#just doing my quarterly clean up

[corcnaiism]

;-- it's been a hot minute since i created this blog, and things are getting a little cluttered, so ima start cleaning out followers and stuff. so if you don't wanna get nuked, like this post or say something idk

[cressidagrey]

Formidable

Pairing: Oscar Piastri x Felicity Leong-Piastri (Original Character)

Summary:  Andrea Stella figures out that Felicity Piastri is more than “just” Oscar’s wife. 

Notes: Big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble and checks my science-y mumbo jumbo 😂

(divider thanks to @saradika-graphics )

It started the way most breakthroughs did—not with a groundbreaking discovery, but with a tired engineer holding a half-wrinkled printout and a hopeful expression.

“Boss,” James said, hovering just inside the doorway of Andrea’s office. “I think you should read this.”

Andrea looked up from his laptop. “If it’s another CFD model from that Reddit forum, I swear—”

“It’s not. It’s from a paper. Academic. Legit. Published in Race Systems & Applied Motion last month.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow. “Obscure.”

“Very. It has like 20 readers,” the engineer agreed. “But I think it’s real. It’s clean. It’s sharp. It’s…” He hesitated. “We might want to test it.”

That got Andrea’s attention.

He took the paper and began to skim.

Title: Redefining Compliance: Adaptive Suspension Geometry Under Load-Sensitive Parameters for Mid-Field Chassis Configurations.

Andrea kept reading. It was dense—academic, yes—but it was also practical. It spoke the language of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. There were no ego traps. No unnecessary complexity. Just hard math and hard-earned insight.

Andrea flipped the page. Then another. His eyes caught a note referencing flex dynamics in chassis response curves and passive recovery lag.

It was correct. More than correct. It was insightful.

The author wasn’t spitballing ideas from afar—this was the work of someone who had lived in the theory and understood the application. Who referenced real-world tolerances. Racing examples. The math was sound. The diagrams were better than half the ones their CFD team managed.

Andrea flipped back to the byline.

Dr. F. Piastri.

Piastri. 

James grinned. “Fun coincidence in the name, right? He’s smart.”

Andrea didn’t correct him.

Because yes—coincidence. Probably. But something about it stuck in his brain, like a whisper he couldn’t quite place.

He read the essay in full that night—twice. It was elegant, sharp, and frustratingly precise in the way only truly experienced voices ever were. The type of clarity that came from years of not just understanding a concept, but translating it into reality.

The next morning, Andrea sent out an internal email.

Subject: Additional Works by Dr. F. Piastri If anyone has access to prior publications by this author, please forward them to me.

By the end of the week, his inbox was full.

One essay became three. Three became eleven. Eleven became twenty. 

Each one published under the name F.Piastri, buried in obscure journals and small-circulation engineering reviews that didn’t get traffic unless someone was either deeply curious or incredibly desperate. 

Andrea was both.

Each article was smarter than the last—strange, elegant engineering thought-pieces published across the most obscure academic mechanical journals Andrea had ever encountered. Niche ones. The kind that only the most obsessive minds contributed to, with names like Thermoelasticity in Microstructured Materials and Lateral Load Adaptation Quarterly.

F.Piastri had written:

An article about Load-dependent understeer in transitional corners (with math that Andrea double-checked twice because it was too clean).

A 2019 think-piece on long-run stability under thermal degradation.

An essay about Aerodynamic oscillation buffering for short-track endurance vehicles.

An article about the economic viability of 3D printed carbon struts under rotational shear (he actually flagged that one for McLaren Applied).

 A thesis that corrected a widely accepted torque model—buried in a conference archive.

A published rebuttal in Journal of Vehicle Design so politely worded it read like a love letter—until you realized she’d rewritten the reviewer’s assumptions line by line.

There was even one article on fluid dynamics that had been cited in a grad-level textbook from ETH Zurich. 

Andrea devoured them all.

He—She?—wrote like someone who saw the car before it was built. Who understood not just how suspension worked, but how it felt. How energy passed through a chassis not as force but as intent.

The writing style was sharp. Practical. Absolutely ruthless in its logic. There was clarity there—an elegance—that reminded him of only a few people he’d ever worked with.

It was revolutionary. It was poetic.

By the time he tracked down the doctoral thesis from Oxford, Andrea wasn’t breathing properly.

Reinforcement Through Flexibility: Dynamic Adaptation in Composite- Structured Performance Environments.

By: F. Piastri.

 Submitted: December 2022

Andrea stared at the name.

F. Piastri.

He stared for so long his tea went cold beside him.

His hands were shaking—not because of nerves, but because he already knew.

He opened the PDF. Skimmed past the table of contents. Scrolled through diagrams that made his heart stutter.

There was no photo. No biographical section. Just a clean Oxford University seal, 284 pages of dense, brilliant theory, and then—

A dedication.

To Oscar: For believing in a future that didn’t exist yet, and building it with me anyway. Every lap, every choice, every time—you’ve been my constant.

And to Bee: For reminding me that softness and strength aren’t opposites. You are the best thing I’ve ever helped create.

Andrea sat back in his chair like he’d been physically shoved.

Bee.

Oscar. 

F. Piastri. 

Felicity Piastri. 

Felicity.

Oscar’s wife.

Dr. F. Piastri wasn’t some reclusive academic or distant uncle with a gift for simulation modeling.

She lived in Oscar’s house.

 She packed his lunchbox.

 She raised their daughter.

 And she had published papers on suspension theory that half of F1 would kill to understand. Quietly. Efficiently. Correctly.

Andrea leaned back in his chair, stared at the ceiling for a long moment, and whispered:

“…Of course it’s his wife.”

Of course the quiet, composed driver who rarely raised his voice and always had one hand on the bigger picture had married someone brilliant. Of course she wasn’t just talented—she was a published expert with a doctorate from Oxford.

Not a coincidence. 

Not a mystery engineer.

Not some guy.

But Oscar’s wife.

Oscar Piastri—quiet, methodical Oscar—had married a genius.

A doctor of mechanical engineering from Oxford who wrote better technical documentation in a margin note than most engineers did in a year. Who published under initials. Who could probably solve half their handling inconsistencies while holding a toddler on her hip.

Andrea sat in silence for a full minute.

Then he exhaled. “...of course he did.”

He opened a new tab.

Email draft: 

To: Technical Team 

Subject: URGENT – Reference Reading Required Attached: Every single thing Dr. F. Piastri had ever published.

***

The meeting was meant to be quick.

Just a routine Monday touchpoint—debrief, run through media notes with Sophie, talk sponsor appearances, maybe discuss Oscar’s upcoming comms obligations.

Zak had rolled in with a protein shake.

Lando was lounging sideways in a chair like he’d melted into it.

Oscar had a protein bar and an expression of polite mildness, as usual.

Andrea, meanwhile, had not slept.

 Not because of the race.

 Because he’d spent the entire weekend reading Dr. Felicity Piastri’s entire body of work. Every published paper. Every obscenely niche journal article.

And her doctoral thesis.

He hadn’t meant to do it all in one sitting. He just couldn’t stop.

By 2 a.m. he was muttering things like “Of course she used Euler-Bernoulli assumptions, she’s too smart for non-parametric bullshit.”

 By 4 a.m., he’d highlighted her proposed solution to dampen micro-vibration load in corner exits.

 By 6 a.m., he had a headache, an existential crisis, and a desperate need to know: Why had Oscar Piastri never mentioned this?!

So at the end of the meeting—just as Sophie was wrapping up and Lando was aimlessly spinning a pen like a propeller—Andrea set down a file on the table.

Calmly. Casually. Like he hadn’t just had his entire mechanical worldview rattled by a woman who wasn’t even on the payroll.

“Oscar,” Andrea said, voice deceptively neutral. “Why didn’t you ever mention that your wife holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering?”

Oscar, halfway through eating his protein bar, blinked. “What?”

Andrea gestured vaguely, as if the thesis were still radiating brilliance from his desk. “Felicity. Doctorate. Thesis. Dozens of published papers. Half of them useful to our current car design issues. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Oscar blinked once. “Oh. Yeah. She gets bored sometimes.”

Andrea blinked back.

Lando stared like he’d been smacked with a front wing. “Wait—she got a doctorate?!”

Oscar nodded, chewing. “Yeah. Finished it in 2022. She was stuck in that horrible flat in Enstone while I was back and forth with Alpine, and she got bored. Wrote most of it at the kitchen table while Bee napped.”

Andrea just… stared. 

He had read the thesis. Studied it. The mathematical modeling alone had kept him awake at night—and she had apparently written it during toddler nap times, while stuck in a damp shoebox flat in Oxfordshire.

Zak looked up slowly from his tablet. “Your wife was bored. So she got a PhD in mechanical engineering.”

Oscar shrugged. “She already had the research mostly done before Bee was even born in 2020. She just had to write it up. Bee was napping a lot anyway.”

Sophie blinked. “She wrote a 200-page dissertation with a toddler in the house?”

Oscar just shrugged. “It helped that Bee liked the sound of the keyboard.”

Andrea turned to Zak, still stunned. “She predicted the kind of high-frequency oscillation we’re seeing this season. Two years ago. In a footnote.”

Lando leaned forward like he was watching a live feed of someone discovering aliens. “She’s just, like, a genius?” he asked, voice too loud, too incredulous. “And you never brought it up?”

Oscar just sighed. “She hates that word.”

Andrea just stared at him. “Oscar, she’s not just good. She’s formidable. Has she ever applied anywhere formally?”

Oscar looked genuinely confused. “Why would she apply anywhere?”

Andrea stared. “To work. In engineering. In motorsport. Academia.”

Oscar blinked. “She does work. She manages our lives, Bee, the house, and the chickens.”

Lando leaned toward Andrea, wide-eyed: “I’ve never felt dumber in my entire life.”

Andrea sighed. “Join the club.”

***

The kitchen smelled like vanilla and wood polish and faintly like chicken coop — which meant Felicity had mopped and baked and wrangled Mansell, the escape artist hen, all while probably rebalancing one of their stock portfolios.

Oscar dropped his bag by the door and leaned against the kitchen entryway.

Felicity was sitting at the table in her old university hoodie, feet bare, Bee curled up under her arm asleep with Button the frog as a pillow. There were spreadsheets open on one side of her laptop screen, a half-watched nature documentary on the other, and one of Bee’s plastic toy bulls standing solemnly in the middle of the table for reasons unknown.

He smiled.

God, he loved her.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Felicity glanced up. “Hey. Dinner’s in the oven. Bee passed out mid-pie crust.”

“Excellent,” Oscar said, dropping into the chair beside her. “Because I need carbs.”

She raised an eyebrow, equal parts amusement and curiosity. “Bad day?”

“No. Just... intellectually humbling.”

Felicity made a low amused noise and went back to her laptop. “Did Lando try to explain crypto again?”

Oscar snorted and reached over to carefully lift Bee into his lap, her curls warm against his hoodie. She barely stirred.

He could have let it sit. Saved it for later. But it was buzzing under his skin.

“Stella read your papers.”

That got her attention.

Felicity paused, her fingers stilled mid-scroll. “Which one?”

“All of them,” Oscar said. “Apparently it started with one of the engineers, who brought an article in from Race Systems & Applied Motion. Then he spiraled.”

“Ah,” Felicity murmured, unsurprised. “That one had a good diagram.”

“He found your thesis,” Oscar added.

This time she didn’t answer right away.

He reached for one of Bee’s crayons and twirled it idly in his fingers, watching her.

“He read the dedication,” he said, voice quieter now.

Felicity’s eyes softened in that way that always undid him a little. Always had.

“Did he say anything?” she asked.

Oscar smiled faintly. “He said you’re formidable.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Felicity laughed—not loud, not startled, just warm and wry and a little disbelieving.

“God help the man,” she said. “He must have hit the rebuttal piece from the Vehicle Design Journal. That one made a few engineers cry.”

Oscar grinned. “Yeah, well. He was halfway to building you a shrine by the end of the meeting. I also told him you got bored in Enstone and wrote your PhD while Bee was napping.”

Felicity gave him a look. “You make it sound like I was scrapbooking.”

“Weren’t you also doing that at the time?”

Felicity blinked. “...Okay, fair.”

Bee stirred slightly in his lap, a tiny sigh escaping her lips as she nuzzled deeper into his hoodie sleeve.

Oscar looked down at her—this tiny human they somehow made and raised—and then back at the woman across the table. 

Her hair was messier than usual, strands escaping her braid, and there was a faint flour smudge near her temple. She hadn’t bought herself a new pair of jeans in two years. She sometimes forgot to eat when she was buried in simulations. She once fixed the bathroom plumbing at midnight because she didn’t like how the guy from the hardware store spoke to her.

She was the smartest person he knew.

Oscar knew most people wouldn’t think it when they first met her. She smiled too easily. She didn’t correct anyone. She let others assume things—that she was just the girlfriend, just the wife, just the mother.

But she had a doctorate from Oxford, and more published academic papers than most career professors. She could hold court with race engineers and theoretical physicists in the same breath, then go home and teach Bee how to build a pulley system out of Lego and twine. She spoke in quiet, exact terms, and when she challenged people, she did it so gently they sometimes didn’t notice until it was too late.

He’d long since stopped being surprised by her. He’d just—normalized it. Integrated it. Felicity being a genius was like oxygen to him: invisible, essential, and easy to take for granted until someone else nearly passed out from the realization.

She was just Fliss to him. 

The woman who sold her designer bags to pay rent when her family cut her off. The mother of his child. His fiercest critic and his most devoted supporter. The one person he trusted without hesitation.

She didn’t want headlines or praise. She wanted quiet mornings and clever puzzles. She wanted Bee to grow up confident. She wanted Oscar to remember to eat something green.

She was the smartest person he knew — and she hated being called smart. So he didn’t. He just came home.

“He called you formidable,” he repeated. “And I agree. For what it’s worth.”

Felicity smiled then—slow and quiet, the kind that reached all the way to her eyes.

She leaned across the table and kissed his temple. “Thanks,” she said. “But if he asks me to consult, I’m charging him triple.”

Oscar laughed softly and ran a hand through Bee’s curls. “Deal.”

And he meant it. Because maybe it was easy for him to forget sometimes, tucked into the quiet rhythm of their life, that the world hadn’t caught up to how brilliant she was.

But he never stopped being proud of her.

Not for a second.

[lassiie]

SUB!BOSS JAKE (snips from Power Play here)

pair : sub!boss Jake x Co-worker top reader (afab)

MDNI ! NSFW ! Jake might sign your paychecks, but you own him in every other way. He's your boss and a brat who makes “mistakes” just to hear you snap. One day, you finally do—and the way he moans when you curse him out? Pathetic.

sub!boss Jake who "accidentally" schedules a late-night one-on-one meeting just so he can whimper under your desk, mouthing at your thigh while you continue reviewing quarterly reports like nothing’s happening.

sub!boss Jake who nearly sobs when you lean in and whisper, “I said you could hump my thigh, not finish on it. Clean it up, slut.”

sub!boss Jake who begs you to spit in his mouth in the elevator because he “needs something to remember who he belongs to” before giving a board presentation.

sub!boss Jake who moans when you call him pathetic for getting hard just from the sound of your heels walking toward his office.

sub!boss Jake who gets denied orgasm and forced to sleep still bound, cock aching and untouched, forehead against your thigh as you stroke his hair. He whispers “I love being yours” while tears slip down his cheeks from how painfully hard he still is.

sub!boss Jake who forces himself to sit through a finance meeting right after you edge him in the supply closet—red-faced, dripping in his pants, while you casually sip your coffee and smile at the team.

sub!boss Jake who locks his office door and wordlessly holds out the cuffs he keeps in his desk drawer—for you to bind him to his own leather chair while you ride him and call him a desperate little executive toy.

sub!boss Jake who ruins his slacks from just a whispered threat and has to sit through a board meeting in sticky silence while you keep eye contact and smirk.

sub!boss Jake who fumbles his words during a performance review, so you press your hand to his throat and remind him, “I said speak clearly, Jake. Or don’t speak at all.”

sub!boss Jake who has a locked cock cage under his suit pants and gives you the key during your lunch break, asking “Please, just fifteen minutes? Please, no one will know.”

sub!boss Jake who buys you another pair of designer heels, just so you’ll step on his chest, press the point to his lips, and call him your “favorite little stress relief.”

sub!boss Jake who makes you fill out a fake HR complaint form where the only accusation are things “Jake Sim won’t stop begging to be used like a common office slut.”

sub!boss Jake who wears a discreet collar under his dress shirt, the tag reading Property of You, and blushes every time it brushes against his throat during meetings.

sub!boss Jake who whines when you call him your loyal office pet, begging for head pats while you file reports with your foot resting on his back.

sub!boss Jake who leans over your desk with glass walls all around, pretending to explain reports while you ghost your nails over his inner thigh—his voice trembling as coworkers pass by.

sub!boss Jake who can’t come unless he’s crying a little, thighs shaking as you ride him and whisper, “You act like you’re in charge at work, but look at you now—just a whimpering toy under me.”

sub!boss Jake who’s on his knees in your bedroom with his collar and leash on, holding a clipboard in his mouth while you fill out his “performance review” on his back with a Sharpie.

sub!boss Jake who offers to drive you home but gets punished for speeding because he was hard the whole drive after you sent him a voice note saying, “You're going to be gagged in the garage the second we get home.”

sub!boss Jake who books a suite for a “business trip” just so he can spend the night tied to the bedposts, blindfolded, panting, “Miss, where are you, please—use me. Please, I can’t think without you.”

sub!boss Jake who cries from overstimulation as you ride his face like a throne and tell him if he stops licking, he’s not getting touched for a week.

sub!boss Jake who follows you through a boutique, red-faced and squirming as you text him instructions like, “Buy me something slutty, then ask the cashier if they have anything tighter. Don’t forget your blush.”

sub!boss Jake who whimpers while kneeling on a rough floor with clamps on his nipples, panting, “Please don’t take them off yet. I want to suffer for you, miss. I want to earn your touch.

sub!boss Jake who sobs from the humiliation of being told “You’re not even allowed to touch me unless you beg properly, and look at you—you can’t even beg right. Maybe you don’t deserve this at all.”

sub!boss Jake who you force to count the number of times you slap him, and when he messes up, you restart at one—he gets to ten with tears in his eyes and a desperate whisper: “Thank you for punishing me. I needed it.”

sub!boss Jake who begs to cum, but you slap his cock—just enough to make him whimper—and growl, “Beg louder. Pathetic boys like you should know how to cry for it.”

sub!boss Jake who holds a vibrator to his cock because you told him to, voice broken as he begs, “Please let me stop. I-it’s too much—please, mistress—” And you smile, lean in, and whisper, “Keep going. Cry for me.”

sub!boss Jake who you call into your apartment after hours, throw down to his knees, and unzip your pants—“Use your mouth. Don’t stop until I say you can breathe again.”

sub!boss Jake who cums from nothing but the sound of your voice and a slap across the face, and breaks into full-body shivers when you laugh at him: “Did you just fucking cum from that? Are you really this weak for me?”

fic s.jyn posted here !!!! xoxo

© Lassiie

[csuitebitches]

Things I Have to do for My Sanity

1. Wake up at the first alarm - no snoozing and no going lying around in bed. Getting up straight away and head to the bathroom. It’s going to suck initially but you’ll get used to it in a few days.

2. Mental self care: 30 minute meditation, brain games mental math, reading, news. Knowledge is sexy and don’t deny yourself sexiness.

3. Daily review in my diary at the beginning and end of my day: what went well, what didn’t, what I need to accomplish to achieve my goals. This has tremendously helped my goals and keeping my motivation more consistent, especially at work. Analysing and correcting incremental changes creates long term success.

4. Cleaning up before bed - clothes, shoes, organising my bag, etc. I set a timer for 5 minutes and try to get as much done as possible.

5. Pick out my clothes the night before and steam iron them for the next day.

6. Face masks twice a week, a hair mask once a week, I scrub the soles of my feet with that foot scrubbing thingy once a week. Manicures every month because my nail beds are too sensitive to do it biweekly, iron supplements so that I’m not a moody bitch. Matching underwear to feel good about myself. Lavender spray on my pillow before sleeping so that I don’t get weird dreams.

7. Reading biographies and autobiographies. My mentor had suggested this to me and it’s amazing how literally I don’t have a single original experience - everything I’ve felt or mistakes I’ve made have already been done by someone else.

I’m going to curate a list of business books that I feel that have helped me the most recently.

8. I write a short essay everyday in the language I’m currently learning. I also end my day by talking about my day for at least 2 minutes in that language and I record it in voice memos to keep a track of my progress. I want to be fluent to a level where I can think in this language.

✨

I don’t generally share a lot about my personal life - none of you know my name or where I’m based and I feel comfortable doing that. But I do want to start giving out more insights to what I’m doing personally in my career - the good, the bad, the ugly.

Being self aware and honest to myself has helped me improve a lot. I know that shame is my Achilles heel, so now I’m reading books to combat that. I’ve caved in and decided to try therapy for a bit to see if what I’m doing is useful or not. My first session is tomorrow. Staying disciplined was my initial hurdle but the systems I’ve set (waking up early + habit stacking) have helped me slowly overcome that.

Work side, I’ve started establishing myself publicly more. I don’t want to reveal too much about what I do exactly but the good news is that our biggest competitor has noticed my progress (a former employee of that company came to us for an interview and directly asked our top management about me). It’s been 4 months that I’ve been working here but I know that next year I really have to swing the bat and hit a home run. I’ve decided to work on the field more and less in the office to really understand people’s needs and create unique solutions.

The daily/weekly/quarterly diary is definitely credited to my recent wins. That’s the biggest change I’ve made in my routine and i can already see that it’s working well. I’m going to continue refining and implementing that method.

Recent work methods I’ve decided to start working on (I’m not required to do these but I do it for my growth):

1. I’ve started studying popular companies’ business and revenue models in detail. Everything is adoptable and adaptable, you just have to figure out how to tweak something for your company’s clients and needs. Now I’ve decided that I want to keep a track of our competitors, their business models, their owners names, pricing strategy, their target audience etc etc on an excel sheet so that I’m aware with what’s happening in the market. 

2. I’ve started making client profiles. Every time I meet a client, I note down their name, the company name, what they were like, anything specific they seemed to like or want, how much they had paid us for a service, what their paying capacity could be, etc. 

[lo1k-diamonds]

Paramour 💜

SX Seoul series | Tae's entry

PAIRING: idol!Taehyung x (f) reader (you can also read it on AO3)

SUMMARY: You were born for the quick and glamorous life surrounding celebrities — they had their little dramas and breakdowns, and you were there to clean up the mess. But you have your own secret, and doing your job might get you in trouble with your paramour.

WORD COUNT: 6,2k

GENRE: secret relationship, smut

RATING: R (explicit)

WARNINGS: jealousy, drunk driving (❗), dirty talking, teasing, edging, fingering, slight degradation, brattiness, Sub/Dom (Tae), semi-public, exhibitionism, almost caught, unprotected rough sex, nipple play, hickeys and bruises, post-orgasmic crying 👀

A.N. Sorry guys, busy birthday yesterday💜 NCT members make a cameo just because I thought it'd be fun 😋 The paramour stands for the illicit/forbidden aspect of the relationship, not cheating. This oneshot is also part of the upcoming @bangtanwritershq 'Got A Secret, Can You Keep It?' quarterly event! (Thank you @eerieedits for the cool banner 💜)

Masterlist | Masterpost | Scroll my stories on Tumblr | Schedule and WIPs

You showed the badge hanging on your neck to the bouncer and waited quietly for him to cross-check your name. You glanced at the glacial blue striped lines above the club entrance while you waited. SX — the letters were so hot, that vapor was visibly emanating from them. You pursed your lips — you preferred them in red. 

You rubbed your arms with a chill; it wasn’t snowing too hard yet, but you wanted to go inside where it was warm. He nodded and let you pass, and you smiled, hurrying inside.

Fortunately, despite having the day off, you were supposed to come to this label party, so they had your name. Of course, you were supposed to have leisurely done your makeup and hair, not rushed when called with a bawling demand, but you sighed.

You didn't bother hanging your coat and just crossed the dance floor to one of the private rooms where the sound was muffled enough for people to lounge, have a drink and talk. Yet instead you recognized the team circling a single armchair, and they moved to let you through with worry and relief in their faces. They were your team.

“Hey,” you called out, and as soon as Una saw you from where she was sitting on that armchair, she threw her arms around your waist, bawling convulsively. You eyed the stylists and makeup artists, holding her back while you mouthed, “Eunbi?”

Everyone shook their heads, and you sighed, giving up on it. She was supposed to accompany Una tonight so you could enjoy yourself for a change, but you were there now.

“Alright,” you said firmly, kneeling so you could look at Una clearly. She was easily overly dramatic, but there was usually a reason for it. “Tell me what's wrong. You know I can fix it for you, just tell me what it is.”

Una didn't hesitate, sniffling and smudging her makeup away as though a firefighter had come to rescue her. “He— He was— all giggly and close to her!!”

She hid again, crying on your shoulder next to your dress strap, that fortunately was black, and you sighed. You petted her head as you mused on how to fix this. He — Winwin, Una’s boyfriend. Her — another girl, inconsequential, anyone, it didn't matter. Una was a star, but she got insecure about their relationship way too easily. 

You were musing on how to diffuse her breakdown when she pulled away to speak through sobs, “Unnie— Unnie—”

“Tell me,” you allowed gently, despite the way she was crying. Even her eyelashes were gluing together, but she was still like your younger sister.

“I want— to giggle— and be close to another man too!”

You did your best effort not to roll your eyes, and before you could get up and direct your team, she gripped your arms.

“Please! I'll behave! Don't send me away, just— I'll ask for only that.”

As if to convince you, she started to compose herself, reeling in her cry and wiping her face.

You sighed, “It's not nice to draw someone into this.”

“Pick someone from the label, someone nice. I'm friends with all of them, it's just pretend, please—”

She was going to start crying again, and you heaved a deep breath, holding her strongly in your arms for a beat. The senior manager would kill you and Eunbi if Una, the exceeds-expectations rising star, was caught upset and leaving the label party, but you weren't sure this option was better.

You pulled away when you felt her calm in your arms, then tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, “Are you sure? You can't ruin someone's night just to make him jealous.”

“I'll behave, I promise,” she sniffled, and to her credit, you did believe her. “Choose someone nice, unnie. Maybe Jungwoo if you find him.”

Your eyebrow quirked at the name, and you nodded, getting up and instructing everyone to make her look like the star she was. You turned to her, “I’ll see to it. No more crying, okay?”

“Thank you, unnie.”

Her smile was angelical, and you only sucked in a deep breath before leaving the room to the main dance floor. The loud house music reverberated along your rib cage while you scanned the room. You saw the managers, the staff, the artists; you knew almost everyone and smiled whenever they greeted you. Your eyes kept searching and stumbled on Winwin, leaning on the wall, talking to a woman. His blonde hair stood out as he played with the straw of his drink, and you rolled your eyes. He was just talking to the woman. If you reacted like that every time your man whispered secrets into another woman’s ear, you—

“Hey!”

A hand on your arm almost startled you, but it was Eunbi, and you squinted, “Where the hell were you?”

“Una’s dog swallowed a toy, I had to rush her to the vet!” 

Poor Eunbi. She was sweating, with her dark bangs gluing to her forehead despite the snowy cold outside, which told you she had raced here. This was turning out to be an even shittier night for her.

“Una texted me, saying she called you! I’m sorry, unnie!”

She bowed frantically, and you placed your hands on her shoulders, “It’s okay, calm down. I was coming here, anyway. Just make sure she doesn’t leave the backroom without calming down first.”

Eunbi nodded and was gone before you knew it, making your eyebrows twitch. Was it because you had managed to sleep a proper eight hours tonight that it seemed to you like everyone was out of it?

Your eyes pinpointed Winwin in the same position, with the same girl, before you kept looking for who you were truly searching for. Your heart skipped a beat when you noticed Taehyung with his friends, chatting casually. His jewelry was sparkling under the club’s lights, with his newly bleached hair in that warm color you liked so much. It fell like waves over his eyes, and you couldn’t help your smile. He looked good no matter what, but that was a favorite of yours.

Finally, you found Jungwoo a bit further ahead. He was hanging out with his close circle in a corner of the room, and you nodded, agreeing with Una. He was gentle and quiet, almost shy for an idol — he’d listen to her story and respectfully help Una through this.

So you made your way to him, smiling up to him when his eyes fell on you. His mouth stayed open, as if he had forgotten what he was about to say, and you smirked, “Long time no see! Can I join you for a moment?”

Taehyung almost did a double take when he saw you pass without even noticing him. His friends were casual enough to not notice and to allow him to train his eyes on you; where were you going?

He saw you sit next to Jungwoo with a huge smile, and his guts twisted. Why were the other people around you leaving you two alone? Why were you sitting so close to him, talking into each other's ears? Surely it was to hear each other above the noise, but it still made him close his fists. Jungwoo could surely take a whiff of your perfume every time he leaned in like that, so close to your luscious hair, and it just wasn’t sitting well with him.

Taehyung was about to walk over, do something he wasn’t exactly sure what, when you got up and walked away. That was enough for him to just go for it, ignoring his friends calls. All he could see was you, standing on your long smooth legs barely covered by a black tight dress, leaning on the bar counter to ask for the bartender’s attention.

“What are you doing?”

You turned, your eyes finding his on sheer magnetism. The corners of your lips raised, “Ordering drinks.”

You knew your mischievousness was slipping through, you just didn’t care. He leaned in a bit more, glancing around before speaking closely to you, “Are you having fun?”

You didn’t hide a grin, your teasing tongue peeking through before you chuckled, “My night was almost ruined, but it’s sure getting better.”

Whatever he was about to say got interrupted when the bartender reached you.

“One whiskey sour, one porn star martini, and one vesper.”

The bartender left and Taehyung didn't waste a second, leaning close to you, “I didn’t know you managed Jungwoo now.”

“I don’t. I don’t manage male stars anymore,” your eyes trailed over his silhouette from top to bottom before settling on his dark eyes. 

Your head tilted to the side, inviting him to say something more, but you could see his hesitation. His eyes were low, not just thinking about what to say, but actually apologetic.

He looked around at the bar, lips twitching before he voiced quietly, “You’re going to drink?”

“I’ll take a taxi.”

You felt his body press closer to yours, if pushed by the other people wanting a drink or just to touch you, you didn’t know. Either way, your eyes fixed on his, acknowledging that the world didn’t exist when he looked at you like that.

But then the bartender placed your drinks in front of you, and Taehyung moved away, pursing his lips. You smiled at the bartender with a thanks, and grabbed the whiskey sour, “Here.”

Taehyung looked down at the drink in your hand pressed to his chest, then at you.

“For your mood,” you winked, before grabbing the other two drinks and walking away.

You handed Jungwoo his drink and left to get Una, and were expecting to leave them together and go on your merry way. Instead, Una insisted you stay with them, and to your surprise, there was no wailing about Winwin. On the contrary, the conversation was pleasant, and you finally had one drink comfortably. It was not the networking you were expecting to get done that night, but at least it was calm and interesting.

At first, you thought Una needed her unnie’s support, then that it would be best you stayed so things wouldn’t get awkward or controversial. However, right about when you wanted to question Una’s decision, she got up and confronted Winwin. Or so it seemed, and you sipped on your drink as she jumped on him to kiss him, barely letting the man breathe. You saw Eunbi race to deal with it and chuckled; fortunately, that was not your job tonight.

Jungwoo shifted in his seat next to you, and you finally turned to him with a smile, about to thank him for his help with Una when he smiled, “Would you like to dance?”

Taehyung’s whiskey sour didn’t last long, but his sourness did. How could it not, when you stayed with Jungwoo after Una left? A part of him stayed rational; you were hanging out with people, and you were around idols all the time. But you weren’t talking to him professionally, not anymore, since Una left to make out with her boyfriend in one of the backrooms. No, you were quietly chatting just the two of you, and Jungwoo was leaning into you again, touching your beautiful hair.

He thought he could hold himself back by looking away and turning a purposeful back on you, but then he saw it. Your hand settled on Jungwoo’s leg and his blood boiled. 

The water bottle he was holding cracked as he closed his fist, grinding his teeth with all the things he wanted to do and say, but couldn’t. You got up with a small head bow and Taehyung smiled, ready to open his mouth and say goodbye to his friends, but then Jungwoo followed you. And Taehyung saw just red.

He shoved the bottle to the chest of whoever was trying to stop him, pushing them all aside to get to you. He gritted his teeth, growling in annoyance; all those people in the way, some trying to grab onto him and talk to him, and meanwhile you and Jungwoo were further and further away across the club.

A familiar voice tried to hold him back with an arm around his shoulders, and he shoved them back. He didn’t care where he was, who he was, or when. He gave no fucks about appearances, no fucks about staying quiet. All he cared about was you, and you were walking out of there with him.

He kept pushing people aside to get outside until he finally managed. His thoughts were incoherent, only getting to you mattered. You’d have questions, you’d tease him, but he didn’t care. He was justified, he—

He stopped right outside the club, noticing you standing with Jungwoo on the curbside. Taehyung opened his mouth, ready to call out for you, when a taxi stopped in front of you, and he staggered. He stopped breathing when you smiled mischievously at Jungwoo and stepped inside the vehicle. 

For a second, his heart stopped.

Then you closed the door and waved goodbye, and Jungwoo waved back before bowing. And Taehyung took a breath, but growled all the same, and ran to get to the label's parking lot where his car was. He drank, so he shouldn’t drive, but he had to confront you about this. He was about to explode and it was all your fault.

As soon as he parked, he had no recollection of driving, only of gripping the steering wheel and shaking as he raced there. The tall apartment complex where you lived stood right before him, and he fought the seatbelt to get free and out of the car. He ignored the snow falling and rushed to your doorstep, fortunately without slipping, only to stumble.

You were there, outside, leaning on the wall and absentmindedly scrolling through your phone. Your eyes raised to his, then put your phone away, turning to the side to dial your code instead. He saw you push the door open, but when you turned to him, he didn’t move. He was so mad before, but seeing you like this made him realize that was not all he felt — he was hurt.

You held out your hand to him with a welcoming smile and when he took it, you dragged him to the elevator. After selecting your floor, you wrapped your arms around his waist and sighed into his chest.

“Una wanted to make Winwin jealous with Jungwoo,” you revealed, safely tucked now that he was holding you back.

He took a second to press his lips to your head, “Yeah, and Jungwoo was totally into you.”

You almost chuckled, but had the sense not to, “Nah, he’s just kind, and took Una’s drama. He was just thankful I was there to help.”

You could feel Taehyung nuzzling the top of your head, inhaling your scent, and you just melted. You thought he’d be mad about the whiskey sour tease, but having him hold you like this told you this was about more than a silly cocktail.

He sighed, “Una is making things difficult.”

You pulled back and grinned, “Well, it happens when I can’t manage my superstar anymore.”

You booped his nose playfully and he searched for sadness or disappointment in your eyes, which he didn’t find, to his relief. “True, but… Maybe…”

When his voice disappeared, you incentivized, “Maybe…?”

“Maybe you should tell her about us.”

Your eyebrows jumped, “Why?”

“Because—” He held back for a second, but your wide eyes were enough to unravel him, “Because Jungwoo looked more than just thankful and if she had stayed with you, he wouldn’t have tried anything.”

You smirked, “How do you know he tried something?”

“He did?”

You couldn’t hold a poker face and laughed, even as Taehyung’s expression was turning from surprise to annoyance.

“Una can't keep a secret and I like my privacy,” you explained, knowing he knew this. You were cautious about the fact, not just who your SO was. You knew how the media and your coworkers worked — you didn’t want to plant the subconscious idea that it was possible. The less suspicion, the better. “Besides… if I did that, then how would I make you jealous?”

Your smile turned sly, and he had no qualms pushing you against the wall, “Is that what you were doing?”

You grinned, “Let’s say I didn’t shy away from the opportunity.”

Despite the irritation in his eyes, it was hard to resist smirking and teasing him. You could barely contain a giggle when he leaned into your neck to bite you in what to him constituted a punishment. But to you, it was far from it. You raised your hand to grab and intertwine your fingers with his hair, and closed your eyes, letting the tingling run down your spine. You bit your lip; it was a matter of time until he noticed that the marks he had left a few days ago were gone, and—

He snorted and bit harder, sucking hard to create new marks, and your grin widened. Even when he squeezed you impossibly, pressing you to the elevator wall and nibbled over a sensitive spot, you didn’t stifle your moans, though you remained quiet. You were melting between your legs with each bite and groan, knowing he couldn’t let you go because he wanted you so much. Your attention was so focused that the elevator doors opened and closed, and you didn’t even notice.

His lips trailed down to your cleavage, and your nails sank deeper into his scalp. You bucked your hips against him, blood running hot in your veins, far beyond the point of teasing. Making him jealous was the least of your concerns; rather, having him kissing and touching you was everything you always wanted, and you’d ask for nothing else.

He squeezed your waist to his, knowing well what your restless hips wanted when they bucked into him, but he had other thoughts. He licked and nibbled across your chest and nuzzled to get under the fabric of your bra, reaching with his tongue for one nipple. You shuddered from head to toe, losing the strength on your legs. He held you and the wall behind you supported you, but you were beyond waiting.

“Tae,” you cooed, torn between pressing him to your chest or pulling him to kiss you.

It didn’t matter what you wanted, because he offered resistance, more aggressively suckling and nuzzling your skin on your other tit. You moaned, sure that you’d be bruised at that point, and it only made you gush more between your legs. You didn’t want him to stop, but if he could do that while fucking you into the wall, that would be great.

Since pulling on his hair didn’t work, you let go of one hand to scratch down the back of his head and nape. His groan gave you shivers, and you licked your lips; you were so ready to consume him in any way he wanted, but he was still stubbornly away.

His coat was heavy, but he only had a silk shirt underneath, so instead of trying to strip him, you let him ravish your chest while one of your hands sneaked underneath his shirt.

His breath shook against your wet skin, and you grinned, knowing that goosebumps covered you both — you, from his licks trying to reach your underboob, and him, from your nails grazing his lower stomach.

“Baby,” you called again, continuing your torture. “Let me touch you,” your voice was sweet, yet he ignored you. He wasn’t able to hide his groans, though, or how you made him shake, so you continued, “I want to touch you, you’ll feel so good…”

Your tone was a playful promise, yet all he did was sink his fingers and teeth more into you. You were sure your chest would be covered in hickeys, and despite your smile, you were getting restless.

So you moved your hand expertly down, squeezing it past his belt, pants, and underwear to find what you were looking for.

You squeezed his hard cock in your hand, and he crumbled a little, groaning louder against your skin. You let him rut into your hand for a moment before continuing, mercilessly, “Feel that, baby? You’re so ready for me,” your voice was sweet, but your smile was sly. Your poor baby was groaning and leaking into your hand, unable to shy away, and you knew you’d win. “To make me yours, right?” He bit harder on your clavicle, and you chuckled, amused by his annoyance. “Look at you pretending to be mad…” You leaned to whisper into his ear, “But you can’t stop fucking my hand—”

He suddenly moved away from your chest and wrapped a hand around your neck. He faced you so closely, your noses touched, but the dynamics weren’t necessarily inverted yet. Despite his hand on your neck or your vulnerability, his hard cock was still in your hand, and you knew how to make him kneel.

And you made that point by jerking him off a bit more, squeezing so hard, you knew it could have hurt anyone else, but not him. All he could do was fight back the pleasure with a mask of indifference, but you saw right through him.

“You’re dying to bury yourself inside me, aren’t you?” Your tone was taunting, and his dark eyes only riled you up more. “Come on, give yourself what you want most.”

He chuckled, and moved to whisper into your ear, “You think that’s you?”

You smirked, “I know it’s me.”

He was already biting down your earlobe; he hummed, “Maybe I should teach you a lesson.”

You let your head fall back to the wall with a laugh, “You’re welcome to try.”

Your laugh didn’t last long; with a hand around your neck, firmly pinning you, Taehyung took the other to raise your dress and reach your throbbing core. You bit your lip while you waited, defiance mixed with anticipation in your glistening eyes. He saw this too, and despite his harshness to pull aside your clothes and underwear and shove two fingers inside you, you could only crumble and pray not to unravel too soon. You moaned desperately, turned on by absolutely everything: his harsh fingers inside you, the sloppy sounds from your cunt, his firm hand around your neck keeping you vulnerable to him, your tits half out of your bra and dress, covered in hickeys, and his stone-hard leaking cock in your hand inside his pants.

His dark eyes on yours were unsurmountable walls, dead set on teaching you a lesson, and you smirked yet again. Despite his rough handling, he knew you loved it, and with just a few bucks of your hips, you’d unravel so fast—

“No,” he pulled his hand away. “Didn’t think I’d let you, hm? Not so fast.”

You didn’t answer; you were ready to beg and coo for more, but his fingers were inside you again in a second, making you keen. Your moans were desperate, and your face didn’t hide all the ways you were falling apart for him.

“You talk so big,” he whispered to your red cheeks. “But you fall so quickly. Look at you,” he whispered, and you couldn’t seem to open your eyes, so close you could pop any second if only he let you. “So close already, how pathetic.”

You only groaned, with your cheeks and chest burning at the insinuation, but as he added his thumb over your clit, you let go. You let your head fall back; you wouldn’t fight him anymore, you wanted him to take care of you in every way, take away every thought and responsibility, and to exist only to feel good in his hands, and make him feel good.

Your moans echoed in the elevator along with your obvious wetness, squishing around his fingers. You opened your eyes to see him, thinking how pitiful you must have looked, basically begging him with every eyelash bat to consume your very existence, but he didn’t budge. 

Maybe he thought there was still defiance left in you. 

“Think anyone else can do this to you?”

He bit his words between teeth, and you could only melt more, shaking with a wave that could start your rapture, if only he didn’t purposefully keep it at bay. You moaned, and let your free hand caress his cheek gently.

“Think anyone else can make you feel this way?”

Your eyes filled with tears, but you were so overwhelmed you couldn’t reply. His jealousy gripped your heart firmly, reaching a deep part of you that needed to feel wanted and desired unconditionally, irrationally. On the other hand, he was still rutting into your fist, edging himself just as he edged you, as though that torture was shared between you both. That was your Tae, your man, fulfilling you in ways you couldn’t even voice.

“Please,” you tried, but it was weak. You were trembling, melting, overheating, functioning at a primal level that could only feel him, nothing else.

You saw in his glistening eyes that he would crack too, especially as he nuzzled your hot cheek, “Think you’ll ever beg for anyone else like you do for me?”

“No, baby, please,” you stammered, supporting your hand on the back of his neck to keep him close.

The corners of his lips curved in the hint of a smile, but then he shook his head, nuzzling you, “No, baby.” He kissed the corner of your mouth, rubbing his thumb over your clit deliciously slowly just to make you keen unashamedly. “You told me to teach you a lesson.”

“I got it,” you breathed.

“Yeah?” He waited, seeing in your concentrated expression how you thought you would come, and he licked his lips. He knew you all too well, he’d keep edging you until he got what he wanted. “Tell me,” he insisted, drawing your attention again. “What have you learned?”

“I love you.”

You opened your eyes to tell him this, and his eyes flickered with a spark. He couldn’t tell if you were teasing him, pulling at his heartstrings, or genuinely crumbled and succumbed to anything that wasn’t your love for him. You smiled at his hesitation, knowing he had good reasons to think twice, and that was your undoing.

His fingers relented inside you, and he squeezed around your neck firmly, “You only learned that right now?” His tone was sharp, and you smirked, unable to stop yourself. Teasing him was too fun, even when you didn’t intend to do it, and having him all over you was the sweetest of rewards. He leaned over your lips, brushing them, “Such a smart ass you are.”

“You love it,” you bit back when he didn’t let you finally kiss him.

Your heart was confused between submitting to him or taunting him again, especially seeing how shaky and overheated you were, but then the world plunged. The elevator started going down and the sweats down your spine went from molting hot to freezing cold. You glanced at the panel, same as him — the elevator had been called back to zero from the fourteenth floor, where you lived.

You looked at him, ready to rationally deal with the situation, but all you found was a challenge in those dark eyes. Your eyebrow quirked quizzically, and his fingers restarted moving ruthlessly, making you jolt against the wall in surprise.

“I guess you have to convince me you’ve learned your lesson fast.”

You widened your eyes, the hot and cold shivers clashing on your lower belly, confusing you, “What?”

“You heard me.”

His eyes were dark and intent, and you almost cursed a cry. That was the serious Taehyung eyeing you intently. He wouldn’t forgive you if you failed, and you were totally adrift. The pleasure was undeniable, but so were the chills down your spine.

He bit down your neck, pushing his fingers so hard at your core, the contrast almost gave you whiplash. You wanted to scream; everything was mixing inside you in a storm. A minute ago you would have jumped and came hard, but now, with every inch the elevator went down, fear was gripping your heart.

“Baby, wait— stop— we’ll get caught,” you pleaded. 

“I don’t care,” he pulled away to look into your eyes, and you fluttered around his fingers. “Tell me what I want to hear.”

His voice was softer now, as if he felt the same torment as you, and you were sure he did. He was still hard in your hand, reacting to your core around his fingers as though it was inevitable. So you sighed into his cheek, his scent bringing tears to your eyes still locked with his, sparkling the same as his. You belonged to him, always had, always would. You knew that, and he knew that, no matter how much you teased him about it. But you had never felt it so intensely, in your spirit, in your soul, in your bones. So owned, both in pleasure and otherwise. And safe. Even if that elevator reached zero and the doors opened, he would love you unconditionally always. Your love was undeniable, even when faced with the possibility of getting caught. Even if it would ruin your life, your career, or affect his. There was only the truth, and you wouldn’t keep it from him.

“I love you,” you said, and for a moment he thought you were still being defiant. “I love you, I belong to you, I’m yours. I want you to hold me for the rest of my life. No one but you will ever touch me, I love you so much—” Your voice wavered, and he instantly pressed his lips to yours for a sweet kiss that had a tear running down your cheek. As soon as he moved away, you still managed, “I don’t care about anything else.” His hand moved from your neck to your hair, holding your head up, so your glistening eyes didn’t hide. “I just want to be with you forever—”

His lips smashed yours while his hand darted from your hair to the stop button, making the elevator shake to a halt. Then he pressed your floor again, and as the elevator went up, so did you. His tongue was inside your mouth, showing as much desire and desperation as yours, while his hand restarted fingering you roughly. Only this time, it seemed like you were a firework ready to blast once the fuse ended, and you wanted it. You fisted him harshly too, your hand so wet you doubted if he hadn’t come already, but by his ruts, you knew he hadn’t.

You thought you were set to come with him when the elevator stopped, but as it stilled, so did Taehyung. He gave you a last kiss, took his hand out of you, and pulled your hand from inside his pants. The doors opened, so you thought you’d make your way to your apartment and finish things there, but he stopped you.

Right as you were passing the doors, he grabbed your arm and pushed you against the frame where the elevator doors had retracted into. He spread your legs with his so that one was outside, on your floor, while the other stayed in.

You sighed, “Tae?”

He pulled your hair to the side and kissed your neck, then glued your ass to his crotch. You both groaned with his hard cock rubbing at you teasingly, and he pressed himself fully to you, groping your tits harshly, “We’re not done yet.”

He sounded frantic as he kissed down your neck, squeezing and rutting into you so hard, you wondered why he wasn’t inside you already.

You raised your head to tell him that when you saw him out of the corner of your eye, through the elevator mirror. He had his eyes closed, lost in kissing every inch of your skin he could, while he used one hand to release himself. You moaned just at the sight of his juicy hard cock, and closed your eyes in anticipation while you felt him fumbling with your dress and underwear until the tip was pressed to your folds.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned, teasing you both while he got coated, and you only ground back into him.

He sounded desperate, but so were you, and nothing would stand in the way of feeling him again, of being part of him, loved by him, and used by him.

Your nails scratched the metal door frame, and you almost cursed and begged for him, but soon he was pushing himself inside you, and you groaned. He pushed further and further, giving you time to clench and feel the sting, adjusting to his girth, before finally tucking himself fully in, raw in your wet, soothing embrace. He tried bucking his hips, and you instantly keened, letting the stretch reminding you of how amazingly fulfilling it was to have your love inside you.

He didn’t wait a second to start fucking you in a demanding rhythm, grasping you by your hips, then waist, then chest, shoulders, neck, and even hair. His hips were ruthless, smacking into yours to fill you up every time, and you could feel yourself dripping down your thighs. You couldn’t stop moaning, and you didn’t stifle those down either, so drunk on him that someone could have showed and found you, and you wouldn’t have even noticed. All you wanted was the smack of his hips against your ass, the blunt shove of his cock inside you, pushing and dragging against your walls, poking you inside, turning your body into nothing but pleasure.

He leaned closer, changing the angle to hit your g-spot in a way that stole your breath, but not more than the words he grunted into your ear, “I love you so much. I fucking want you, you’re mine.”

You were ready to cry your love too, but then your eyes met through the mirror and the hint of anxiety in his hurt you deeply. His eyes quickly softened with his affection for you, but your heart couldn’t forget it. Teasing him was one thing, another was to actually hurt him or make him insecure about you.

“I’m yours,” you tried, though your voice was hardly your own with each moan. “Tae— I’m—”

His fingers had gone around your waist to rub your clit, and talking became nearly impossible. “I’m here, baby. I got you,” his voice was a groan. He was tucked so deep inside you that you knew he was holding his orgasm back. “I’m waiting for you,” he nuzzled your neck, and your eyes rolled back. “From the moment I met you, I’ll never stop— Never give up—”

Something in your lower stomach was about to explode, overheating you to the point you couldn’t breathe, until you snapped. You bucked your hips deeper, feeling the burst of your orgasm imminent, and you screamed. His fingers were the perfect push, and your core throbbed, sucking and pumping his pleasure out of him. He groaned into your neck, pressing you by your mound to sink on his cock as deeply as possible, and your nails scrapped the metal frame. His cock twitching deep inside you increased your sensitivity to the point that tears fell down your cheeks, despite the absolute bliss lighting up your body. The way he swayed his hips to jerk the last drops inside you, then pressed you closer to stay inside you and all around you, made you shake with a sob. That was how he loved you, attentively, completely, unconditionally. And you had stupidly hurt him.

“I love you,” he whispered incessantly as he held you and pecked your salty skin. “You’re everything to me, I never loved anyone like this.” You shook with a sob and his tone changed to worry, “Did I hurt you? Are you nervous?” He rubbed your hands and let you come further back into his protective embrace, “I’m sorry, baby. I wouldn’t ever let them catch us, I’d never risk your safety like that.”

You knew that, and it somehow hurt you more — that he’d do everything to protect you while you so childishly hurt him.

“I— I’m sorry,” you tried your best to stop your bawling. “I didn’t mean to hurt you or suggest that I’d ever want anyone else, I— I love you!”

He held you even harder, knowing you need that, “I know, I’m not mad. I was… worried he’d impose himself or something.”

“Jungwoo… He wouldn’t,” you sniffled, and before Taehyung had time to let his jealousy resurface, you continued, “I told him— I told Jungwoo I have someone. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said instantly, nuzzling your cheek with a half hidden smile. “I don’t mind.”

You nodded, still sniffling and cleaning your face, but relieved with his kisses and snuggles. Then you pulled your hair away from your face, and brushed the back of your knuckles to his cheeky smile, “Let’s go home.”

[starzgaze]

📖₊✧ 🖋 “ TANGA TANGAHAN “—s.jw/filo!reader

shit ass snippet: "gago?? who did you try copying off again?" ".... the exchange student" "BUANG KA B—"

your friend let out an exasperated sigh as you gave her a sheepish smile, scratching your cheek awkwardly. cheating wasn't something you do usually but you were pretty desperate to pass the math exam but 'luckily' you sat beside the korean exchange student! you heard koreans are generally smarter in math so you thought you were passing the exam until you saw his paper and realized a few copied answers in that... he was also copying off you.

a/n: special thanks to park for helping me in this idk if I added the cleaned up version but I gave up reading this

oh my god. you didn't study for the exam today.

with you clutching the straps of your bag, you anxiously entered the classroom and saw many students cramming for today's exam. some of your friends were scribbling on the board practice equations while the other kids reviewed their papers over and over again and the remaining half just accepted faith and slept until the exam started.

you walked over to your desk and placed your bag beneath it, sighing in defeat as you probably accepted the fact you're gonna see a line of 7 in your card for the quarter. maybe playing games the whole night instead of studying the bazillion ways of solving for x was extremely stupid on your part.

but you were hopeful that perhaps your stock knowledge will save you. (for the sake of your grades and sanity to avoid a beating)

"[y.name]!!!"

a voice called over for you suddenly which prompted you to turn to the owner of the voice. it was one of your friends who looked extremely drained. your eyes widened at the sight.

"jesus christ. the hell happened with you? napaka haggard mo 'teh" you joked as you pointed out your friend's unbrushed hair and disheveled appearance. She pouted before she softly punched your shoulder with the rolled up paper she was holding.

"oh zip your mouth! anyway, did you study for the math exam?"

your friend went for the throat as she didn't bothered starting up small talk, time was ticking, every second that passed means the start of the exam will begin shortly soon.

the question made you pause a bit before you sloooowly moving your head over to your friend as an awkward smile forced it's way on to your face.

"haha... no"

her dropped as she blankly blinked at you for a good 2 minutes before shaking her head vigorously and shoving her face into her hands, groaning probably in despair.

"GOODDD.. who am i supposed to ask now how to solve these things?! or even cheat off..."

you shrugged as you looked over to your seatmate,

the exchange student.

you can't really tell but he seemed pretty confident about the exam with how 'relaxed' he is, maybe your friend can ask him instead of you.

your friend followed your gaze that lingered on the exchange student which made her look over her shoulder for a moment before smirking. completely misunderstanding the situation.

"hala, may crush ka?"

"ha? gago, anong crush? I'm just thinking that you should probably ask jinwoo over there instead of me about the math equations" you retorted back which was only received with your friend pouting as she playfully wiggled her brows, occasionally nudging you along with it. a sigh left your lips.

before your friend could further tease you about it, your proctor entered the room, signalling the whole room to pack their reviewers in their bags and bring it to the front of the classroom.

you sat on your chair, fiddling with your pen as your proctor started to explain the flow of the exam. you didn't pay attention to the instructor since you probably memorized whatever the hell he was about to say but your eyes wandered over to your seatmate once again, sung jinwoo.

he was one of the korean exchange students from your school's exchange program, his luck is horrible for how the exchange program timed perfectly with the quarterly exams so now he has to go through this too.

but anyway, the more you drown out your proctor's voice out of your mind you can't help but stare longer at jinwoo. it's not the fact that maybe he's a bit handsome and is basically eye candy to you but it was the fact you could see an extremely tiny wisp of black off him that is almost reminiscent to a shadow. that sounds crazy to you.

jinwoo immediately notices this though which ended with him returning the gaze, making you jolt in your seat as you swiftly looked away. acting like you didn't stared him down moments ago.

oh man if you could only see the small smirk on his face.

　　　　　✎ᝰ

oh my god². it's been 43 questions in the exam and you still haven't confidently answered anything, more than 40 questions that you answered swiftly was basically you playing eenie miney moe or pulling formulas out of your asshole as you prayed to your patron saint of your school and Jesus that the number you guesstimated was correct. you're at the point that you're counting the 'probably' correct answered questions to guess your score, you were aiming for passing barely.

but you knew you couldn't rely on that, you knew that out of all people that if you don't answer something here that isn't you half assing it you're gonna repeat a subject definitely from how bad this exam is gonna put a dent in your grade.

until an idea crossed your mind!

a very academically horrible idea but it was better than nothing.

you ever so slightly moved your head to the side, glancing over to jinwoo and noticing that he was almost done (isn't he going way too fast?!). a random, possibly, stereotypical fact popped in your head that how most koreans are smarter in math which justified the reason why jinwoo finished his exam so fast in math, maybe it's the fact he was korean.

craning over your neck to his desk a bit more, carefully glancing over to your proctor and your classmates making sure that no one was looking. you squinted your eyes as you tried to make sense of his answers and copied it down on your own paper.

a few minutes of you repeating this until you answered the last question, placing your pen down as you huffed quietly in victory. you were pretty confident ok whatever you wrote was accurate on whatever the hell your seatmate wrote but it was better than leaving it blank.

you glanced over to the clock and noticed you had a few more minutes to spare so you checked through your previous answers and even tried comparing it from your seatmate who was now seemingly muttering to himself while swatting his shoulder like he was dusting off something. the hell?....

you ignored it, chalking it up to the old idea that geniuses were weirdoes in their own ways that's why they were smart in the first place. you wouldn't understand because you weren't one.

anyway the moment you started comparing your answers to his paper you thought that maybe most of your answers were correct! until you took more time reading in between the lines and comoared again for good measure. then the realization hits you.

your answer here was an a. his was an a also

it's also d. here and his was a d too..?

the more you skimmed through, even the previous calculations that you made up before you bothered copying off him was also matching the ones on his paper. what the hell was going on?!

...

wait, was he also copying off yo—

RRRRRRIIIINNGG!!!!!!!!!

the timer went off as the realization finally dawned on you, you need to change your answers asap or else you'll be called after class along with this dumbass too!

"okay class, hand over your paper to the person in front of you and then to the people in front please pass it to the middle" your instructor instructed as you panicked. you're not even sure if you can even do last minute changes as you can hear the person behind you wagging their paper behind you was starting to get annoyed that you weren't grabbing their paper.

"hoy! [y.name] kunin mo naman ang papel ko. tapos na ang exam bala, wag mo nailisan ang mga sabat mo" your classmate complained as you groaned in frustration and took the papers behind you and stacked it properly again then passing it to the person in front of you, internally crying over the fact that you just copied off someone who was also copying off you

'why the hell was he even copying off me?! isn't he supposed to be more smarter because he's korea— oh wait that's stereotypical... wait... oh my god. I'm so stupid. why did i assume he was good in math'

you dropped your head on to the desk, a pretty loud thud emanating from your area which earned a few stares from your classmates and your seatmate.

　　　　　✎ᝰ

jinwoo was happy that through his track and field practices and astounding performance in athletics that he managed to snag a spot in the exchange student program, especially to the country where [y.name] was originally in.

in a previous time, he could recall that [y.name] studied in their homecountry for highschool and college but went to korea for higher education. it was one of the things he learned about them early in their relationship in his past life but that was in the past. In the new one, jinwoo was way too impatient to wait for his 20s to meet [y.name]. he needed to see them asap.

so this exchange program was a great opportunity! but the timing was awful. the moment he got in the school in the new country, he unfortunately couldn't get [y.name] as his host home but another family but it was fine since he somehow got in the same section as them. (even if it wasn't, he could just easily ask his advisor if he could switch sections). there was another unfortunate factor though, it was exams season in the school here.

academics wasn't his strongest factor let's say... jinwoo would rather be the brawn than the brains if he had the choice when it comes to academics, which was mainly why he got a scholarship through track and field in his school. thinking is something he would rather do later than now.

which is why when people around him in the new school he stepped foot in started to whisper that he was probably smart, especially in math, baffled him a bit. what gave them the impression that he was remotely any good in mathematics or science? was it because he's an exchange student or was it because of the cool aura he exudes? he couldn't understand it but he can't seem to prove the rumors wrong whenever he recites pretty well in the classes.

well it doesn't matter because the luck he has to land in [y.name] section was worth it because maybe in their eyes, they see him smart.

[tinyraptorhands]

Just A Spark pt. 6

-Its Times Like This...-

"Oh, Yuki! I could never leave you!"

"You must leave me, Jin! I can't be what you want. What you need!"

"And I need to barf." You said, stretched out on your couch as you watched the J-drama play out on the TV. A bag of shrimp chips sat on the ground as your hand stayed in the bag, the blue of the television screen lighting up your small apartment. You sipped your Pocari Sweat, and capped it as you proceeded to watch the two actors furiously make out under a moonlit sky.

Gross.

Why were you even watching this? Oh, right. Anything was better than what was currently playing on seemingly every channel.

The Hero Rankings for the quarter of the year.

You didn't feel like hearing about anything hero-related for a while, all things considered.

You burped, rolling off your couch gracelessly, your underpants riding up your butt.

Today was a Sunday. Which meant for you-hoodie and panties on, and being a lazy sonuvagun. (Thats what your father called you when you went full potato like this.) As you flopped to the ground, you sighed. You stared at the ceiling, that stupid heart shaped water stain mocking you.

It was times like this you found yourself reflecting.

On what could be.

You ran a hand over your face, groaning. Things weren't supposed to turn out like this, and yet here you were-with a soul mate.

A egotistical, grumpy, hot headed prick of a soul mate.

"...such an asshole." You muttered. How Mai could even love her grandson, you didn't know how. You rolled over, getting up.

You walked lazily to the kitchen, scratching your head as you went to the humming fridge. As you opened it, your eyes squinted at the foods you had bought. Some eggs, milk, tofu, a suspiciously wilting bunch of leeks, some strawberry yogurt and a tall bottle of ice green tea.

....

Apparently, grocery shopping was on today's agenda.

You groaned, and withdrew your phone from your hoodie pocket. Two in the afternoon. Traffic shouldn't be too crazy, what with everyone probably parked on their asses in front of their own tvs or smart devices.

You went over to the bathroom to freshen up. It didnt take too long. As you yanked up some jeans over your legs, you opened the curtains to the small balcony window. The city greeted you below, just as it always did. You opened the sliding glass doors, and stepped out onto the concrete balcony.

The air was a bit crisper than usual, and the skies were overcast with looming rain clouds.

Right. Laundry. You looked over at the laundry hanger, sun dried socks, and some other intimates hung from its clips.

You plucked off said laundry from the hanging clips, tossing them into the empty laundry basket underneath. The chimes you installed along with the circular hanger rang prettily in the lazy breeze.

As you scooped up your clean laundry, you looked out at the city horizon and smiled softly. The light breeze tousled your hair.

This was the peace you craved. Having a soul mate like Katsuki Bakugo? You would loose all that for sure.

Right?

Katsuki huffed as he sat on his own couch, turning off the quarterly ranks. He hadn't gone up a rank, sitting at the fifth rank comfortably.

Izuku had gone from the sixth rank to the fourth. Damn.

The nerd passed him. He smirked.

It gave him a little thrill, his friend had caught up, and skipped over him in a matter of months.

Just as he thought he would.

Good. Made things interesting. This was why he had made the grind from rank number fifteen to ten ranks over. He pulled out his phone, texting his old childhood rival.

"Game on, Izuku."

He slipped his phone into his pocket, only for it to ring. He withdrew it again, and huffed.

It was his mother, Mitsuki.

"Whadda you want, old hag?"

"Is that any way to talk to your mother, brat?? Anyway-I need your help. You need to come with me to go grocery shopping."

"Haaah? Why the hell do I need to do that?" He huffed, though he began to get ready.

"I get good deals when I mention your'e my kid. And theres a huge sale on rice today. So I need your strength and your hero influence." She sounded resolute-as if she were going to war. Katsuki rolled his eyes.

"So...yer saying I need to go up against a bunch of housewives and wrestle with them to get you a damn bag of rice?" He said, deadpanned.

"You questioning me and my methods?"

He groaned. "Just order it online-"

"I ain't gonna get the deal if I do that-besides, theres a raffle I can enter if I buy three bags of frozen mochi-"

"Ugh, a raffle?" He ran his hand over his face as he leaned against the marble of his kitchen counter. He placed his phone in the crook of his neck as he pulled on his black denim pants. "What kind a raffle-"

"A chance to win a trip to Okinawa! And theres some kind of All Might memorabilia-"

Katsuki's eyes lit up. He gripped the phone again as he grabbed his keys from the counter. "Fine, fine. M'coming with the car."

"Thats my boy. Be here in half an hour." She hung up, and he sighed.

His mother knew exactly what she was doing, mentioning the chance to win some All Might merch.

As he went to the parking garage, he couldn't help but wonder.

Had you seen the rankings?

The pleather creaked as he slid into the driver's seat. He didn't know why he thought that.

He shook his head, and huffed. He pressed the start button, the radio playing soft classical music.

You seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. "Stupid..." he muttered to himself as he rolled out of the parking garage and into the streets of Musutafu.

"And that's when I told your father to send that design over to marketing! I swear, the man needed to grow a pair! He's the head of the designer's section, so he better act like it! At least before he retires!" Mitsuki went on about her life, telling Katsuki about his father's work, the neighbors, his grandparents, something Izuku's mom said, etc. He was pretty sure he drowned out most of her inane chatter, his brain elsewhere.

Unfortunately for him, it was mostly on you.

He didn't even consciously think about you-it just...would happen.

A dog and his owner walked by his apartment?

Did you like dogs?

Some fangirls while on patrol?

Did you have a favorite hero?

His mother's prattle?

Did you have a mom who talked your ears off, too?

And each time he had to mentally pinch himself.

He hated this. He knew the bond the two of you would have would only get worse with denial.

Some people say that's how heartbreak really killed. By denying a soul mate.

Bullshit.

People lived without knowing their soulmates existed before-and could certainly exist not acknowledging the bond.

So...why start now?

As he rolled into the market's parking lot, he felt a familiar tug in his gut.

Odd.

Its not like you were here...

He hoped.

He probably just ate something bad. He clicked his car remote to lock up as his mother began to tell him her plan of attack.

Stupid stale shrimp chips. He'd have to get some while he was here...

"Alright, you get a cart. The rice bags should be right up front, like I said." Mitsuki said, looking through her purse. "And be on your best behavior."

"Tch. What am I? Seven??" He groused, inserting a 100 yen coin into the cart lock. It unlocked, and he pulled it out of the other carts.

"You certainly act like it sometimes." Mitsuki grumbled, and then held up a few vouchers. "Ah. Here we are. Okinawa, here I come...!"

He rolled his eyes. "You mean to tell me you already got the vouchers for buying shitty frozen mochi?"

"The more I buy, the more chances I'll get! And I'm gonna get that vacation!" She pumped her fist, the fire in her eyes much like his own.

"...Whatever." He pushed the cart alongside her. "Let's get this over with..."

The bike purchase was a good idea. It was satin white, with tiny gold and navy star embellishments. It even had a white wire basket to hold any goodies in on the front, with a silver shiny bell to ring. You coasted to a stop at the large supermarket, locking your bike up at the bike rack. You hopped off, and suddenly felt a fluttering feeling in your stomach.

...Gas?

No, this felt....familiar. You frowned, taking your purse from the basket, along with a few reusable bags.

Nah. It couldn't be.

...could it? You rolled your eyes. "Stop being paranoid, (y/n)." You said to yourself. "Probably just gas."

As you entered the supermarket, you saw a bunch of women at a large display of rice.

Did you need rice?

You looked down at your phone at the list you typed up.

Nope. All good on that front.

As you walked by, the feeling grew. You clutched your bags to your torso as you scooped up a shopping basket. 'Note to self,' you thought, 'do not engage a Japanese housewife during a sales event.' You chuckled to yourself, trying to distract yourself from the pulling sensation now throbbing delightfully in your guts.

As you turned, you saw the snack aisle.

You looked down at your list.

Shrimp chips!

You quickly went to the rows of different chips, trying not to get them all at once. The urge to try different flavors was strong-but you knew better.

Besides, you had the rest of your life here. You definitely had all the time in the world to try them all.

You spotted the spicy shrimp chips on the bottom shelf, the cute little shrimp mascot with a pepper on its head.

'SO SPICY!' It said in bubbly kanji.

Those were new. And they seemed to be out of your regular flavor.

You licked your lips, and crouched down to grab them-

Only for another hand to go for them as well.

"Huh?" You blinked.

"Hah?" A familiar voice said at the same time.

You looked up.

He looked down.

Katsuki freakin' Bakugo.

The pull turned into a throbbing inside your whole body. Just like all the times before.

Of course he had to be here.

Of course.

-Brought To You By Shrimpy's Shrimp Chips!-

@crimsonrubie

[regina-bithyniae]

I don’t think it can reasonably be assumed that “the price sector will get more value out of [high performing employees]”.

The private sector will encourage them to work more hours. However, depending on the field, a profit motive can create a very perverse incentive with respect to actually solving problems or delivering a service.

I was, for a time, on Medicaid. (Pandemic related, I have a degree and job skills and so on). I had better service and better interactions with the Medicaid system than I’ve ever had with any for-profit insurance company. Things just got done. The only thing that was worse was dental, the Medicaid dentist didn’t pay their hygienists enough, or something, and so they were always quitting and my cleanings would get rescheduled.

I’ve worked in private companies, for universities, and for small business.

The private sector sometimes gets more done per [number of days of the year] but mainly because people work more overtime hours, often haphazardly scheduled overtime, and have significantly fewer labor protections.

Small businesses are great, but only if your boss personally likes you, otherwise they’ll frequently make your life hell. It’s also very easy to end up with a situation where one person is a critical hingepoint for the entire store and the whole operation just collapses because Martha got sick for a week.

Personally, I think it’d be much better for society at large if big private sector companies were more like public sector jobs, rather than the reverse. I think we have to seriously consider that some of the problems in current America are downstream of people working too many hours and feeling too much financial or class precarity to form sustainable relationships and communities. If you’re grinding away 70 hours a week, when are you going to date?

Same thing in Japan, although they’ve got it worse than we do, and with different aspects.

I really doubt many people are clocking 70 hour work weeks, just right off the bat.

---

My main point was that I think public sector work is seriously misaligned from actually providing value to society, even before you argue about productivity or laziness. I don't think people seriously addressed this part, particularly once it leaked out to general population and tumblr commie-ism became the main analysis method.

In a private sector company, at least most of the time they are producing a product people want to buy. If they do that they're adding value. But government economists updating the quarterly report on a small and declining economic sector, which nobody reads anyways? Hard to make that argument. If there was serious demand for it then you could end the government department and interested firms might just commission their own researchers.

I do see a role for government to collect and publish data of general interest but not put a ton of work into doing much with it.

Choosing healthcare is a bit of a cherry-pick. The US system is a perfect worst case of extremely generous plans for some (medicare, medicaid) and nothing for others, subject to profit-seeking and competition-protected hospitals, with highly protective pharmaceutical IP laws that act as an implicit subsidy to the ungrateful rest of the world, applies to an extremely fat, sedentary, unhealthy and wealthy population. Hard to think of how it could be more wasteful! Oh and they had a moratorium on new medical schools being created for a good while, too.

[bridgetlynn]

84. Langdon

So, the prompt is for a # from the list and two characters. Anonymous sent me #84 (Out Cold) and Langdon. Unfortunately, with only one character I had to really (really) improvise especially for a prompt that indicates someone is in some way sleeping or unconscious. In the most literal way I believe I met the prompt. ie: Out Cold & Langdon. It’s just that the fic is probably not what the prompter was expecting out of it. That being said, it definitely turned into my kind of weird and crazy and I sort of adored it way more then I expected to. It's also totally on brand for me and the almost running joke at this point as to who my favorite Pitt character should probably be listed as. lol Hope you all like it as much as I liked writing it. I actually had to stop where I did because I did not need any new ideas. No I did not. But I got some. fuck.

84. Out Cold - Langdon. 1223 words.

The sound of the side door closing in the kitchen, at only ten to eight on a Monday morning in late September, caught Abby’s attention from where she was starting to clean up the children’s breakfast dishes. She had to be in court for a custody hearing at ten; but, also still needed to stop into her office so she was more than a little relieved to hear that sound almost a half hour earlier than usual. It meant that she could finish getting ready without worrying about getting anyone to the bus stop by eight thirty.

“Hey stop. Don’t do that,” she was interrupted by the voice of one of her favorite people and he plates being physically removed from her hands. “I’ll get that done. Go finish getting ready for work. You’re going to have to leave soon if you want to beat traffic. It’s not safe to be racing,” Mel continued, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. “Are Ryan and El ready for school?”

“Of course they are. Becca is my most trusted lieutenant when you’re both stuck on nights at the same time. She even managed to get Tanner out the door on time for the bus for once,” Abby replied, leaning over to give the blonde a soft kiss. “Good morning angel,” she added and then pulled back and craned her head to look around the doorframe into the kitchen. “And where is our idiotic third? I will totally forgive you if you left him at the hospital.”

Mel chuckled and shook her head with a beautiful smirk, “Nope. Doctor Langdon is currently snoring in the Pathfinder’s passenger seat. I tried to wake him up for a good five minutes before just coming inside. He did kind of mumble for me to ‘go away’ before starting to snore again.”

Abby laughed wholeheartedly at her answer, Mel joining in with a giggle seconds later; both of them obviously recalling the conversation the three had on Friday morning after the kids had gone to school for the day.

The two ED swing attendings had been on their normal three consecutive days off in-between the quarterly shift rotation and Frank was telling his two partner’s that he had let Tanner and Ryan talk him into taking them camping for the weekend. Elizabeth had, of course, begged to go with her father and brothers as well. In the same conversation Mel, Abby and Becca had all turned him down flat when he suggested a full family weekend at Raccoon Creek Park.

After he explained his plans, Mel and Abby had both suggested that perhaps they should wait another week when Frank had a four day break in his schedule, which would include a weekend; but Frank had been insistent that it was going to start to get too cold to keep the kids overnight outdoors by then.  And while the ladies knew he was right about the weather; they still thought the idea was completely terrible for his overall constitution considering he planned on being back late afternoon on Sunday and then had to immediately go and work a twelve hour overnight ER shift.

Unfortunately, the ladies had been proven right when Frank stumbled, exhausted, through the door at three o��clock on Sunday afternoon with three hyperactive kids between the ages of six and thirteen following him. 

Meanwhile, Abby and Mel had been relaxed and rejuvenated after spending a fun Saturday with Becca shopping and having lunch, a more adult oriented fun Saturday night in bed for a few hours while Becca had gone to a movie with her activity group and all of Sunday morning at a day spa that they liked to go to occasionally due to it having many options for pampering so no matter how Becca was feeling that day she could usually find something to do. 

It had been a lovely, relaxing childfree weekend. 

“So, what you’re saying is Dr. I’m Not Getting Old is out cold in the car because he is, in fact, getting old,” Becca asked coming into the dining area and having heard their conversation from the living room. Elizabeth and Ryan were trailing after their Aunt like ducklings. “El your lunch is in the fridge,” Becca continued, this time talking to the kids and moving into the kitchen without waiting for an answer from Abby or Mel. “Ryan, you wanted PB&J right? Cause that’s not cold so I have to make it now,” they heard her ask Mel’s biological son as she started packing up the two lunch bags for the 5th and 1st graders like she did every morning to help out.

“You’re the best sister ever Becca; but, 42 is not old,” Abby, who turned 42 a month before Frank herself, called after her actual favorite person when not counting her three children; her sister-in-law who helped her keep their household running like clockwork while her two partners ran around saving lives. 

Abby was just glad that those partners were both at the same hospital again, as of this year, and both finally on Attending schedules. Because as Attendings they only had to pull fourteen shifts a month each at Presbyterian at least - even if the one drawback was they had been hired as swings and therefore every three months they had to switch between days and nights. 

It could always be worse; they had dealt with a lot of worse over the last eight years. Eight years of joy and love and tragedy and pain.

“Alright, I’m going to go finish putting my make-up on and get changed,” Abby said, turning to where Mel had started gathering up the rest of the breakfast dishes. “Can you get the kids to the bus stop?”

“Yes, either myself or Becca will take the kids two houses down to the corner to get the school bus. Baby, the last thing I need is the stress of thinking you’re racing through traffic to get across town to the office and then back across to the other side of the city for court. So, go get even more beautiful than you already are. Shoo.”

Abby chuckled and headed for the stairs to the second floor of their turn of the century colonial in Shadyside. When she came back downstairs forty minutes later at a quarter to nine she wasn’t surprised by the quiet. Elizabeth and Ryan had run up the stairs at twenty after eight to give her hugs, kisses and shouts of “Bye Mama” in her general direction.  Considering the time Mel had probably immediately driven Becca over to their local library where she’d been working a quiet city of Pittsburgh civil service data entry job three days a week from 10am to 3pm for the last five years. 

It was what she saw as she walked through the living room to double check the front door was locked that nearly sent her into peals of laughter - her husband, stretched out on the floor in his scrubs, snoring away, with a piece of paper taped to his chest that said, in Mel’s handwriting, “Specimen: Husbandus Moronus - Known to be Moody and Whiny when Overtired.”

“God I love that woman,” Abby muttered and blew a kiss at her sleeping husband before heading out for the day to deal with idiots in court.

[oakantony]

Yes, Chef

A completely uncalled for Hisoillu Chick-Fil-A AU. I honestly have no idea. Maybe I'll put it on AO3 one day idek. (It's in progress. Enjoy the rough draft.)

tws for this part include: neglect, financial abuse, verbal abuse, homophobia, ableism

future tws for this story will eventually include: canon-typical violence, explicit sex, possibly the raunchiest handjob i've ever written in my life

Enjoy!

-

It didn’t matter how accurately Illumi wrote the quarterly reports, how perfectly he arranged the weekly schedules, or how precisely he ordered supplies--his father would always fuck it up and leave Illumi there, alone, to clean up the mess.

In this case, literally.

His 15-year-old brother, Killua--middle child of the family and now shortest-lasting employee of their fast-food empire--had completely trashed the kitchen before giving his father, and Illumi, the middle-finger. “I quit,” he said as he stormed away. “Don’t expect to see me at home, either. I’m quitting this bullshit family, too.”

For some reason, Illumi believed him this time. Maybe it was the enormous backpack he carried with all his essentials--packed like he truly meant to move away. Maybe it was the new friend he’d found last month, whom he claimed had a bed big enough for the two of them to share. Maybe it was because Illumi, deep down, understood the sentiment.

Hm, no. Not that last part. Never that last part.

Illumi was loyal to his family until the end. How else was he meant to live? The vast fortune belonging to the Zoldyck family awaited him--so long as he continued to manage the business.

“He’ll come around,” said Silva in a gravelly, too-certain tone. He adjusted his suit jacket, looking perfect and statuesque despite everything. “He’s just in those hellish teen years.” He placed an enormous hand upon Illumi’s shoulder as a farewell and started to walk away, his long white hair swaying in a braid.

“Wait,” said Illumi. He swept a hand over the overturned prep station, the spilled jugs of peanut oil, and the broken dish sprayer dripping water down the side of the stainless steel cabinets. “We open in twenty minutes, do not have our pre-prep, and now we are down a cook.”

Silva raised one silver eyebrow. “I’ve trained all of my children to handle this. So handle it.”

He departed, checking his phone almost idly, utterly unconcerned. The pink sky of dawn winked through the door’s gap briefly before it sealed shut. Click.

Illumi hadn’t worked a fryer in almost six years. He took a deep breath and tied his long, straight, black hair into a high ponytail at the top of his head. He would have to net it before cooking, but this was fine for now. He’d debated cutting it many times previously--

But his father had long hair, and there seemed to be some sort of unwritten pride in maintaining hair like this even in a setting that would make short hair…simpler. And Illumi would do whatever it took to make his father proud.

Perhaps working the kitchen today will feel nostalgic, like back when I was a teen, he thought as he began to clean the kitchen. Quickly, efficiently, and well enough that most wouldn’t even be able to tell it’d been nearly destroyed. His first employee came in whistling, oblivious to the issues.

“Good morning, Canary,” said Illumi.

“Hi, boss,” she replied, bowing her head in greeting. She looked at the mop he held and across the kitchen, which was back to square zero--almost.

“Will you prep?”

“Oh no. Did the evening guys forget?”

“No,” said Illumi. “My little brother was meant to start his first ever shift this morning. Instead, he destroyed the kitchen.”

“Killua?” she asked, head tilted.

“That is correct.”

She hissed through her teeth in sympathy. “Yeah, I’ll get on that. Does that mean we’re down a man?”

“Do not worry. I will work the fryer today so that Amane will help take orders.” His watch trilled in warning. Sixty seconds before the doors open for the morning. He began to list off the things they needed: “Onions, tomatoes--lettuce is already shredded, but we need it pulled out from the walk-in--”

“Yes, yes. I got it, Mr. Zoldyck. You go check the front of house.” She held her hand out to take the mop. “I’ve done pre-prep at least a hundred times. I got the list memorized.”

The tightness Illumi didn’t even realize he had between his ribs began to loosen, allowing him to breathe in deep. Relieved. “Thank you. I appreciate you.” He would have to remember this moment when it came time for promotions next month--Canary was more than deserving of the assistant manager role. By the time he thought to say as much to her, however, a line of SUVs materialized very suddenly around the brown brick building, and several parents were standing at the doors.

Later, he noted to himself. He would tell her later.

He unlocked the door, held it open, and greeted, “Welcome to Chick-Fil-A.”

“Thanks,” said a particularly harried-looking mother as she stepped inside, holding the hand of a toddler covered in what Illumi hoped was dried chocolate.

“My pleasure,” he replied.

-

“It’s too bad you’re usually stuck at the front with customers, because you’re really good at this, actually,” said Gotoh. “I forget sometimes that you worked in the kitchen for years before taking over as manager.”

The timer chimed, alerting him that the chicken breasts were done cooking. “Father starts all of his children off as fry cooks,” said Illumi, deftly lifting the basket out of the pressure fryer. “This is a much simpler job than balancing books.”

Gotoh chuckled as he placed another tray of battered breasts aside Illumi, ready for the basket and fryer. “And you prefer cooking?”

Illumi watched the cooked chicken tumble into the shiny silver container and pondered the question. “No,” he said. “I prefer strategizing. My ideas are better than my food.”

“We don’t ever really use original ideas,” Gotoh pointed out. They had a set menu of items with some seasonal pulls and, on occasion, test products that came down from corporate. No one manager would have power enough to exact real change.

He knew as much. It didn’t stop him from scribbling restaurant concepts in the office after business closed, considering the popularity of certain items, the cost of ingredients--it was almost like a puzzle, but a creative and original one. “It is just idle thinking. Nothing I would ever do in reality.” 

Silva had made that abundantly clear during their last conversation on the topic. Illumi glanced up to the dented stainless cabinet door to the left of Gotoh, fist-shaped. It almost seemed to wink at him in cruel memory. Illumi still needed to get someone to come out to do that repair. City inspectors pointed it out on their last sweep; technically a dent didn’t break any laws, but visible damage in the building did pull their ranking from A+ to simply A.

Illumi changed into a new pair of gloves and began to prepare the next batch of chicken breasts. “After I drop these, will you wait for the timer? I need to check our applications.”

“Of course,” said Gotoh. “You managed to fill in on the fryer and post a job listing already?” He turned to look at the big digital clock over the kitchen door. “It’s not even one PM yet. You’re damn efficient.”

“That is what I am paid to do. Be efficient.” He lowered the basket into the fryer and made quick work of fastening the latch.

Gotoh chuckled. “You know, there’re rumors you and Milluki don’t even get paid for working at your father’s restaurants.”

“That would be ridiculous,” said Illumi. “And illegal.”

“Oh, I know,” said Gotoh. “Your father wouldn’t do something so disrespectful anyway.”

“Indeed.” Illumi got paid biweekly, just like everyone else. His checks were directly deposited into the family’s shared account. While he didn’t have his own card to use, his mother made sure to give him a handful of twenties each week as "spending money." It seemed fair enough; the rest of his income was likely used to pay the family's many bills. The allowance he was given was generous, really, considering he got to stay in his childhood bedroom rent-free. Not that he had much choice. He'd talked briefly about moving out a few years back and his mother burst into tears almost immediately--

He was going to be thirty next year. He would broach the topic then. Probably.

He pulled off his gloves and headed towards the manager’s office. “I will be back in twenty.”

“Take your time,” Gotoh called back without turning around.

-

His feet ached, his stomach growled in hunger, and sweat covered him head to toe, but Illumi nonetheless arrived at the isolated booth at exactly the correct time to interview the only real candidate he’d been able to find for the fry position in the last twelve hours. Already the qualified stranger sat, eating a complimentary order of fries.

Illumi took a minute to catch his breath, appreciating the soft plastic cushion beneath his seat. He actually had yet to sit today. He’d just hauled an enormous bag of trash to the dumpster, alone, and he’d nearly been crushed under the weight of used paper trays and styrofoam cups as exhaustion made his arms twinge and shake. “Hello,” he said, only slightly winded. “I am Illumi Zoldyck. Manager.”

“Hello. Long day, I see,” came the low, teasing voice of--?

Illumi looked down at the paperwork he snagged. Hisoka Morow. “My day has been fine,” he said, nearly believing it. “Busy. But fine.”

“Funny,” said Hisoka. “Mine has been exactly the opposite. Slow, but terrible. I’ve never been so bored in my life. Please hire me, if only to give me something to do.”

Illumi looked up, surprised, and took in Hisoka for the first time.

He was severe-looking, but unusually handsome still, with an angular face, doll-like smooth skin, and vividly pink hair. “We do not employ cooks with unnatural hair colors.” He took his pen, slashed through Hisoka’s name, and began to stand up. “Thank you for coming in.”

“That’s no problem,” Hisoka said, holding out a hand to stop Illumi from departing too quickly. “I read the rules linked in the listing. I wouldn’t’ve come here to waste your time, I assure you. I’m happy to wear a hat.” He shrugged. “I’ll cut it, too, if you insist.”

Illumi narrowed his eyes at Hisoka, giving him another once-over. He was clean-shaven--and clean in general, which counted in his favor. In fact, as Illumi lowered back into his seat, he realized Hisoka smelled very good. Fresh, warm, and a little sweet. It was a subtle scent--he’d not bathed in cologne like some interviewees of the past. “Very well. Your resume says you have extensive experience on the line at Revere.”

“An understatement made purely for legal reasons,” Hisoka said. “I was the sous.”

Illumi slowly lowered his pen to the paper, glaring at Hisoka in complete disbelief.

“It’s true,” said Hisoka. “I’m not allowed to include it in my credentials because of some, hm… issues with the chef there.”

Illumi tilted his head in thought. “Chrollo Lucilfer.”

“Oh, you know him.”

“K City is not that big. I know all the restaurateurs. They are our competitors.”

Hisoka laughed, and loudly. 

Illumi bristled and said, “I do not know what is so funny.”

“The idea of corporate--industrial--large scale fast food fried chicken considering itself in competition against one of the most elite Italian fine dining restaurants in the country is--” Hisoka’s smile turned catty. Sharp. “Quite unfair. It has a Michelin Star.”

Illumi was silent, mostly in shock, for a moment. And then he said, coolly, “Our business serves an average of 2,491 customers per day and earns upwards of eight million dollars per year. At this location alone.” Illumi tapped Hisoka’s resume with the end of his pen. “By my estimations, Revere earned a profit of under 1.2 million last year, and is slated for even less by the end of this one, and Lucilfer works in his kitchen every single night, 365 days per year, and has done so for thirty months so far. If you add the other stores in our portfolio, the Zoldyck business nets profit at almost ten million total without my father ever having to step foot inside these four walls. And we’re closed on Sundays.”

Hisoka blinked in a way that made it apparent he was tallying the numbers Illumi just shared. “You’ve done your research.”

Illumi continued, undisturbed, “You are right. It is rather unfair for me to compare Chick-Fil-A to Revere. We are not in competition.”

Hisoka slowly sank in his seat, a smirk growing on his face. He placed his chin into his hand and glanced Illumi up and down, as if reading the blue-striped polo uniform. “Interesting. Tell me--are you forced to wear the khakis, or is that something you’ve opted to do for yourself?”

Illumi stood up and wasn’t interrupted this time. He ripped the resume in two as he backed away from the table, words like ice. “This interview is over. You will not be offered the position. Thank you for your time.”

Hisoka called after him, voice a suggestive purr, “My pleasure, Illumi.”

-

Illumi stood in the doorway of his room, staring. Numb. The smell of burnt oil, of salt, of car exhaust lingered in his hair, under his nails; permeating him so entirely that he felt inhuman. He was, instead, a piece of sentient furniture from Chick-Fil-A. And he was so tired that he contemplated skipping the shower just to pass out (and clean his sheets the next day). 

But there was a problem with that plan. With any plan.

His door was gone.

“You’re going to stand there for how long, exactly?” said Milluki, his younger brother. Second oldest of the kids. Manager of the Byren neighborhood Chick-Fil-A--an under-performing, but still meticulously maintained, store. “You’re gonna have to go talk to them eventually.”

“You say, ‘them.’” Illumi turned to look at Milluki, all too aware that his dark circles and pale-sweaty skin made him look nearly sick. He had been awake for close to twenty two hours and pulled a double shift. “Mother and father both removed the door?”

“Maybe. I heard them talking.” Milluki took a slow sip of the iced tea he’d brought home from the shop. “Said they were mad you didn’t already have a replacement fry cook, or something.” He shrugged. “Really, they’re just mad about Killua, but he’s not here to be mad at.”

Illumi looked at his empty doorway. Half a hinge hung off the corner, bent from when his father must have wrenched the door away earlier. This wasn’t a rare punishment in their household. If a child behaved poorly, they got their door taken away. No privacy, at least until they served time for their crime. “I am to be punished for not posting a listing, finding a replacement, and placing him on the schedule by closing time.”

“Sounds like it,” said Milluki. “You really couldn’t find someone?”

Hisoka’s hot pink hair flashed in his mind, and then his feline smile, and his--wait, what color were his eyes? Illumi couldn’t recall. Eventually, he said,  “No.”

“I don’t think you’re gonna have a door until you hire the role. Or until Killua comes back.”

Illumi took a deep, steadying breath, and headed to his parents’ bedroom to listen to their complaints. And while his father berated him, shouting insults about his lack of focus--his patience being mistaken for fear--his affection for his staff being mistaken for condescension--his beautiful appearance being mistaken for vanity--

Illumi stared at his door, propped up on the far wall of his parents’ bedroom. It covered one of their windows, but they had several more in this wing of the fancy “McMansion” they had built after Illumi was born. 

“I won’t stand for your distraction,” Silva said with an air of finality. “Today’s failure is about your attraction to men. Isn’t it?”

Illumi blinked wide-eyed at his father. “I am sorry?”

“You’re gay, aren’t you?” his mother asked from the bed where she was tucked beneath the covers. “We’ve been discussing it. You’ve never liked a girl. Not ever. It’s because you’re gay.”

“And now your preferences are getting in the way of your judgment.”

This was so far out of left field that it took Illumi a moment to gather himself enough to say, “I am not gay.”

“Don’t you lie to me.”

“I am not,” he repeated. “I simply have not had time to pursue a relationship.”

His father threw his hands into the air, exasperated. “Oh, so now it’s my fault you’ve never gotten laid. I’m a monster, giving you a good job, at a good establishment, making good food. Yes, I’m a fucking nightmare parent.” He pointed one large, well-manicured finger into Illumi’s face, and hissed, “You have no idea how lucky you are that you were born into this family. That your whole life has been served to you on a silver fucking platter.”

“I know,” Illumi said. “I am very grateful.”

“So don’t bullshit me on your utter lack of a social life.”

Illumi looked over at his mother and saw her flexing her jaw impatiently. Eventually, the connection between today’s failures and his sexual preferences bloomed, fully-formed, in his mind. “Oh. This is because Killua moved in with his best friend.” Pause. “His gay, male best friend.”

“No. This is about you,” Silva said.

“You are wondering about all of your children, now. Whether or not we’re also gay. Did you inquire with Milluki?”

“Milluki has a girlfriend,” his mother said, shrilly. “Online. He’s our only son that we know, for certain, isn’t queer.”

She wasn’t using the word the proper way, Illumi thought. It wasn’t a reclaimed term representing a community of different people. She meant it as an insult. “I do not have time to date,” Illumi repeated. And immediately amended, “I have not made time.”

“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Silva said, stalking closer. “If you ever bring a man anywhere close to this house, you’ll lose more than your door. Do you understand?”

Illumi lowered his head. “Yessir.”

“And hire a fucking fry cook by the end of the week. Don’t make me ask again.”

-

Inside the kitchen, a timer chimed from above and below. The roar of voices--chatting, taking orders, requesting items--pressed in from all sides. Distantly, two car horns honked.

Illumi pulled the fry basket and dumped the cooked chicken into the container and hissed as a splatter of hot grease grabbed him around the wrist. The handle to the fryer slipped from his fingers and clattered to the brown tiled floor, hand spasming in pain.

Another timer. More voices. Another honk.

“Mr. Zoldyck? Hey--Mr. Zoldyck?” He ignored the burning, pulsing pain and kneeled down to scoop the handle from beneath the cabinet where it’d slid away. “Illumi!”

He stood up, hair falling free of its net, and came face-to-face with Amane. “Yes.”

“We’ve got a complaint. She wants to speak with the manager.”

Illumi looked at the fryer, the alarm continuing to chime. “It will be a minute--”

“She’s throwing quite the fit, sir--”

There was a loud clatter--the sound of a tray hitting the tiled floors in the dining room--and an ear-piercing scream that Illumi knew, as the eldest of five children, belonged to an infant. 

Amane reached out to take the fryer basket handle. “I’ll take care of the food. Go ahead.”

Illumi shook his head to clear it--he felt dazed, still. Foggy from a lack of decent sleep. The real issue with not having a door was that his enormous family’s sleep schedules all varied, so he was shocked awake only an hour or two after he finally was able to fall asleep last night.

“Mr. Zoldyck, your hair--” Amane said.

Illumi reached up and found the hair net caught around his left ear. He tugged it free and threw it, and his gloves, in the trash. He strode through the kitchen, to the dining room, and was able to find the offending woman very easily. 

“It’s an allergy!” she shrieked. “An allergy! I told you she had an allergy and now my child has puked, and if you fucking retards think I’m cleaning that up, you have another thing coming!”

The infant, Illumi noticed, was wailing alone several feet away. Red-faced and trembling in her little red mary janes. "Mamamama," she sobbed.

Illumi approached the woman with one hand outstretched, directing her away from the cashiers. “I am very, very sorry for your experience.”

The mother's rant stopped as she found herself surrounded by Illumi’s tall, unusual presence. “What?”

Without missing a beat, Illumi also managed to scoop the child up, off the floor, and into his embrace. She was small enough that he could hold her with one arm. Her child’s shrieking stopped--almost immediately. The tension inside the restaurant broke, finally. Several patrons breathed out in relief.

Illumi patted the baby sweetly upon her leg and she stared at him with a wet face, frozen in childlike awe. She sniffed and Illumi produced a napkin--branded, of course, with the iconic chicken silhouette--and wiped her nose with the practiced ease of a five-time big-brother. He said to her mom, “I will comp your meal while you have a seat.” He gestured to the only available booth, walked her there, and handed the child into her arms. 

“Well, I’m not cleaning that mess.” The woman stiffly pointed to a watery pile of debris that had already been blocked off by a caution sign. 

“We would not expect you to,” Illumi said.

“Oh. Well. Good.”

While the restaurant went back to normal, Illumi felt truly exhausted. “In addition to your refund, you have received a ban. We will take your image from security footage and if you enter this establishment again, you will be escorted out. And if necessary, I will press charges for trespassing.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are not allowed to call my employees fucking retards without consequence.” He looked at her daughter. “Your baby is welcome whenever she would like--as soon as she is old enough to come without you.”

He escorted her to her bright red SUV and when she sarcastically said, “Thanks a lot,” he responded very sincerely in return.

“My pleasure.”

-

His back twinged in pain as he sat in the manager’s seat in the office--closet, really, with a desk--and scrolled through security footage to find a clear image of the newly banned patron. He found her, easily--and something else he hadn’t been looking for.

A flash of hot pink hair, a fanged grin, and a handshake.

With Gotoh?

Illumi watched as Hisoka walked with Gotoh out the far side door of the restaurant. He took a deep breath, printed off the saved image of the woman, and stormed out to the parking lot where Gotoh parked every day.

He sat in the front seat, sipping a shake, tapping away at his iPhone. He didn’t even notice Illumi until he opened the passenger side door and said, “Why were you meeting with Hisoka Morow during your lunch, Gotoh.”

Gotoh jumped in surprise and relaxed immediately when he realized it was Illumi bursting into his car. He placed the shake into his cup holder and gestured for Illumi to sit. “It was a request from your father. You know him?”

“He was the candidate I interviewed yesterday. And rejected.”

Gotoh’s face turned grave. “I had no idea.”

“And you met with him because my father said to do so.”

“He didn’t say you’d already interviewed him. He just said it was the only qualified candidate our location received and that I should court him--do whatever it took to get him on board--so I did.”

“Do whatever,” Illumi echoed. “And what does this mean.”

“He can keep his pink hair, as long as it’s under a hat, and he’s starting at twenty per hour. He also requested to work your same shifts, which I told him would be no problem, since you’re here every day. He begins tomorrow morning.” Gotoh lifted his phone. “Should I call and fire him?”

Yes, Illumi almost said. He frowned in thought. “You did not find him to be an unattractive candidate?” Gotoh seemed to relax, marginally, and Illumi realized he had been speaking clipped--angrily--before. He had an intensity about himself, he knew. He’d been told many times that his ‘vibes’ were, occasionally, ‘haunting.’ (Amane’s exact words.) Illumi softened a bit as he said, “I am sorry. I thought, briefly, that you were working for the enemy.”

Gotoh gave Illumi a thin-lipped smile. “I’m loyal to the last. If I’d known this was the same guy, I would have pretended to not have seen your father’s text about it.”

“You found Hisoka to be an acceptable candidate?” he leaned forward in the seat. “I found him to be abrasive, hostile, and ignorant about the industry.”

Gotoh clicked his tongue. “My impression is quite different. He seems too qualified, if anything. He’s definitely weird, but that’s why he’s gonna be in the back.”

“He did not like me,” Illumi said. “I do not think he will respect me as manager.”

Gotoh’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Again--my impression is…different.”

“Explain.”

“That was one of his stipulations, I said. He will only work shifts with you.”

“Why?”

“He has aspirations to run a restaurant of his own one day, he said. He wanted to learn from the Zoldycks themselves. I figured you’d enjoy having another employee with bigger aspirations within the company--when you’ll likely graduate to regional manager next month, you’ll need good minds here.” Gotoh rocked his phone back and forth midair. “But we can tell him ‘nevermind'. I’ll call him now.”

“No. It is fine.”

Gotoh hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Alright. Well, your shift is over, Lumi. You want me to drive you home?”

Illumi shook his head. “I need the walk.”

Gotoh scoffed. “Do you? You’ve been up since, what, five? It’s nearly three in the afternoon.”

No. He was very tired. Illumi gave Gotoh a small, slightly strained, smile. “Thank you, Gotoh. I will enjoy the walk. See you tomorrow morning.”

“Along with Hisoka,” said Gotoh.

Illumi left the car and ignored the way his back twinged, yet again.

[hourcat]

alonso+stroll. no.9. YOU GOTTA 😹 ( i mean you dont but i saw you saying sth so if u wanna practice i gotcha babe) 🩷

9: one night stand but the next morning you learn it's your CEO's kid

In hindsight, Fernando realizes it probably wasn't the best decision to take the kid home from the bar. Nothing good happens in Manhattan on a Thursday after 11pm, and especially not when the next day involves a quarterly presentation that his team has been scrambling to put together for months, now. If he were smarter, maybe he'd have called it a night after the last toast with his analysts. Hell, maybe he wouldn't have shown up at all.

The thing is, right after their row of chairs at the bar had cleared, Fernando had turned to look for one of the senior leadership teams and ended up with a face full of unidentifiable blazer--which had, of course, ended up being Lance. Lance, who'd apologized and introduced himself blandly but with a glint in his eye. Lance, who'd offered to buy Fernando a drink with a dark, raised brow that'd been urging him on.

Lance, who's now dragging him to the too-small bathroom at the back of the bar like his life depends on it. Fernando is far too many drinks in to protest such a blessing, this stranger and his big hands pawing at his belt like a desperate puppy: he'll just have to roll with it instead. "Easy," he chuckles, voice sounding distant to his own ears, "easy, princesa, this is my nicest suit." It's not, really, but Lance doesn't need to know that. They have to slow it down or he's going to make a mess of--well, of himself. It's been a long time since he hooked up with someone like this in a bathroom of all places. He's not 27 anymore.

"Really?" His companion's voice is breathy but clearly disbelieving, both brows now arched at his words. "It's not that nice." Fernando is too drunk to be immediately irritated, which works in his favor, because in a beat Lance's face breaks into a shit-eating grin, head thunking back against the stall carelessly, like he knows what he's doing. "I've wiped my ass with nicer."

Such an asshole. Fernando huffs a half-formed laugh, then thwacks his arm heavily into Lance's chest, knocking a little uff from him. "You talk too much," he counters, forcing his weight into Lance a little more. The low groan of approval he gets in return just makes him put a little more effort into it. "What, is playing with daddy's money not enough for you?" The younger man's eyes seem to glaze over at his tone. "You want to see what it is like to do real work, hm, is that it." Fernando's not going to bother trying to make this work here and now--he's going to drag this rich pretty boy back to his apartment on 57th Street, and he's going to fuck all this haughty, smug energy right out of him.

Lance goes easily, and the night passes all too quickly. The mess left behind when he scrabbles for his now-filthy blazer and all but disappears from Fernando's place before dawn is the only proof he'd ever been there in the first place. It's probably for the better, anyway: he's now working against the clock to put himself together and keep all of his Q4 talking points in relative order instead of think about the noises he'd ripped from that stranger sharing his bed all night.

He's going to secure that end-of-year bonus for his team the moment he walks through the conference room doors--

of course, that's before he sees Lance sitting in that same now-clean blazer at the end of the table, seated next to Fernando's CEO and picking at his nails uninterestedly.

Side by side, the resemblance is uncanny.

"Oh, fuck."

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hello,

I need help. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe I need someone to tell me to stop worrying? Oh let’s be honest I have no idea what I need, that’s why I’m writing in.

See, I have a perfectly ordinary job during the week. I work in an office. It’s nice. Spreadsheets, cake on birthdays, quarterlies. It’s a boring existence but my afternoons and evenings are my own and the pay’s good. Sapio-Liminal relations are improving, but by bit. Honestly I’m just impressed my coworker got the time off when they wound up expecting in two of their three dimensional shifts.

So that’s during the week and you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m just about the most sapio a sapio can be. My liminal properties tend to activate on Friday afternoons, when I- travel.

Teleport?

Move. I move. To the same general area of a whole new plane of existence. It’s a known family trait- I’ve got a grandfather who became king of a small nation in my secondary plane, and my sister’s the apothecary for the capital city. She sells the really good potions, by the way, so if you’re in the area of Spirits and Sundries or someone gives you a radiant quest to bring ingredients to Amaranthia in the Bronze Quarter, just be polite and she’ll fix you right up.

Ah, but this isn’t about my sister’s business, it’s about me and what I do. See, this shift is so regular that I went and got myself a weekend job, just to have something to do. So if you’re sent to the Caves of Madness just north of the Foresaken Forest, be ready for the Riddle Master!

I’m in the first room of the dungeon, just after you pass the initial key puzzle. I keep my uniform in a chest in there, and there’ s a nice break room off the back. I like the work a lot! I see lots of new people and I’m always gathering riddles- there are some chat standards but I like to mix it up sometimes. They aren’t supposed to be hard, or else what’s the point of trying to conquer a dungeon? So sometimes, I admit, I give hints. There’s always the rude adventurer who attacks me first but when you take a job like this you don’t die, it’s in the fine print. I don’t like cleaning the blood off my stuff, though. Takes ages.

Anyway now that we’ve walked halfway around the block, my point.

I look very plain. Humanoid, two arms, two legs, a beard. It’s never bothered me but I am very distinctly ordinary which tends to be recognizable and last weekend I was in the village during my break and I saw a coworker. Not from this side, not from the Caves of Madness, no. It was Tina, from accounting. She was picking up a quest by the stocks.

And I realized, she might wind up at the Caves of Madness. She might make it through the puzzle door and be faced with the Riddle Master only to realize this Riddle Master is Jeff. From the office.

I don’t have hangups about my two worlds meeting- it’s hard to, when your sister pops in for Christmas still dressed for the Winterscratch Festival, or your brother’s filing out taxes for a whole kingdom over lunch. I just really like my job in the Caves, and I like to think I do it well. Our rating as a starter dungeon’s quite high, and I’m proud of that. What if my transdimensional adventurer coworkers encounter me and just- aren’t impressed? That’s not the Riddle Master, that’s Jeff. He has a rubber band launcher on his desk. His mug says ‘party naked’ with a balding chicken on it and he won’t let HR throw it away.

I don’t want to disappoint adventurers, especially not ones who work with me in my primary plane. I also don’t want to cause harm to my dungeon’s reputation. But aside from the whole ‘moving planes’ thing I am utterly dull. What do I do if my performance isn’t enough to make up for not being fantastical like Mordrath the end room boss or Reyala the sidequest kobold queen?

Is it okay to just be Jeff the Riddle Master?

Thank you for writing in, reader. Your letter serves as an excellent example of quite a common genre of letter we get through the inbox here at the Nightfolk Network and I think it might be rather illustrative for other followers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what you've done here is make up a scenario in your head based on the worst possible interpretations of everyone involved, and then worried yourself sick about that scenario coming to pass.

This may sound a little blunt, but please understand, I don't mean that dismissively. I only hope to offer you a little perspective, and to help you come to a more accurate understanding of the situation as it actually stands.

You enjoy your work in the dungeon, and are clearly doing a good enough job to keep your managers happy. None of your previous visitors have expressed any disappointment at your relatively mundane appearance, and it hasn't been an obstacle in the job so far.

Perhaps your co-worker will end up in your dungeon. Perhaps she'll make it to your section, and perhaps she'll recognise you. So what? I don't see any reason why she should be any more likely to be disappointed by you than any of your other visitors.

And even if she is disappointed, that doesn't have to mean anything to you. She's a co-worker, not a treasured friend whose opinion could make or break your self-esteem. You owe it to her to be a conscientious, respectful colleague. That's all. What you get up to outside of work, and whether she enjoys your efforts, is irrelevant.

You haven't let down your dungeon so far, and I see no reason to believe you will in the future. Stop borrowing trouble from the future, and concentrate on having fun and being the same old Jeff the Riddle Master you've always been. He seems plenty interesting to me.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[songoftrillium]

So how would the concept of lifting the Veil fly with the Garous in WtE.

Like I suspect that some wolves in the Eastern Concordat and maybe the Glass walkers has shopped the idea around the tribe since if people knew that Pentex stuffs pollution demons into they products then it won't look good for they quarterly report to say the least...

Of this idea would probably get shot down by leadership Espically the shadow lords since presumably they still take they task of preserving the Veil very seriously. And the glass walkers would probably just try to quash that idea since they position in the Western Concordat is tenuous as is. They don't want some young pups brain worm to make thing worse.

I'd say it's a complicated matter, but not much moreso than prior editions. There are certain circumstances wherein the veil is lifted in particular regions a la the Rend the Veil rite. In cases like that, its more a situation of extreme conflict where public exposure is entirely unavoidable. Though, I don't think that's what you're asking. A short answer I have is that there would likely be a development of Kinfolk Fellowships that are wholly disconnected from Garou Septs, wherein those belonging to the community pattern themselves after the behaviors of other Kinfolk.

The question I'm gonna answer here is "What does Gaian society look like to a Kinfolk?"

I think examining that will make much more apparent what a non-Gaian "lifting of the veil" may resemble. There are, by and large, two kinds of Kinfolk that exist: kenning and callow. A kenning Kinfolk is one that grows up aware of their Gaian heritage and their connection to Gaia and belong to fellowships that espouse their tribal beliefs while (in the western concordat) largely kept at the periphery of Septs and Caerns, interacting with other Garou only for specific occasions (beyond your typical family function.) Callow Kinfolk are those who grow up without any awareness of their connection, and only when they experience their First Change do they become aware of their nature. Depending on locale or upbringing, every tribe has at least a few callow among them.

In cases of kenning however, they have to exist at the periphery of Garou Society, if nothing else for the constant danger many Garou find themselves in. All the same, if a kenning kinfolk undergoes their first change, they already know the Garou Tongue, live up strongly to their auspice, and largely already kinda know where they stand on the affairs of the Gaian Realm (material world.) So, what does lifting the veil look like to an insular Eastern Concordat society?

Lets start with the basics. A Gaian has to live a spiritually clean lifestyle. The things they eat, the manner in which they're prepared, the holidays they participate in, and the manner in which they participate, will reflect their cultural background but will be oriented towards regularly participating in what amount to regular cleansing rituals. Other things would likely be incorporated as well, such as orienting ceremonies and rituals in such a way that function like practical chiminage that draw protective spirits into a space (even if the mortals arent entirely aware of it.) The fact of a human being tainted doesn't mean they are evil, so much as open to possession and corruption by banes. Cleansing a populace makes them immune to possession, so changing society at the community level can make enormous strides towards reducing the number of fomori in the world. I could see parallels to a Halal or Kosher aspect of societies to inspire ideas there. Basically where the rest of the world fails them, they have to make up for it in their own communities. The Codes and Creeds of renown could form the foundation of such non-Gaian fellowships:

Glory Creed

I shall be valorous

I shall be dependable

I shall be generous

I shall protect the weak

Code of Honor

I shall be respectful

I shall be loyal

I shall be just

I shall live by my word

Creed of Wisdom

I shall be calm

I shall be prudent

I shall be merciful

I shall think before I act and listen before I think

Think about what such a society would look like in your own locale. They'd be groups that invest heavily in their communities, espousing ideals of altruism and the betterment of society. Add in a moon-based horoscope and you have the bones of what comes to mind for me. It's important to remember that many basal human emotions feed into the Urge Wyrms that lead the war of Apocalypse. Things like Greed, Apathy, Cruelty, Despair, Hatred, and Alienation, these would be things a Gaian community would likely go to great lengths to root out in their societies. When I think of an Eastern Concordat putting in work to try to integrate humanity in with a 'back to gaia' mindset that's likely where it starts. Many of these things are universal problems everywhere, so I'd see change happening on the human and personal level, in which case the 'knowing werewolves are real' doesn't need to come up. I'd see that as degrees of ways the Eastern Concordat can work to lift the veil that don't put anyone in the front line of danger.

Thank you for asking!

My askbox is open! Feel free to ask me questions about World of Darkness meta, Storytelling, Werewolves in general, or whatever!

[bleachbleachbleach]

2025 Goals

@writerswhy made a wonderful list of goals for 2025, and invited me to make one as well. Theirs came with a really lovely moodboard graphic, which mine does not, but do feel encouraged to make a lovely moodboard as in the original, if you would like to do this, too! If you do, I'd love to read it! 🥰

Mine can be found below the cut:

Keep on spreadsheeting. I have a very elaborate spreadsheet that I run my life off of, so my primary goal is to simply keep doing that. It has categorized, tiered goals. It has color-coding. It has chore and fun banks that are organized daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annually. It is a king among spreadsheets. Majestic. Many of my goals are already incorporated (bicycling, gym, handwritten letters, etc.). So my 2025 goal is to commit to trying harder to have fewer yellows (failed tasks), even if it means just doing that thing for ten minutes that day.

Fall in Love with More Garbage Places. “Garbage places” meaning I know most people wouldn’t think they were cool or get why I love them so much, because they don’t have legible street cred. My top two for 2024 are definitely East Harbor State Park in Ohio and the Horseheads Mall. WHAT A MALL.

Hold Space for Organizing. My organizing is against migrant detention/deportation and the carceral state, and I live in the United States, so LOLLLL. 2025!!!! As it stands, the need already far outstrips any space you can give, often on a schedule my calendar-loving self does not prefer, so I should block out more/extra ahead of time. (ON THE SPREADSHEET.)

Give up cooking meat? I’m really bad at cooking meat, anyway, so this is no great loss. I’d have to think harder about protein sources, and that’s work I don’t want to do, but dealing with waste after buying meat is also a gigantic pain. I drive my trash to the county trash place, so it's in my best interest to make sure that my trash is relatively clean and locked down tight, so that in the 4-6 months it sits outside in the trash shed, it remains something I don’t mind putting inside my car. This has made me realize how much less trash I have, and how much cleaner it is, when no meat is involved.

Read the n+1 Books. I received 10 book recommendations from the n+1 BookMatch quiz I posted about a few weeks ago, so I’d like to try to read all of those!

Post 1 Million Words to AO3. This is a fairly artificial milestone, in that it’s not a marker of all the fanfic I’ve ever written, nor is it all the fanfic I’ve written since I made my AO3 account. But as an odometer reading, it’s still pretty cool. I also think that achieving this should not be terribly difficult, as I’ve already written most of the words that would get me there, as long as I commit to posting them before the end of 2025.

Enjoy fandom more. I want to be able to make friends and have conversations with them, and feel like I’m genuinely participating in something. Which does happen! just not in a proportion I would prefer, having now collected qualitative data about this over the past 6 months. Mostly, I think, “All right, how lonely am I willing to feel TODAY!” and then do it, and feel lonely. Because I like Bleach that much, I guess!!! and because I would still like to feel community around that. I don’t know what striving for this would mean, practically (unfortunately, we're going to post what we're going to post)—sending more asks? replying to tags? being here more? being here less? I want to feel like a human person who is being perceived as a human person interacting with other human people.

[princetofbone]

Goals/Resolutions

I have. Opinions. On goals and resolutions and all those fun things. One of the greatest things in life for me is completing a goal. That said, following through with the things you promise yourself is incredibly difficult- especially if you go for big goals (which is a-okay you just gotta prep right)

Note on resolutions: Please PLEASE start doing the thing a month or two before the new year. I know it sounds dumb because it's a NEW YEAR resolution, not a November resolution, but getting into the habit of (for example) going to the gym 3x per week in November, and having slip ups in November, means that when January rolls around, it isn't new and scary, and it's way less likely that you will stop doing the goal in a week.

Note for all goals: don't aim too high- like in the previous example, I said gym 3x per week. I know so many people who decided they wanted to go to the gym every day, and then missed one day, and gave up because their streak wasn't perfect. Depending on the importance to you, I might even pick a goal way lower than what you think you can do- just so you can give yourself grace if you have an off day, or if you get sick.

Onto my method!

I'm a visual person, and I also happen to enjoy decorating paper, so I make goal sheets. I typically have three at any point in time.

My quarterly goals. I'm still in high school, so I make a goal sheet for each quarter of the school year. These are going to be your most broad goals- get >85% in all my classes - or journal 2x per week. Goals that are longer term, or goals that are not incredibly difficult, but would do a lot of good for you. Try and make these goals easy/medium. For example- I hope to journal every day for this quarter because it does me quite a bit of good, however I know that there may be days where I get tired or don't have time, so I left plenty of room for error.

Monthly goals. These can be very similar to quarterly goals, so if it wouldn't help you to have both- don't. I do this, because I like to hyperofocus some months onto specific things. I'm doing NaNoWriMo this November, and so one of my monthly goals will to be writing every day. Separating this out to months is less stressful for me, because I can push through one months, but pushing through three is an awful lot.

The most important for me- Weekly goal sheets. I don't include weekends into these, and they are typically very focused on issues I'm having in that moment. I was finding myself skipping a lot of class, so a weekly goal was to go to every class I had. The weekly goal sheets allow you to focus in on issues you're having, and help push you towards achieving your quarterly/monthly goals.

The thing that allows all these sheets and rules and nonsense to work is a rewards system. As I'm making my sheets, I write in things I can do if I complete my goals. For the weekly goals, I will allow a trip to my fav tea shop, or organizing an event with friends. I try pretty hard not to make the reward buying something because that feels icky to me.

Monthly goals, I generally attatch a reward that could be read as a chore. For example, one of my goals this month is to read before bed three times a week. If I do that, I can clean out my bookshelves and get rud of books. This may not seem like a reward, but once I clean out my shelves, I'm allowed to buy more books, so it opens an opportunity. (without rewarding myself via consumerism)

Quarterly rewards are the most exciting (for me). I have a long list of things I can afford, I want, but feel like I need a special occasion to buy. this could be a tailored vest, a pen, a new notebook. Is it consumerism based reward? Yes. Does it massively decrease my purchasing bc I only by myself "for fun" things when I complete a quarterly task? Yes. It also forces me to use self control because I

1) have to wait a while to get the thing

2) If I don't do the goal, I cannot buy.

I hope something from this helped/sparked ideas, so go, be free, make some goals!

[kvntsugi]

stella

"Realistically, just because we work hybrid and got called into work today doesn't mean you should slack off too much on your attire, Yunkyoung." My face mimicked a grimacing expression that dawned on my face. Whilst I have worked with the pink-haired girl for a few years at this point, what she did was no surprise. Especially due to the fact it's only a few people (me and literally just her) in today for some unknown reason.

The sound of a pen clicking as she leaned against my cubicle, my eyes leering back towards the dual setup monitors and resuming the clacking sounds of the keyboard typing away on excel. One column over the other and comparing quarterly data, analyzing assets of certain stocks to get the best ROI for our company.

"It's not like it matters, no? We're the only ones here besides the cleaning staff. And you seem to have everything under control - I know how you been working, Oppa." Yunkyoung's sweet voice spoke out so melodicly, they were music to my ears. Feeling her soft palms on my shoulders with an eensy bit of pressure applied that formed goosebumps in my forearms.

How could someone who seemed nonchalant seem so carefree and upbeat? If she doesn't work, then how could our tasks be done for the day? She's probably different when she's conversing with others, or even doing anything else but her job. Maybe even a nepo-baby at this point but she's so deep in the company she might as well be grandfathered in. She didn't have a CTA certification either, I'd bet money on that.

Small moves going about with her thumbs being applied down, my eyes forming crescents and feeling relaxed when slumping down into my seat - the WPM on the keyboard getting slower as my fingers didn't follow along to the thoughts in my head for the work I had to be done.

But regardless - Seo Yunkyoung. She was teh daughter of the company president, and is also my 'boss.' On paper that is, but in retrospect, I think most of the team still regards me as the head and treats me with more respect than from what I've seen from chatter and other people's circles.

"Why, what's wrong?" Her voice spoke up with her hands stopped moving in conjuction. As if it were a big surprise I stopped working since there was always some efficient routine going about. If I tell her to continue what she was doing as I felt comfortable, she might just stop talking to me and not believe me with how far out the comment was.

"No… nevermind, don't worry about it." My lips tugged out from side to side with fingers picking up the pace on the tapping.

"Alright then, report every detail to me. And we are getting another new hire in the office today as well; HR told me last week in an email and I specifically recommended you for the on-hire process.

"…Okay." Speaking out casually as I tried to ignore her.

"Also!" Yunkyoung's voice rose as she smacked my shoulder, causing me to wince out in a feigned amount of pain. "Don't go around trying to seduce her because she might be young and pretty!" My body turned out in the chair and gave her a puzzling look, head tilted off to the side and lips became agape at her ridiculous request - not that I had any plans to seduce any said new-hire. But the face she thought I would have the audacity to do such a thing.

"All men like cute and young girls, so I'm warning you in advance. She gets canned immediately if that happens." Her dainty finger pointing out at me and nearing my forehead, she was asserting her position over me when I tried to roll back in my seat to get some space between the two of us.

"Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I wouldn't be doing anything. No point in risking my career." Shrugging my shoulders out at her, unsure of why she would accuse me of such a thing. I've never once in the past three years of working here have I crossed a line with anyone.

"I'll be keeping an eye on you, so watch yourself." The pink-haired girl spoke as she walked away, not having other words to speak to me about when she was nearly across the hall and into her office. My arms crossed against my chest and leaning back against the comfort of the seat to try to get an idea of why she would suddenly speak of this. I'm already too tired to think about training someone else, and it seems like it's someone she might even know if she's making disparaging comments like this.

Would she be coming in soon? Or when exactly should I be expecting a new face in the boring slums of the office?

Still, if something bad happens. Good things are bound to happen as well, or whatever uplifting phrases are the norm nowadays. As I chipped away and widdled down my research a reminiscent sound rang out. The messenger app the office used to communicate with one another.

"The part-timer is coming up now, and I've assigned her to help with your chores for the day." Yunkyoung. Nobody else would have sent someone like that. And what chores do I have, exactly?

The sound of a shuffling pair of feet came and rang in my ears as Yunkyoung gave me a wide grin when passing by my desk, our eyes gazing at each other with her orbs forming crescents that looked all too adorable and familiar. There shouldn't be too much of an introductory party thought, right? Since it was only the two of us here?

"Ahem, excuse me!!" Yunkyoung's voice rose as time seemed to go by quickly, not realizing that she might have introduced herself already to the new girl. Unsure at her actions though as it was just us two and she could have just spoken normally instead of whatever voice she was trying to capture. "Let me introduce you to Kim Yeonhee. She'll be working in our department starting today."

My eyes peered at the new girl who sported a blonde pigtail look. Her top spoke volumes with how contrasted the color was to everything else in the office. It was a breath of fresh air but if this was how her wardrobe was - it was something I had to acclimate to. Not one to complain too much though, always a big fan of change and if someone kickstarts it I'm all for it.

Standing from my seat and giving a courtesy bow and extended my hand to the foreign girl, trying to make her feel welcome with my rugged expression and attempting my best grin out in hopes she wouldn't get frightened off.

++

"She doesn't seem too bad, right?" Yunkyoung pulled me aside during our lunch break, going to the roof to enjoy a bit of the sunlight and escape the dungeon that was our workspace. I leaned back against the railing with a coffee in hand that the gracious Yeonhee grabbed for me as I wasn't too sure what else to make her do. She didn't know any of the basics; no excel, quickbooks, or any of that sort. But hey! She was pleasant on the eyes, maybe as much as our boss was. "I picked someone who's a hard worker so you could get some rest. "

The shorter girl got closer to me and dragged me by the tie to pull me in for a chaste kiss. My arms drooped down to our sides and wrapping her small frame around my grasp, keeping her in close and forgetting what I was about to say, all thoughts went out the window as our lips became one. Despite being a polar opposite of the girl I was addicted, no matter how much complaining and whining I would do. It all came down to this in the end and I have no regrets.

My motivation to work slowly declined and vanished into the air, her lips was so intoxicating. She was so… aimlessly flirty, for a girl that was an extrovert it was all but a surprise when she came to me. Or if I succumbed to her and I was twirling around her fingers. My cheekbone was getting embraced when I felt the inches lessen more between us, chest to chest with my breathing getting heavier. Running my hands up and down on her body and landed on her rear that I envisioned, it's been far too long since the last escapade I did with her. When my lips parted, her long freshly varnished nails found their way to the buttons of her shirt.

"I've noticed you checking me out, silly. Don't play dumb." She spoke with utter confidence with how it oozed out of her voice. She continued to smirk at me while undressing her shirt until the last button was undone.

My hands going up like she was an officer and I was trying not to be guilty of my crime. "My bad, and I thought I was being discreet." A toothy grin came about from me, making the girl giggle at my response. She put both of her hands to my jaw and pulled myself in for another kiss - longer this time. My eyes fluttered to a close to let the darkness envelop over me and hearing the sounds of lip-locking and having the wind be an adlib to the music that drew to my ears. The plastic cup of coffee fell to the floor beneath us and my hands found it's way towards her back, finding the clasp of her bra and un-doing it. Her bosoms weren't the biggest, but they were perfect for her stature. And in general, she was absolutely divine and sculpted so beautifully.

My hands immediately went towards her chest and cupped them from the underside, massaging them in a circular motion but both in different directions from one another, feeling her perky nipples spring against the palm of my hand as I couldn't take my eyes off her face and how it contorted when getting played with. Her nipples kept rising in time with my loving touches, tensing and becoming utterly stiff, and they were begging to get licked and sucked on.

Her hands reached to the back of my head, which I took as an open invitation. With an open mouth, feeling the insides of it begin to drool and seep out, having to gulp down a small pool of saliva that formed in the pit of my mouth and throwing my face between the peaks of her chest. They were a delight for me - and any man in general. Taking a deep breath and inhaling her scent, feeling her body and humming out gleefully at the mixture of perfume residue and sweat that built up.

My wet tongue embraced the soft and stiff nipple, making a diligent attempt to suck it off. But it was still stuck no matter how hard and long I sucked that little meat marshmallow. Letting out moans against her supple skin and feeling it reverberate out and showcasing how much I enjoyed it. Her moans were stifled out by the fact she didn't want to be all too loud. Not wanting the newcomer nor the public to hear how ratchet she could become as they were still in the eyes of the public - if one were to look up at spot them that was.

Making a trail of kisses from the middle of her chest and stopping right below her belly button. My hands following right along and hiking up her tight skirt and using a bit of elbow grease to fully cup them above her waist.

"No panties today, Yunky?" A curious brow raised up from me and slipping my dominant hand between her inner thighs and discovering the forbidden secret that now only us two know.

"Hehe, oops. Might have forgotten to put a pair on today!" Her words were feeble and ineffective, but she spoke out in such a bright, girlish voice that made her seem like a naive, innocent girl. This sort of acting made me fall more her and just shrugging my body in a non-caring manner.

Taking a glance down between her thick thighs and noticing the girl was sporting a beautiful and clean-shaven pussy. Her lower lips were small and thin but still distinct enough to realize that it was her curved shape. How healthy and pink it was and… well soaked? After a caring caressing of her bosoms. Everything was easily spotted enough and picking out apart from one another.

Yunkyoung was my own oasis. Maybe my personal one with how things were being drawn out. Dipping my head in deeper down and slurped up more of the pink-haired girl's sweet juices - as much as I could. Playing with her clit and flaps with my decadent tongue. My wet muscle was doing a fabulous job (or so I thought, with how many moans she slipped out and grabbed onto my hair.) Her pussy tasted to divine, so heavenly and never wanting to leave, but I was on a limit. Lunch time was almost over and we couldn't spend the full allotted time doing this when there was a newbie on the insides. It was too unfortunate that he couldn't fill her insides with white, but there should be another time when they handle the rest of this.

Making small kisses on the innards of her thighs and sliding my tongue against her skin. SMall purple marks on her white skin to let her know who was just there. Maybe even Yeonhee could spot it if she was diligent enough to notice any differences.

"Why -- why'd you stop?" Yunky's voice got so whiny as I pulled my body up, my legs felt wobbly from standing on my heels for the past half hour and needing to get the blood pumping in them again before they slept on themselves.

"Yeonhee's gonna start searching the office and realize we left and came back together if she's smart enough." Rolling the cuffs on my sleeves up and wiping any lingering liquids on my mouth before gazing down at her. Seeing what a disheveled mess she was and buttoning up her blouse one by one, making sure to leave her bra behind as a treat for me when we get back to the daily tasks at hand.

"Besides, knowing you, you might need some time to doll yourself up again so I might just head back down first so it doesn't look too suspicious to her." My body slumped down to grab the littered cup of coffee that was previously on the floor, walking on over to the trash bin, and turning around to spot the girl one final time in her state. Seeing how she was looking at herself in the camera on her phone she had those worries to think about now before finally heading back over to my desk.

Stepping back into the fray of things and seeing Yeonhee diligently work on her tasks I gave out to her before the break, seeing how she might have just ignored her lunch in itself to try to get an inkling better at the job.

"Alright, Yeonhee." Making sure my voice was loud and clear as I stood above her cubicle. Just thinking about this got my head hurting already and I can't seem to communicate properly. My hand going up to my forehead to try to wane off any of the pain. Yunkyoung did mention that she picked up a hard worker to help with my work. All Yeonhee has to do is work hard.

"So what do you know how to do? You don't know any of the basic office programs on your computer, you can't make paper copies…" With each thing I listed out, she shook her head, hands on her lap with her pleading eyes looking up at me. Why did Yunky choose her - or the company in general? Surely this isn't another case of some family problem going on…

"Wow… this is why young children -"

"You're saying boomer stuff now." My head whipped over to the girl with a shocked expression, eyes widening at her words with her hands covering up her lips. "Oops."