even surprised? the hottest guy making out with the hottest girl on the team. both multiple champions. both insanely talented. 

still, you wouldn’t give up, and that definitely wasn’t because of your delusions that you could pull the hottest and the best swimmer on the continent, but because you didn’t want to lose your best friend.

“you’re not fooling me, kim mingyu. i think you’re just scared of me beating you.” 

he scoffed, and finally lowered himself into the water. thank heavens. “okay then. what do you say about one last race to finish this training off?” mingyu said, and sent you a challenging look, which he knew would rile you up even more. 

“deal,” you shook his extended hand. “but don’t come crying to me when you lose.” 

“as you wish, my queen,” he bowed his head, and snickered. “but-,” 

“no buts,” you cut him off. 

“ah, ah,” he pointed a finger at you. “if you lose you have to take a bath in the seine.” 

sometimes you wondered why exactly you had a crush on him because stuff like these reminded you he was only a man. more like a man-child, but that was if you wanted to be nitpicky. 

“that’s illegal, you moron.” 

you swore you’d drown him one of these days.

with the goggles over your eyes you swam under the lane line to have a whole lane for yourself, because there was no way you’d fit in one lane with mingyu. 

“okay champ, let’s see-,” suddenly you felt a tap on your shoulder. 

“je suis désolé, mais tu dois sortir de l'eau. les préparatifs pour la course vont bientôt commencer,” one of the volunteers was crouching by the edge of the pool with his hand outstretched in your direction. 

“uh,” you shot mingyu a quick look, “i’m sorry, je ne comprends pas.” i don’t understand. the only french you managed to learn before coming to paris, which you figured would come in handy, and as it turned out - it did. a point for you. 

“the competition,” the guy scratched the back of his neck, clearly trying to find the right words. “begin soon.” 

“do you want us to get out of the pool?” mingyu asked, pointing at him and you and then the outside of the pool. 

“yes, yes,” the volunteer nodded quickly. 

well, you could wave your race bye bye. 

maybe the universe didn’t want you and mingyu together, maybe all you were destined to be was friends? besides, one silly race wouldn’t make a difference, if anything, it would probably lead to you pulling a muscle, which would mean a big disaster with your eliminations right around the corner. 

your fate was to end up alone for the rest of your life, crying over a guy you could never have. typical. 

“shit,” mingyu sighed, taking off his goggles. “i really wanted to race you.” 

you sent him a quick smile, dismissing his teasing tone. the quicker you’d realise this wouldn’t work out the better for your poor heart. 

“yeah, that’s a bummer,” you said, grabbing onto the edge of the pool to pull yourself up. 

mingyu grinded his teeth and side eyed the volunteer. if it weren't for the dozens of people around you who were clearly starting to prepare for the race, he would have thrown the guy into the water with his own bare hands. 

“thanks for being a cockblock, dude.”

well, not literally, but this had to be the first time mingyu managed to talk to you without stuttering every other word and not acting that embarrassing. but no. someone had to sweep in and take this away from him. 

“be careful,” mingyu ran a hand over his face, and looked over to you, “the tiles might be slippery.” 

“you don’t say,” you said, and shot him a glare. “im not that-.” 

but before you could finish your sentence one of your hands slipped and you lost the grip, splashing back into the pool. 

“hey, hey,” mingyu immediately swam up to you, closing the gap between your bodies in seconds. “are you okay?” he put his arm around your waist, turning you around in his grip so you’d face him. 

shit.

“did you hit your head?” he asked quickly, taking off your cap. fuck, mingyu felt his lunch creeping back into his throat. if anything happened to you… 

“mhm, i think so,” you answered, disoriented. your vision was clearly unsteady and you were shaking in his embrace, though he didn’t know if that was due to the cold water or the hit. 

“fuck,” he muttered, running his hand gently over your head to look for any cuts or bruises. “we need to get you out of the water.” 

you nodded your head slowly, but that was a bad call, because it only made you more nauseous and made your vision even worse. 

“hey, don’t move. put your other arm around my neck and hold onto me,” mingyu said. 

“but i’m heavy.” 

“shut it or i’ll leave you here,” mingyu grumbled, and tightened his hold around you. 

with ease, as if he was born in the water, mingyu managed to get you to the edge of the pool with ladders, and called for help.

“i’m such a loser,” you mumbled, resting your head against his shoulder. “almost passing out in the middle of an olympic swimming pool,” you let out a bitter laugh, before whimpering. maybe making bad jokes right after almost cracking your skull open wasn’t a good idea. 

mingyu didn’t say anything but you could feel his body tense. 

“she hit her head on the tiles,” he said once the medics made their way over to you. 

they quickly helped him get you out of the water without causing you more pain and laid you on the stretcher. the medics whispered something between them, or maybe you were just so out of it that you couldn’t understand what they were saying, but you could clearly make out mingyu’s voice in between. 

suddenly, you felt as if you were being lifted off the ground, but your blurry vision made it impossible for you to see what exactly was going on. 

“min-mingyu?” you called out. 

“i’m here baby, don’t worry,” mingyu said, and reached for your hand, grasping it tightly so you’d know he was really right there next to you. 

“stop calling me that,” you said, your tone bossy as usual. 

“stop calling you what?” mingyu couldn’t help but giggle when he heard you scoff. good, that meant you weren’t that badly hurt. 

“baby.” 

“what if i don’t want to?” he asked, and ran a thumb over the back of your hand, smiling to himself when he felt your fingers wrap tighter around his.  

you shook your head, or at least you tried to. “then i’ll race you and if i win you’ll stop.” 

“you know i won’t let that happen,” he said softly. 

“stop messing with my heart, kim mingyu.” 

a champion, an olympics medalist, a man made of steel, and still, mingyu felt like he was melting under your gaze. your big eyes looking up at him, your soft lips parted in a slight gasp, your gentle fingers holding onto him for dear life…  

“i won’t,” he shook his head. “not until you stop messing with mine.” 

as it turned out, luckily for you, the impact didn’t cause much damage. “it caused panic more than anything else,” the doctor said. 

“so i’ll be able to race on monday, right?” you asked, twisting the rings around your fingers nervously. the olympics were something you sacrificed your whole life for - you couldn’t remember the last time you slept in, the last time you ate dinner with your family, the last time you had time for yourself, and if all of that would go to waste because of a stupid mistake… you didn’t know what you’d do. 

“don’t worry, you’ll be just fine for the race. i think your boyfriend overreacted a bit out there,” the doctor laughed. “maybe more than a bit.” 

you almost choked on the pills you were swallowing, your face burning with heat. the doctor feeding into your delusions was a big no no, and you definitely did not need that right now. 

“you might want to text him though, he was sitting outside the whole time we were running tests. had to send him back to the village,” he sighed, “he looked like a kicked puppy.” 

that was dangerous, and you needed to get out of there quickly. 

mingyu, on the other hand, couldn’t stop worrying. after the doctor sent him off, he didn’t really know what to do with himself, and he definitely didn’t know how he ended up sitting in front of the door to your room. 

god, he was being so pathetic. instead of telling you how and what he felt, he was acting like a lame highschooler trying to impress you with what? being a faster swimmer? mingyu was never good at flirting but this had to be his lowest low. 

„gyu? what are you doing here?” his head shot up, and there you were - safe and sound. no bandages, nothing. for the first time since he got out of that damn swimming pool he took in a deep, proper breath. 

“the doctor he, um…,” 

“i know.” 

“you know?”

“i know,” you nodded. why did he look so nervous all of a sudden? “shouldn’t you be at the gym? preparing for tomorrow?” 

right. the race. 

“i probably should,” more than “probably” to be honest. your trainer would most likely have killed him already if not for the fact that he was the best swimmer on the team. “but i needed to know that you were okay.” 

“you could’ve just texted, you know,” you said. why was he being so… un-mingyu?

he shook his head, and stood up to his full 6 feet 2. “let me put it this way,” he took a step towards you, “i needed to see if you were okay.”

was he really about to risk your whole friendship? all this time spent on getting to know you, your likes and dislikes, what annoyed you and how he could push your buttons to see that bright smile on your face that always made his day a bit better. he didn’t want to lose all of that. 

but… mingyu felt his hands reaching out for you on their own to make sure that you weren’t in pain anymore, to kiss any bump or scratch to make it better, to hold you close to his chest this evening and keep you safe from all the wet tiles. 

“listen,” he scratched the back of his neck. he needed to do something with his hands. “i have to tell you one thing, and please just let me say it because i don’t think i’ll have enough courage to say it ever again.” 

you nodded your head, your gaze slightly confused. 

it was now or never. 

“okay, so i know we’re technically only friends from work, but not really since we hang out otherwise, and we’ve known each other for how long now? three years? and that’s great, i love training with you, and going to competitions with you, and hanging out with you, but lately… or not lately, really. for a long time-,” 

„mingyu,” you sighed, but the boy kept on rambling. „min,” you tried again, to no avail. „gyu!” 

finally, the man in front of you fell silent, looking at you with eyes wide and mouth agape. 

“i,” you took a deep breath. you knew exactly where this was going. „i can’t do this right now,” you said, and watched the spark in mingyu’s eyes die out. “with what happened today, and the eliminations tomorrow… i just can’t deal with this right now,” god, this broke your heart. “i need some rest, and i need some sleep,” you added. “besides, i also have the relay tomorrow, so i need to focus. this is not only about me, but about the girls. i can’t let them down.”   

mingyu’s heart dropped. if he knew this would end like this, then why was he feeling so disappointed? but he couldn’t be mad at you, no. it wasn’t your fault you weren’t feeling the same, and it definitely wasn’t your fault for wanting some rest. the olympics meant so much to you, and he knew how excited you were for them - he wouldn’t take that happiness away from you. 

„of-of course,” mingyu said, though his voice, his body language, his gaze - his everything, screamed anything but „of course”. he nodded his head and shrugged. „i’ll see you later then.”

you quickly grabbed his arm before he could turn around. „gyu,” you said. „i can’t deal with this now, but i never said i couldn’t deal with this ever.” 

he was so cute, you couldn’t help but hide your smile behind your hand. with slightly dishevelled hair (probably from running his fingers through them too much), un-matching shirt and pants, which you were sure were from last season, and his mingyu smile that showed off his canines… you’d have to be stupid and blind not to have a massive crush on this man. 

„r-really?” 

you nodded your head.

“maybe we can talk about this tomorrow?” you said, and slid your hand down his arm to his hand. “after the eliminations?” 

mingyu looked down wide-eyed at your hand holding his. was this really happening? maybe he was the one to hit his head? his poor heart and fuzzy brain couldn’t actually believe that the girl he had been pining after for god knows how long was actually saying that… that she liked him back? huh, if this was a dream he hoped he’d never wake up. 

“yes,” he breathed. “we can do that.” 

“great,” you smiled, and mingyu felt his heart skip a beat. “you’ll be watching me tomorrow, right?”

“you know i will,” mingyu said, squeezing your hand, and this - your hand in his - this felt right. this was right, and this was how it was always supposed to be. “i always do.” 

and then he did something that almost knocked you off your feet. 

he quickly closed the gap between you, pushing your body gently against the door behind you, and placed a soft peck on your cheek. you almost didn’t notice how his strong arm had snuck around you, holding your waist in a featherlight touch that didn’t quite match his strong hands and big biceps, or how the other one cradled the side of your face, and how his thumb stroked your cheek. almost.

and it was only a kiss on the cheek. 

“good luck, baby.”

[sassy-cass-16]

look man. look

essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now

more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:

"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.

essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.

essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.

astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.

essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."

because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"

it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.

the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."

astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.

god. this moment is just so fucking good

[pathologicalreid]

for the fear of falling apart | part four

you missed the paperwork that said joining the BAU meant having an unstable personal life, and Cat Adams is dedicated to making sure you know nothing is ever private

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | epilogue

series masterlist

who? spencer reid x jareau!reader category: angst content warnings: fear of drowning, couples counseling, spencer's mommy issues, takes place during 15x6 "date night", pregnancy and miscarriage, stillbirth, sexual assault, way too many ellipses, suicide, attempted murder, reader's daddy issues, details from the dirty dozen plotline, mishandled apologies, a lot of yapping, near drowning, disassociation, self harm word count: 9.75k a/n: i hate cat adams so much but god she is so funny in this episode. also cat and spencer shippers are not welcome. why does he look so good in this gif. this is the extent of my coherent thoughts.

“I just made the bed,” you complained halfheartedly, still allowing yourself to be tugged over to the bed despite your protests.

Climbing up on the bed, you tucked yourself into Spencer’s side, so cold after getting out of bed that you wished you could absorb his body heat. “C’mere,” he muttered, placing his hands on either side of your waist and pulling you over him, the two of you meeting face to face. “Hi pretty,” he greeted, craning his head up to place a gentle kiss on your lips.

You smiled slightly against his lips, ducking your head so that your mouths never separated. Mornings away from the bureau were few and far between, so you weren’t interested in wasting a single moment. “Good morning,” you whispered before bringing your lips back to his.

When the phone started to ring, Spencer’s hands fell from your waist in disappointment. He leaned his head back while you rolled off the bed and handed him his phone which he begrudgingly answered, “Hey, what’s up?”

With the phone on speaker, you heard Emily’s voice ring through the phone, “We have a case, it’s urgent,” concern oozed through her tone as you pulled your blazer on over your blouse.

“Alright, we’ll be right in,” he responded for the both of you. Most of the time, they only needed to call one of you.

Emily cleared her throat, “Spencer, there’s something you need to know.”

The thirty-minute drive from the district to Quantico was silent. You decided to drive, not wanting to worry about the metro when there was so much on the line. Barely having put the car in park, Spencer was already flying out of the car and to the elevator.

Several questions rested like a weight on the tip of your tongue and part of you hoped that this was all part of a morbid prank, but you knew when it came to Cat, it was never a joke. Purposefully being the first two people there, you followed Spencer to where Prentiss and Rossi were waiting in the roundtable room, “Catch us up,” he said, walking through the doorway and beginning to study the information on the screen.

“Early this morning Garcia got an email from an anonymous server,” Emily began, looking between the both of you with concern in her eyes.

Dave nodded next to her, “She’s not obscuring her face, telling us she’s got nothing to hide.”

Next to you, Spencer nodded, slipping both of his hands into his pockets, “Any ideas on the victims or UnSub?”

Chewing nervously on the inside of your lip, you looked at the screen carefully. The photo displayed two girls, one of them a teenager, maybe eighteen, and the other couldn’t be much older than ten. You didn’t speak, waiting for the words that you have heard over the phone to be spoken in person.

“No, only the UnSub’s demand that we release Catherine Adams within twenty-four hours. I’m having her transferred here for questioning,” she informed Spencer, “But we have no illusions. This is just a game to her, we know that. The question is, do we want to play it or not?”

In your periphery, you watched the remaining members of the team funnel into the bullpen, each of them placing their belongings on their respective desks before setting up for the day. Glancing back at Spencer, you shrugged almost indeterminably, “Do we have a choice?”

Spencer met your stare before looking back at Emily and Rossi, “Could you guys give us a minute?”

The both of them nodded, switching off the screen before heading out, presumably to begin briefing the remainder of the unit. You listened to the click of the door, waiting for Spencer to say anything.

“I don’t want you in there,” he told you.

You weren’t shocked by his request. When he was released from prison he had wanted to keep you near, going so far as to have you fly with him and your sister to Mount Pleasant because after three months he couldn’t bear to be separated. However, he didn’t want you in the observation room, so you stayed on the sidelines while he spoke with Cat, only hearing bits and pieces after the fact.

Once you nodded, Spencer took a deep breath, “I don’t want her to be able to use you against me. If she even gets the slightest idea that you’re behind the glass… I don’t know what she’ll do.”

Most members of the BAU had their One. The one UnSub that would likely haunt them for the rest of their lives, for Emily it was Ian Doyle, for Rossi it was Tommy Yates, and for Spencer it was Cat. “I’ll stay in the bullpen,” you reassured him, “I won’t leave the building, but I don’t need to listen in.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, pressing a timid kiss to your hairline before looking over to where Emily was waving him over.

Grimly, you followed Spencer out of the roundtable room, armed guards pouring through the elevator, signifying that the eagle had landed. You stopped at the glass doors, nestling yourself behind a wall – you didn’t need to see her, and she didn’t deserve to see you.

“She’s a contract killer?” Matt questioned as Spencer, Emily, and Rossi headed to the interrogation room. The only member of the team who hadn’t been around while Spencer was in Millburn, and the only member of the team with no experience with Cat Adams. In your gut, you felt a tug of envy.

Penelope nodded nervously, “She’s much, much more than that.” Her voice wavered slightly. Garcia had her own issues with Cat Adams, months of living in the BAU had left her worse for wear, but it was the best option while being hunted by a group of hit men.

You watched the members of the team as their eyes followed Cat around the hallway. “She’s a black widow,” JJ clarified for Simmons, “She preys on men she can seduce. She thrives on psychological seduction.” Her words made your stomach flip as you remembered everything she had put Spencer through in Mexico and subsequently prison – it was psychological warfare, and he was being sent into the lion’s den.

Luke nodded along to the narrative, “She has a body count that she’s never confirmed, but it’s believed to be in the hundreds.” Last time you had given tallying them up a chance you had almost reached two hundred, but she was only being criminally charged with seventy-three counts.

“She’s one of the most dangerous criminals we’ve ever arrested,” Tara admitted, “and she is obsessed with Reid.”

The group took a collective breath when Cat was fully in the interrogation room, “He’s the only man to ever outsmart her,” you continued. As much as he hated to admit it, everything she had ever said to Spencer had hit its mark, and you felt like your insides were being shredded at the knowledge that he was in there with her.

You flipped through Cat’s prison records once you were sat at your desk, looking up at any slight moment at the hope that someone might tell you what was going on. The prison records were relatively tame outside of what you already knew about her and Wilkins and her involvement with Lindsay Vaughn, but something you hadn’t thought about was her baby.

Spencer had broken the hard truth to Cat that day in Mount Pleasant, she couldn’t be a good mother. Her psychopathy would make it so that she would grow bored with a baby the same way a child would bore of a doll. You wondered how she viewed her miscarriage. Some psychopaths had the capacity to mourn, but you weren’t sure Cat fell within that demographic.

Her medical record painted a horrifying picture. She had been so far along that the baby had been delivered stillborn. Your stomach flipped at the charts, closing them before moving to the kitchenette to refill your coffee.

On your way, you saw Spencer through the glass doors, changing course so you could catch him before he went back. You veered around the corner, not wanting to call out his name before he turned into an interview room. Lagging behind, you kept yourself hidden, feeling like you were intruding and starting to walk backward, away from him.

Until you heard a crash and a shout, at which point you pivoted and returned to the interview room. A few agents started rubbernecking at the door, trying to see what was going on, “Keep walking,” you ordered them, pointing away from the room.

Inside the room, Spencer had haphazardly discarded his tie on the floor before proceeding to swipe everything off of the bookshelf. He didn’t acknowledge you as you stepped into the room, he just paced, placing his hand on his chest as he tried to self-regulate.

You tried to go around him, wanting to pick up the fallen books before anyone noticed what had happened, but before you could, Spencer grabbed your hand and pulled you into him. Getting over the initial startle, you reached out your arms and wrapped them around him, “I’m right here.”

“I’m struggling,” he admitted to you, holding you tightly against him. His time in prison felt like lifetimes ago at this point, but the way he hugged you reminded you of the day he got out – the last time you had to deal with Cat Adams.

His openness about his feelings helped to ease your own anxiety, and you were able to look up at him and offer a comforting smile, “That’s alright. This isn’t easy.” You kept your eyes on him, readjusting his rumpled collar and messy hair, “Why don’t you go get some water? I’ll take care of this,” you offered, holding your hand up when he tried to protest.

Spencer left without a fight, and you tried to reassemble the books and trinkets in the way they had previously been before wiping your palms on your jeans and walking back into the bullpen.

The team was gathering in the roundtable room, exchanging information and proposing ideas, “The victimology’s off,” Spencer said, gesturing to the screen where the two girls were being displayed.

“How so?” Tara asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing between your fiancé and the screen.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest, “Two young girls. She’s never done anything like this before.”

Agreeing, Tara looked around the table, “She usually targets men that remind her of her father. Children, even adult children are off limits.” She turned to Penelope, “Do we have an ID yet?”

Waving a fuzzy pen in the air, Penelope sighed, “You would think a parent or someone would notice, but there’s nothing coming up in any of my searches.”

“What do we know about the partner who’s been helping her?” Rossi asked no one in particular, looking to anyone who might have an answer.

Matt leaned his elbows over the table, “It’s gotta be someone from her prison. She wasn’t in contact with anyone else. We can start with known associates who were recently released,” he looked to Garcia, who nodded astutely before typing furiously on her laptop.

You spoke up from the doorway, slipping Spencer’s discarded tie into your back pocket, “I have a list going of associates at Mount Pleasant, we can do some comparing and contrasting,” you offered.

“Oh, I do love a good Venn diagram,” Penelope concurred, smiling before scooping up her laptop and making her way back to the lair.

Taking her seat, you uncomfortably sat next to JJ, leaning your knees toward Rossi so that you didn’t accidentally touch her legs. “Okay, can I tell you what’s been bugging me?” Your sister asked rhetorically, “Every time we’ve gone up against Cat, there’s the presenting agenda and the hidden one. If she sticks to pattern, this isn’t just about going on a date with Spencer.”

You considered the idea of her not having a secondary agenda but she had already veered so far off from her usual M.O. that everything else needed to follow the arbitrary rules in her mind.

“Right now, she’s a fixed variable,” Emily counseled, “We need to focus on identifying the UnSub and her victims.”

At that, everyone parted ways except for you and Spencer, you stayed flipping through folders of research you had on Cat Adams, ranging from her time as Miss .45 to her years in Mount Pleasant Women’s Correctional Facility. Spencer stood, hands on the back of your chair as he looked at the pictures being projected on the screen.

Every time Cat Adams came up, each topic you even slightly associated with her resurfaced – Diana’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Mexico, Millburn, and now the two of you were just barely recovering from the fallout of your sister’s truth. You were overwhelmed, and if you were overwhelmed, Spencer had to be on the verge of some kind of breakdown.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered despite the empty room, “Tell me what to do.”

You took a deep breath before turning your head and looking up at him, “I can’t tell you what to do. This is your decision.”

He sighed, lowering himself down in the chair next to you and resting his chin in his hand, “Then don’t tell me what to do, but I would like your input. Your thoughts, feelings,” he amended.

Smiling despite yourself, you looked over at him, “Someone’s paying attention in couple’s therapy,” you said lightly, setting your hand gently on his knee.

“I just need to know if we’re on the same page or if I’m going to mess everything up,” he said, bringing his free hand to where yours rested and threading your fingers together.

You leaned back in the office chair, shrugging slightly before you answered, “I think you should go.”

Spencer frowned, “What?”

“I think you should go on the date with Cat,” you iterated.

Clearly, that wasn’t what he had expected from you, “I don’t- You want me to go on a date with someone else?”

You flipped your file shut before looking back at him, “If I had the liberty to look at this situation as just your fiancé I would, but I’m not just your fiancé. I’m an FBI agent and I’m looking at these girls,” you gestured to the screen, “and I know that our best chance of finding them might just be sending you on a date with Cat.” You took a deep breath, “She always trips up and she always does it with you. It’s your call, at the end of the day, you don’t need to go if it’s not something you want to have to experience, but you asked for my thoughts, so there they are.”

Spencer looked conflicted as he considered his options, “I’ve- We’ve come so far recently. I’d hate to ruin all of that.”

Shaking your head, you smiled at his concern, “Solving the case has to come first this time, love.”

He nodded in agreement, standing up and keeping your hands intertwined, “Come with me,” he encouraged, nearly dragging you over to the interrogation room where Cat was. He opened the door to the observation room and brought you in with him.

You averted your eyes so that you didn’t have to look at her – possibly the only woman you would throttle given the chance – and just waited for Emily, who was getting more details.

Waiting for the door to close behind her, Spencer listened for the click before speaking up, “Well, what are her demands?”

Emily looked exasperated, sharing a look with you before responding, “She wants to go ice skating so she can skate circles around you. She’s wasting our time.”

And her own, you thought, Cat didn’t have much time to make an arrangement with Spencer, eventually, she’d just be sent back to prison. Ice skating would never get approved anyway. No matter how you try to spin it, no one would give her a blade.

The door opened, taking attention away from Cat and onto Penelope, who looked confused and mildly disturbed, “Okay,” she started, “Something weird happened, but it could be a lead. I just got a bazillion voicemail messages, all from the same address on Fourth Street.”

While Tara and Luke checked out the potential lead on Fourth, you stayed sat at your desk, listening carefully to the bustling office around you. Up in Emily’s office, you heard your sister and Simmons updating your unit chief, “We found the UnSub, her name is Juliette Weaver – it took the prison all of five minutes to identify her.”

You filtered through your file in front of you, looking for the information you had on Weaver while Matt continued speaking, “She was Cat’s old cellmate. Released from prison six months ago, off the grid a week ago.”

“What was she in for?” Rossi asked and you wondered if they knew how well voices carried into the bullpen.

Matt cleared his throat before responding, “Low-level possession, she took the rap for her boyfriend, but according to the warden, she’d follow Cat around like a puppy dog.”

Your unit chief hummed thoughtfully, “Easily manipulated. So, Cat groomed her, got her to take orders.” Much like she had done with Lindsey Vaughn, convincing her to destroy Spencer’s life – you wondered if Juliette considered Cat her lover too.

“It goes deeper than that,” JJ interjected, “Cat and Juliette have something in common.”

“Juliette’s dad killed her mom in a domestic dispute. Then he fled and was never caught,” Matt resumed, surprising you.

As you imagined the surprise on Emily’s face, she responded, “That’s exactly what happened with Cat’s parents.”

You watched them in the office as Matt set something down on Emily’s desk, “Yeah, so we did a little digging into Susan. We thought that she might’ve been Juliette’s mom, but she’s not.”

“She’s Cat’s,” Rossi realized.

Matt hummed in confirmation, “Susan Adams, unidentified cold case from 1987. She was found floating in the water on the Potomac. Thanks to that picture, the case isn’t cold anymore.”

Turning your attention back to the information you had on Cat’s former cellmates, you looked over Juliette’s personal information. There wasn’t much on her, but there were some details about her family – including two younger sisters. You would likely need Garcia to confirm it for you, but you had a good feeling that the two girls being held captive were Juliette’s sisters. If that was Juliette’s stake in this, you were no closer to figuring out what Cat’s endgame was.

Looking up at your computer, you thought about the first time Spencer and Cat had gone head-to-head. It had been almost four years to the date. You frowned at your monitor, “It’s an anniversary,” you whispered to no one in particular.

“What was that?” Luke asked from his desk, adjusting his Kevlar vest as he prepared to be the chaperone for the date.

Double-checking the dates, you turned to face him as you clarified, “Four years, almost to the date of the day Spencer arrested Cat.”

Luke nodded in understanding, “That’s why she chose now to act. It wasn’t just that she was running out of time, this was the perfect time for her to get into Reid’s mind.”

Scoffing, you gathered up your papers and walked up to Emily’s office, if Cat wanted to meddle, fine, but you could play her game too.

Four years, you thought to yourself. Spencer had been on family leave for months, and taking down Cat was his first case back. You wish you had known back then how much that case would affect the next four years of his life.

The team gathered when it was time, the remaining eight standing outside of the glass doors to the unit and watching and Spencer and Cat strolled through the hallway. She had been cleaned up, some poor agent sent out to find a date-appropriate outfit for her, and she was holding onto Spencer like he was a prize she had won at a fair.

Spencer’s face was blank. No, worse than that, he was completely absent. Separating himself from what was going on with Cat. It horrified you, every time you saw Spencer retreat into himself it made you sick to your stomach. You were grateful Luke was going with them, he was someone Spencer trusted to make the right calls.

For the first time that day, you and Cat locked eyes, glaring at each other in a battle of wills, “Don’t wait up,” she called out to you, winking before the heavy elevator doors slid shut.

Slowly, your group dispersed, going back to trying to figure out Cat and Juliette’s endgame. You looked at your files, but you couldn’t focus, you could barely breathe. Spencer would be safe. He was smart enough to evade anything Cat threw at him, but she seemed to chip at him every time they saw each other.

You swung in your office chair, trying to form an even semi-helpful thought as your sister came up to your desk, “Hey.”

Peeling your eyes away from the folders, you looked up at her, “Hi,” you responded, slightly confused.

JJ sat on the edge of your desk, crossing her ankles so her legs didn’t dangle, and she looked at you, blonde hair curtained around her face.

There wasn’t much for you to do until the date started and Spencer could fish for answers with Cat, but even so, you weren’t interested in holding a staring contest with your sister. “Did you need anything?” You felt like it was a gentle enough question, there was no reason for you to bring your hostile family relationship to work with you. Everyone knew there was something happening between the two of you, but no one knew precisely what it was.

Her eyebrows creased briefly, “I thought we could talk, just for a minute.”

You unceremoniously dropped your pen on your desk, leaning back and looking at your sister incredulously, “Kind of shit timing, don’t you think?”

“I invited you for dinner last night and you didn’t show up. Every time I come up to you at work you start a conversation with someone else,” she tried to explain herself.

It was exactly as she thought – you were avoiding her. You had no interest in repairing your familial tie, your thread of gold had frayed beyond repair. “I was busy last night, I told you I wouldn’t be able to make it. You’re the one who didn’t believe me.”

She sighed defeatedly, “Thursdays used to be your best night. You’d always come for dinner on Thursday nights like clockwork, are you telling me that changed overnight?”

You bit your tongue, but it wasn’t that you were trying to stop yourself from sniping at her, you were trying to stop yourself from telling her where you were last night. Thursday evening was your weekly couples counseling appointment and your sister didn’t need to be privy to the inner workings of your relationship. Besides that, none of this had been overnight – you hadn’t been over for dinner in months now.

For every single milestone that you reached with Spencer, JJ was the first person you told, but when you got engaged, she found out the news secondhand through Penelope. You knew you had hurt her. Maybe it wasn’t the same as her love confession, but you hurt her, and you couldn’t bring yourself to apologize. You weren’t entirely sure if you should apologize.

“I’m telling you that I didn’t snub you on dinner, JJ. I was busy, I couldn’t come,” you told her, keeping your tone level as you looked up at her.

Her expression soured, “How long are you going to be mad at me?”

Forever, if you could help it, but you couldn’t tell her that. Despite your anger, despite the sadness that thinking too hard about all of this brought you, you knew that you weren’t capable of holding your sister at arm’s length for the rest of your life. “JJ, I’m not-“ you cut yourself off. “When I found out that you were in love with Spencer, I promised myself that I wouldn’t hold it against you,” you lowered your voice, conscious of the bustling bullpen around you. “I’ve kept that promise. I can’t blame you for loving him when I know everything he has ever done that makes him loveable. I love him too. So, in whatever convoluted way you want to look at it, I understand where you’re coming from.”

She nodded in what seemed like agreement, “Ducky, I’ve known him for fifteen years, I couldn’t-“

“You see,” you interrupted her, “That’s where my understanding runs out. Just because you’ve known him longer doesn’t give you the right to come into our relationship and fuck everything up. Yes, Jennifer, you’ve known him for fifteen years, but you rejected him. You rejected him and ended up with someone else. Thirteen years after meeting Will, you told Spencer you were in love with him. Do you know how wrong that is?”

JJ’s shoulders slumped forward, “Yes, but-“

You held up your hand, stopping her from speaking, “No, JJ. There’s no ‘but’. What you did was wrong. You can try to justify it to me in whatever way you want, but what you did will always be wrong. It will always affect our relationship. Your love for Spencer is the ghost haunting our house and there are no Ouija boards in the world that can translate for me,” You cringed at your figure of speech, but you went along with it anyway.

“You’re engaged, so there’s obviously a way through this for the two of you,” she tried to argue, but you could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

Pausing, you picked at the dry skin around your nails, “Spencer and I had a really long and exhaustive talk a few weeks ago.”

She raised her eyebrows, “I know, I read the police blotter.”

You rolled your eyes, that hadn’t been a fun talk with Emily, but at least she prevented your dispute from reaching HR. “Yeah, we had a loud talk. We figured things out. We’re still figuring things out, but we decided that we’d rather do that together than apart.”

“I helped him pick the ring,” she confessed. “About a year ago and I thought… I thought he’d tell me before asking.”

Instinctively, your eyes flicked down to your left hand, “For what it’s worth, it was all very spur of the moment.”

JJ shook her head, “Why are you trying to comfort me right now?”

“God, JJ. I might be pissed at you, but you’re still my sister,” you snapped at her. “While I might want to, I can’t just cut you out of my life and I can’t stop myself from caring about you. If you want to work on our relationship, owning up to your mistakes is a good start. Spencer came clean to me and now we’re engaged, but that doesn’t negate the fact that this was broken in the first place. You don’t get to brush this under the rug.”

“You wouldn’t let me brush it under the rug anyway,” she retorted.

Your head snapped up to her, “Is that what you want? To forget any of this ever happened?”

She was quiet for a while before responding, “Yes.”

You pressed your lips together and studied her briefly, “Well, I can’t give you that.”

JJ opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but Emily beat her to it, calling out to you from the doorway of her office, “Do you have a second?”

The ceiling of your apartment was only interesting for a limited amount of time. You’d spent years in the apartment, tracing the patterns with your eyes just felt redundant now.

Emily had benched you. She disguised it as giving you the rest of the night off, but you were effectively taken off the case. She couldn’t claim it was a conflict of interest, everyone on the team had a conflict of interest with Cat Adams, but that’s what she thought it was.

You sat down on the couch, drumming your fingers on your denim-clad thigh while you waited for a phone call – you’d even take a text message.

Wallowing in your own boredom, you listened to the sounds of the city. Where the two of you lived, it was hectic during the day and became more manageable at night, but it was still the city. Cars drove by, sirens wailed, people chatted along the sidewalk, and people spoke in the hallway.

No, actually, people talking in your hallway was abnormal. Sitting up, you looked at the front door, considering going to snoop in on your neighbor’s conversation.

You didn’t even have the time to decide before the door opened, revealing Spencer and Cat in the middle of what seemed like a rather intense kiss.

He pulled away, looking into the apartment and seeming surprised to see you.

Standing up, your arms dangled limply at your sides, “Oh, Spence.”

Holding up a finger, he silently begged you to wait. You couldn’t hear anything that came out of his mouth, everything was muffled as you fought back the tears that were burning your eyes.

You didn’t talk again until Cat spoke to you. “What?”

She laughed slightly and you could hear your heart pounding, “Did it make you mad when I kissed your fiancé?”

You hated her. Your mother would tell you that hate is a strong word, and you still didn’t care, you hated her. “No,” you lied through your teeth.

Innocently, her eyebrows raised, “Why not?”

Four years. Four years of her haunting Spencer. You thought back to that first meeting at the restaurant and responded, “No offense, but you’re not really worth getting mad at.”

Her eyes lit up and even though you knew better, you were proud of yourself for striking a nerve. With a psychopath, that was a dangerous game. Before long, she meandered around the furniture in your home and sat in the reading chair, she looked at you, “Oh, sweetheart, we have so much to talk about. I’m so glad Spencie finally decided to introduce us.”

Anxiously, your eyes flicked over to Spencer’s. Worse than your own anxiety, he looked angry, an uncommon expression for him to wear. “It’s nice to have a real conversation with you,” you gratified her.

“Normally, Spencie and I, we spend our time together playing games, but tonight I want you both here to make a point,” she watched Spencer as the two of you waited for the ball to drop. “You could do so much better, because girl,” she turned to look at you, “You need to know the truth about him.”

Pinching your brows together, you looked at Cat, “What are you talking about?”

She smiled to herself, flipping her brown hair over her shoulder, “He told me that no matter what, he can’t get me out of his mind.”

“Everything I said to her tonight was a lie,” Spencer interjected, doing damage control on your relationship while Cat tried to take it apart.

Cat scoffed, “Did our kiss look like a lie?”

There was a time when Spencer was under the impression that he had been sexually assaulted by Cat in Mexico, and during that time, you were afraid of him hurting himself. You were in the lion’s den with him now and you had to rely on your gut. He wouldn’t kiss her unless it was his last resort. He wouldn’t do that to himself. He wouldn’t do that to you. Still, you forced yourself to look at him and answer her question, “No.”

“Thank you, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter,” she resumed smugly, obviously pleased with your response and she stood up, putting her hands on everything around the apartment. “You see, everyone thinks that Dr. Spencer Reid is- is just this nice, bookish, uh, genius who uh, always saves the day and has all the answers and has… zero mommy issues, right?” She pointedly tipped over a photo of Diana before she continued flouncing around the apartment, “But um, I know the real him.”

Spencer looked at her incredulously and you wished you could hear what he was thinking at that moment, “Yeah? Who’s the real me, Cat?”

She cocked her head at you, the faux pity in her eyes made you nauseous, “The real Spencer Reid throws women against walls and hisses that he’s going to kill them.”

He faltered and you knew she had hit her mark, “That was a very different situation.”

“Was it?” She challenged, looking at him for a rebuttal, but the vacant look was coming back to his eyes.

Chewing on the inside of your lip, you met his eyes, “What is she talking about?”

You had been in Mount Pleasant that day. For all of the things she knew about, she didn’t know that you had been there, and you could use that against her, but you’d likely hurt Spencer in the process.

“You tell her,” Cat insisted, “She’s not gonna believe it coming from me.” With a flourish, she sat back down in the chair, crossing her legs as she watched her entertainment for the night.

Spencer pursed his lips, leaning forward as his eyes flicked between the two of you, “Just like tonight, she got under my skin and-“

“You threw her against a wall,” you finished, displaying your comprehension of the story to Cat and reminding Spencer that you already knew.

Cat stood back up, dragging a hand along your shoulders, sending goosebumps sprawling across your skin. “Don’t skimp on the details, Spencie,” she goaded him. “She deserves to know everything.”

The terrible feeling you’d had all day worsened as you realized where she was going with this. It was the natural continuation of the story for her even if it wasn’t the truth.

“She was pregnant at the time, and I knew that when I hurt her,” Spencer admitted, the shame he felt emanating from him in waves.

You’re not like that, baby. You’re not a violent person, you remembered telling him. You wanted to tell him that now, but she’d never let you.

Cat looked at you, a devilish glint in her eye as she rounded out her fabrication, “And the next day I miscarried. The end.”

Your breathing hitched as you saw Spencer retreat completely into himself, “What? That’s not true.”

Her head snapped over to him, “It most certainly is true, check my medical records.”

“That doesn’t- I would-“ He stuttered, but it was too late.

“Stop,” she interjected, nodding her head in your direction, “Look.”

You were choking on the truth. You wanted to scream at her and simultaneously tell Spencer that she was lying to him. The words weren’t coming out, the only thing you had were tears. They were streaming down your face as you looked at nobody and nothing, sitting on your hands.

No one said anything for a while before Spencer sat down, keeping his distance from you, “I’m sorry.”

“Notice how your fiancé is apologizing to you and not me,” Cat instructed you, you peered up at her through wet eyelashes. “Men are all the same, aren’t they Ducky?”

Spencer jumped to your defense as you blanched at the nickname, “Don’t call her that,” he snapped.

Cat inclined her head toward him, “What, are you going to throw me up against the wall and choke me or do you only do that to pregnant women?”

Of all of the things for Cat to know about you, your childhood nickname wasn’t what you expected. You looked at her and met her eyes through your bleary ones, “Why are you doing this?”

You regretted the question as soon as you asked it, but you couldn’t take it back now, “Because I want you to see it,” she explained. “I want you to see that he is no better than all the men you chase. All the men who have hurt you before.”

“Stop,” you pleaded, staring at the floor in front of you.

Cat crouched next to you, forcing you to look her in the eyes, “I can see it in your face. Why did you flinch when I used your nickname?”

Your nostrils flared, “It’s none of your business,” you insisted.

She laughed at your attempted assertion, “Oh, but it is. In fact, it’s my specialty. Is he nearby? I could send Juliette over to say hi,” she offered.

“Say yes,” Spencer interjected, “Give her what she wants.”

Glaring at him, Cat waved him off, “He wants you to get me to make a phone call so they can trace it. You’re so good, the BAU.”

You shook your head helplessly, “I never wanted to be involved in this sick, twisted game between the two of you.” Even still, you had never been given the choice. Emily sent you home under the guise of waiting out the date only for it to be a trap.

Cat mock-pouted, “Tell me your story, Ducky, and I promise I will give Juliette a call and those two girls will be safe and sound.”

And that was the end of it. You couldn’t let your cowardice cost those girls their lives – or whatever Cat had planned for them.

“Come on, little duck,” she prodded at you, “It’s story time.”

Spencer shook his head, “Y/N, it’s a trap.”

Scoffing, Cat sat next to you, “It is so tricky, isn’t it? I mean, who are you gonna trust? The lying, cheating, violent psychopath… or me?”

Desperately, you looked up at Spencer and his face fell as he realized what you were doing. “My sister gave it to me,” you told her.

Impishly, she smiled, “Jennifer?”

“No,” you answered, “Roslyn, and don’t interrupt.” You frowned, piling your hands in your lap as you searched for the story. “I don’t remember it, but when I was learning how to walk I… waddled. So, when I would walk around Roz would follow me and make duck sounds, and I would mimic her. She started calling me Ducky after that and it just stuck.”

She smiled at you knowingly, “That is so sweet. How could you hate such a heartfelt nickname from your dearly departed sister?”

You shook your head, “I don’t hate it,” you insisted.

Cat cocked her head at you, “Tell me,” she goaded. “Tell me or I ruin her life.”

Quickly, you looked up at Spencer and made sure he caught the slip up too. The two of you shared a suspicious look before you continued, “My parents put me in school early, I started kindergarten when I was four and I learned early that kids were cruel. They would follow me around and quack,” you laughed despite yourself, what had seemed heinous as a child would barely make you spare a glance as an adult. “One day, we were doing a class craft, and they put glue and feathers on my seat so they stuck to my skirt when I stood up,” you told her, recalling the way your poor mother had to leave work to help you pick feathers from your skirt.

Next to you, Cat lifted a hand to her mouth, fake yawning as she waited for you to get to the man of it all.

“When she got home, I yelled at Roslyn,” You’d spiraled about this so many times in adulthood that you were surprised it had any effect on you anymore. “I told her I hated her. I told her she was a bad sister, and I wanted her to go away,” you admitted, fighting off tears again. “She skipped dinner that night and the next morning she… JJ found her. In the bathroom. She had slit her wrists with our father’s razor blade.”

Spencer’s brown eyes bore into you, reflecting the same sadness that you were sure was on your own face, “You were only four, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t help,” Cat snarked.

“Cat,” Spencer snapped.

Frustrated, you wiped under your eyes, “My dad blamed me. He told me he would give me up if it meant she would come back, and he’s maintained that sentiment ever since.” You knew now that there were other things Roslyn had been struggling with at the time, but part of you would always have the nagging feeling that you had a role in your sister’s suicide.

“So, you understand me,” she said matter-of-factly.

Confused, you lifted your head to look at her, “What?”

She scooted closer to you, “You understand why I’ve killed all of them. Those men,” she clarified.”

You looked at her, “No, Cat, I don’t understand you. I hate my dad, but I don’t want to kill him. I don’t prey on the deaths of the people that I hate, and that’s the difference between me and you. I want my dad to have to live with the fact that he’s a horrible person. I want him to live with what he did to me, to my family.”

Cat narrowed her eyes at you, “And he didn’t even visit you after you got shot.”

Out of guilt, you had assumed. His guilty conscience was the only thing that kept him away. After all, almost thirty years of telling you that it should’ve been you, the universe almost came through for him. “Give me the location,” you said, holding her to her end of the bargain.

Groaning, she held out her hand for your phone so she could put the location into your map. Once you had what you needed, you started making your way out, hearing her call after you, “Keep your head above water, Ducky!”

You kept moving, your feet moving beneath you even though your heart wanted to drop to the floor, you charged out the door, ignoring Emily as she tried to comfort you. Luke followed you out of the apartment building, neither of you speaking until you handed your phone to Luke, showing him the location. “Stay here, I’ll call the team and get them to meet here,” he told you, lifting your phone to let you know he was taking it with him.

Trailing behind him anyway, you got into the passenger seat of the SUV, “I have to go, Luke. It’s… I’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t entirely convinced, but Luke generally wasn’t one to argue with you. “Okay, but I’m still calling for backup.”

It wasn’t a far drive, in fact, months ago this bridge had been a regular stopping point when you went on walks, but as soon as you stepped out of the car and heard the water running below you, you froze.

There were flashing lights all around you, and the only thing you could do was watch as Juliette held onto the older of her two sisters at the edge of the bridge. The younger girl was calling out for her sister. Vaguely, you heard Matt trying to talk Juliette into letting them go.

The little girl screamed as Juliette shoved her sister off of the bridge, putting her hands up once the crime had been committed. Luke called for search and rescue through his comm, and you watched the little girl, just as old as JJ when Roslyn passed away.

Keep your head above water.

You didn’t remember much about Roslyn’s funeral, it was mostly JJ straightening your dress and fiddling with her necklace, but that singular event had changed the entire course of your life.

The screaming continued even as you ran to the edge of the bridge, not garnering anyone’s attention until it was too late, and Luke shouted your name as you dove off of the platform.

Afterward, the first thing you would remember was the pain. You absorbed the shock of hitting the water through your arms, causing strain on both of them. The darkness of the water was just as you imagined it would be. That is, until you rose to the surface, met with dozens of flashlights shining down on you.

People called your name, but you just looked around the water, listening for splashing as you hoped to find Juliette’s sister.

There was a gasp behind you, the both of you treading as best you could, but the water was cold, and she slipped under. Impulsivity was never your strong suit, so you hadn’t really considered the way your hands would go numb until you put an arm around her waist, trying to keep her head above the water.

“Y/N!” Matt called from the riverbed, shining his flashlight over at you while you tried to support the girl. It wasn’t easy, you ducked your head under the water and pushed her up, the darkness of the water threatening to swallow you whole.

Hoisting her up, you felt your teammates pull her from the water and sighed, forgetting where you were.

You gagged on the water before reaching up your arms, letting yourself be pulled out. The shock of the air on your lungs was nearly as bad as that of the water, but as you coughed up water on the dirt, you heard the girl start coughing as well.

Her body would have been dumped right where Cat’s mother had been found, and that little girl would have lost her big sister, just like you did. It was the only thing you could think of as you were brought back to the BAU because Emily was insistent on debriefing.

“You dove into the water?” Emily asked before ordering one of the desk agents to go find something for you to change into.

Your wet clothes clung pathetically to your skin as you nodded, “Yeah, I did.”

Luke smiled next to you, “It was pretty impressive, actually.”

“It’s reckless is what it is,” Emily said, studying your damp state, “Go up to my office and turn the space heater, we need to thaw you.”

Rolling your eyes, you walked up to Emily’s office and opened the door, turning the knob on the space heater before sitting on the little couch in her office. Placing your ring on the coffee table to dry, you wrapped your arms around yourself. You waited for the desk agent to return with clothes and instead were surprised when your sister came through the doorway with a pile of clothes in hand. “Hey,” she said, lifting the clothes, “Fresh from the Academy laundry.”

She closed the blinds as you stripped down to your tank top, pulling the sweatshirt over your head before swapping out your pants as well.

“How do you feel?” She asked gently, standing across from you hesitantly.

You looked down at your new clothes, “I feel like FBI Academy propaganda,” you responded, sitting back down on the couch.

Raising her eyebrows, she looked at you intently, “I meant after… everything tonight.”

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you looked up at your sister, “It never had anything to do with Spencer,” you whispered.

She pursed her lips before sitting next to you, “Well, it’s always Cat’s goal to get under Spencer’s skin. She just chose to use you to do it this time.”

You would probably never know how Cat managed to know so much about you. Honestly, you probably didn’t want to know. This time next week, Cat Adams would be dead, and that would just have to be enough for you.

“I can’t believe you jumped into the river,” JJ said in disbelief, rubbing a hand up and down your back.

Shyly, you shrugged at her, “I saw a little girl about to lose her big sister and I couldn’t let her go through that kind of pain.”

Your sister nodded in understanding, “She was eleven?”

You nodded slowly, “And her sister was seventeen,” you whispered.

Part of you felt like you had been staring at an alternate universe all evening. “So,” JJ said, moving the conversation, “Spencer’s on his way back. He’ll probably want to talk to you, clear some things up.”

“Will you sit with me until he does?” You asked softly, afraid of her sniping back about forgiveness, but she didn’t. That wasn’t the way JJ worked, she just nodded, leaning back against the cushions and letting you rest your head on her shoulder.

She didn’t get up and leave until Spencer arrived, she went to meet him in the bullpen, and you waited for the moment someone told him where you were. There was a sensation you had never experienced before, but you felt so separate from your own actions. Despite your still wet hair, you barely remembered diving into the water.

You sensed another psychological evaluation in your future.

The rotating heater warmed you in waves as you listened to your team. They filled Spencer in on everything that had happened tonight, from Juliette’s sisters to Cat’s real plan. “She…” Spencer stammered, “She told me Y/N had a big decision to make tonight. Where is she?”

Blankly, you stared ahead at the heater, wondering what they’d tell him and what they’d save for you. “Well, she may have jumped into the Potomac,” Matt told him tentatively, his voice was gentle as he dropped the bomb.

“She dove actually,” Luke corrected, and you imagined him being proud of his redress.

Emily cleared her throat, ever the mediator, and finally answered Spencer’s question, “She’s up in my office getting warm.”

There were no more questions after that, but you recognized the footsteps as Spencer approached the office. His knock was timid, but he didn’t wait for you to respond before opening the door.

His hair was awry, you supposed yours didn’t look much better, and his breathing was uneven. A symptom, you assumed, of finding out you had jumped into the fourth largest river on the Atlantic coast. “Hi,” you waved nervously.

At the same time, he spoke, “I’m so sorry.”

There was no use in pussyfooting around, “Did you want to talk now, then?”

“Yes,” he answered instantly, “I can’t… I’m so tired of things looming over our heads.”

You sighed, folding your hands in your lap, “That cumulonimbus has been there for quite some time, hasn’t it?”

“I just cheated on you and you’re making cloud jokes?” Spencer asked in disbelief. At some point in the night, he had lost his jacket, leaving him in a rumpled dress shirt.

Turning to stone, you paused. Maybe it was the Potomac water that you had ingested, maybe it was the other events of the evening, but you had brushed off the kiss between him and Cat nearly immediately. “I guess I didn’t really think of it that way,” you admitted.

He leaned back on Emily’s desk, “All of these problems we’ve been having, and we were just beginning to make headway. I went and ruined it.”

Raising your eyebrows, you looked at Spencer quizzically, “Okay, well, now you’re catastrophizing.”

“I made a choice years ago that resulted in you facing one of your biggest fears tonight, you’re shaking, and your clothes are in a sopping pile on the ground,” he explained as if you weren’t well aware. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“I think you just had a shitty night spent with a woman who has a knack for convincing you you’re evil, so you’re telling me how evil you are right now,” you responded, leaning back on the couch cushions. “You’re not evil and you’re barely a cheater,” you told him, “I’d love to lay out all of the evidence for you, but I’m exhausted and I’d rather we just go home.”

One look at Spencer told you that you weren’t going to be getting what you wanted tonight, the histrionics of your evening weren’t over. “I made you cry,” he said meekly. He said it like it was the worst thing he could ever do to you.

“I’m the one who told you to go! I might not be a genius, but I’m smart enough to have considered the fact that Cat would try to make a move.” Groaning, you covered your face with your arms, “Spencer, Cat made me cry. I had to sit back and watch her manipulate you into believing you caused her miscarriage.”

“You knew?” He breathed.

You nodded, dropping your arms and looking at him miserably, “Yes, I knew the truth, and it killed me to not be able to tell you.”

Waiting for him to respond was agonizing. You desperately wanted to apologize for not telling him as soon as you found out about Cat’s baby, but you didn’t think it was important information at the time.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Spencer finally spoke. “I thought… I couldn’t handle it if you thought that I’d-“

Quickly, you shook your head and waved your hands, “No, Spence. I knew the truth from the get-go.”

He was quiet, shuffling his feet on the carpet before he looked up at you. He opened his mouth to speak but second-guessed himself before sealing his lips and crossing his arms in front of his chest. Watching you for a moment, he spoke, “Do you remember when you asked me what my truth would’ve been? If Pinkner had asked me instead of JJ?”

“We should go to bed.”

“Wait, what’s your truth?”

“My truth is that I’m tired, we should go to sleep.”

Part of you wanted to ask if he wanted to do this now, after the day the two of you had, you’d be perfectly content with going home and leaving this conversation for tomorrow. Instead, you nodded, “Yes, you ignored it.”

Spencer chuckled nervously, “You had been spending weeks looking for a reason to pick a fight with me. I didn’t think you would accept my answer for what it was.”

“The truth,” you drew your own conclusion, shifting uncomfortably on the couch.

Slowly, he knelt on the ground in front of you, “You were looking for me to tell you that I shared JJ’s feelings. You wanted me to say that you were my second choice, but that has never, ever been my truth. It never has been.”

Swallowing thickly, you reached your hands out and took his in yours, gently skimming the pads of your thumbs over the back of his hands, “Spencer, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he whispered.

“What’s your truth?” You asked him softly, approaching the topic like a deer in the woods.

He looked down at your intertwined hands, noting the fact that you had taken your ring off before he responded, “I’ve spent my entire life trying to live up to the expectations of others. I went to Caltech, then MIT, and then I was recruited to the BAU. Through all that, I was under the impression that I was letting people down.”

This was a familiar conversation to you. You once spent hours talking him off of a metaphorical ledge because he hadn’t cured schizophrenia.

“I’m not the perfect son, who sent his mother away a week after turning eighteen,” an action that had almost gotten him killed. “I’m not a perfect agent and I’m not a perfect friend because the expectations set for me are too high, but I’m not a perfect boyfriend or fiancé either. It’s not because you hold me to a certain standard, it’s because I failed you.”

Your eyes widened at his admission, “Spencer, no, you didn’t.” Your chest ached at the thought of this living in his head. He had been living while paralyzed by the weight of the expectations of others when he just wanted one thing - to feel normal.

He waved you off, “Do you remember what you asked me? On that date in the shooting range?”

Seven years ago, shortly after Emily left for Interpol, you and Spencer had an impromptu date at the shooting range. “I asked you not to break my heart.”

“And I have, haven’t I? Time and time again,” he asked rhetorically, not looking for an answer even when you wanted to prove him wrong. “You’ve watched me get shot, you’ve seen me in handcuffs, beaten, kidnapped, fired – and you’ve never wavered. You have loved me through it all, and I haven’t reciprocated fairly. I had never known unconditional love, and I think you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to it. I get put on this pedestal by everyone I meet and you’re the only person who has ever made me feel average. I know average is usually used with a negative connotation, but in this case, I mean it positively. You don’t have outlandish requests from me, all you’ve ever asked for is love, and I… I’m never going to be able to verbalize how much that means to me. How much you mean to me.”

“Spencer,” you tried to interject.

His eyes met yours, his brown irises slightly bleary as he looked at you intently, “I am so sorry. I’m sorry about your sister and I’m sorry about kissing Cat and I’m sorry about all of the ways I have broken your heart and if you… if this is where you need to call it, then I completely understand.”

“Spencer,” you echoed.

He tilted his head to the side, “What?”

You raised your eyebrows, “My ring is over there, on the coffee table, will you put it back on for me?”

“Do you mean it?” He asked, reaching behind him for the ring without waiting for your answer.

Holding out your left hand, you nodded, “There have been a lot of wrongs – from the both of us, but I don’t… I can’t hold the JJ thing against you anymore. You’re verifiably a genius. So, if you tell me that the only thing that would’ve pleased Cat is kissing her, then I’ll believe you. I trust you, and if I lose that, then I lose myself.”

He seemingly thought about it for a moment before responding, “It was the only thing I could think of, and I promise I will make this up to you.”

Smiling softly, you flexed your fingers once he slid the ring back on, relishing the feel of the metal on your finger. “Then it’s a good thing you’re only getting married once, it gives you a lot of time to make it up to me.”

“Did you have any ideas?” He asked a little too eagerly.

You beamed, “Oh, I have a few.”  

taglist: @football1921 @thedancingnerdmermaid @dollarstore-lydia-deetz @cillsnostalgia @alivesarcastically

@hellsingalucard18 @poetoflawed @lillysfrogsandbogs @mega-kittyglitter-1 @sndixz

@k-corbett @nott-my-riddle @guiltyyassin @starkeyellow @rainydayathogwarts

@roblino @awildfirestarting @getawaycarsficrecs @syd-maximoff @melodyflowersblog

@stargirlls-world @ovando13 @cxtherine

[unclewaynemunson]

“I need to tell you something.”

Shitfuckno. Eddie doesn't even know why he's still surprised. This is how it always goes, after all. He should probably just give up and stop dating altogether – again.

Steve looks at him exactly as ominously as the words I need to tell you something require. Perfect Steve. Funny Steve. Sweet Steve. Sexy Steve. Steve, who Eddie had genuinely believed to be different.

Eddie sighs, barely suppressing a dark chuckle while he turns away from that perfect face. He doesn't want to look at Steve when he'll tell him the undoubtedly messed-up shit he's about to spill.

“Lemme guess, you're married?” That was what the last guy he dated told him, seven months after they got to know each other. It can't be much worse than that, can it?

Steve grabs Eddie's hand, causing him to involuntarily jerk up his head and meet his eyes.

“How did you know?”

Jesus H. Christ. Not again.

Eddie roughly pulls his hand out of Steve's grip and laughs a joyless laugh.

“Apparently I'm a good guesser.”

He stands up from the park bench the two of them had been sharing. “Well, Steve, this has been a blast. You should go back to your wife, or husband – don't tell me, I don't even wanna know – and I should um, get going. Maybe tell the next person right away what they'll be getting themselves into. Would save them a lot of wasted time, just in case cheating and going around other people's backs isn't really their thing, y'know.”

“Eddie, wait, let me explain!”

Eddie picks up his pace, but Steve, stubborn as he is, easily keeps up with him.

“I'm really not interested, man.”

“It's not – I'm not cheating on her!”

“Okay, so you have an open marriage, good for you. Still the kind of information you could've shared with me, say, three months ago, don't you think?”

“She's a lesbian.”

And that makes Eddie freeze on the spot. It takes Steve two steps before he realizes Eddie has stopped moving; he walks backwards until he's standing right in front of Eddie.

“She's my best friend,” he says, immediately using Eddie's stunned silence to his advantage. “Robin, my roommate – I told you all about her. We wanted to buy a house together and that turned out to be very complicated when you're not... Well, when you're not romantically involved. So we got married. For the, um, practical reasons. We never – we're like siblings. I love her like a sister. But she's also my wife. Platonically.”

It takes a few seconds until Steve's words sink in. Then, Eddie leaps forward and basically collapses into Steve's arms, needing to hold onto him to prevent himself from crashing to the ground.

Steve's arms are warm, strong, and as safe as ever.

“Eddie, are you okay?” Steve asks softly. His lips brush against Eddie's ear while he speaks, and worry colors his voice.

Perfect Steve. Too-good-to-be-true Steve.

“Jesus Christ, Steve,” is the only thing Eddie manages to say.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” Steve says. “It's just – I've gotten some, um... Less than ideal reactions, in the past, whenever I told this when I was seeing someone. So I thought it'd be better to wait until things were getting serious.” He sighs, tangling his fingers in Eddie's hair. “I didn't wanna scare you off. Are we – are you okay?”

Eddie nods. He lifts his head from where it's resting against Steve's shoulder and raises his hands to squeeze them around Steve's face.

“We're okay,” he says. “And I'm sorry I didn't want to listen to you. I–” He stops; he can't find the words right away. It's still difficult to talk about those things; to let himself be vulnerable. But Steve has been honest with him, so it's only fair to return the favor.

“I've been hurt, Steve,” he confesses. “More than once. I've had some really shitty experiences with dudes not being honest with me. I thought that that was what was happening again, and I couldn't – I couldn't go through that again. Especially not with you.”

“Jesus, Eddie, I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” Eddie rushes to say, pulling Steve even closer towards him. “I trust you.” And as soon as these words leave his mouth, he knows it's the truth.

“I do want to be absolutely clear about one thing, though,” Steve says.

Eddie leans back in Steve's arms to give him an expectant look.

“Robin is my wife. I'm not planning on that to change anytime soon. We've been through a lot together. She's been the most important person in my life for years. We own a house and a dog together, and I love her more than anything. I like you a lot, and I promise you I'm all-in with you, but... Robin is still my number one. And that's not gonna change overnight. I need you to be okay with that.”

Eddie swallows. He looks into Steve's eyes. All he sees is a man who is honest, who loves his friends deeply, and who refuses to make any compromises when it comes to love – whether it be the platonic or the romantic kind.

It doesn't scare Eddie off; it only makes him fonder of Steve.

He smiles, glances around to check if they're alone, and presses a quick kiss against Steve's lips.

“I think I can live with that,” he says. “As long as I'm the only one who gets to do this.” He closes his eyes and lets his lips meet Steve's again.

The sigh that Steve breathes into their tentative kiss is one filled with relief.

[hellsslibrary]

sub...Michael Kaiser...with male reader...please...I'm begging...

Just saw the latest chapter and him saying "please" made me simultaneously combust.

What if he says that word but on a completely different context, iykwim 👀👀👀👀

"In an ideal relationship, pure love and dirty sex complement each other, not exclude each other."

#a.n. : You can't imagine how much fun it was to write this, different sides of the dominant were fighting inside me, it was wild.

MASTERLIST is here.

!!Warnings: top!dom!male!reader, sub!bottom!Michael, brat taming, humiliation, light strangulation, dry orgasm, you dig Kaiser to the point of half death, reader breaks the bed and unironically fights Alexis for a place in the hotel with Michael by playing tic-tac-toe (mention, I thought it was funny), Kaiser is literally folded in half, one bite to his ankle and a slight mention of blood, three phrases in German (my half-German roots take over), riding.

It was obviously not a revelation to Kaiser why this had started. He had started to understand it the moment you almost fought Ness to share a hotel room with him. After all, you, as adults and completely mentally ill people, played tic-tac-toe and you beat Alexis. After all, he could survive a couple of nights not in a room with Michael, but you? Oh no, you had too big of a plan for him.

He had figured it out himself, as soon as he saw that you were actually focused on winning this stupid game and not playing for fun... But I guess he didn't understand what exactly was waiting for him. Although that's the best part.

"G-gott! Y/n, slow d-down! This is, oh shit, this is too mu-much!" came out unintelligibly from his lips, while he grabbed the sheets beneath him with all his might, his graceful fingers almost tearing apart the poor fabric that was holding on with all its might.

"Are you sure?" you clarify, knowing he won’t answer because he doesn’t want to, but he also doesn’t want to seem too needy.

And so he does. He stays silent, burying his face in the pillows and pushing his ass back a little more to somehow meet your ruthless thrusts that didn’t allow him to breathe properly.

You squeeze his hips, pressing lightly on his stomach under your fingers, causing him to whine loudly, even muffled by the cotton pillowcases. His toned ass jiggles slightly with each thrust, making you want to bite one of his cheeks right now, but oh, what a shame the human body can’t bend like that, huh?

Kaiser felt too good as you admired his ass and his bulging back without any other thought. He felt like his whole being was melting, turning into nothing more than obedient plasticine in your hands, which you could bend as you wish.

He bites his lip to hold back another moan. It seems like he can hear his heartbeat in every part of his body, no matter how unimportant or far from his head. It seems like his blood is so hot that he is about to melt... Not that it is not true, considering how sweaty you both have been for the last few dozen minutes.

"Aren't you going to answer me, handsome? Or do you want me to stop and leave you empty and thirsty, hm?" your whisper sends involuntary goosebumps down his body when he realizes that your chest is rubbing against his back and he makes some kind of sound similar to hiccups, turning his head to the side.

"Shut up."

The phrase made your hips freeze almost immediately, your eyebrow involuntarily crawling up at the fact that he had the strength to speak clearly, and also to act like a complete brat, when you were obviously lifting him to Heaven and back with your actions.

"Move, idiot. Why the hell did you stop?"

Your eye twitched and you took a deep breath, looking down at his frowning, flushed face. There were traces of moisture all over his face from tears and sweat mixed together, his lips were slightly swollen from holding back moans, but most importantly, his eyes. The shine in them. He knew what he was doing, or rather, what he was saying.

Before he could come to his senses, your lips spread into an almost animalistic smile and your cock completely slipped out of him. Kaiser was about to complain, but you abruptly flip him over onto his back, and then immediately, without warning, you penetrate inside.

His next moan was probably heard by everyone in the hotel, or at least on your floor. And all the following ones, too. He was no longer holding back, moaning at the top of his lungs. His hands were looking for something to grab onto and wanted to close around your shoulders, but you would not allow him such luxury, so you squeezed his palms above his head.

"What a pity. If you want to act like a little slut, then I will have to treat you like one," you lean right over his face, sliding out so that only your tip remains inside him, and then penetrate in the roughest way you can.

"Ohhh, ple-please... Ple-please, fuck, s-sir, I b-beg yo-you... P-please!"

He himself did not understand what he was begging for, while you just let out a chuckle from this. Michael could barely form any coherent words, he was just mumbling obvious nonsense now.

Your fingers squeezed the blond's leg at his knee, throwing one of his legs over your shoulder, practically folding him in half. He muttered something unintelligible, tears starting to flow from his closed eyes while his hands clenched into fists helplessly in your grip.

"What? You decided to fix yourself in a couple of seconds, handsome? That's not like you. My dick makes you drunk?" he would never admit that it did, but his head shook in agreement too convulsively.

You bite his ankle, digging into the white skin, causing him to cry out in pain, but he doesn't complain. He just stares excitedly at the small trickle of blood rolling down his leg. Your free hand, not holding his hand, falls on his neck.

And God, something clicks inside him. He cums, but nothing comes out, in that same second, although your hand did not have time to settle down and squeeze properly. You only look at the pathetic state of the German while he experiences a dry orgasm and how his cock twitches.

"What a pity... Although you are a smart boy. Even without realizing anything, you do not dare to cum for real without my permission..." Michael only moans in response, not being able to say anything anymore, especially now that you are blocking part of his air.

"Please, Y-y/n," he manages to mumble somehow, looking at you with empty, smoky eyes, hazed with a haze of lust, and you feel how he squeezes around your cock. Probably on purpose, but now you do not care.

"Please what, baby? You have to speak clearly," he frowns, looking away and staring at some tasteless painting on the wall, trying to pull some kind of speech out of his brain.

"Let me cum... Bitte, mein schatz," Kaiser whines, managing to somehow rise up, although it is clearly uncomfortable and even painful for him, given the position he is in, and kissing the corner of your lips, missing the main target. "Bitte lass mich abspritzen, lass mich auf deinen Schwanz abspritzen..."

You feel something break inside you. He looked beautiful and didn't even seem embarrassed as usual by his obvious vulnerability and the state of some kind of toy in your hands. In the end, he even found the strength to kiss you and didn't even wince at the fact that he literally bent in half for a couple of seconds. Well, how can you not spoil such a boy, right?

His head falls back, he sighs raggedly when you begin to pound him with the maximum speed and roughness you can muster right now. The bed beneath you creaks pitifully, as does Kaiser himself, not expecting such pressure.

"Dann komm, Hübscher," your words send him over the edge immediately, squeezing your cock as if in a vice.

He paints your and his stomach white, cumming surprisingly much. And he doesn't react at all when you continue your thrusts with a same force, only small sighs escaping from his lips.

But then he screams and something cracks under you. You manage to catch him and throw his leg aside carefully but quickly, and press him to your chest.

"You... Managed to break the bed? Wow, new even for you," Michael mutters, watching the mattress and sheets sag in the hole in the bed, chuckling hoarsely and weakly hugging your shoulders now that he has this opportunity.

"I'll ask to change the room and pay for the bed... I don't even want to imagine the face of the girl at the reception, but..." You look up at the blond, who is now sitting on your lap and thoughtfully narrow your gaze.

"Ride you? Good," he understands what is needed, feeling that you have not yet finished and managed to twitch inside him even at such a moment. "You can't be trusted with the pace anymore, you're too wild... Next time we're in hotels, I'll ride you."

"Fair and sweet, I'm more than willing," he starts moving his hips, moaning with every movement, still sensitive from his orgasm, trying not to go too fast so you both don't fall off the bed... Until the broken part of the bed falls to the floor, causing a huge noise, but hey, you're facing the ace of German youth football, who cares? Especially one so rarely vulnerable and caring like this.

[barcaatthemoon]

make a move || fridolina rolfo x reader ||

frido's teammates convince her to make the first move with you.

mapi snickered as she watched frido watching you. it couldn't have been a mistake that you almost always found yourself near their bench whenever you came to report on their games. you had always loved the sport, and barcelona was your favorite team. it was why you had initially jumped at every opportunity to report on the women's team. you still loved the game, but admittedly, you also had developed quite a crush on a certain swedish player.

"what is so funny?" alexia asked as she glanced at her friend. mapi pointed at frido, who was staring at you like she was head over heels. the two of you had spoken several times over the course of her time in spain, and the whole team had caught onto her feelings for you. "she's wearing that dress frido likes."

"trust me, she definitely noticed. isn't that right fridolina?" mapi teased. frido reluctantly tore her eyes away from you to glare at mapi. "(y/n) looks good in that dress. it does wonders for her ass."

"careful, frido can fight," ingrid warned. mapi didn't listen and continued to tease, earning herself a water bottle thrown her way. their antics continued throughout the end of the game, just a small distraction that you could see from the corner of your eye as you reported on the end of the game. the team began to file onto the field to celebrate, which was when you took your opportunity to speak with frido.

"excuse me, miss rolfo, do you have a moment to talk about the game?" you asked. frido let out a small sigh as she heard mapi and alexia laughing behind her.

"for you, i have as many as you need," frido said. you blushed at her words. years of media training had never stood a chance against the charming swedish woman. every single time that you interviewed frido, you felt like a bumbling idiot. some of your co-workers had noticed this, but the players that you interviewed liked you quite a bit and always let you interview them no matter what, so nobody said anything.

"thank you. congratulations on the win and successful header in the corner. i know that it's definitely my contender for goal of the match. what was going through your head today?"

"we're coming in as champions, and this first game is just a taste of what's to come for the rest of the season. everybody has been working hard, and we all just wanted to show that today," frido answered. the two of you continued your interview, and once it was finished, you reluctantly let her go and found more players to speak with. after about 30 minutes, you were finished with post-game interviews and your crew began to pack up their things.

"go on, they're getting ready to leave. this is your chance," ingrid said as she pushed frido towards you. the blonde felt like a baby deer as she tried to walk casually over towards you. luckily for her pride, your back was turned as you chatted with a young fan.

"ahem, excuse me, do you have a minute?" frido asked as she noticed your conversation come to an end. you stood up and looked at her, more than a little surprise she came over to talk after the cameras were done rolling.

"i guess i could find a few for you." you were definitely flirting with her, but were doubtful that it would amount to anything. flirting with frido was nothing new for you, and it always ended up the same way. you never went on any dates or saw each other outside of the football stadiums.

"good, i was hoping that maybe after this we could meet somewhere. i don't know if you have much work to do after this, but tonight, the girls will all be out at a bar. maybe i could get your number and let you know which one? i bet you could get some pretty interesting quotes." frido was trying very hard, and you appreciated the obvious effort.

"i would like that a lot." you scribbled your number on the back of one of your business cards. "the ones on the front are for the channel, but my personal one is on the back. feel free to call or text me for other things, i hear that i'm great dinner company."

"well, i can't drink on an empty stomach. does 7 sound okay?" frido asked. she felt like her lungs couldn't quite pull in enough air, but you were smiling at her, so she must have been doing something right.

"perfect, i look forward to dinner and a few drinks. it's a date," you said. frido swallowed nervously as she nodded, and she swore she was going to pass out when you leaned in and kissed her cheek.

…

"you know, it isn't too late for us to just turn around and go somewhere else," frido offered as the two of you turned down the street the bar was on. your dinner date had been nice. in terms of first dates, it was one of the best ones you'd been on. the restaurant was nice, frido was great company, and everything was just casual enough to keep you out of your own head.

"that sounds nice, but i'm kind of excited to see what everybody is like off of the field. and don't worry, i'm not going to be collecting any quotes," you told her. frido sighed and pouted at you, which nearly did get you to agree to go somewhere else, but one of her teammates spotted the two of you.

"about fucking time! do you know how long we've been waiting for you to get over here?" you had met claudia a couple of times before, mostly from your coverage from the barcelona b-team games. she had always been one of your favorites to interview, despite how difficult it could be to get to actually answer your questions.

"oh good, they're waiting for us," frido grumbled. you rolled your eyes as you grabbed frido's hand and led her into the bar. the patrons were mostly the players, and they all turned their heads to look at you when you walked inside. frido was quick to pick out a spot with some of the quieter girls and led you over to join her. "what can i get you to drink?"

"a manhattan if they have it. if not, just a shot of vodka," you told her. frido looked surprised by your choices, but didn't say anything. you had been a bit of a partier at university, so you knew that you could handle anything. the drink thing was also a good test of your dates because the last thing you wanted was someone who was overly judgemental.

frido left and came back just a couple moments later with your manhattan. she had something clear for herself that she took a sip of as she slid in next to you. it was a bit awkwardly cramped until you moved her arm around your shoulders. the two of you sat there with two of her teammates, marta and caroline, who were more than happy to sit out some of the more rambunctious activities of the night.

"do you dance?" you asked as you noticed more of the team move onto the dance floor.

"not really, no. you can go if you'd like to though," frido answered. she started to move out of the booth, but you held onto her to keep her next to you.

"no, it's fine. i'm having fun like this. i'm a little too sober to dance by myself."

…

"do you have to go all the way to madrid?" frido whined. you had your bags packed for your weekend in madrid. the weekend was full of games for both the women's and men's leagues, and your boss wanted you at all of them. it was a big step, and while it was a lot of work, you were more than ready for it.

"yes, i do, and while i would love to stay and enjoy your bye week with you, i have to go. don't miss me too much, okay? i have to go, my cab will be here any minute," you said. frido grumbled, but sat up to give you a proper goodbye hug and kiss anyway.

the two of you were a few months into your relationship and it felt unreal. you loved frido, you were sure of it, even if you hadn't said it yet. you hoped that frido loved you too, and a part of you knew that you wouldn't feel this way if she didn't. everything was too strong to just be coming from one direction.

"text me before you get on the plane and when you land. then, if you feel up to it, give me a call at the hotel? this feels like an awful long time to be away from you." frido cupped your cheeks in her hands and leaned down to kiss you. without your heels, you felt so small next to her. you had never really realized how much of an edge those gave you when standing around athletes all day.

"i will, i promise. see you monday night, love you," you said as you stepped out of frido's apartment. you hadn't even realized what you said until you were in the car and riding towards the airport. you were terrified to look at your phone, but when you did, you couldn't stop smiling from frido's message.

*'i love you too <3'

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

424

All right, listen. It’s pretty damn funny that two weeks ago I posted all like, “oh I don’t really comment chapter-by-chapter, I’m waiting to see what happens next,” but this one broke me.

This chapter was everything I wanted for bkdk, and it’s so much more tender than I ever dreamed it could be.

This post is not going to be like most of my posts, because I am a flood of emotion. If you’re wanting some detailed, well-researched analysis of this scene, that ain’t coming for a while.

I don’t have some kind of comparative linguistics to show you. I just have my visceral reactions as someone who speaks Japanese and has absorbed Japanese media for many years. I have shared my heart with others in Japanese, I’ve sputtered out words between sobs and felt the many kinds of comfort different people try to offer. I have comforted others who let themselves be vulnerable with me.

In all these moments, just as in English, I wondered if my words and feelings reached them. Each time, I felt the warmth of connection when they looked at me, and I decided that they knew I did my best. They accepted me, even if it wasn’t perfect.

I’m gonna tell you the truth, and I wouldn’t normally say this so directly, but it matters to me: the fan translation for this specific scene is not good. The tone is wildly off in some ways and it outright omits a number of very important words.

The official translation gets so much of it right.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about how people are reading this scene.

I have seen a ton of, frankly, oblivious interpretations of Izuku’s side of things.

Listen to me. Izuku is not making fun of Katsuki for crying, he is not telling Katsuki that crying isn’t like him, that isn’t in the text at all. He is not rejecting Katsuki’s feelings, or belittling them, or ignoring them, or any of that.

Izuku has seen Katsuki cry in-canon a number of times, but every time it was over his own personal failures, and the frustration, anger, guilt, and grief associated with them. We see it in the aftermath of Deku vs. Kacchan 1. We see it during Deku vs. Kacchan 2.

Izuku is shocked to see Kacchan cry because this is the first time he has cried for Izuku.

When Katsuki apologized in 322, he looked Izuku in the eye and told him his feelings with conviction and poise. He was gentle and vulnerable, but strong, because he was asking Izuku to trust them and rely on them. To come back with them and believe in them, like they believe in Izuku. He bowed his head to show his remorse. He caught Izuku when he fell, and he accepted Izuku’s own apology.

He embodied dignity, sincerity, and strength of character. He was a true hero.

This?

This is the raw, honest sorrow of a young boy. It is a tender, earnest, unguarded display of how much Izuku means to him.

These are the tears you shed for someone you cherish. These are tears for when you think you are losing something you can’t live without. Because Katsuki isn’t just crying for the loss of Izuku’s dream—it’s their dream, the future they dreamt up together as kids.

Izuku is almost pathologically incapable of understanding how other people see him and feel about him, but this is unmistakable. He is stunned because there is no other explanation.

There is unmitigated heartache and longing at the core of Katsuki saying, “I just thought somehow we would be together like this, competing and chasing after each other, forever.”

And Izuku is reeling, but so, so touched, and filled with fondness. Look at how his shock shifts to this overwhelmed, affectionate smile.

He’s right—this isn’t the usual Katsuki, and that is precisely why it means so much. We as the audience have been privy to Katsuki’s feelings, but until now Izuku himself has never really grasped the depth of them. This is all the tenderness Katsuki has kept locked up inside, and he is letting Izuku see it for the first time.

To see Kacchan—strong, fierce, and absolutely unstoppable—shed these innocent, helpless tears for him and tell him through sobs that he wanted things to stay this way forever, I can’t blame him for being blown away.

I think Izuku expected Katsuki to be shocked and a little sad that he gave up OFA, both for Izuku’s sake and because it is the legacy of their hero. Before Katsuki even starts crying, Izuku has this small smile on his face, like he was ready to reassure him that he had made peace with his own choice.

But he clearly didn’t expect for Katsuki to weep openly in front of him about it or to confess to wanting him by his side. Izuku had so enjoyed just being allowed near Katsuki, allowed in his life at all—to think that Katsuki could want the same and want it this much, to the point that he worries that things would change, that Izuku would abandon him or deny him? How could that ever be?

In what world could Izuku ever stop chasing Kacchan?

Izuku is a bit of an idiot. He has always thought that Katsuki understood how much he cared for and admired him—that’s why he is so shocked during DvK2 to hear that Katsuki thought he looked down on him for years. Izuku thought Katsuki understood his feelings and simply rejected them.

The way he loves Kacchan is natural and unquestionable. Even now, he can’t understand how Katsuki doesn’t know. It’s baffling to him.

But he still accepts Katsuki’s vulnerability and responds to the intimacy.

This is such an affectionate, loving thing to say. Izuku is being so sweet. I cannot convey to you strongly enough how Izuku telling Katsuki, “C’mon, stop it, this isn’t like you!” reaffirms their closeness.

If Izuku had not said this line and instead skipped straight to this nervous, awkward little attempt at comfort here:

It would have read as so much more distant.

With his tears and his confession, Katsuki pleads with Izuku to not leave him. To be with him always.

And in response, Izuku unabashedly stakes his claim on their bond by being bold enough to affectionately scold him and even assert authority on what kind of person Katsuki is. Remember these?

Chapters 202 and 319

This is such a staple in Japanese media for showing close bonds. Your loved ones know you. They tease you. They scold you. They have that right. You gave it to them.

The people you love cheer you up by reminding you that you’re strong and brave and that even if things feel hopeless and like you can’t go on, that they know you can. Everything will be okay, and they know so because they’ll be right there with you. Of course they’ll be there.

Symbolically, throughout the series, Izuku’s response to Katsuki trying to be closer to him has always been: “Of course.”

He has always accepted Katsuki as much as he is able to, as much as he had awareness for. He is wildly lacking in self-awareness, so it’s certainly not perfect, but by god does he try.

What Izuku is really saying is a mixture of “Really? You want that, too?” and “Don’t be silly!”

One part is him being shocked and touched; the other is him being absolutely certain of his own heart, and showing it as best he can.

He does get flustered and self-conscious, though—because it’s overwhelming to see Kacchan this way, and this is kind of new territory for them. So he switches tactics to reassure Kacchan about how things are now, and make sure he doesn’t feel embarrassed about this outburst. He still has the embers, so it’s okay for now. And their bodies are weak, so of course their heads will be in a bad place too, it’s easy to get low spirits. Of course Katsuki would be feeling vulnerable. It’s normal.

He gives Katsuki so many things here. He gives him as much as he can.

Izuku doesn’t know how long he’ll have the embers for and, frankly, he doesn’t have any guarantee that he will be able to satisfy this longing of Katsuki’s after he loses them. This, too, is a staple of promises in Japanese media: “I don’t know if I can satisfy you, but I want to try. I hope you can accept me.”

Things will be different—the future is always uncertain, now more than ever for their world. But what will never change is what they feel in their hearts.

After this scene, I honestly don’t care if we get something other people see as “bkdk canon.”

What Katsuki says is as good as a confession to me. What Izuku says in return is genuine and pure. This is a messy pair of teenage boys figuring out how to reach each other with words, when they have always been so damn bad at it. This is the two of them both reaching a new point of intimacy and reaffirming everything that came before.

[veethefreeelf]

How many chances are too many chances? Y.JH

This is part 2 to ‘How many times does it take to get smarter?’ Get ready for a rollercoaster of emotions and I’M SORRY ฅ՞•ﻌ•՞ฅ

Summary: 

It’s been 6 months since the night you and Jeonghan went your separate ways. You’re sure he has moved on and you… are working on moving on. Nothing can go wrong, right?

Wordcount: 14k (SORRY)

Warnings: pussy slapping, some spanking, slut is used a lot, oral f. receiving (face-sitting), vaginal penetration - unprotected sex, Jeonghan is hot and bossy - dom af, cream-pie, slight dumbification 

Requested: yes, by popular demand 

P.S - Italic is for thoughts mainly from the characters’ perspective and quotes. Bold is for text messages/calls/voice messages between characters

It’s been 6 months since you had seen each other. Since you told him everything you had been holding back for years and he walked away from you. He walked away from your friendship as if everything you two had shared over the years had been meaningless. As if you were replaceable.

You were doing okay. In the first few weeks you had cried yourself to sleep. You even destroyed all the pictures you had with him like a teenager in a movie. But eventually, it started getting easier. Waking up and not getting a single text from him or call during the day got easier. You started getting used to the silence.

You had also put the pictures you ripped apart back together. Very clumsily but you tried. You loved some of those pictures and they contained some of your very favorite memories with him and all the boys. You couldn’t get rid of it. You couldn’t also look at them so after you fixed them, you decided they would now live in a permanent corner in your closet in a box and hopefully, one day, you’ll be able to look at them again and smile.

In these 6 months, things have been going well with everything else in your life. You got a promotion. You and your family had been closer than ever and you had great friends who had helped you put everything behind you. Well… most of your friends.

Some of them, like the one calling you right now, wanted nothing more but for the both of you ‘to stop being fucking idiots and be together’. It’s been a struggle balancing seeing the boys and not seeing Jeonghan. You had mostly skipped all of your usual gatherings because you knew he would be there. You knew you would be the one losing the boys. They had been friends for far longer than you had been in their lives, so when a falling out like this happens, of course, you would be the one that would walk away.

This however, has made all the boys very annoyed. They have all called you at some point to tell you they were angry at you and wanted you back with them. ‘It isn’t fair’ they kept telling you.

You agree. Nothing about this is fair. It’s sad. For everyone. Everyone lost something, somehow and you blame yourself for it.

You should answer the phone though, otherwise, the boy known as your twin would cause absolute mayhem in all of your lives. He has already threatened you about it enough times for you to know he would do it without hesitation.

“Hello, Kwannie. Calling in the middle of the day is not very on brand for you. You good?” you asked.

“I’m amazing. I am calling you in the middle of the day because you have decided to ignore Soonyoung and he is now pouting and making my life hell. I have many questions. Number one: How dare you?” Seungkwan is the first one they use when they want something from you. Fair enough. Not even you want to deal with the anger of your friend.

“Kwannie… Now, now… That’s no way to speak to me even if you are using Office quotes which I very much appreciate” you said with a teasing tone.

“Haha very funny, Y/N. You have been hilarious in the past 6 months, you know that? Amazing. And as much as I would LOVE for you to continue being this way, I am the one that has to deal with the consequences of you ghosting all of us” he stated in an incredibly monotonous tone. You know what’s coming next and it’s mostly why you have avoided them all.

“Seungkwan, I haven’t ghosted any of you. I’m busy, you know that… That’s all…” you said in your best apologetic tone.

He laughed dryly and added: “You can’t be serious. I know you’re busy, promotion and all. But you also know after everything that happened, communication between us and you has been extremely difficult. You barely show up to any of our usual outings, you don’t speak in the group chat. Look… I get it, I do. But we shouldn’t all be punished because one of us is a complete idiot, and I know you know that too”.

You knew he was right, they didn’t deserve any of it. It wasn’t their fault. But how can you just show up to things with Jeonghan there? How can you join in the group chat with everyone while you know you have his number blocked and deleted everything related to him on your phone? 

You had done a pretty good job moving on in every other part of your life. But not here, not with the boys. You didn’t know how. You hadn’t found that balance yet and you weren’t sure you were ready to see him yet. Or at all.

“Your silence is deafening, Y/N” Seungkwan spoke on the other side of the line.

“I’m sorry… You know I am but… I’m not ready, Seungkwan. And to be honest, I’m not sure I ever will be” you said sadly.

“Hey… We’re your friends too, you know? Don’t push us away, please. Not anymore. That’s all we’re asking. Well… Soonyoung is also asking for you to come to his party this Saturday. The guys’ performance team was picked to go to the international competition and he wants you there to celebrate. We all do”.

Seungkwan always knew what to say to get you to cave. It was why everyone called you twins, you always knew what to say to get the other one to do whatever you wanted, no matter what. 

“They made it? That’s fucking amazing. Tell them--”

“Tell them yourself, Y/N. Saturday. Soonyoung’s place. 8:30. Not gonna lie to you. He’ll be there. But you don’t have to interact with him. It will be a big party and I won’t leave your side. Promise.” he interrupted you but you get it.

You’re not sure if you should go. This doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. But you miss them. All of them. Hanging out like before, playing beer pong, letting Seungkwan destroy everyone at Karaoke…

“And this has nothing to do with your personal interest in beating Shua and Vernon at beer pong, Boo Seungkwan?” you asked to lighten the mood a bit.

“Well… If your falling out with Jeonghan gives me the opportunity to pair up with you after all these years, finally, and destroy them… I call that an added bonus!” he said jokingly.

“Is there a theme? Hoshi always has a theme…” you asked.

“College. Yes, I know… Don’t ask. He said college and everyone went with it” he said with a distaste but you know he loves Hoshi more than he would like to admit. Even if he swore to keep calling him Soonyoung out of spite.

“And, if I go, which by the way, I am not saying that I will… You won’t leave my side? The whole night?” you asked and he reassured you right away.

“Of course. I promise. He won’t have a chance to talk to you, I’ll keep him away. I would also volunteer to take your phone but we both know you have him blocked so that’s not going to be necessary”. 

Weird. You haven’t told anyone you blocked Jeonghan. I mean, it’s an easy assumption to make but he seemed confident when he said it. You wondered how he knew.

After you promised you would think about it and heard Hoshi cheering in the background, you talked a bit more about your lives and what has been going on and you hung up after a while of catching up.

You spent the rest of your Sunday thinking about this. You know Seungkwan will keep his promise and you know this isn’t a trap but… you’re not ready to see him.

You don’t know if you’ll be strong enough not to speak to him. Sure, you haven’t spoken to him in the last 6 months but you have thought about unblocking him multiple times. Maybe going to this party is not the best idea.

Friday night comes at you fast. You were so busy the whole week that the week flew by and you are now panicking about tomorrow. You hadn’t thought about this party most of the week, you hadn’t had time and here you were. In front of your closet, trying to pick clothes that say ‘college’ apparently and wondering if you should even go at all.

You know if you called any one of them right now and told them you weren’t going, they would collectively be mad at you and even plot to get you there somehow.

It’s too late to back out. You’re going tomorrow. And… you’ll be fine. Seungkwan will be with you and you will hang out with the boys and you will ignore him. 

You started laughing out loud. Ignore him? Please, you want to think you are so important in his life but if you were, he wouldn’t have left you the way he did. He probably doesn’t care that you’re going. Why would he even want to speak with you? Leaving was his choice. 

After 30 minutes of hurting yourself and staring at your closet, you start getting several messages from all the boys. You knew it. They weren’t going to let you out of this one and they had decided to collectively torture you. Using Shua and Vernon’s emotional blackmail was a bit much but you knew they were throwing everything at you to make sure you were going.

You pulled out your regular college outfit and set it in your chair next to your bed, made yourself some warm tea and went to the couch to binge a show. ‘Hopefully the tea and the show will make me fall asleep’ you thought.

You were wrong. You barely slept. You kept moving around in bed, trying to fall asleep. Heart beating out of your chest. You don’t know how you’ll survive this.

You decided to keep busy the whole day. It had worked during the week so you went to visit your sister and see your nephew. He would keep you occupied. He had brought a light into your life you didn’t know could be there and you know he will always keep you entertained and you will do the same for him.

This had all gone well until your sister tells you they have a birthday party to attend at 4:30 so you’d have to leave pretty soon.

Great. Of course. 

As soon as you got home, you got a FaceTime call from Lily. 

Lily was your best friend since middle school. You had been through everything together and you were as close as sisters. You had introduced her to the boys shortly after you had met them and she fit right in. Not only that but she fell in love. She and Seungcheol have been together since they met. ‘Love at first sight’ they both said. You had always been jealous of that. It had always been so easy for them. Meeting, falling in love, growing together. You were also unbelievably happy for them, especially Lily. She deserved the world.

“Let me guess… Outfit check?” you asked after answering the call.

“Duh! Let me see what you chose! We could match tonight. It’s been such a long time since we wore matching outfits, Y/N! Since college actually, which is the theme. Do you see how perfect this is???” she asked excitedly.

“There’s a reason why we haven’t done that since college, Lil” you laughed. 

“Oh come on! It would be hilarious!” she tried to convince you.

“Seungcheol left you high and dry, huh? So now you come to me for a matching outfit? Your second choice, really? Hmm… Not very convincing, I must say” you started teasing her.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you are both boring…” she said pouting.

“Look, I already picked it out. You’re not gonna like it, so Seungcheol is probably your best option between the two of us” you laughed as you warned her.

You knew her taste, she had always been way braver than you when it came to outfits for parties and, only on special occasions, did you let her win and change your whole outfit. This is definitely not one of those times. She knew that too.

“Fine. Don’t need either of you. See you there. Will be mad” she said and hung up on you.

You knew the game, she’ll pretend to be angry but by the time the party starts and you’re there she has already forgotten and all the love comes back immediately.

It was still fairly early. 5PM. You had 3 and a half hours to kill. You were tired. You had barely slept. ‘A nap it is’ you thought.

It sounded like a great idea and it felt like a great idea until you woke up and realized you had forgotten to set your alarm. It was now 9PM and your phone was blowing up.

Everyone was pissed. Damage control. Call Hoshi. He seemed the angriest from all the texts and missed calls you had. You explained it to him and told him you will be there. He sounded skeptical but he finally let you off the phone to get ready.

You had gotten ready in record time and managed to get to the party before 10PM. 

As soon as you walked in, you felt at home. You missed this. So much. Too much.

You hear several screams and noise and you know you've been spotted.Seungkwan and Hoshi rush over to you being the loudest people in the room as usual.

“You boys sure know how to make a girl feel welcome” you tell them with a big smile.

“Took you long enough. The beer pong tournament will start soon. Start drinking, warm-up. Come on, Y/L/N. This is THE YEAR” Seungkwan tells you.

“Quiet, Seungkwan. This is the outfit you chose, really?” Hoshi looks you up and down.

“How dare you? I spent most of my college years in this sporty outfit. I look amazing, thank you very much” you stated and squinted your eyes at him.

“You also didn’t get laid often in college did you, Y/N?” he asked cockily.

“Well, not all of us can be the slut of the campus, Hoshi. You earned that title, very early on” you teased him.

“I missed you… Never disappear again, we will all chase you down” Hoshi said sincerely.

“Yeah. yeah. Emotional get together, we are all in tears, wow. Now, let’s go, Y/N. We need to destroy them. Warm up” Seungkwan interrupted your moment with Hoshi. 

Suddenly, you see out of the corner of your eye movement towards you three. 

 Shua, Vernon and Seokmin are all running towards you. Seokmin picks you up and spins you around very excitedly.

“Is this a rom-com in the nineties? Put her down, Seokmin, we all missed her and want a well deserved hug” Shua said.

You hugged the three boys. Vernon didn’t say a word, just gave you a knowing nod. Very typical. 

“Congratulations on the promotion, Y/N! We all heard about it and we are so happy for you. You worked so hard, you earned it” Seokmin said while holding your hand.

“Yeah, we wanted to take you out to celebrate but… it’s been hard reaching you most of the time” Vernon said looking in your eyes. There it is. The guilt trip. You deserved this and they knew who to choose to make you feel that way.

“I know, Hansol. I’m sorry. I’ll be better from now on. Promise” you said sincerely. 

While you were all silent, sharing this moment, a scream, more like a screech, echoed through the party and you all looked in it’s direction.

Lily. Yup. Very obvious. She is walking as fast as she can in her heels towards you with a huge smile on her face and with Seungcheol right behind her.

And there he was. Right behind Seungcheol. Walking in your direction. 

And he wasn’t alone. Of course. Next to him was this cute, small girl with big eyes. She looked so innocent and small. Just his type.

All of your worries disappear. He’s not going to talk to you. He never cared. You truly had been such a fool for so long. You wonder how you never saw through it. It doesn’t matter. You decide to focus on the people in front of you that truly love you and are so happy to see you.

“You were right about the outfit. I hate it” Lily says after hugging you and dropping her smile.

You rolled your eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s the reason I didn’t get laid in college. You’re too late for that joke, Lil. But thanks, for the clear and unconditional support on your side, as usual” you said annoyed.

“Come on… It’s not the only reason… Your resting bitch face and bombastic side eye were the main reasons you didn’t get laid in college” she said and everyone laughed.

“Okay, it’s been nice seeing you all. Leaving now. See you all in a year” you started to turn away.

“No way you’re leaving. It’s been months, you owe us this. Better bring your A-game tonight, Y/N. Some of us aren’t in a merciful mood” Seungcheol pulled you back into the group.

“That’s all you got for me, Seungcheol? You’re getting soft” you said, challenging him.

“It’s your fault. Left me all alone with all of them. You brought this on yourself” he said, narrowing his eyes at you.

“Hi, Y/N. Congratulations on the promotion” Jeonghan spoke, almost whispering. He sounded nervous. 

Everyone whipped their heads around to look at Jeonghan and then you. They kept looking between the two of you. Some of them expected you to blow up and some of them expected you to be polite and cordial. You surprised all of them.

You looked away from Jeonghan without speaking a word. You turned to Seungkwan and locked your arm with his.

“So? Lead me to our victory, partner. Or should I replace you before we even start?” you asked him.

“Absolutely not, you’re mine. We’re gonna destroy all of you. Prepare yourselves” he stared at Vernon, Shua and Seungcheol specifically.

Then he led you towards the alcohol. You were extremely thankful for him.

Seungkwan might have met Jeonghan before he met you but there was a reason everyone said you must have been twins in another life. He suffered the way you did, his reactions were similar. Your side eyes? Unmatched. The only thing you were mainly different was in pettiness. He had the ability to be much more petty and cruel if needed than you. Until tonight. 

Seungkwan was proud of you. Maybe it didn’t look polite but Jeonghan had ripped your heart out, put it through a blender and served it back to you on a silver platter. You owed him nothing. He made his choice when he left you and he is reaping the consequences.

Hoshi and Seungcheol stood on top of the living room table and warned everyone:

“Beer pong tournament starts in 30 minutes. Sign up with your partners now!”

“Keep drinking, warm up, I’ll sign us up. We got this!” Seungkwan tells you immediately.

He was way too excited for this but you understand him and everyone else. It had been far too long since you had all been together, relaxing like this, having fun. And it had been even longer since the beer pong partners had changed.

Usually, you and Jeonghan were always a team. The cheater and the angel who convinces everyone their moves are within regulation due to some unchecked loophole. Shua and Vernon, the americans. Always a team. Always made it to the finals against you and Jeonghan. Seungcheol and Hoshi were always a team. An unlikely one but one that always worked. Seungkwan always forced Woozi to be his partner even though Woozi just wanted to be left alone. Everyone else was pretty okay partnering up with whomever was available and they didn’t put too much effort into fighting everyone for a partner. Mingyu and Wonwoo, Seokmin and Dino, and lastly, Jun and Minghao. They were the good ones. The ones that played for fun only. At least in this game.

This time around, Woozi finally thought he would get some peace but Jeonghan was forced to pick him since obviously you would not be pairing up with him. 

You joined everyone around the table and started a conversation with Lily who always got bored watching you guys compete. Well, until Seungcheol started to lose, then she got mad at everyone. It was adorable. 

You could overhear Jeonghan trying to convince Woozi to join him and at that moment a voice you did not know breaks you out of focus.

“Hi! I’m Haneul! Jeonghan invited me here tonight. The guys are pretty close, huh? Wanted to see if I could join you girls while they play and maybe find out a few secrets about Jeonghan” she giggled.

Lily looked at you and then back at Haneul. 

“Hi, Haneul. I’m Lily. This is Y/N. We met the boys in college. Or, Y/N met some of them in college and then we all got put together into this insane group. How do you know Jeonghan?” She asked her. 

She really knew you inside and out. She knew you weren’t going to speak a word to this girl and at the same time, you wanted to know everything about her. You hated it. You hated him. He made you this way. This poor girl had done nothing to you, yet here you were hating everything about her for absolutely no rational reason.

“Oh, from work. I just started at the company and I got assigned to Jeonghan’s team. He’s such a great guy--”

You walked away. Nope. Not tonight. You worked hard to get over him. You knew this would be a reality one day. Sure, you thought it would happen much later but you have to face it now. He’s here with someone he thinks is worthy of him and that he clearly wants to have a serious relationship with. He never brings anyone around the boys unless he means it. And she was so perfect for him. Your complete opposite.

You want to vomit. You hate this. You hate it here. How are you supposed to play a game and have fun when this is happening? It was way too soon. You shouldn’t be here, you knew. You knew this was a mistake. You started thinking of ways out. Trying to find a way to sneak out, turn off your phone and hope in the morning, the boys feel forgiving.

“Stop trying to figure out a way to sneak out” Seungcheol spoke beside you. 

“How did you know?” you asked him, sounding sad.

“Because if I were you, I’d be thinking about the exact same thing” he answered and put his arm around you to comfort you.

“I missed you, Cheolie” you said, resting your head on his shoulder.

He kissed the top of your head and asked “Is that why we barely spoke these last few months?”

“Not you too, Cheolie…” you said as you moved away from him.

“Come on, you know we have to. You disappeared. You both said your… ‘situation’ wasn’t going to change anything but it changed everything. You both deserve the shit you’re being handed by all of us” he said as he sipped his beer.

“So you’re giving him shit, too?” you asked, also sipping your drink.

“Oh he’s got it so much worse than you, Y/N. You have no idea the kind of pain we unleash on him on a daily basis” he said and smiled at you.

You knew he meant it too.

“Good. He’s earned it” you said and you both laughed.

“LET US BEGIN!” Hoshi yelled at the top of his lungs.

He jump scared everyone in the room and Seungkwan was ready for murder. Poor Mingyu had to hold him back from Hoshi as Hoshi ran off laughing as loudly as possible.

‘Some things never change’ you thought to yourself.

The tournament started and everything was going well. You were distracted and having fun, finally. And Seungkwan never left your side. Well… that’s not entirely true, but every time he did, he made sure one of the boys was there to prevent you from running away. 

You and Seungkwan had made it to the Semi-finals. A place Seungkwan had never been in all of these tournaments. He always blamed the cheaters but now here you were. And you were going to face Jeonghan and Woozi in the semi-finals.

Of course. You looked up and sighed. The universe really enjoys watching you suffer. It’s like it knows how much you love competitive Jeonghan and has decided to torture you even more. Because it’s not enough he looks that good and it wasn’t enough when he walked towards you with a little girlfriend behind him, no. That wasn’t enough. You needed to suffer more.

Seungkwan grabs you by the shoulders and makes you stare at him.

“A little creepy, don’t ya think?” you asked him and laughed.

“Stop laughing. Look at him. I want you to put your pain to use” he said, and almost growled at you.

“Excuse me?” you asked, but you knew what he was going to say next.

“He brought a girl here. Look at her. Very cute. Just his type, isn’t she? And, he barely tried speaking to you. Get angry, let’s destroy him” he told you while staring at you.

“Seriously, Seungkwan? That’s low” you said.

“You know what’s low? Knowing you were coming and bringing her. Use it. I need this win, Y/N and so do you” he said as he let go of your shoulders and started focusing on your adversaries.

You get what Seungkwan is doing and you know if you were Sengkwan you would be able to channel all of that energy and anger towards winning, but you’re not Seungkwan. This is where your personalities diverge completely. Right now, all of those thoughts, everything that has happened tonight… You are trying your hardest to just not cry. Do. Not. Cry. 

Long story short. You lost. Bad. You sucked. Bad. And you wanted out. Bad.

As soon as the final shot sinks and the match ends, you get out of that living room and you go hide. 

You need to breathe, you can’t breathe there. You’re suffocating.

You don’t know how long you stay in the guest bathroom. You’re on the floor, tears running down your face and your breathing has finally started to stabilize. ‘You’re fine. You’re okay. You’ll be fine’ you kept telling yourself over and over.

You get up, clean your face, take one last look in the mirror and try to make yourself look presentable. You needed to leave this party. This was too much, too soon. The boys would have to understand.

You leave the bathroom and as you’re about to leave the guest bedroom, he spoke up behind the bathroom door.

“Not even a hello, love?”

Your heart started beating so loudly, you started shaking. How dare he? How dare he do this to you? You looked back at him over your shoulder and said:

“Don’t make the wrong choices and expect no consequences, Jeonghan. You shouldn’t keep Haneul waiting.”

And you left.

You left. This time, you had the power. You closed the door behind you and you started getting ready to leave. Some of the boys ran over to you.

“I had fun, I did. But I have to go, okay? I’m sorry Soonyoung. And congrats to you boys, you deserve this. You worked too hard so kill it, okay?” you said with a weak smile on your face looking between Hoshi, Jun, Minghao and baby Dino.

They all gave you a huge group hug and let you leave.

You got home and you cried yourself to sleep, again.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry for him anymore, no matter what. But here you are. In bed, crying.

You wonder if you even understand Jeonghan at all. If you ever did. He left, didn’t try to contact you but tried to speak to you when you first walked in the party. Brought a new girl to the party he knew you would finally be at and pretended to sulk when you didn't answer his greeting.

You have no idea what he wants. You never did. But it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. 

In a way, now you can heal. You saw him with someone else, the worst possible scenario in your head and you survived. Barely. But you did. You’ll learn to navigate these feelings and you’ll get better at forgetting him.

Tonight was difficult but tomorrow will be better.

It had been two weeks since the party. You had been busy and hadn’t had time to think much more about it. And, you also didn’t want to think about it or talk about it at all.

So, you may have been ignoring the texts the boys sent and even Lily. You just didn’t have the energy at this point. You were still drained and trying to find your bearings.

You knew this wouldn’t last much longer. They were very persistent when they had to be and when they wanted to be. 

Today you decided to have lunch delivered and eat in your office. It was one of the days you needed to be in the office and you were already drained. You didn’t expect any visitors, especially at lunch time but there’s a knock at your door.

“Who is it?” you asked from your desk, pausing your Youtube video.

Lily doesn’t even reply and just opens your office door and comes right in.

“Well, hello there. Why did you knock if you’re just gonna make yourself at home either way?” you asked her playfully.

“I’m mad at you. This is the silent treatment, in case you’ve forgotten what that feels like” she said as she crossed her arms.

“Not much of a silent treatment if you stalk me all the way here AND speak to me or is it?” you asked again.

“You’re unbelievable you know that, Y/N? We barely speak or see you for 6 months, you show up to one party, leave abruptly in the middle of it and start to ignore us again and you still think this is a joke? Keep pushing us away like this and one day none of us are going to push back anymore” she said and your smile fell from your face.

“I’m sorry, Lil. Jeonghan caught me alone at the party and… I had to leave after that. I couldn’t be there anymore. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t ready to see him yet and definitely not ready to see him with someone else so quickly after our falling out” you said honestly.

Lily sighed and smiled sadly at you. 

“Let’s talk about it? You haven’t talked to anyone about it since the falling out. I really think it’s time you share your burden with someone. You can’t keep carrying this alone. It’s going to keep suffocating you. Let it out with me, yeah? Tomorrow? I can come over, we can spend the day together, talking and binge eating and drinking. Like the old days. Let me be your friend, Y/N”

“Deal” was all you said but it was enough to make Lily smile more brightly. 

She hugged you and said her goodbyes and your day continued.

Maybe she was right. You had not talked about it with anyone. Maybe you’ve healed as much as you can on your own. You need support. You need your friends.

The next day you woke up and you were excited. You hadn’t spent a full day with Lily like this in a very long time. You missed this so much. 

You went out for a quick grocery run to get all her favorite snacks and drinks and some other additions you needed for your home and you decided since you weren’t going to bring too much back that you would walk to the store. You could use the fresh air.

As you were walking there, you kept thinking about what Seungkwan had said before. He knew you had blocked Jeonghan but how? You hadn’t told anyone and sure, it could be an obvious assumption, but he knew. With certainty. 

You couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of Jeonghan having tried to contact you after that night and finding out he was blocked. How did that make him feel? Why did he tell Seungkwan? And did he try to contact you more times after that? How many more times?

‘Why do I care? Why am I torturing myself?’ you asked yourself. But you know why. Deep down (maybe not that deep down) you wanted him to try to contact you. You wanted him to feel like shit when he realized you blocked him, and you wanted him to keep trying to contact you.

You just wanted him.

How pathetic is that? He keeps hurting you and you keep wanting him. Always.

After you got home and prepared everything for Lily’s visit, you sat on your kitchen counter staring at your phone next to you.

‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I shouldn’t do it. This is a fucking bad idea. Stop being weak. Don’t do it’ you kept telling yourself over and over again. As you were about to do something very stupid, your doorbell rings and you thank all the heavens and Gods above.

You opened the door and a very excited and happy Lily barged in.

“Did you miss me? How long has it been since we did this? Feels like forever…” she said as she started taking out her blankets and pillows and setting up your living room for a proper girls day.

“I want to unblock Jeonghan. Is that stupid?” you asked abruptly and so quickly that Lily thought she misheard you.

Lily slowly turned around and looked at you with an eyebrow raised.

“Why?” she asked.

“I just… Seungkwan mentioned before that he knew I had blocked Jeonghan and I thought that was weird because I didn’t tell anyone anything and it got me thinking that yeah, I know, he could’ve made that comment based on an assumption but you know Seungkwan, he doesn’t say or do things he is not certain of and that made me wonder if Jeonghan had tried to contact me after that night and if he did, what did he want to say and how did he feel after being blocked by me” you said all in one breath and so fast that Lily almost laughed at you.

“Easy there, we have all day, no need to say things in one breath like that. Don’t want you passing out on me” she said, now laughing out loud.

“Sorry… So… Is it stupid?” you asked her again.

“Of course not. What you two shared… I know we never talked about it but I actually saw myself and Seungcheol a lot in you two but you know, in a completely dysfunctional and delusional way of pretending you didn’t love each other” she said as she laughed lowly and you sat down on your couch.

“Look… I don’t know what he wanted to say but I can confirm he has tried to contact you after that night. Several times actually. Seungcheol told me. I’m assuming he told Seungcheol, Seungkwan and probably Vernon and Shua. He knows they would be his best bet at convincing you to unblock him but none of them wanted to help, I guess. At least Seungcheol didn’t.” she said and you looked down.

“I know he fucked up. But… and don’t hate me for saying this… You did too. And I think you know that. Sure, he fucked up in a much more serious and permanent way but you two just kept hurting each other for years. It’s always been so complicated when it should’ve been easy.” she continued.

“I also know the Y/N I know is a very forgiving person and has always given people second chances. Not saying you should forgive him just like that. But maybe you can hear him out. He clearly wants to talk to you about it and you clearly miss him and want to know what he has to say. Just because you give him a chance to explain, does not mean you will forgive him and want him back in your life.” 

She finished her speech and you looked at her with tears in your eyes.

“How long have you been holding that in?” you asked and laughed.

“6 whole months actually. Seungcheol kept stopping me from saying anything and he kept saying you were too angry. Not ready to hear it just yet” she said and was crying with you now. 

You both looked insane. Crying and laughing at the same time, holding each others’ hands but this was exactly what you needed.

“I hate it when he’s right” you said and laughed.

“Oh, same. And he is always right. The boys were all on your side, you know? Always giving Jeonghan shit.” she added.

“I bet… Seungcheol told me that at the party too” you told her.

“So… Unblock him. Don’t tell anyone. I won’t either. And we’ll see if he tries to contact you again or not” she told you and moved to turn on the TV.

“To be fair, it’s been 6 months. Not sure he would keep trying for that long” you told her as you started to open some of the snacks and drinks.

“Don’t say that. I know for a fact he kept trying and hoping you had unblocked him so he’ll definitely try again” she said as she started helping you with the snacks.

You nodded and… Unblocked him. You did it. It felt weird. You wanted him to reach out but you were also scared of what he would say if he did. And, if you were being honest, you were still so angry at him for leaving you. So you’ll know that if you decide to hear him out, that first conversation is not going to be pretty no matter what he has to tell you.

The rest of the day went by fast. You talked and vented to Lily about everything. Just like you did with Jeonghan on that day. You had told her everything, you had cried together and laughed and after all of it, you just watched a few episodes of a show and before you knew it she had to leave.

You said your goodbyes and promised each other you would do this way more often.

You felt happy when she left. Lighter. You cleaned most things up and decided to go to bed early. You were feeling tired. You were feeling as if today you were finally going to get some real sleep. Lily was right. You needed this. You needed to vent and share your burden and now that you had, you felt relieved.

You wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity. You turned all your notifications off, did your nighttime beauty routine and went to sleep. You fell asleep so fast and you slept like a baby. At last.

Sunday morning you woke up so well rested and a bit confused from sleeping so much. You honestly don’t remember the last time you woke up after 11AM and it felt great. You stretched, yawned, opened your blinds and smiled. 

Wow, you really did feel so much better after being and talking with Lily. It helped with some of the pain and she was right. You didn’t know if you would give Jeonghan a chance to explain himself yet but if you did, that did not mean that you were going to forgive him and that your lives would again intertwine. 

After showering and cooking breakfast, you went to your dinner table facing your window to eat and you remembered you had turned off your notifications for the night so you went back to your room to pick up your phone and turn them back on.

You started eating and checking your notifications when you receive a notification you didn’t think you’d receive this soon.

It was a text from Jeonghan. Apparently sent late last night.

“I know I haven’t texted you since before the party. I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry isn’t enough. I wanted to give you time but these weeks have been shitty. I’m miserable. I wish you could read my messages and see how much I’ve been suffering without you. I keep texting you pretending that you read them. How pathetic am I? Doesn’t matter. I’ll keep being pathetic until the day you give me a chance to explain everything. I miss you terribly, love”

You kept reading it over and over again. You didn’t know what to do. This is not something you can do over text. This also is starting to seem like a very bad idea at this moment. You know he probably saw the message was delivered, unlike his previous ones. 

Jeonghan is very much feeling like you. Confused. Not quite sure what to do. Send another text? No. Not over text. Call you? Maybe it’s too soon, maybe he should wait to see if you reply at all and then try to call you. A voice message? Hmm, not ideal but it would give him a better platform to at least try to convince you to meet with him and let him explain everything. 

A voice message it is. But it can’t be any voice message, he decided. He needed to write down everything he needed to say in this message. He needed to be clear and straight to the point. Just like you always have been.

After hours of writing points down and recording himself and hearing it back, he decided to just go for it. No matter what, it won’t be perfect. But it’s all he’s got. He has this chance and he can’t afford to waste it. He can’t afford you blocking him again and not being able to get his second chance.

You spent hours trying to avoid staring at your phone. You cleaned your whole apartment and decided to play some games to distract yourself. ‘You don’t have to respond. If he means it, he’ll reach out again. Be patient, Y/N’ you told yourself.

And sure enough, your phone dings a text notification. You’re so nervous. It’s just a text and you’re so nervous. You look down at your phone. It’s a voice message. No. You can’t hear his voice. Why does he know you so well? 

You wanted to wait to open it. You really did. But you couldn’t. You reached down and listened to it.

“Hi, love… I… I don’t really know how to start. I can’t believe you unblocked me. And, don’t worry. I know this doesn’t mean that you’ll hear me out or forgive me but you know I have to try, right? Maybe you don’t. I know you’ve been feeling like you never mattered to me. Like you were never worthy of me. And it’s all my fault. In all these years, I’ve been so blind and I’ve hurt you so much. I wanted to beg you for a second chance but… This isn’t my second chance. It’s not even my third. I’ve hurt you more times than I can keep count and you have given me multiple chances to redeem myself and I always disappointed you. I kept asking myself, if I were you, would I forgive me? Would I give me another chance? How many chances are too many chances? How many times will you forgive me before I learn? Truth is, if I were you, I would be done. Completely. I’m sending you this on the very slim hope that you are better than me and that you will at least let me explain everything. Even if after you hear it, you won’t forgive me. Please… Let me explain myself. Meet with me, one last time, love.”

He was crying for most of his message. You could hear it and it was tearing you apart.

Part of you wanted to meet with him but the other part of you was still so mad. Could he just beg and cry and get away with everything? You deserve better than all of this, you know that now. You’re not sure what to do. You needed to weigh your options. 

You sent him a simple text: “I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Please, don’t message me anymore. I’ll reach back out when I have an answer.”

He liked your message and added nothing else. Jeonghan knows you well and he knows to respect your boundaries, always.

You spent the next few days thinking it over. You kept remembering Lily’s words. Listening to him does not mean you will forgive him and it might even help you with closing this chapter in your life, if that’s the final choice you’ll make.

But somehow, every time you tried to message him and tell them that yes, you will hear him out, you couldn't pull that trigger. You were scared. You couldn’t pinpoint what was holding you back.

You decided to call Lily. She would help you, she would know what to say to help you through this.

She picked up after a few rings.

“Hey! How have you been? How’s the… situation we talked about Saturday?” she asked and you could hear some background noise and echo.

“Am I on speakerphone, Lil?” you asked back.

“Yes, I’m cooking dinner and Seungcheol answered it for me. Is this not a speakerphone conversation?” she asked you and you replied right away.

“Actually, if Cheolie is there and wants to give his input, I would appreciate it. I’m… confused? I don’t even know the right word to describe what I’m feeling right now…” you replied and you immediately got an answer from the other side of the phone.

“I’m here. Tell us” he said, straight to the point. You too had always had that in common. Cut through the bullshit and get to the point.

“Well, Saturday after me and Lily spoke, I decided to unblock Jeonghan. I just… Wanted to know if he tried to reach out and if he would again and he did. That same night actually. Long story short he sent me a text and a voice message begging me to meet up with him and let him at least explain. He said a lot of things… I don’t know how to feel about them? I told him I would think about it and I thought about it. A lot. I want to hear him out but every time I go to message him the fear and hurt resurfaces again and I just… Can’t… I mean… Does this mean I shouldn’t listen to him? I need help…” you said and waited for a response.

“You should hear him out” Seungcheol said simply.

You didn’t know what to say so he continued.

“What’s the worst that can happen? You fight? Good. You need to fight. You both need to tell each other everything you’ve been holding inside since you met. You need to scream at each other and understand how annoyingly frustrating you both are. And if after that fight you decide it’s not worth it, you’ve given him too many chances, then you’ll know and you’ll be able to finally get closure and truly move on. Let’s face it, Y/N. You won’t fully move on until you get your answers. All of them.”

“I really do hate it when you’re right…” you said and the three of you chucked.

“But I’m always right, Y/N. Meet up with him and come running here if you need to” he told you.

After you hung up with them, you decided you needed to rest. You had a migraine. Tomorrow will be a new day and tomorrow you’ll let him know.

The next morning you decided to call Jeonghan before starting work. You knew his schedule and you knew he would be up. You couldn’t do this through text and you won’t.

He picked up immediately.

“Hello, love. Good morning. Did you sleep well?” he sounded the same. Asked the same questions he used to before. It felt familiar and nice.

“Hi, Jeonghan. Good morning. Yes, I did, thank you. I hope you did too. Look, I’ve decided to hear you out. I don’t want to talk through the phone or in a public place. I have a feeling this conversation will be… difficult to say the least for the both of us. Can I come over after work this week or is the weekend better for you?” you asked him.

“Tonight. Come over tonight, please.” he said without any hesitation.

“Okay… Tonight it is. I’m working from home so I should be done at 6PM. I’ll be there by 7” you stated plainly.

“Okay, love. I’ll be waiting” he said and he sounded as if he were smiling. It made you want to smile as well but you didn’t.

“See you then, Jeonghan” you said and hung up.

You weren’t ready to see and speak to him but were you ever going to be?

Tonight, everything will be out in the open. Finally. You will both put all our cards on the table. No more secrets. No more hiding. And then, you can both decide how to move forward. Together or separate.

6PM comes quicker than you anticipated and it’s time to get ready and meet with him.

You got to his apartment and the nerves started kicking in. ‘You got this’ you told yourself right before you rang the doorbell. 

He must have been right by the door because the door flew open almost right after you rang the doorbell.

“Hi, love. Come in, please” he said and gave you room to walk towards the living room. He sounded nervous. He looked nervous too. It made you feel good to know you weren’t alone in this. 

You walked in the living room. It was clear he prepared for your arrival. The room smelled like the candle you loved and kept buying for him so he would always have it when you came over. The lights were dimmed and he had put music on in the background. He had water and snacks on the coffee table and your pictures together were still up and visible to anyone who walked in his house.

Fuck, you missed him so much. You want to stay strong but you are already feeling so weak.

You sat on the couch, turned your phone off and looked up at him with raised eyebrows, silently asking him ‘What are you waiting for?’.

He sat on the couch with you, turned his phone off and started speaking.

“I love you. And no, I don’t mean in a ‘best friends’ type of way. I’m in love with you. And yes, I am fully aware those are the exact same words you said to me 6 months ago. And you should know I’ve wanted to say these words back to you ever since that night. I’ve always loved you. Since the very beginning. I have been trying to figure out why I didn’t see it or why I kept telling myself that I didn’t love you like that but honestly, I don’t know why I did it. I know I’ve always been afraid to lose you. To have you look at me with disappointment in your eyes. But before that night, I told myself we were just friends and were always going to be just friends. I had convinced myself of that fact and I don’t understand why.” he said with tears in his eyes now. 

“Fuck, I know what a cliché it is to only realize what I have in front of me once I lose it, trust me. But the night I left, I remember thinking how happy I had always been with you, around you, in your presence. How lost I was before you walked into my life and it all made so much fucking sense. You and I made sense.” he continued. 

You were staring in his eyes and it was your turn now to turn your poker face on.

“Only after I met you did I set up all these rules about my dating life. No one was ever worthy of dating me simply because they weren’t you. I kept making these excuses… To myself, to everyone around me. But I was just too stupid to see that I was making these rules in hopes of finding someone like you. Because I’ve always known since I met you, Y/N, that I’m the one that is and never was worthy of being with you. But if there’s anything I have learned in all the years we’ve known each other is that there’s absolutely no one like you, not for me” he continued.

“I wanted you for so long that when I saw the chance of having you, I took it. No hesitation. I don’t regret that first night and never will. What I will regret is never having kissed you that night and the conversation that took place after it all happened. What I said, the way I acted. Like you were just another ‘fuck-buddy’. I will never forgive myself for that and I don’t expect you to either” he said as tears kept flowing down his face. 

He never wavered and kept looking at you while he finished up his speech.

“I know I don’t deserve another chance. I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I still had to ask. I had to try. I love you and I am begging you to give me another chance. At everything. Being your best-friend, your lover, your partner. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll let me” and he was done. 

The only sounds in the room were the sounds of you both crying. Why did he only decide to tell you all of this now? Why was life so unfair? You don’t know if this is enough. His words are beautiful but they always have been. You needed more. Much more. 

And your anger starts winning over your forgiving side. You still have a lot to tell him before you even make a decision about this. He needs to hear how much he has hurt you. 

“Am I just supposed to be moved by this and forget all these years? Forget all the words you’ve said to me, all the little comments and jokes you made about me not being your type and not even being close to what you wanted?” you asked him.

“You know me well, Yoon Jeonghan, which means you know my memory never fails me. I remember every single cruel thing you said and smirked about. I remember the restaurant you never took me to no matter how many times I begged you to because ‘That is way too romantic for us, love’. And you want me to believe that after you’ve said all of these things you went home and felt bad about it?” you were getting angrier and angrier.

“You don’t love me. And you didn’t love me back then either. You love the way I make you feel. You love how desperate and pathetic I am and always have been for you. You love that I worship the ground you walk on. You love the feeling of having someone willing to do anything for you, willing to sacrifice their own beliefs and self-esteem to get even a small portion of your attention. You love having someone beg you to take them out, begging you to see them. You love all of these things and anytime someone gave that to you, you stayed” you were getting harsher now. 

“That’s how you found your ‘fuck-buddies’. You always chose the most desperate ones because you always loved the way it made you feel about yourself. That’s why you kept me around. You kept all of us around for different feelings. We were all desperate for you, yes. But their job was to keep you satisfied sexually, while mine was purely emotional. It wasn’t love. Not for them and not for me.”

You said and started getting up from the couch and collecting your things.

“I was never different from them. Not in the core of the matter. In the end, we all got hurt and you always left, unburdened and ready for your next fling to satisfy your ego” you said as you began to walk towards the apartment door.

You looked over your shoulder and told him: “I don’t know if I can forgive you. I know I don’t believe you. I wish I did. I really do. But my memories of every little thing you did over the years that hurt me are keeping me from letting go. I’m glad we both got to say what we always needed to say to each other. I’m not sure we’ll see each other again, but if we don’t, we can at least have closure now. Goodbye, Jeonghan.”

You got home that night and you were just… Numb. You couldn’t cry anymore. You didn’t want to scream. You just sat on your couch, staring at your wall, not knowing what to do and how to move on from this. From him. 

You fell asleep on your couch that night and woke up the next day feeling even worse.

You reached out to both Lily and Seungcheol and they were very supportive but they also made sure you knew they weren’t going to advise you any further. The next decision was entirely up to you. 

The next week went by so slowly. You still felt like shit and it seemed to only get worse each day.

It may sound stupid but you missed him. You had just seen him. You had a bad fight. Yet, you missed him. 

You went to your closet and took out the box of pictures you had hidden there. You started looking over each one of them. All of them were attached to such great memories. Memories of days together, nights together, vacations together. You were always smiling brightly. You remember all those feelings. Everything he had made you feel when you were together. 

You started to regret some of the things you said last time you saw him. He cared for you deeply. You could tell from the pictures and from all the good memories you had. He always protected you and made sure you felt safe and warm. Your friendship was nothing like the flings he had. You went too far. You wanted to hurt him but you weren’t fair in your accusations.

You’re pretty sure that’s why you feel like shit. You thought saying these things to him and hurting him would make you feel better. It would leave you satisfied knowing he was hurting like you did all those times. But it didn’t. It made you feel so much worse than before. 

You fucked up and now it was your turn to fix it. You knew if you went back there, it would mean you would forgive him. Were you ready for that? Was that what you wanted?

You dropped the pictures, grabbed your keys and left. 

You were standing in front of his door wondering if you should ring the doorbell. He might be busy. He might not even be home. You didn’t even know what you were going to say. Fuck, this was a terrible idea. You need to leave. Now. Go home. Regroup and come back with a plan.

The door opened and a tired Jeonghan was staring at you, blinking in confusion with his jacket halfway on his body.

“Hmm… Hi… I wanted to talk to you. I should’ve called or texted before. Sorry. I should leave. Sorry” you were shaking and started to leave but he grabbed your elbow and stopped you from moving.

“No. Stay. I’m not busy. Talk to me. Please” he asked you.

“You were leaving though… I feel bad… I--”

“I was out of whiskey. Was going to buy more. It doesn’t matter. Stay. Come in. Talk. Please, love” he interrupted you and he never let go of your arm. 

“O..Okay. Yeah. Okay” you nodded and went inside his apartment.

He took off both his jacket and shoes and you did the same. You looked around. The house was messy. Very unusual. Jeonghan was a creature of habits and he hated messiness. This was your fault.

You decided to be blunt again. 

“Did you mean it? What you said last week? All of it?” you asked him nervously.

“Yes. Every word. I know it’s hard to believe but I meant every fucking word” he responded just as bluntly.

“What about Haneul? You brought her around the boys… To the party…” 

You hated that you asked but you had to know everything before giving him a permanent answer.

“She invited herself. Pretty much blindsided me into joining us. She’s been following me around the company. I’ve made myself very clear. I’m not available and it will never happen but she wasn’t backing down. I’ve been really tired. Exhausted, after losing you. I had no strength left in me to fight her. I would just ignore her until she gets the message. Not my finest moment but I couldn’t care less” he said plainly.

You nodded and started getting really nervous. You gulped and asked him your final question.

“I was an asshole last week. I’m sorry. I said a lot of things that weren’t fair. I wanted to hurt you. I regret most of it. After all I said, do you still want me? Want us? Want to spend the rest of your life making it up to me?”

“That’s all I want. I want all of it. I deserved your words. I deserved to be hurt. I should be the one apologizing. But fuck yeah. If you give me that chance, this last chance, I will never let you go again” he said as he walked closer to you until he was so close you could feel his breath on your lips.

You looked up at him.

“Deal. I want to forgive you. I want to move forward with you. With us. But I have a few rules…”

He looked in your eyes and started to smirk. You were giving him a taste of his own medicine. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy but he would do everything to earn you back.

You moved away from him and started to put your shoes and jacket on, getting ready to leave.

“No sex. Not in the beginning. I want romance. Lots of dates. We have similar tastes and you know me better than anyone. Choose wisely” he laughed and nodded along.

“Kissing is very much allowed and encouraged. This is obviously an exclusive relationship and I am to be called and to be treated as your girlfriend, always” he kept smiling and was starting to tear up. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was.

“Anything else, princess?” he asked.

“No princess. I like baby much better. Or angel. Other than that, no other rules. For now” you answered him. And before you left, you walked towards him, intertwined your hands and asked him sincerely:

“I missed you, Hannie. Don’t make me regret this, okay?”

“Never, baby. You’re mine now. I missed you so much, too. Let me take you out tomorrow, yeah? First date?” he asked back.

“I can’t tomorrow. Friday I’m free. Pick me up after work?”

“I’ll be there, baby” he said and you turned to leave.

Right before you left he told you “I’ll be texting you. Don’t ignore your boyfriend, baby. He’s very needy”

You laughed as you nodded and left his apartment.

You got home that night and you couldn’t sleep. You were so happy. Is this even real? This wasn’t a dream, right? And as you were having these thoughts, Jeonghan texted you just as he promised right before you left his apartment.

Next thing you knew, a month flew by. Your first month together as a couple.

So far he’s kept all his promises. He was the one worshiping you now. He always texted or called to make sure you were safe and happy. He took you out on multiple dates a week and always made you feel like you were the only two people in the whole world.

On your first date he took you to the restaurant down the street from his place that you always wanted to go. You had a feeling he was going to pick that place and you made fun of him for it but he kept saying ‘I told you, baby. From now on, I will do everything to earn your forgiveness and love. Clichés and all’.

After your first date, he took you home and kissed you so gently by the door. 

You never thought you would feel this way. You felt complete. The happiest you had ever been.

During this month together, he never made any additional moves on you. 

You had kissed. A lot. 

Made out like teenagers. A lot.

But he always stopped it and ended your date there.

You knew you asked for this in the beginning as one of your rules but you couldn’t take it anymore. 

You needed him. You knew you had to be the one to make the move or show that you are ready. Otherwise, he will keep respecting your boundaries no matter how hard you want him to disrespect them.

Today you met up with Lily for lunch. The guys and Lily had barely seen the two of you. You only had time and eyes for each other and everyone was letting you two enjoy this new relationship without any interruptions.

“You are glowing, you know that, Y/N?” she asked as she ate.

You laughed and told her “I’m just so fucking happy. I never thought this would happen. He’s been so amazing. And it doesn’t feel different. I mean, our friendship. We’re still infuriating with each other but now we just have the added benefit of kissing to shut each other up.”

“And fucking” she said loudly and you hushed her while you two giggled.

“We’re in public, asshole. And about the fucking…” you said.

“Nothing yet? I gotta give it to him. Never thought he would be able to last this long without making a move. Good for him” she said and kept giggling.

“Good for him? I am dying here, woman. I’ve tried everything. All my moves, all the signs and he just won’t do anything” you whispered.

“It’s your fault. You made it a ‘rule’. You should know that not only would he take this seriously, but he would also use this to torture you for as long as he could. Possibly until you begged him to fuck you” she said again way too loudly in this very public restaurant.

You looked around after shushing her and you realized what she just said. Oh my god. He’s doing this on purpose. Of course. You should’ve known better. You gave him a challenge and he was punishing you for it, the little shit.

“I love that you are only realizing this now” she said and kept laughing.

“Shut up and finish your food” you bit back at her.

You had a date tonight with Jeonghan. You had offered to cook for the both of you. More of an intimate date. And you were going in for the kill tonight. You were done waiting but you were also going to have some fun with him.

You had this pink dress in your closet that you bought almost a year ago. You were saving it for a really good date or so you kept telling everyone. And we’re here now. 

Pink is not your usual pick but this dress is a killer. And an added bonus: Jeonghan loves seeing you in pink. This dress is just short enough. Obscene cleavage. A bit corseted. Enough to let your natural curves speak for themselves.

Underneath the dress, the smallest thong was covering your pussy and of course, no bra.

You had covered your body in the watermelon body lotion he loved smelling on you. Very little makeup and hair down. Just how he liked it on you.

Everything was ready and waiting for him. Food was ready and in the oven. You had set the mood with the candles, lighting and music in the living room and dining room and your bedroom was certainly refreshed and ready to greet him.

When you opened the door and he had the chance to see you. You knew you made all the right choices tonight. He stared you up and down and gulped.

“Like what you see, Hannie?” you asked and walked away from him towards your kitchen.

He came up behind you before you could reach the kitchen counter, turned you around and kissed you. Deeply. Full of passion. Until you were both out of breath. He started touching the bottom part of your dress with his fingertips very lightly.

“‘You look absolutely gorgeous tonight, baby. Why haven’t I seen this dress before?” he asked.

“Well… You weren’t exactly the best boy to me for a while. But now… Now you deserve to see it. All for yourself, too” you said, still panting and recovering from the kiss.

And in a very Jeonghan fashion, he completely surprises you with his next question.

“Has anyone else seen you in this dress, baby? On a date? Who have you worn this for before me, hmm?”

You smiled and whispered in his ear: “No one else but you.”

He almost growled at you and started leaning in again to kiss you. He had that look in his eyes you knew all too well and you moved away from him.

“We should eat. Food is getting cold, Hannie” you said and moved towards the oven.

He stared and narrowed his eyes at you but he knew what you were playing at. He knew you too well. Let’s see who has the most self-control tonight, then.

You had a great meal. He complimented your cooking as usual and kept holding your hand every time he saw the opportunity to. 

Everything was perfect. 

You two started cleaning up after eating and you kept talking about everything that was going on in your lives.

Everything was always so easy between the two of you. 

You both sat on the couch and decided to watch a movie together. He was very touchy during the whole movie. His hand was moving higher and higher up your thigh and every time he moved it higher, he sighed, almost moaned. 

You were so fucking wet and he had barely done anything. Tonight had to be the night, right? ‘He wasn’t that evil’ you thought.

When the movie ended and his hand was almost completely underneath your dress, he moved closer to you, leaned in, held your chin in his hands and started to whisper against your lips.

“I should go, it’s getting late”

He laughed after watching the disappointment in your eyes, got up and started getting ready to leave.

You also got up and grabbed his jacket to stop him.

“You can’t leave yet” you said shakily.

He hummed.

“Why’s that, baby? Something you want from me?” he asked as he walked back over to you.

Okay, you can say it. It’s fine. Just ask him. Tell him, do anything.

“Ugh… Nevermind. Just… Drive safe, I guess” and you tried handing his jacket back to him.

He licked his lips, ripped the jacket from your hands, threw it on the couch and started walking you backwards towards the living room wall.

Once you were backed up against the wall, he placed both hands on each side of your head.

“Is it so hard to ask to get fucked, hmm? Not like you haven’t done it before. What’s with the pride, baby?” he asked.

You stared at him with uneven breaths but stayed silent.

“You know me, baby. Either ask me what I want to hear or I’ll leave you here against this wall in your probably very small and very wet panties” he said and started kissing down your neck.

“Stay. Fuck me” you said hurrily and barely in a whisper.

“You have to do better than that, baby. Ask me nicely since you’ve been a tease all fucking night” he said and now one of his hands was on your thigh, rubbing circles.

“Please, fuck me, Hannie. Please. I can’t wait anymore. You’re driving me crazy” you begged and he must have liked it because you felt him chuckle against your skin.

He pulled your dress up and slapped your clothed pussy. You moaned.

“Now that wasn’t so hard was it? You’ve wanted me to fuck you for a while now. Was wondering when you were going to start acting like a greedy little slut. My greedy little slut” he told you while he cupped your pussy.

“Hannie…” you moaned.

He moved away from you and started walking to your bedroom. You followed him. He sat on your bed and started unbuttoning his shirt while licking his lips and staring at you.

You stood in front of him.

“Take it all off, baby and come sit on my face” he told you.

You were nervous. You hadn’t done this before. Not with him. But you were also excited.

You took it all off, just as he asked and you started moving closer. He layed back on the bed and beckoned you to join him.

You did. You laid on top of him completely naked and you started kissing each other. His hands were everywhere. You couldn’t get enough of him. 

He stopped kissing you and started moving up on the bed to straddle his head and he dove right in. No hesitation. No words. No more waiting. He was eating you out like a starved man. You were holding on to the top of your bed and his hair.

He was being sloppy and loud and moving up and down between your clit and your hole. He spanked you hard and moved one of his hands to your folds. He started fingering you using two fingers while sucking hard on your clit. 

You were so fucking close already. This was fucking embarrasing. You start shaking and moving away from his mouth and he spanks you again.

“Don’t fucking move away from me again. Don’t you dare. Don’t be embarrassed and cum. Let go. Cum” he told you then while pushing your hips back down on his mouth.

And as soon as he pushed you back down and continued his movements, you started falling apart and moaning his name so fucking loud. 

He didn’t stop then. He kept going.

“Hmm… Sensitive… Can’t… Hannie…” you whined.

“Shhh baby, you can give me more. I know you can. Fucking give it to me. I’m fucking greedy” he started fingering you again, slower this time and started marking your thighs with his mouth until he saw purple marks all over your inner thighs. 

You kept moaning and whining and you were getting louder and impatient. He laughed and moved back on your clit.

This time he added a third finger and kept sucking on your clit. It was a mess, you were sure of it. His face, his fingers. You had never felt this wet and this sloppy before and you were getting closer and closer.

With his free hand, he cupped your breast and twisted your nippled between his fingers and you came again with a cry of his name.

You started slumping on the bed while you were still panting and he moved you off of him and laid you on your back.

He started kissing down your neck and taking his clothes off.

When he was fully naked and on top of you, you grabbed his face with both of your hands and you looked in his eyes. You wanted to know what he was thinking. How he was feeling.

“I love you, baby. So fucking much. Let me have you now, yeah?” he asked as he looked into your eyes. Almost as if he knew that you needed that, you needed to hear him say it.

You kissed him again and tangled your hand in his hair.

You both gasped when he started pushing into you and you both moaned when he bottomed out completely.

“Fuck, I missed you so fucking much. This pussy was made for me. I might not last long, baby. It’s been too long since I had you” he whispered in your ear.

“Hmmm, what about since your other ‘fuck-buddies’? How long ago was that?” you asked and he stared in your eyes and got very serious. You hated that you asked it but you need to know the answer.

“I haven’t been with anyone else after you. I thought that was obvious, baby. I want you. I spent all these months wanting you. No one else” he said and started kissing you again.

You stopped kissing him and asked him to start moving and he did.

He held your hips in place with one hand and with the other he intertwined your fingers together and he started pounding into you. No mercy. He was desperate for you and you for him.

“Fuck, Hannie… So good… Feels so fucking good… Don’t stop, please…”

He grunted in response and kept pounding into you.

You were getting closer again and he felt it so he moved the hand that was holding yours to push down on your stomach and kept pounding you hard into the mattress.

“You’re so close aren’t you, baby? I can fucking feel it. You’re squeezing me so hard, baby. Fuck… Let go. Let me feel you”

He leaned his forehead against yours and you came again. This is the loudest you have probably been. You feel shy all of a sudden but you can’t say anything coherent. You’re mostly babbling at this point and he starts laughing at you.

“Don’t tell me I fucked you stupid, baby. Use your words properly, you’re a big girl”

“Hannie… s’good…”

He kept laughing and kissing you and he leaned back to move one of your legs and place it on his shoulder.

He was now squeezing your thigh of the leg on his shoulder with one hand and grabbing your tits with his other hand and he started slowly thrusting into you. So you could feel every vein and every ridge on his cock moving inside of you. This felt like torture but you knew he was delaying his orgasm as much as he could.

“Look at you… My angel… You’re so gorgeous like this under me… Fuck, I’m never letting you go. My good girl… Hmm? Are you my good girl, baby? Answer me”

You started nodding.

“Yes… Yeah… Yours.. Good… Good girl…”

It was your turn now to surprise him. You grabbed his hand that was on your tits and moved it to your neck.

“Fuck, baby… Want me to choke you? Can’t have anything nice, can we? Calling you my good girl and you start acting like a greedy little slut again”

He chuckled and started thrusting into you with much more force and speed. The hand on your neck started squeezing lightly and you started whining and feeling closer and closer to the edge again.

“Gonna cum one last time, hmm? With my hand around your throat like a slut? Yeah… Fuck yeah… Cum with me then, angel”

He leaned down to kiss you and you started cumming again. This time your vision turned white. You thought you were dreaming. This felt surreal.

You kept repeating his name over and over again and when you said ‘I love you’, he finally came inside you with a grunt and a low moan in your ear.

He laid down on top of you as you both recovered and he kept playing with your hair and calling your name.

“Baby… You okay? Was that too much? Come back to me, don’t fall asleep yet, we need to clean up”

You laid with your eyes closed and hummed.

“I’m here, Hannie. Just… Give me a few minutes… I think you broke me” you said and you both started laughing.

“Good broken though?” he asked.

“Fucking amazing broken” you answered and you kept laughing together.

After a few more minutes of laying together in pure bliss, he convinced you to get up and take a shower with him.

He had to hold you up for most of it. You were so tired. He kept poking fun at you and all you could mumble was ‘your fault’ and he started chuckling.

You shared a bed for the first time as a couple that night. You remember feeling like this was supposed to have been happening since the very beginning of your friendship. 

You knew you wanted to have him with you here for the rest of your life and all you could do was hope he meant every word he said and that he would want the same with you. It was the best sleep of your life that night.

You woke up the next morning to the sounds of Jeonghan singing to the music he was playing and what sounded like cooking. 

Fuck, you were starving. But first, you had to make yourself look presentable. He always looked so good in the morning and you… Well.., you had more of a rough appearance in the morning so you needed a moment to collect yourself before following the sound of his beautiful voice.

You went to the bathroom to do your morning routine and afterwards you joined him in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Hannie. What are you cooking, baby?” you said as you hugged him from behind.

“Hmm… Morning, angel. Just some eggs and sausage. You didn’t have much more”

“Sounds delicious, thank you” you said as you moved to sit on the kitchen counter behind him.

“We have to replace all those photos, baby” he said as he turned around to look at you.

You knew he meant the pictures you had ripped apart and put back together after your falling out.

“I don’t want to. I like them this way. It tells our story. It’s a little broken but in the end it got put back together” you said and smiled at him.

He smiled and turned back to the stove.

“You just want to get our kids on your side and have me as the bad guy, huh?” he asked and you chucked.

“Kids? Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, no? Let’s not make promises we can’t keep. We both have done enough of those” you said and he nodded and laughed.

You felt so happy when he said that but you didn’t want to sound too eager. You knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him but you still were scared that he would regret this eventually and leave you again.

What you didn’t know was that this time, he wasn’t going to let you go anywhere, and he was never going anywhere without you.

He was going to spend the rest of his life by your side, earning back every once of trust and love he lost from you before.

He was okay with you still being guarded. He knew you had nothing to worry about and he would prove it to you. Soon enough he will take out the engagement ring he bought after your first date and he will make sure you stay by each others’ side always.

The ultimate pinky promise.

It’s here guys and it’s a monster 😭 I really hope it lives up to your expectations. I’m still nervous about everything I write! Please let me know in the comments and such if you liked it  💕 Thank you for supporting me! CHEERS 🥂

Taglist (if you requested specifically): @woofie-nctzen-fanarts @lannadray @cvixmei @feat-sun @cvpidxo @yunjinified @shuahasmyheartffs @jjjzzz @starlight-night0 @rendeciu @momoxxchewz @miniseokminnies @meowmeowminnie @sofix-hc7 @aaniag @shinetogether17 @goodforgyu @sharkipoonis

[rueclfer]

Reverse comfort reader taking care of Touya plsplsplsplspls 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

I just had the amazing thought of it he's being overly cocky during winter "I don't need a scarf I have a fire quirk!" And the next days he's curled in bed with a fever and sore throat and there's a ton of I told you so's

Not even a fic if u don't feel like it maybe a smau but I think it'd be super funny 😭

🫐 Anon

sick touya supreme bc he can just lay there, be cute n not speak <3

sweat it out // touya todoroki

"What the hell are you wearing?" You exclaim after opening your front door.

"What?" He looks down at his attire. "What happened to hi, hello? A 'thank you for bringing me my package that I stupidly got delivered to your apartment?' Why don't we start there?" He huffs, stepping into your apartment, setting your package down on your kitchen counter.

It had been nothing but near freezing temperatures for the past few weeks- so cold that you had to layer up inside your own apartment to prevent your electric bill from skyrocketing.

"Hi hello, my sweet boyfriend." You roll your eyes. "Do you seriously need me to mommy you right now and scold you for not wearing a fucking jacket out in this weather? Are we not grown adults?" You drops the blanket draped over your shoulders and go over to rub his arms for the thermal friction. "Like you're seriously just wearing this long sleeve? It's freezing if you haven't noticed."

He raises his hand up to your face and snaps a flame into place in between his index and thumb. "You forget I run warm."

"Yeah okay, Mister. I-have-a-fire-quirk. How is that going to help you if it starts raining?"

He pulls you into his chest, letting his body heat transfer into your own, instantly warming you and most importantly for him, shutting you up.

You release a deep exhale in content. "Idiot. You just should stay. For the Winter. Just live here with me for a few months and never leave." You rub your face into his chest, savoring the warmth.

"I think we'd end up killing each other before Spring comes." He chuckles into your hair.

"I'll just chain you to the bed and duct tape your mouth close." You smirk up at him. "Everyone's happy."

"Don't threaten me with a good time, sweetheart." He pulls back, reaching out to tousle your hair. "But I gotta run. Told Shigs I'd be quick."

"Wait! Let me find you a sweater and an umbrella." You frantically look around your living room for any piece of clothing that you had previously stolen from him.

"No need." He bends down and quickly press his lips against yours, letting them linger for a few seconds before pulling away. "I have to go. I checked earlier and it's not going to rain and I'm not cold either. You on the other hand, worry about staying warm."

"It definitely is going to rain, Touya. I can smell it." You huff. "You'll get sick."

"What, is that a new quirk development or something? Weirdo." He lightly pinches your cheeks before slipping his shoes back on. "Also, I have a strong immune system."

"Seriously, let me find you an umbrella at the very least." You rummage around the coat rack for something that could fit him or a spare umbrella.

"Nope, no time. See you tomorrow, yeah?" He calls out.

"I guess." You mutter in defeat as you watch him slip out your door.

"Idiot." You sigh under your breath once the door clicks close.

-

"I'm here!" You call out after stepping into Touya's apartment, using the spare he lent you after locking himself out multiple times.

You kick off your shoes and shed off some layers, draping your jacket, and scarf over his couch before making your way to his bedroom.

"Knock knock." You say as you gently crack the door open, revealing near pitch darkness with sliver of natural light peeking in from the blinds.

You make your way over to the dark lump of mass of blankets on the bed, kicking aside used tissue paper that were thrown onto the ground before kneeling down next to the bed.

"Hello, my sweet stupid boy." You coo, slowly stroking the tuft of dark hair peeking out from the comforter.

"Don't be mean to me." The nasally voice muffled from under the covers. "Princess treatment today, got it?"

Touya finally pokes his head out from under the covers. It may have been dark, but you could still make out his puffy bloodshot eyes, dry cracked lips and flushed cheeks.

"I'll say it this one time then and then I'll give you the best princess treatment, okay?" You lean in close, letting your lips lightly graze the shell of his ear. "I fucking told you so." You whisper.

He groans, retreating back under the covers.

"Did you hear me? Okay maybe one more time." You giggle, trying to rip the covers off from over his head. "I told you so. It rained and it rained hard. Not ideal for that fire quirk of yours, huh? I fucking told you so."

"Fuck off." He groans once more. "One more time and I'm kicking your ass out."

"As if." You successfully tug the covers down to his chin, placing the back of your hand on his forehead. "You don't even have to energy to, you poor thing."

"Am I gonna make it?" He gazes up at you with his tired bloodshot eyes.

"Looks like you got a fever." You push away the sweaty stray hairs sticking to his forehead. "But I think you'll survive."

"Damn." He wheeze out. "That's unfortunate."

"It is, but maybe next time you don't listen to me, you'll get lucky and it kills you."

"Let's hope for it, then." He smirks, bringing his hand up to rub his eyes. "Can I have a kiss?"

"Nope. I'm not trying to get sick, Touya." You smile at the neediness in his voice.

You move over to the blinds and slightly twist them open, letting in some of the dim daylight before tossing the haphazardly thrown stray tissues into the trash bin nearby.

"I don't give a fuck. I want a kiss."

"Too bad." You pay no mind to his piercing stare as you wander around his room, tidying the space as well as clearing off an area on his desk to set up the cough syrups and fever reducers that you brought over from your own medicine cabinet.

You come over to him with the stray glass on water sitting on his desk and a couple Tylenols in your palm.

"Sit up." You order, kneeling next to his bed again, holding out your palm.

"Pop a perc then I black out..." Touya mumbles to himself as he sits up, grabbing the pills from your palm and popping them in his mouth, following it with a large gulp of water.

In this moment, you couldn't help but notice how precious he looked with his old flannel pajama pants, dingy stretched out band tee, disheveled hair and tired eyes- a spitting image of his everyday look when you two were teenagers.

"...Fuckin' I'm blowing her back out." He continues, leaning over to press a kiss on your forehead. "Don't look at me like that unless you're trying to help me sweat out this fever."

Your own face heats up. "The fuck were you saying earlier?" You chuckle, brushing off the insinuating comment and setting the empty glass on his nightstand.

"I don't know. Nothing." He coughs, laying back down, pulling the covers up to his chin. "I think the fever dream-hallucination is hitting hard. You should get in and cuddle before the sickness takes over and kills me."

You roll your eyes at the dramatics, nudging him to scoot over before climbing in under the covers with him, which felt like you had just stepped into a furnace.

He groans in content, wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you in as close as he could.

"Can't cuddle for too long okay? I'm going to have to leave and make you some food soon." You mutter into his chest, letting your hand run up and down his back.

"No." He whines. "Just stay like this and I'll get better. I promise."

"That's not how that works." You mutter.

"Maybe if you give me a kiss instead? I think that'll 100 percent make me feel better." He pulls away, inching down towards you with puckered lips.

You stuck your hand out against his mouth, pushing it away. "I can't get sick, Touya. I know your ass will not know how to take care of me."

"You love hurting my feelings." He huffs.

"Well? Who put themselves in this situation. I told you, didn't I?"

"Shush." He mumbles, letting himself close his eyes and rest his chin on top of your head. "You didn't tell me shit."

You let out a sigh and let yourself close your eyes for a moment as well, letting your deep inhale and exhales sync in unison. Maybe having this every night wouldn't be too bad. Sure you two would tear each other apart if you had to spend every waking moment together in the same home, but for moments like these, you wouldn't mind it. Your eyes pop open the moment you feel the deep vibrations of his snores again your body, now realizing that you couldn't dare move from this position, risking waking him.

Just an hour. You'll only give yourself an hour.

-

touya tag: @moonchild701

[jinnie-ret]

stray kids reaction to s/o who can't sleep in the same bed

genre: angst, fluff

content warnings: cheating, implied toxic relationships (not with skz)

request (from anon): I wanna request a skz reaction to their s/o who has trust issues and prefers to deal e things herself and also prefers to sleep alone in her room n stuff bc she trusts them but she needs to work her way up with being comfortable and ok to feel vulnerable enough to sleep w them n how they'd react to s/o taking months to a year for the to finally allow themselves to sleep next to them or even the same room as them?

SKZ REACTIONS MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Bang Chan

Your boyfriend Chan had texted you asking you to come over last minute, but of course, you weren't going to deny you or him from seeing each other. The issue was, plans being this last minute meant you hadn't had time to shave your legs. You didn't think Chan was the type of guy to judge you or anyone for having hairy legs, but it was more so your own qualms about things, and not feeling like you were deep enough into your relationship to trust that it wouldn't make him look at you in a different light.

Currently you were both heading into his bedroom, ready to cuddle and get some sleep - yes, you had managed to get your boyfriend to steer away from staying up all night.

You dove into the bed, Chan chuckling behind you as you shuffled under the blankets, wiggling like a worm.

"Babe, what are you doing?" Chan laughed at you as he stripped out of his t-shirt and joined you in bed.

"Going to sleep?" your voice was muffled by the pillows your face was pressed into.

"Oh right, in jeans, yeah?" Chan laid on his side, brushing your hair out of your face.

"Sometimes when I nap in them they turn into pantaloons and I've really been into ATEEZ and pirates lately," you rambled on. Yes there was some truth in that, but it wasn't the thing that needed revealing today.

"Babe what?" Chan blinked confusedly at your rambling, "why don't you get comfy?"

"Ummm... Actually I think the sofa is more comfy, I'll just sleep there," you scrambled out of the bed.

"What's wrong with the bed?" Chan grabbed your hand gently, pulling you back towards him with a slight frown as he sat up, "you've slept in it before."

"I ummm..." your voice wavered, looking at the floor and chewing the inside of your cheek feeling awkward.

"Babe, just tell me," he shuffled over to be sat directly next to you.

"I haven't shaved," you mumble incoherently.

"Huh? What was that baby?" Chan wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer.

"I didn't shave my legs... I'm embarrassed," you admit with big eyes, looking at Chan's expression and hoping not to see disgust.

"Is that all? Babe I don't care if your legs are hairy, I want to be with a woman, not a little girl, I don't care if your legs get hairy it's natural, yeah?" Chan preaches to you after a sigh of relief. He had his arm still around your shoulder, yet he was rocking you side to side.

"Hmmm..." you said in thought, trying to fight off a grin appearing on your face and instead look contemplative instead.

"What, was it something I said?" Chan rose an eyebrow.

"Yeah actually..." you fake sighed.

"Oh I'm sorry what was it that I said?" Chan intertwined your hands, speaking carefully and wanting you to feel comfortable enough about what was said wrong.

"You say you want to be with a woman not a little girl, so why do you insist that I call you Dadd-" you start laughing, just about managing to get your words out.

"Stoppp, stoppp, go, shoo, you, go put your pyjamas on funny girl," Chan sighed with a laugh, unable to hide it as he pushed you to stand.

"Ok Dadd-" you turned to tease him again, before he cut you off.

"Y/N!" he chased after you, tickling your sides as you squealed and laughed. You were glad that he didn't care about you having hairy legs. It was now reassuring in the future for any worries that you had, that he'd understand.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Minho

"I swear you hug the cats more than me," he smirked, simply teasing you from where he was sat at the other end of the sofa with Dori in his lap. You had the ginger babies Soonie and Doongie in yours. You were glad though because it brought you great comfort with the paranoia you had been feeling more and more recently.

He was your boyfriend, and you loved him, but you worried his teasing comments were actually subtle digs. You were still shy about being physically affectionate with him, particularly with sharing a bed with him.

"I-i'm sorry Min, I'm trying," your voice wobbles.

"Darling, I'm joking, don't worry," Minho lifted Dori off of his lap, standing up and stretching and not seeing the distress that still remained on your face. "Right, I'm going to get some sleep, you want to join?"

"I-i'm not ready yet, sorry Min."

"It's ok, darling." He always announced when he was going to bed, always leaving the question in the air so you could say yes if you felt ready. But that still wasn't the case this time, and as he turned to get a glass of water from the kitchen, he was stopped in his tracks by your cries.

"I-it's not because I don't love you, because I do!! I really do!! I just want to work myself up for it you know? I don't wanna be awkward and stuff but-" you had lifted the cafs off of your lap, feeling guilty and in that moment seeing him turn away from you felt like he was annoyed.

"Hey, hey, darling, where's all these tears coming from, hmm?" Minho soothed you, his voice slightly higher pitched when he was being gentle with you. "I told you, it's ok, really," he wiped your tears off of your cheeks.

"I feel like I'm being annoying," you sniffled, looking down only for him to tilt your chin upwards.

"I'd rather you be comfortable, ok?" Minho was always patient with you, "don't let it stress you out ok?"

"O-ok," you took in a deep breath, calming yourself down.

"I love you, get some rest, ok darling?"

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Changbin

Your boyfriend was peacefully sleeping in bed, small snores escaping his lips as his face was squished against one of his thick arms. And he was a light sleeper, probably from previously living in a dorm full of boys before that were chaotic to say the least, and that was from what you saw meeting them outside of their home space.

You tiptoed into the bedroom, taking a deep breath. Never sleeping in the same bed as him was something you knew didn't deter him but you could see it when he'd miss you goodnight that he wished that you would sleep with him. That boy wanted nothing more than to hold you all night in his arms, but he respected your decision still. Tonight, things were different.

Slowly crawling into bed next to him, you lifted up the duvet and laid down beside him, slowly resting your head against the top of his back and an arm across his waist. You were nervous, yes, but you had missed his comfort after wishing each other good night, even though it had only been half an hour.

The beast had awoken, quite dramatically you must admit. But it was fair, considering you wouldn't normally sleep next to him he wouldn't be expecting anyone in bed next to him.

"Huh...? Woah! What?! Honey?" Changbin's initial murmurs had turned to surprised joyful shouts as he flew out of bed to make sure this was all real. You just sat there stunned with your hands covering your ears.

Your boyfriend did a happy dance, jumping into bed next to you as he wiggled against you, and instead he was the big spoon this time round. His heartbeat was racing and so was yours.

"Surprise?" you giggled, making him coo and squish your cheeks.

"My honey," Changbin kissed your cheek before cuddling up to you even tighter, "good night."

Now that, was in a much deeper voice in comparison to his excited shouts. The duality of this man, and he was all yours.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Hyunjin

"Baby! I haven't seen you in ages!" Hyunjin quickly got up from his seat, bringing you into a hug. With your usual solace in his presence you sink into his embrace.

"Hey Jinnie," you then sat down across from him in the cafe.

"I'm so glad you saw me today, I was worried about you," Hyunjin grabbed your hands, holding them in his.

"Worried? You don't have to worry about me," you offered an awkward smile, knowing fully well why he felt this way. He had asked you on multiple dates just to see you when he was miraculously free from his busy schedule. But each time you cancelled, getting worried you were falling too deeply only for it to be thrown away. You were scared to get close in case you got hurt, so you flaked out from each time he wanted to see you. It wasn't until your friends prompted you to see him that you thought maybe you should this time.

"You haven't been wanting to see me... I haven't done something wrong have I, baby?" Hyunjin worried, one of his hands releasing one of yours in turn to sip from his iced americano.

"It's not you Jinnie, I'm just... scared," you answered honestly, for the sake of reassuring him. It didn't feel fair for him to worry without knowing why you were really avoiding him.

"Scared? Of what?" Hyunjin leant forwards, elbows not resting on the table between you both.

"I-i don't want to ruin things between us because once we get closer we'll be going round each other's apartments and then it's sharing a bed together and I'm just not ready for that yet," you explained, words tumbling past your lips as you felt flustered.

"Oh baby, we never have to force anything, I'd never rush you if you're not ready. If your pace is slower than mine, so be it. I will not make you catch up with me, I'll be right next to you instead," Hyunjin promised you, looking deeply into your eyes so you knew it. "I wish you told me sooner, I've missed you so much."

"I missed you too Jinnie."

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Han

"Please don't feel bad my baby, I really don't mind," Han pleaded, not wanting you to feel guilty. You both held hands as you were sat on the sofa watching a film, specifically, Spirited Away.

"You don't find it weird?" you weakly ask, eyes not leaving the TV screen.

"I've never been with anyone before that's felt the same way, but I love you, so I'm not about to throw that away because you're not ready to sleep in the same bed as me," Han spoke calmly, like it was something he had gone over in his head plenty of times.

"I want to, I really want to, Ji, I'm sorry babe," your voice wobbled, thick with emotion, Han kissing your hand as he tentatively brought your it to his plush lips, always careful with you. He was always understanding that you needed more time with things due to previous relationships.

"Hey, hey, it's ok, I have an idea," Han grinned, leaving the sofa without any explanation and getting busy with moving things around in the bedroom.

~~~

"Come on, it's like a sleepover every night, I don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place..." Han felt proud of himself gazing across at you from the bed. You see, Han had taken it into his own hands to make you feel more comfortable around him to sleep near him, not quite next to him yet. Fortunately, his apartment came with a spare bed frame, bedding, the works, so he had set up a bed for you across from his own. It was perfect, right? You didn't have to sleep next to him in bed yet, but at least you could stay over this time, and one day cuddle in bed til you fall asleep.

That was what Han hoped. You on the other hand, were too busy in your own world, thinking about the worst things that could happen to mentally prepare yourself, your hand twisting the blanket in its grip.

"Baby, is it too much? I can drive you home now if you want?" Han stretched his leg out, nudging your foot with his own to shake you out of your thoughts.

"N-no I'm just gonna umm... Let you fall asleep first... Makes me feel safer so I know that you won't do anything you know," you rambled with your jaw clenched. That all too familiar lump in your throat was making its presence known and you didn't know if you were going to yawn or cry.

"Hey?" Han softly said.

"Y-yeah?" you nervously look up at him, only to see pure adoration and warmth oozing from those boba eyes of his.

"It's ok, yeah, I wouldn't do that to you, I care about you far too much," Han slowly walked over to you to allow you to process his movement happening in front of you, and brushed some hair back from your eyes.

"You're the best," you murmured, leaning your face further into his hand making him grin.

"I know, baby."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Felix

There it was again, that funny feeling. You hadn't gotten so lucky before being cheated on in your previous relationship, so when you smelt the different perfume on the pillows in your bedroom, you were heartbroken. You didn't have it in you to be angry at Felix, not him. Maybe just at yourself for not noticing it sooner. But maybe a part of you wanted the pain, to know for sure it was true, because you didn't leave straight away, no, you just waited for him to notice something was up.

"Hi love, you going to sleep?" Felix grinned as he came up to you, stroking your hair out of your face. And you let him.

"Yeah... I was going to borrow one of your pillows but I couldn't help but notice it smelt differently," you brushed his hands off of your hair.

"Oh, did you like the smell?" Felix beamed at you, ever so sunny when all you felt was blue.

"Are you kidding me? Did I like it?" your voice cracked. "Lixie, is this some sick joke?"

"Love..." he reached out to hold your shoulders but you backed further away.

"Don't. Please don't. I gave you a chance just then to admit what you had done. Is it because of me? Because I'm not ready to sleep in bed next to you, you have to get another woman? And don't try to tell me I borrowed that pillow last night because my perfume does not smell like that!" you cried, wiping your nose as you did and pointing at the bed in disgust.

"It could though, let me explain, love," Felix held your hands and even though he was the source of your upset, or at least the version of him that your brain created was, you sat with him on the sofa.

"It's a new perfume, not from another woman, but for you if you like it. I-i just didn't want to give you one and you didn't like the scent so I got the tester to try out and if you liked it then I was going to buy the bottle for you," Felix brought you into his arms whilst he explained, and you felt like a bitch.

"I'm such a bitch."

"No, no, don't be silly love, I didn't realise that it could have been triggering for you, ok, so don't call yourself that," Felix mumbled in his deep voice soothingly, kissing you on the head.

"I did like the perfume scent by the way," you whispered. That's what would have been more annoying - that the imaginary woman had a good taste in scents.

"I'm glad you do, love."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

Seungmin

You had been judged many a time by your last boyfriend for your sleeping habits, whether it was for your not so soft snores or when sometimes you'd accidentally drool because of having your cheek pressed against your hand all night. So when you got with Seungmin, you were hesitant in sharing a bed with him, let alone falling asleep next to him. Sometimes you just couldn't help it.

The two of you had been watching a movie and foolishly you let yourself fall asleep, only to be awoken by Seungmin's giggles.

"I never knew you were a snorer, honey," Seungmin laughed to himself, but you were awoke in an instant, the sounds of your peaceful sleep cut off as you looked at him in alert.

"Oh sorry, I know I'm loud, I, umm..." you rambled awkwardly, cheeks inflamed in a rosy red tint, bringing the blanket more around your body in attempt to comfort yourself.

"Like a drone or something," your boyfriend giggled once more, but his smile faded at seeing you frown. "Hey I'm just joking..."

"No you're not," you mumble grumpily. It had to come back to this. Always. You couldn't help it. It was a habit for a reason.

"I am, I am, don't hide from me," Seungmin insisted, tugging the blanket away from you face, bopping the pout your lips wore.

"Stoppp, I'm embarrassed, Minnie," you pushed his hands away, well tried to.

"Don't be, I don't care, honestly, I sleep easily and plus you're not the only one who snores," Seungmin pulled you into his arms.

"You snore too?" you rose an eyebrow, you had never heard him do so before.

"No but Channie does. He's like a foghorn. So don't worry, yours is far better," Seungmin chuckled, teasing his leader when he wasn't even there.

"You sure? I never wanted to disturb you, is all," you look up at him as he leans down slightly to kiss you on the head with a sweet smile.

"Very, now please sleep in my arms, you can relax, honey," Seungmin gently rubbed your back as you turned to face him.

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Jeongin

Worst. Day. Ever.

Was it normal for a part time job at a cafe to be chaotic? No, not the one you worked at anyways. This was why it was such a surprise for you to deal with a rowdy customer that decided that he didn't like his coffee because it was 'too hot' and wanted a refund, all whilst you had the busiest shift of your life. Well, he certainly didn't get one after chucking the freshly brewed beverage all over you.

You were dismissed earlier by your manager, who could see how anxious you were feeling, and after you were checked over you returned to yours and Jeongin's apartment, being the first home for once. And you couldn't resist the comfort of his soft, plush bed as your spot to let yourself cry, despite the fact you've never slept next to him before. In fact, your unfamiliarity of being in the room distracted you from the fact the front door unlocked and that there were foosteps heading straight towsrds you.

"Jagi?" Jeongin asked confusedly seeing you curled up in his bed. It wasn't a sight he expected to see. He understood you had boundaries and didn't feel ready sharing a bed yet. The more concerning thing was the sobs wracking through your body.

"Oh?" you jumped, turning to see your boyfriend with care and sadness shining in his eyes at the sight of your tears.

"What's the matter, hmm?" Jeongin slowly sat down next to you, resting a hand gently on your knee. That was when you dissolved into tears once more. "Oh, jagi," he instinctively pulled you in for a cuddle, before you shuffled out of his arms.

"I'm sorry, I've just had such a bad day and your bed looked so comfy and-"

"Why's your neck all red?" Jeongin frowned.

"Angry customer, threw his drink at me, and it hurt, and then my manager sent me home and-"

"Come here," Jeongin quietened you, opening his arms once more which you accepted this time.

"I'm sorry," you cried into his chest.

"Don't be sorry. I don't care that you laid down in the bed. I'm more worried about you, Jagi, ok?" Jeongin's embrace became tighter when he heard your small whimpers, a clear sign that you were trying to stop yourself from crying.

"Just wanna forget about today," you mumbled sadly.

"I know, I know, let's ummm... Ok maybe not a hot bath... let me get some cream for you, treat those burns," Jeongin pecked you on the cheek, deciding against your skin enduring more pain from hot water, and quickly got up, soon returning with some ointment for you. He made the decision to gently rub it into your neck, having a better pair of eyes than you did. One, because you couldn't see it fully, two, because your eyes were still slightly blurred from tears.

"T-thank you, Innie," you kissed his hand before it fully pulled away from your neck, making a weird face as the cream went onto your lips, the taste of it not so pleasant.

"Silly girl, here," he wiped the cream off your lips with his thumb, kissing you just to make sure the taste still wasn't there, and then you were both satisfied.

"Love you, Innie."

"Love you too, Jagi, even with panda eyes."

"Shit, I forgot I wore mascara today."

"I know, Jagi, I know."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜

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