#just kind of an alternative scene I guess? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

planetaryupscaled · 6 months ago

Text

Summer Fun

Male Reader x Yeji x Yuna

Tags: 8k, cheating, oral, one-shot

The story is not ours, we alternate the original story to match our desired settings.

“On my way. Almost there,” I texted Yuna as I drove my car up into the Grand Josun.

“Cool. Out back by the pool,” she replied.

It was a hot Saturday in Busan. Yuna and I had been texting each other back and forth for several weeks when she texted me this morning, inviting me to a pool party at her friend’s place. While Yuna and I had run into each other in the past, this would be the first time the two of us will have ever really hung out, and what kinda guy would turn down an opportunity to hang out with bikini clad Yuna?

I knew I was close to the house by the number of cars lining along the sides of the street. I picked a place to park and walked the rest of the way to the house. I could hear the sound of music and voices of people from a few houses away. Once at the house, the door was open and I walked right in. There were a number of people I knew, or had seen at other parties, along with a number of famous celebs. If I had not been on a mission to meet Yuna, I might have been distracted by Lia as I passed her in the kitchen, looking like she had just come from the pool in a bikini. I did say a hello to a few people as I made my way outside. Once out by the pool, it did not take me long to spot Yuna, looking like a teenage boy’s wet dream as she laid on a lounge chair in a red bikini.

“Hey Yuna,” I said as I approach her. Unsure the best way to greet her, I simply sat down on the lounge chair next to her.

“Minho, you made it,” she said sounding happy I had arrived.

“If I knew you were going to be dressed like that, I would have come sooner,” I flirted.

“What? this? It’s just a bathing suit, no big deal,” she said modestly, and then added, “plus it’s never good to come too soon.”

“Touché,” I replied, happy to see her flirt back with a double entendre.

We spoke for a little while, it was hot day, so I took off my shirt and asked to borrow her sun screen. I was left in just my bathing suit and sneakers, still sitting upright as she continued to lounge. At one point I got up and got us some drinks and some waters, before returning to talk so more. Occasionally others would come by and sit with us, but for the most part the two of us were left alone.

“I was a little surprised when you first texted me. I had been trying to get Yeji to give me your number for a while.”

“Oh really? She never mentioned that when she was trying to palm you off on me.”

“She palmed me off?” I said surprised.

“Kind of,” Yuna said.

“If it means I get to hang with you, I guess it worked out for me. But why would she do that.”

“I mean, are you that surprised?” She asked.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, she does have a boyfriend, and after what happened the last time you two hung out together…” she trailed off.

“She told you about that?” I asked and Yuna nodded with big smile.

*Flashback

A group of friends had rented out a house in Busan. Since most people in the group were taking a significant other or had a regular fuck buddy in the group, and I was going as a single, I had been assigned the bedroom with two beds in it. My roommate for the long weekend was going to be Yeji, whose boyfriend was back in Itaewon. Yeji and I have had a number of mutual friends for several years, but it was not until she did her time filming MV for their next album that we started becoming friends, hanging out on set between scenes. I’d never left any ambiguity in my attraction toward her. I would flirt with her from time to time which she would often laugh off, and sometimes would even flirt back a bit, but she never asked me to stop. While it was clear she was not going to cross any line while she had a boyfriend, she also seemed to enjoy the attention I gave her. Which made my room assignment both a blessing and a curse. Staying in a room with the woman in the group I most lusted after, while also knowing that nothing was going to happen.

The first night there everything went fine and without any incidents. The next day the group of us went out on a boat for the day. As the day went on, we started drinking. While Yeji came onto the boat in jean shorts and a tied-off button-up shirt, as the day got hotter, she eventually stripped down to just her bikini. After that, I could not help but be flirty with her. She was even more receptive than usual and started flirting back with me. Even some of our friends noticed the way she seemed to be flirting back with me. Still, nothing happened between us, even as some of the couples began pairing off a bit and there was some on-and-off making out around the boat.

When we all got back to the house, everyone separated to wash off the lake water and get ready for dinner. The bathroom Yeji and I had in the house was a Jack and Jill bathroom, so we let our friends take the indoor bathroom and we volunteered to take the outdoor shower. After going inside to get some soap and towels, Yeji and I went outside. I told her she could go first, but then she suggested we share the shower since we were just rinsing off, and not going to strip down. I hesitated for a moment, mainly out of surprise of her suggestion, but I agreed. The outdoor shower didn’t have a door to it, but it did have 7ft wooden walls on three sides to help offer some privacy, but it also made it so we had to stand pretty closely together. We shared the soap and rotated being under the spray of water until Yeji was under the spray with her back to the shower head. She dipped her head back and let the water rain down on her face and hair. When she raised her head back up and opened her eyes back up, the two of us found ourselves locking eyes. It was unclear who made the first move, but suddenly, I had a firm grip on Yeji’s ass and her back was pressed up against the wall, as our lips were locked and she was sliding her tongue into my mouth.

We only made out for five minutes at most before we were snapped back to reality by the sound of friends coming out the back door to get the grill started. While it was only a few minutes, our kissing was so intense that at the moment we stop, Yeji had begun wrapping one of her long legs around mine, and I had a hand on the clasp of her bikini top. Once the realization of what happened set in, Yeji quickly got out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and went inside. I stayed in the shower and tried to let my arousal cool down before toweling off and heading over to the grill, giving Yeji some time and space to change before I headed to our room.

Yeji kept her distance from me the rest of the night. Sitting on the other end of the table from me as we ate. Then sitting on the other side of the room from me as we all played Cards and watched a movie. As the night went on, people began going to their bedrooms two by two until it was just Yeji and I left in the living room. We eventually figured we might as well go to be as well. Our bedroom was the bedroom at the end of the hallway upstairs. After the events in the shower, things began feeling even more awkward between us as we walked down the hallway with the echoes of sex noises from each bedroom door we passed. Yeji went into the bathroom and changes into her sleepwear, some short cotton shorts and a gray t-shirt. I quickly changed into some gym shorts and a muscle shirt. We both then climbed into our respective beds. In the quiet of the bedroom, we could hear the sounds of our friends engaging in carnal pleasure from down the hall.

“Minho, about earlier,” Yeji spoke up. “The kiss…”

“Don’t worry. It never happened,” I reassured her.

“But it did though.”

“It did, and I was great, but as far as anyone else is concerned it never happened.”

“So, you’re not going to tell anyone?” she asked.

“No, I won’t. Unless you tell him, Jihoon will never find out what happened.”

“Okay,” she said with a deep exhale. We then lay there in silence for a while. “What do you mean when you said it was great?”

I looked over at the other bed, there was enough light coming in the room through the window that I could see Yeji’s face and eyes looking back at me. “I think you know what I meant,” a proud smile came across her face at that, “but if we’re going to act like it never happened, we should probably stop talking about it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed before rolling over in her bed. I turned and tried to close my eyes and fall asleep, but I was not tired. Between the thoughts of the kiss in my head and the sounds of sex coming from the hallway, my brain was still wide awake. Some time passed, and the harder I tried to not listen to sexual moans and tried not to think of the idol in the bed 5 feet away from me, the more my brain focused on those exact things. I was at a point where had I been laying on my back instead of my side, there would have been a large tent in the sheet I was under. I thought about sneaking into the bathroom to rub one out, but I could hear stirring coming from the bed next to mine which led me to believe Yeji was still away. I was contemplating what to do when I heard it.

“Ummff.” a soft-sounding stifled moan. However, unlike the other moans I had been hearing through the door, this one came from the other side of the room I was in. All my thoughts froze when I heard that sound. And then a minute or so later, I heard another similar moan. One that sounded like it came from someone desperately trying to not make a sound. I knew it had to come from Yeji. She must have assumed that I was asleep because unlike her, I had remained still in bed while she had been tossing and turning. I slowly, trying to not make a sound, rolled over onto my back and turned my head. I then paused for a minute, before opening my eyes slightly, just squinting as I looked to the other bed. The sheets were up to her shoulders but her knees were bent up and spread apart and the way her shoulder moved, it was obvious she was touching herself. Her eyes were shut, and was biting her lip shut. Even still, another moan escaped through her tight lips.

Watching her touch herself, had my hand moving down to my crotch and giving my hard cock a good squeeze. After another minute of watching, I soon myself stroking myself under the sheet as I watch Yeji touch herself under her bedsheet. Like Yeji, I was trying to stifle any noise coming from me. However, a groan did eventually escape my mouth. As soon as it happened, Yeji opened her eyes and looked my way, and I too was looking at her. She froze and a look of total shock came on her face, but she didn’t say anything. I saw her eyes shift, and she looked at the tent in my bedsheet with some obvious moment where I was stroking myself. Her eyes then moved back up to mine, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, I could see her arm being to move again as she looked at me.

The two of us stayed in our beds, both openly masturbating under our sheets as we looked right at each other. The sheet had moved down her body a bit because of her arm movement. I could now see her erect nipples pressing against her t-shirt. Neither one of us was trying to muffle our moans anymore. Yeji now openly moaned with her mouth wide open as she touched herself. We went for several minutes until she let out one final moan and I saw her eyes roll back, her body then began to twitch as she came all over her hand. Watching her cum, pushed me over the edge and I let out a grunt and my cock began firing into the bed sheet. When I finished blowing my load, I looked back over just in time to see the Play Dead actress pull her hand out from under the sheet. Her hand glistened in the moonlight from the slick wetness that covered it. She rubbed her hand on the bedsheet to dry it off. She then looked back over at me and saw me looking back at her.

“Goodnight,” she said with a broad, but guilty-looking smile, before rolling over to the other side of her bed and going to sleep. It took me a little longer, but I too eventually fell asleep, but it would not be for long.

I was having a very vivid dream of having sex with Yeji in the outdoor shower. We could hear all of our friends on the other side of the wooden wall that Yeji had her back against, as I held her up and was thrusting into her. Her top was off, but her bikini bottoms were just pulled to the side for my cock to enter her. I was getting ready to explode when I suddenly woke up. I was disappointed when my eyes opened, having the dream end early. I then realized why I woke up as I suddenly felt the strong need to pee. I checked my phone before getting out of bed and saw it was only a little before 6AM, I’d only been asleep for a little over three and a half hours since my masturbation session with Yeji.

I got out of the bed and took a look over to Yeji’s bed. She looked to be asleep, with the sheet now down by her waist. It was for the best since my gym shorts, sans underwear, was not doing much to hide the wood I had from my dream as I walked across the room to go to the bathroom. It took some fighting to aim my hard-on down so I could pee, but I eventually got it, and then realized just how badly I really did need to go. It seemed like the flow would almost never end. Eventually, I did finish, flush, and watched my hands. I opened up the door to head back to bed when I got startled by a person in the doorway.

“Hi,” Yeji said as she stood in front of me.

“Hi?” I replied. “Do you…?” I asked gesturing to the bathroom behind me, but she shook her head. We both stood there frozen in time, looking into each other's eyes. Just like in the shower, in an instant, we went from looking at each other to having our arms wrapped around each other as we made out. Once again, we were locking lips, and our kisses were filled with desperation and lust. I picked her up and she quickly wrapped her legs around me. I walked her over to her bed and stopped there for a minute to continue making out for a little longer before finally pushing her back so she fell onto the bed. She now lay on her back with her legs dangling off the bed.

Looking up at me, she just said, “We can’t have sex.”

“Okay,” I told her. I bent down at the waist to lean in and kiss her. As we kissed my hands moved to her hips and took hold of the waistband of her shorts. I then began dropping to my knees on the floor, and as I went down, I took her shorts down with me. She didn’t say anything until her shorts were totally off.

“We just can’t have sex,” she reiterated, but she widen her legs as said that.

“I know,” I told her, before burying my face between her cunt. Normally I like to tease and do a little bit more foreplay before going in for the main course. This time though, I had no patients for it and judging by how wet she was and the sound she made when my tongue made contact, she was not interested in being teased either. I could feel the hairs of her brunette bush brush against my nose as I ate her out. She had obviously recently trimmed down for her bathing suit. As I moved to suck on her clit, Yeji reached up and grabbed a pillow, to muffle the moans. I quickly moved, putting a finger inside of her as I moved my mouth away so I could reach up and pull the pillow away from her face.

“I don’t anyone to hear,” Yeji pleaded.

“It’s 6AM and everyone else was up late drinking and fucking, we’re the only ones awake and I really want to hear every single sound you make as I lick your pussy.” Yeji didn’t put up much of a fight. Taking the pillow back, she put it under her head so she could watch me go back to eating her out. She did not hold back from letting me hear the pleasure noises she made and the only time her sounds got muffled again was when she tightly wrapped her legs behind my neck and I had her thighs pressing against my ears. I was licking her fold and rubbing her clit when Yeji climaxed. When he did, her legs tightened around my head, smoothing my face into her drenching wet pussy. I hungrily ate her out like. There was not much in the way of skill or technique, it was just pure passion. As a result, it only took about five minutes or so before Yeji grabbed a pillow to cover her mouth and muffle the loud moans as she came. I could feel her leg that was wrapped around the back of my head shake as her pussy quivered in orgasmic bliss.

“Oh gosh, wow. That was…wow,” Yeji said as she removed the pillow and caught her breath.

“Yeah, but we’re not done yet,” I told her.

“What?”

“That round was because we needed to grit it out of our system. This time it is because it feels so fucking good and we want it,” I told her. I then moved back between her legs and began licking up all of her juices that had leaked out of her while also avoiding her pussy lips and clit. I was purposely teasing and taking my time this round. I had Yeji move to the middle of the bed so I could lay down on it as well while I tongued her vulva. I started off kissing and licking up and down her thighs. Yeji put up no argument or fight to what I was doing. She just laid back and enjoyed the feeling. I took my time with her, and when I finally did move to her pussy, she all but melted for me, letting out a long moan, she relaxed to the point that her body was basically mine to do what I want with.

Yeji was bottomless, but she still had her t-shirt on. As I started licking her, my eyes looked up her body. I could see her hard nipples tenting her t-shirt, and I decided that it was time for that to go. I moved my right hand up her stomach and slid it under her shirt. My hand placed her breast and gave it a squeeze. I heard the idol suck in her breath as I have her a squeeze, followed by a soft moan. I played with her tit for another seconds before I tried pushing her shirt up to expose her breasts. She got a little frustrated with my fumbling hand and finally yanked her shirt off and threw it to the floor. I now had her naked on the bed, with my head between her legs and my hand on her tit. I tried to focus on her mound, but my eyes could not stop looking at her soft looking perky breasts. Eventually, my hand and mouth switched places. I now fingered her as I sucked on her nipple. I alternated from her right to left breast for several minutes, occasionally breaking things up by kissing her mouth.

I toyed with her a bit, working her near the brink of orgasm before pulling back a bit. I worked her for nearly 30 minutes before Yeji finally could not take it anymore. This time when she reached the bring, her hand reached down and held my hand in place and she humped my fingers as her other hand grabbed the back of my head and pulled me in for a kiss. When she came her orgasmic cries were muffled by my mouth as we made out. We kissed throughout her orgasm, and as she died down, I moved my lips off hers and began kissing her neck before moving back down until I was enjoying her hard nipples once again. We laid in bed for a little while before she spoke up again.

“I guess, it’s my turn now to return the favor” she said.

“Only if you want to,” I told her. I wanted her to do it, desperately, but I didn’t want to pressure her.

“I want to,” she confirmed. I then felt her hand pet my crotch. “I really want to.”

I then sat up and Yeji got up off of the bed. Just like my first round of oral on her, Yeji got down on her knees on the floor next to the bed. I took off my shirt and moved to the edge of the bed. I thought about removing my shorts, but decided I rather watch her remove them. Once I was sitting on the edge of the bed, Yeji’s eyes moved from looking into mine, down to the obvious tenting in my shorts. Her tongue lightly grazed her lips before she gave a lip bite and reached out for the waist band of my shorts. She slowly pulled them down. More and more of my balls and shaft became exposed, and once she got the, bellow my tip my erection sprang up and slap her chin.

“Oh my god, Minho? Are you joking?” She said in shock, while removing my shorts the rest of the way down my legs.

“What?” I asked with a big smile on my face.

“Your cock, it’s…wow,” she said, as she reached out and took hold of it.

“I take it you like it?” I asked as she moved it around to see it from different angle.

“What am I even supposed to do with all of it?” She asked as moved her hands around his shaft. As she spoke, she could not hide the big excited smile from her face.

“I think you have a pretty good idea of what to do with it.”

“Maybe,” she said playfully before puckering her lips and giving the tip a kiss. “How have you been able to keep this hidden?” She asked as she added a second hand to the shaft, and began to lightly stroke it.

“This weekend it’s taken a good amount of self-discipline, breathing exercises, and some strategic holding of towels and other items, to keep it hidden. I am surprised you didn’t feel it when we kissed, it was pressing up you a good amount.”

“I think I was so in my head that we were kissing I must have missed the feeling, but wow,” she said with her eyes trained on my dick. Her eyes looked up at me as her face inched towards my cock. She opened he mouth and stuck out her tongue. Just before her tongue touched my cock, she gave me a wink. She then gave along show lick to the tip before closing her mouth around it and giving it a suck. For the first two minutes she just held the base in her hands while she sucked on and swirled her tongue around the tip. Since getting to know her, I had dreamed this moment multiple times, but the dreams didn’t compare to the reality of actually having her look up at me while she had her lips tightly wrapped around my cock head.

Yeji then started taking more and more of my manhood into her mouth. Her lips stretched out a bit around my girth. She went down until she gagged a bit and pulled off my cock a bit. Though she was undeterred. She tried going down further a few more times, but each time she got to the same spot she would start to gag. Yeji then pulled off my cock and gasped.

“I can usually take Jihoon’s whole cock in my mouth,” she said.

“I guess I’m just a little bit bigger than him,” I said with a smirk.

“Oh yes,” she replied. “Thicker too,” she added.

“Don’t worry about trying to deep throat, what you were doing felt really good,”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Hearing that what she was doing felt good seemed to give Yeji a spike of confidence as she shorted giving a more energetic blow job with zero hesitancy at all. She began moving her hand up and down my shaft while she alternated between boring her head along the top half of my shaft, and using her tongue to lick, flick and swirl around the top of my dick. While she never moved her mouth down to them, she did spend a little time playing with my balls in one of her hands.

“I’m getting close,” I warned her. She just moaned around my cock in her mouth and kept on blowing me. After another minute, I gave another warning, “Seriously, I’m gonna cum. Where should I?”

“Where do you want to?” Yeji asked.

In that half second, I thought about picking her up on, putting her on the bed, thrust my dick in her and give her just an epic creampie. However, I knew that wasn’t an option. “I want to cover your beautiful face.”

“I should have guessed,” she said, and then went back to sucking the tip as her hand worked the shaft, really pumping it hard. It was not look after that, that the urge to blow my load became overwhelming. I couldn’t barely speak, but Yeji understood what was about to happen. She pulled her mouth off my cock and salt back a bit. She aimed the tip at her face and closed her eyes just in time as the first blast hit her just above the eye brow. As I continued to cum, she began smiling and laughing a bit as her face continued to be glazed.

“Is it normally that much?” Yeji asked when I finally finished cumming.

“Not really, you just really got me going,” I told her,

“I guess so,” she said as she wiped some cum away from near her eye. She then sucked her finger clean. “I should get cleaned up,” she said before quickly getting up and walking quickly to the bathroom. My eyes followed her ass as she walked. She never shut the door behind her, and from where I sat on the bed, I could clearly see her in the bathroom. As she bent over at the sink to wash her face, I let out a groan. She looked so good, being bent over like that. My dick had deflated a bit after cumming, then I was back to full strength now as I looked over her body. I was on autopilot as I watched her and a minute later, I found myself standing in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at her. When she finished washing her face she turned to leave and saw me standing in the doorway, and yet she still approached.

She stopped herself when she was less than a foot away from her. She was close enough that my hard cock was practically touching her. She looked up at me, and I down at her.

“We can’t have sex,” she repeated, but she did so meekly. Whatever willpower she had was clearly wavering. Had I kissed her right then, I had zero doubt in my mind we would have been having wild passionate sex within minutes. But I didn’t.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Okay,” I told her. While I may have been able to get with her, I knew if we did, she’d hate herself for doing it and she would have had some resentment for me. So, I decided to back down and hope that she breaks things off with her boyfriend in the near future and we could have all the guilt-free sex our bodies can handle as soon as that happens. I moved past her into the bathroom, both of us letting out a grown as our bodies accidentally brush up against one another, and then I shut the door behind me.

I took a shower and jerked off to release some of the tension. I then came up with an excuse to leave after breakfast and head back home. The temptation and desire would have been too strong had I stayed.

It was almost two weeks after that before I heard from Yeji again. And it was only via text. We texted sparingly a few times over the course of a few weeks. Then one day she texted me to let me know that she had been talking to Yuna about me, and she was going to try to set us up.

*End of flashback

“How detailed did she get,” I asked.

“She was pretty vivid with her details,” Yuna replied.

“Really? I didn’t think she’d ever talk about it.”

“Oh she talked for quite a while about it,” Yuna said. The tone of her voice was both playful and flirty. With my mind thinking about the activities of that night, and knowing Yuna knew all the details and then agreed to meet me was getting me aroused. I adjusted myself in my swim shorts, making she see my dick went down the leg of my shorts rather than have me pitch a tent in them. As I sat back down, and looked at Yuna and even through her sunglasses I could see her eyes look down at my crotch. I then moved a little to make sure I was sitting so I was sitting directly facing Yuna.

We continued to talk for a while, with the Yeji topic being dropped and we got to know each other a little more. Yuna continued to be a little flirty, and she looked so sexy in her bikini that my heart rate was elevated. I then decided to pull a Hail Mary that I had tried four or five times with success. As we sat there sitting and talking, I slowly began working the pant leg of my swimsuit up higher and higher on my thigh. I did it slowly over about 10 minutes or so, as we continued to chat.

“So, what are your plans after this,” she asked.

“I don’t know, I have not really thought that far,” I suddenly saw her jaw drop as I talked, “I didn’t really…”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry” she interrupted. “But umm..”

“What?”

“Ah, I don’t know how else to say this, but I can see your dick,” she said. I knew she could. I was sitting facing right at her, and I have rolled up the leg of my shorts just enough that she could clearly see my cock head is she looked down between my legs, meanwhile it was covered up from anyone who did not have a direct line-of-sight up my shorts.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” I said acting like it was an accident.

“It’s fine, it happens,” she said.

“Guy’s cocks poking out of the bottom of their shorts is something that happens regularly to you?”

“Well, no. Not really,” Yuna laughed.

“That better?” I asked as I rolled my short legs back down.

“I don’t know, I didn’t mind the view before.”

“I can put it back out if you’d like, I don’t mind,” I told her.

“Tempting, but probably safer for you not to be hanging out like that,” she replied.

“Safer for who?” I asked. Yuna blushed and took a sip of her drink. We were silent for a minute or so, and then Yuna spoke up.

“One more question, about what I just saw.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Were you fully hard.”

“Honestly?” I asked, and Yuna nodded, “Like steel.”

“Why?”

“Are you joking? Look at you,” I told her. “God, I have to control myself when I just see you smile, and now here you are in that bikini. I’m not made of stone,” I explained.

“Plus, I brought up that night with Yeji,” she added.

“Yes, that didn’t help settle me down much.”

“I’m going to take a quick dip in the pool to cool off and then get a refill,” she said showing off her empty glass. “Care to join me?”

“I’d love to, but maybe I should stay here for a minute and get things a little under control before getting up. I’ll catch up in a minute,”

“Smart,” Yuna said as she got up and touched my shoulder as she walked past me. I did not even try to hide as I turned my head and looked at her ass after she walked by. Yuna looked back over her shoulder and caught me looking. She then gave a little booty wiggle in my direction before disappearing out of view. Seeing her smiling over her shoulder as she gave that shake probably added an extra two minutes to my cool down period before I could standup without the pronounced outline of an erection in my shorts.

I sat in the chair for a few minutes, trying hard not to think about Yuna or Yeji so that the swelling in my shorts would go down. When I felt confident about enough about standing up, I did so and then make my way to the pool to find Yuna. When I exposed myself, I didn’t expect that she’d become so overcome by lust she’d jump on me right on the lounge chair. It was more just about getting the idea in her head. The most important thing was that she did not freak out or get offended, instead she continued to flirt with me before she left. And she even looked back at me when she left. So at minimum she was fine with it, and there was a chance she was more than fine with what she saw.

I walked around the pool for a little bit, then headed inside to use the bathroom before resuming my search for Yuna. Eventually I found her in the kitchen talking with a few people. She was still only dressed in her bikini and sunglasses. As soon as she saw me, she excused herself from their conversation and walked to me.

“You’re looking a little more relaxed,” she said with her eyes darting down to my crotch before looking back up at me.

“Yeah, well, who knows how long that will last now that I am back talking with you,” I flirted.

“Maybe we should get you somewhere a little less crowded so you don’t embarrass yourself,” she flirted back.

“Good idea. Any suggestions?” I asked.

“Well…” she said as she thought. “Have you ever been here before?”

“No,” I admitted. “Honestly, I’m not even sure whose house this is.”

“Oh, well, then do you want to check out the rest of it, snoop around a bit?”

“Sure, sounds fun.”

It was a really nice house, and a good size mini mansion as well. I probably would have enjoyed exploring the house if I didn’t have other thoughts clouding my brain. She led the way and we quickly found ourselves going up stairs. As soon as we got up there, I grabbed her arm to pull her to me and I moved my hand behind her head as I went in for a kiss. Even though I moved suddenly, there was zero hesitation from Yuna as she immediately kissed me back and wrapped her arms around me. We started making out passionately in the hallway, before eventually we started to move again. We continued to make out as we fumbled around trying to find a room to get into for some privacy. The first door we got to was a closet. The next door was locked. The third door Yuna had her back to and nearly fell backward as I opened the door. We were both thankful that the room appeared to be a guest bedroom. I kicked the door shut behind me and then turned to flip the lock on the door knob. Once locked I turned back to Yuna and lifted her up in my arms. We resumed kissing until I had walked us close enough to the bed that I could toss her on it. She quickly moved to the center of the bed, and I pounced on top of her. Our lips locked once again. Now on top of her, I had no doubt she could feel how hard I am as it was pressing firmly against her.

After a few more minutes, I could not take it anymore. While I was loving being there, making out with a woman I had lusted over for years from afar, I was now too horny. I pulled away from Yuna’s lips and looked down at her. I could see the same overwhelming lust in her eyes that I was feeling. I could sense she wanted the same thing I want.

“Yeah?” Was all I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered confidently. After that I didn’t even bother stripping off my clothes or taking the time to take hers off. I was eager, I simply slid up the leg of my swim trucks to my crotch to uncover my dick and ball, and then I simply hooked her bikini bottom and pulled them to the side. As I exposed her shaved pussy, my finger could feel how wet she was and also the heat emanating from between her legs.

I lined myself up, and even just feeling her soft wet lips against the tip of my cock was enough to get me to let out a slight moan. I looked her in the eye and she gave me a head nod. With that I quickly thrusted the first two third of my cock into her. Yuna let out a grunt as she felt me suddenly enter her. I pulled out some, before thrusting forward again and pushing my full cock into her. I then paused. I wanted to take stock of where I was at that moment. I wanted to save the memory of her face looking up at me, and the feeling of her warm, wet pussy tightly squeezing my manhood.

I wish I could say I rocked her world after that. That I showed of my stamina, and some moves that I had learned over the years. Instead, three minutes after entering her, I found myself announcing. “Jesus, I’m gonna cum!”

“Me too,” she said which shocked me. I kept thrusting until I could not hold back any longer. At the last possible second, I pulled out and my dick erupted all over her toned stomach. I grunted as came all over her, and Yuna let out a long loud moan as she came as well. When I finished summing, I leaned down and kissed her, and as I moved my body off of hers, I began moving my lips from hers to along her neck and collarbone. Eventually the two of were laying side by side. Yuna was the first of us to speak.

“I’m not usually that fast,” she confessed.

“Me neither,” I told her. “I just… I’ve been fantasizing about doing that with you for so long, and you’re so beautiful. I just kind of loss control.”

“That’s sweet,” she said with a laugh. ‘That’s not what I meant thought. Although, yes, that was a pretty fast climax for me as well.” She then turned onto her side and looked at me. “I meant I don’t usually hop into bed with person I just met.”

“Oh, okay. Me neither.” I told her. “Though it’s not for lack of trying.” Yuna laughed at my joke. When she finished laughing, she looked down at her stomach which was coated in cum. She grabbed a blanket that was on the bed and began cleaning herself off.

“I’m surprised you didn’t finish inside of me.”

“Me too. God knows I wanted to.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t know if you wanted me to, and I didn’t want you storming off all mad. And also, because I didn’t want to cum in you yet.”

“Why’s that?” She asked as she tossed the cum stained blanket to the floor.

“Because then I wouldn’t have been able to do this,” I said a quickly got on top of her again, and then moved down her body. Her bikini bottoms were still pulled to the side, but I lifted her legs up and pulled her bottoms off. Once she was bottomless, I put her legs over my shoulders and pushed my face down between her legs. Once again, I skipped my usual teasing, and got right to the point. I might have wanted to taste her more than she even wanted me to go down on her, so I immediately tasted and attacked her pussy with my lips and tongue. Yuna gripped the sheets as I ate her out like I’d been on a hunger fast for the last week.

“Oh wow, Yeji was right,” Yuna moaned.

“Right about what?” I asked between licks.

“That you’re good with her tongue.”

“She said that?”

“She said a lot of things. But mostly it was about how she didn’t know just how good receiving oral could be until you did it to her.” Hearing that was a major confidence boost, but also made me think about how the second she and Jihoon break up, I am going to wreck that girl. Just take multiple days off of work, and do things to her that would make her forget about every guy she’d ever dated. But until then, I had Yuna to please.

“Well, I guess I have a lot to live up to then,” I said as I moved two fingers inside of the idol and began rubbing and feeling for that G-spot. While Yeji had tried to hide her pleasurable moans at first, Yuna never did. It didn’t matter that we were in a house full of guests, that for all we knew could have all been right outside listening in, she moaned and acted as though we were in an empty home. And with each sound from her lips and movement from her body, it only encouraged me to do more, which made her react even more.

I had my tongue on her clit as I fingered her when she came. When I heard her orgasmic moans, I pulled my face away to watch her reaction to climaxing. Seeing Yuna’s O-face was one of the most erotic face I’d ever seen in my life. When she recovered and opened her eyes to see me looking down at her, she sprung upright and wrapped an arm behind my head to pull me in for a kiss. My face was still sloppy wet with her pussy juices. The two of us made out, me on my knees and her sitting up. As we kissed, my hand traveled to her handful sized arrest and I could feel her hard nipple pressing through the fabric of her top. I kept feeling up Yuna as we kissed until she suddenly pulled away. She didn’t say anything, but she had a big happy smile on her face as she reached behind her back and untied her bikini and ripped her top off completely. She now laid on the bed fully nude.

“Gezz Yuna, it there any part of you that isn’t immaculate?” I asked as I studied her small breasts that were incredibly perky.

“Speaking of immaculate,” Yuna said as she reached down and took hold of my cock. “Feels like someone is ready to go again.”

“Oh, I’ve ready to go since the last round ended, I just wanted to make sure I got a chance to taste your pussy before we got too far along.”

“Well, I hope it was worth it,” she said as she stroked me.

“It was better than I dreamed it would be.”

“You’re such a sweet talker,” she said and then pulled me down to her for a kiss. After breaking the kiss, she told me, “Now roll over, I want to ride this beast.”

I pushed off my shorts and laid on my back, and Yuna quickly pounced on top of me. My hard cock desperate for attention as she straddled me with her pussy just barely hovering over me. She looked down at me, and move her dangling hair back behind her. She bit her lip for a second as we just looked at each other, then she suddenly dropped down and let out a grunting moan as her pussy was once again stretched out by my hard cock.

“Don’t move,” she told me, as she bent down to kiss me. She did not move her hips at all as we made out for the first few minutes. Instead, she just soaked while we kissed. She felt to warm, wet and tight while wrapped around my cock, and the feeling only got better as she began to move her hips. Her lips were still attached to mine while she rolled her hips along my shaft. She let out a moan as my hands went to her breasts and began playing with her sensitive hard nipples. Eventually I just pulled her forward so that I could suck on her tantalizing nipples.

She moved slowly for a while, really drawing things out as she rode me, but as time passed, she began moving faster. And as her orgasm started to build, Yuna began moving her body faster and faster. Eventually, sitting up straight and putting her hands down on my chest for leverage. Her eyes locked in on mine for the next several minutes until she was on the brink of climax. When it finally hit her eyes went wide and as did her mouth. Yuna stopped moving and let out a long loud moan as she came once again. She closed her eyes and her hands move up her breast and she squeezed her nipples a bit as orgasmed. As the sensation started to die down, she slumped down and kissed me once again. Even when she stopped kissing me, she remained on top of me, with her hands brushing against her hard nipples.

“Can we switch to doggy,” I asked between kisses.

“You tired of kissing me?” She said, pulling away sounding disappointed.

“What? No,” I replied defensively. “I’ve just spent a lot of time today admiring your ass that…”

“I’m messing with you,” she said playfully with a smile. “You’re not the first guy who's wanted to check out my ass as we have sex.”

Yuna then got off him, and got onto her hands and knees. Moving behind her, I was greeted to the immaculate site of her nude ass on full display for me, and depending on the angle I looked I could all see her wet pussy peeking out underneath, begging to be penetrated once again. I reached out and gave both her cheeks a few nice had squeezes before moving my hands to her hips. Once again, I have an initial hard deep thrust, during my cock inside of her which she seemed to love.

I knew I was not going to last too much longer as soon as we started doggy, but I Madde the most of the experience. Admiring her great ass, and taking in the site of how her ass shook with each time I thrust into her. I made sure to also reach under her and I alternate between playing with her nipple and her clit while railing her from behind. Yuna also did not help me stay under control as she moved her body as well. Rolling her hips so her whole body seemed to move in a wave with her ass pushing back to me each time to meet my cock as I pushed forward. I could only hold out for so long before I could not hold back any longer.

“If you wanted me to finish inside you before, you’re about to get your wish,” I told her.

“Umm, yes do it,” she moaned, but then suddenly she changed her mind and yell, “Wait! No! Don’t!” Yuna then quickly spun around and faced me. Or more to the point, faced my cock. “Do it on my face,” she told me.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I love it,” she replied. Hearing that Yuna loved receiving facials was mind-blowing, and I was all too willing to acquiesce to her request. I gave my shaft a few strokes, and that it was all it took before I began firing ropes of jizz all over the most beautiful face I’d ever seen. Yuna looked to be very happy when I finished with streaks of cum all across her face. She then asked, “How do I look?”

“Sexy as fuck,” I replied honestly. “Though, what caused the change of heart on where you wanted me to cum?”

“I remembered Yeji said you went down on her for over a half an hour when you two got together, and I wanted to see if I could get you to double that for me.”

“Oh, I’d be more than will,” I told her. “But we should probably go to your place or mine if we’re going to do that.”

“Good call,” she said and then gave me a kiss on the cheek. Some of my own cum pressed on my face when she did so. She then got up and made her way to the bathroom attached to the bedroom, but as she did so, she passed a mirror. She momentarily stopped in front of the mirror and looked at her cum covered face. She gave a quick kissy face pose to the mirror followed by another silly tongue out pose, before continuing on to the bathroom to get clean up.

When she came out of the bedroom I was fully dressed and just sat back and admired her naked body as she walked around the room collecting her bathing suit before putting it back on.

“Ready to go?” She asked.

“I’m ready to follow that beautiful ass wherever you want to go.”

She then reached out and took my hand and we waked towards the bedroom door together. Just before opening the door, she said, “Then come on, let’s go to my place and do some stuff that will cause Yeji to finger herself raw after I tell her about it.”

#yeji smut #yuna smut #itzy smut #kpop smut #girl group smut #female idol smut #male reader

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rivetgoth · 1 year ago

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I feel like part of what’s kinda wild to me about the weird “born in the wrong generation but in an alternative 80s punk goth queer way” crowd that idolizes this nonexistent 80s that was like a goth alt GNC queer safehaven is that without fail every time I actually talk to older goths or other older alt people or even just older queer or nonwhite people who were actually there in the 80s they’re IMMEDIATELY like “oh you were NOT missing out hahaha.” Like at best the coolest things they’ll talk about is getting to see some OG alt bands live in their prime or getting to see a cool movie in theatres, that IS genuinely cool, like major jealousy to anyone who got to actually witness Skinny Puppy or Ministry live in the 80s ykwim, but literally ALL of these people will then immediately start talking about how much people sucked, how much mainstream culture sucked, etc. It was literally Reagan-era AIDS crisis. Dystopian literature took off for a reason. Racism was a massive society-wide issue. War on drugs was in full swing. Even just the insanely racialized pushback against disco during that time is of note tbh. Massive brand commercialization was getting worse and worse. Whenever I talk to gay people from that era they express so much relief about how much the world has improved since then. I was talking to an older woman in her 50s who’s been in the goth scene since the 80s who was saying that back in the day if she went out dressed in her goth clothes she was called a faggot on the street. I remember her jokingly being like “well at least they were saying it to me and not actual gay people I guess haha…” There are aspects of 80s culture, especially 80s subculture and counterculture, that I really really enjoy, obviously, and certain sentiments surrounding big art trends of the time that I love, but it’s just kind of ridiculous to me that YEARS after collectively mercilessly mocking the trend of white girls saying they miss the 50s while ignoring the fact that Stonewall and the civil rights movement hadn’t happened yet, no-fault divorce didn’t exist, and lobotomies were still acceptable, I’m seeing posts nearly daily on this site that are like “well if I had been born in the 80s art would be good and music would be good and there’d be a queer alt community for me, but instead I was born in the tiktok poser generation 💔” like girl I’m sorry but you ARE the tiktok poser. Get offline and go FIND your community. Your issue is not that you were born in the wrong generation, you literally just do not know how to find modern underground subculture. Because it is underground.

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silverwarewolf · 5 months ago

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DUNGEON MESHI EPISODE 24 THOUGHTS

Oh, I had asked to see what the party's thoughts regarding the changeling situation were, especially when it came to their lifespans, but I didn't think it would turn out like this!

GOOD FUCKING JOB, CHILCHUCK. YOU'VE TRAUMATIZED MARCILLE EVEN FURTHER. Oh but I do so love the horrors of this situation of theirs. Marcille babygirl I would like to hug you and have a nice chat.

Anywya, on we go to think about Falin and any solutions that might help us here. Which is great! I love how much foreshadowing there is (in terms of what I've been vaguely told about the manga).

Laios Touden's problem solving skills, everyone.

That's honestly the SICKEST weapon design, I'm so on board with you Laios. This could be Kensuke's Halloween makeover. BUT DONT JUST TAKE THOSE MUSHROOMS WITH YOU OH MY GOD

... was this the opening sequence foreshadowing everyone was freaking out about? was that it? (don't actually tell me, though. if it was it, say yes. if it wasn't, don't say anything)

no comment here I just love them.

I just will never get used to elfshi's hands being Like That. But it's also kinda nice to see him and Izutsumi working along so nicely! Like, don't even get me started on how Izu is presented as the pickiest eater of the party (Marcille has been dethroned severely) and usually you'd see that presented as a Hassle, but here in DM, Senshi doesn't even bat an eye. He knows and respects Izutsumi's tastes and preferences and works his meals out around it! That's such a based thing for him to do. <3

This is a renaissance painting. (I love it when they adapt Ryoko Kui's visual gags and I LOVE when she does zoomed in faces like this. Truly one of the artists ever)

I did not have "Laios gets Pissed On" on my bingo card but every day I grow more and more convinced that the animators KNOW what they're doing and - OH MY GOD IS THAT SENSHI'S DWUSSY. ELFSHI ALTERNATIVE TO PANTY SHOT.

Ah, yes, Izutsumi sprawls all over them when sleeping, we been knew, again it's a little unexpected to see it front and center but I guess it works to demonstrate them returning to - THAT WAS LAIOS??? AND CHILCHUCK IS JUST LIFTING HIS LEG LIKE THAT?? OKAY THEN. SURE.

(and then there's a few more seconds of laiosfoot and laios bedhead)

BUT HEY THEY'RE BACK TO NORMAL

1) Yep, they're back to normal.

2) Laios I love you and I love Gothsuke but someone needs to be careful about biohazards and it's not going to be you.

3) Add this to the "Marcille Donato gets threateningly close to you in three steps" folder.

4) Truly only they can match each other's freak. When the NECROMANCER is telling you not to do something, don't do it! I know last time you smuggled a "normal" sword, it turned out to be useful, but I'm sure that's not the case here!

5) Poor Laios tho. I'll learn to blacksmith just to give you a cool sword. <3

I'm so glad they kept this. One of the silliest touden siblings moments. 10/10 no notes. Also, Falin is never beating the blunt force trauma allegations.

IS THAT CHILCHUCK'S WIFE. ARE YOU - MA'AM. HELLO?

"Why aren't you a twink like I thought you'd be?!" gets adapted! (I'm pretty sure that's the scene meant to be here, anyways)

I get it, girl.

Oh dear, they're going to eat Falin. And SENSHI was the one to suggest it! For a guy who was just fighting the doubts of accidental cannibalism a week ago, you're taking bold steps forward.

(I do love how it mirrors Laios' kindness back then, in truth. Even if it's an idea so shocking and dire at first, it comes from a place of reason and logic and love)

Marcille "I said I wanted to eat her OUT, not eat HER" Donato Izutsumi "That's going to taste gross as fuck" Izutsumi Chilchuck "If it brings her back..." Tims Laios Touden, the man with a thousand things on his head right now, two of which I reckon are "I don't want to eat my sister" and "Dragon-Chicken... what might it taste like?"

Yes, well. Valid as your concerns are, Laios, because how the fuck would five people eat THAT much meat, you can't just ramble on about what dishes you're going to make out of your sister.

(...I get it, though. I mean if you're going to eat, might as well make it good, right? I know no one wants to grill one of Faligon's ribs but I'll go ahead and say it would be worse to tell them to eat her raw)

FUCK! we DID lose those scenes about the twin bell that toshiro kept!! forever sad about that.

oh my godddd they're going back into the dungeonnn we're going to reunite with themmm

I know they're really fucking competent, I mean, Namari and Toshiro are already described as pretty formidable warriors (and we've seen it), and Kabru is... admittedly much more geared to fight humans but he's a decent fighter either way. And a good leader!

Speaking of, where the fuck is everyone else.

I know they're meant to be scary (and I suppose they are! If we have the reference that, firstly, marcille is an excellent spellcaster so these elves could be just as good in their own areas of expertise, yes?, and secondly, the canaries are Well Known)

... plus, Namari, Toshiro and Kabru are wary of them. Namari, Toshiro and Kabru are wary of them.

BUT damn it Lycion, I need to- (gets dragged off stage)

Anyway, while we wait for the next season (WHICH HAS BEEN GREENLIT! WOHOO!), have these wonderful images of chicken falin being a cathedral painting (...if cathedrals ever added dragons, i guess) and my beloveds, who have finally returned!

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santacoppelia · 1 year ago

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Putting the Meta in "Metatron"

(couldn't resist the pun, sorry)

Ok, this has been tickling my brain for a while. I've been thinking about how The Metatron designed his role and discourse specifically to manipulate Aziraphale into the end result we saw in the last minutes of S2. I become obsessed with it because… well, I'm a bit obsessive, but also because there were many really smart writing decisions that I loved (even when I despise The Metatron exactly for the same reasons. Hate the character, love the writer). If you haven't watched Good Omens Season 2, this is the moment to stop reading. Come back later!

We already know that in Book Omens, the role of Gabriel in the ending was occupied by The Metatron. Of course, the series introduced us to Gabriel and we won a lot by that, but I feel that the origins of The Metatron should be considered for any of this. He is not a "sweet old man": he was the one in charge of seeing over the operation of Armageddon; not just a stickler of rules, but the main promoter for it.

However, when he appears in the series finale, we first are primed to almost pass him by. He is in the line for buying coffee, using clothes that are:

obviously not tailored (almost ill fitted)

in dark tones

looking worn and wrinkled

This seems so important to me! All the angels we have seen are so proud of their aspect, wear clear (white or off white) clothes, pressed, impeccable (even Muriel), even when they visit the Earth (which we have already seen on S1 with all the visits to the bookshop). The Metatron chose a worn, comfortable attire, instead. This is a humanized look, something that fools all the angels but which would warm up someone very specific, can you guess?

After making quite a complicated coffee order (with sort of an affable and nervous energy), he makes a question that Crowley had already primed for us when asking Nina about the name of the coffee: having a "predictable" alternative and an unpredictable one.

This creates an interesting parallel with the next scene: Michael is discussing the possibility of erasing Aziraphale from The Book of Life (a punishment even worse than Holy Water on demons, because not having existed at all, EVER is definitely worse than having existed and ceased to exist at some point) when The Metatron arrives, interrupts the moment and signals having brought coffee. Yup, an amicable gesture, but also a "not death" offering that he shows clearly to everyone (even when Michael or Uriel do not understand or care for it. It wasn't meant for them). He even dismisses what Michael was saying as "utter balderdash" and a "complete piffle", which are the kind of outdated terms we have heard Aziraphale use commonly. So, The Metatron has put up this show for a specific audience of one.

The next moment on the script has Metatron asking Crowley for the clarification of his identity. Up to this moment, every angel has been ignoring the sprawled demon in the corner while discussing how to punish Aziraphale… But The Metatron defers to the most unlikely person in the room, and the only one who will push any buttons on Aziraphale: Crowley. After that, Aziraphale can recognize him, and Metatron dismisses the "bad angels" (using Aziraphale's S1 epithet) with another "catchy old phrase", "spit spot", while keeping Muriel at the back and implying that there is a possibility to "check after" if those "bad angels" have done anything wrong.

Up to this moment, he has played it perfectly. The only moment when he loses it is when he calls Muriel "the dim one", which she ignores… probably because that's the usual way they get talked to in Heaven. I'm not sure if Aziraphale or Crowley cared for that small interaction, but it is there for us (the audience) to notice it: the sympathy the character might elicit is built and sought, but he is not that nice.

After that, comes "the chinwag" and the offer of the coffee: the unnecessarily complicated order. It is not Aziraphale's cup of tea (literally), but it is so specific that it creates some semblance of being thought with care, and has a "hefty jigger" of syrup (again with the funny old words). And, as Aziraphale recognizes, it is "very nice!" (as The Metatron "jolly hoped so"), and The Metatron approves of him drinking it by admitting he has "ingested things in my time, you know?". This interaction is absolutely designed to build a bridge of understanding. The Metatron probably knew that the first response he would get was a "no", so he tailored his connection specifically to "mirror" Aziraphale: love of tasty human treats he has also consumed, funny old words like the ones he loves, a very human, worn, well-loved look. That was the bait for "the stroll": the moment when Aziraphale and Crowley get separated, because The Metatron knew that being close to Crowley, Aziraphale would have an hypervigilant soundboard to check the sense of what he was going to get offered. That's what the nasty look The Metatron gives to Crowley while leaving the bookshop builds (and it gets pinpointed by the music, if you were about to miss it).

The next thing we listen from The Metatron is "You don't have to answer immediately, take all the time you need" in such a friendly manner… we can see Aziraphale doubting a little, and then comes the suggestion: "go and tell your friend the good news!". This sounds like encouragement, but is "the reel". He already knows how Crowley would react, and is expecting it (we can infer it by his final reaction after going back for Aziraphale after the break up, but let's not get ahead of ourselves shall we?). He even can work up Muriel to take care of the bookshop while waiting for the catch.

What did he planted in Aziraphale's mind? Well, let's listen to the story he has to tell:

"I don't think he's as bad a fellow… I might have misjudged him!" — not strange in Aziraphale to have such a generous spirit while judging people. He's in a… partnership? relationship? somethingship? with a demon! So maybe first impressions aren't that reliable anyway. The Metatron made an excellent job with this, too.

"Michael was not the obvious candidate, it was me!" — This idea is interesting. Michael has been the stickler, the rule follower, even the snitch. They have been rewarded and recognized by that. Putting Aziraphale before Michael in the line of succession is a way of recognizing not only him, but his system of values, which has always been at odds with the main archangels (even when it was never an open fight).

"Leader, honest, don't tell people what they want to hear" — All these are generic compliments. The Metatron hasn't been that aware of Aziraphale, but are in line with what would have been said of any "rebel leader". They come into context with the next phrase.

"That's why Gabriel came to you, I imagine…" — I'm pretty sure The Metatron didn't imagine this, ha. He is probably imagining that the "institutional problem" is coalescing behind his back, and trying to keep friends close, but enemies closer… while dividing and conquering. If Gabriel rebelled, and then went searching for Aziraphale (and Crowley, they are and item and he knows it), that might mean a true risk for his status quo and future plans.

Heaven has great plans and important projects for you — this is to sweeten the pot: the hefty jigger of almond syrup. You will be able to make changes! You can make a difference from the inside! Working for an old man who feels strangely familiar! And who recognizes your point of view! That sounds like the best job offer of the world, really.

Those, however, are not the main messages (they are still building good will with Aziraphale); they are thought out to build the last, and more important one:

Heaven is well aware of your "de facto partnership" with Crowley…

It would be considered irregular if you wanted to work with him again…

You, and you alone, can bring him to Heaven and restore his full angelic status, so you could keep working together (in very important projects).

Here is the catch. He brought the coffee so he could "offer him coffee", but the implications are quite clear: if you want to continue having a partnership with Crowley, you two must come to Heaven. Anything else would be considered irregular, put them in a worst risk, and maybe, just maybe, make them "institutional enemies". Heaven is more efficient chasing enemies, and they have The Book of Life as a menace.

We already know how scared Aziraphale has always been about upsetting Heaven, but he has learned to "disconnect" from it through the usual "they don't notice". The Metatron came to tell him "I did notice, and it has come back to bite you". The implied counterpart to the offer is "you can always get death". Or even worse, nonexistence (we have already imagined the angst of having one of them condemned to that fate, haven't we?)

When The Metatron arrives, just after seeing Crowley leave the bookshop, distraught, he casually asks "How did he take it?", but he already knows. That was his plan all along: making them break up with an offer Aziraphale could not refuse, but Crowley could not accept. That's why he even takes the license to slightly badmouth Crowley: "Always did want to go his own way, always asking damn fool questions, too". He also arrive with the solution to the only objection Aziraphale would have: Muriel, the happy innocent angel that he received with so much warmth and kindness, is given the opportunity to stay on Earth, taking care of the bookshop. The only thing he would have liked to take with him is not a thing, and has become impossible.

If God is playing poker in a dark room and always smiling, The Metatron is playing chess, and he is quite good at it (that's why he loves everything to be predictable). He is menacing our pieces, and broke our hearts in the process… But I'm pretty sure he is underestimating his opponents. His awful remark of Muriel being "dim"; saying that Crowley "asks damn fool questions", and even believing that Aziraphale is just a softie that can be played like a pipe… That's why telling him the project is "The Second Coming" was an absolute gift for us as an audience, and it prefigures the downfall that is coming — the one Aziraphale, now with nothing to lose, started cooking in his head during that elevator ride (those couple of minutes that Michael Sheen gifted to all of us: the shock, the pain, the fury, and that grin in the end, with the eyes in a completely different emotion). Remember that Aziraphale is intelligent, but also fierce. Guildernstern commited a similar mistake in Hamlet, and it didn't go well:

"Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass, and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."

I'm so excited to learn how this is going to unfold!! Because our heroes have always been very enthusiastic at creating plans together, failed miserably at executing them, and even then succeeding… But now they are apart, more frustrated and the stakes are even higher. Excellent scenario for a third act!

*exits, pursued by a bear*

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #good omens spoilers #aziraphale #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorce #narrative analysis #character analysis #the metatron #and a casual Hamlet quote #just because I love Hamlet

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kaylopolis · 5 months ago

Text

Alastor's Shadow (18+) Masterlist

Alastor x F!Reader, Alias: Thestral

Synopsis: There’s a new Overlord in town and it isn’t the Radio Demon. Six years after you fell into Hell, you have finally earned your seat at the table as Pentagram City’s newest and baddest and with the Extermination coming six months sooner than planned, it is now time to implement your ultimate endgame. Afterall, who doesn’t love a bit of power and chaos? Your plans brings you to the doorstep of the Hazbin Hotel as Charlie’s newest Redeemer, but who you find waiting for you will not only turn your entire plan upside down, but also challenge your grab for power…

Tags: Slow burn, rivals to lovers, eventual smut

Author note: This is my first attempt at a fanfic, but I was just so inspired and wanted to post it somewhere after writing like +67K words (and counting). So here goes nothing I guess?

Warnings: Minors DNI! 18+! May contain disturbing, gruesome, and graphic sexual scenes. Graphic violence. Blood. Obsession. Mentions of abuse. Mentions of substance abuse. Trigger warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter.

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear…”

- Mahatma Gandhi

-> Chapter One - The Commercial

-> Chapter Two - Breakfast

-> Chapter Three - Care for a Drink? Spice 🔥

-> Chapter Four - The Meeting

-> Chapter Five - Night's Mistress Smut 💦

-> Chapter Six - A Stroll Spice 🔥

-> Chapter Seven - Forget Me Knot Smut 💦

-> Chapter Eight - The Headliner Spice🔥

-> Chapter Nine - A Black Suit Spice🔥

-> Chapter Ten - Cute Smut 💦

-> Chapter Eleven - Lucifer's Visit

-> Chapter Twelve - The Kidnapping

-> Chapter Thirteen - The Truth

-> Chapter Fourteen - Picking a Fight Smut 💦

—> A message to the readers

-> Chapter Fifteen - Heaven's Worst Kept Secret Smut 💦

-> Chapter Sixteen - Let’s Kill God Smut 💦

-> Chapter Seventeen - The Countdown Cuteness ❤️

Alternative Endings:

My Fawn & My Shadow:

-> Chapter Eighteen - The Endgame

-> Epilogue

Paris

-> Chapter Eighteen - The Endgame

-> Epilogue

->Afterword

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darlingdaisyfarm · 17 days ago

Note

Alrighty, beautiful human, I have a request for you if you have the time: I desperately need fluffy Ford. I need kisses and cuddling. The general story is up to you, but I NEED sweet, loving Stanford.

hello, sweetheart <333 thank you for requesting this because I also need sweet, loving Ford myself :,,) but I’m so sorry, about the cuddling part - I got carried away and missed it aghhh I hate myself :(((

ps - I’m absolutely in love with ur fics💗

tags: kind of awkward Ford, coffee date, autumn, forest, fluff, sfw

Leaves crunched underfoot as you and Ford wandered through the forest, the path framed by trees ablaze in shades of red, orange and gold. The air was crisp, carrying the earthy scent of damp moss and fallen leaves. Ford seemed to take it all in with a kind of wonder, like he was seeing the world with new eyes — which, honestly, wasn’t far from the truth. After so many years spent away from this dimension, you thought it was cute how he marveled at simple things like sunlight filtering through branches.

“Thirty years,” Stanford started. “thirty autumns I missed. I almost forgot the way the colors seem to breathe in this season."

He reached up, fingers brushing a low-hanging branch laden with scarlet leaves, and you smiled at that. There was something so sweet about his awe, his joy, so obvious at moments like this.

“Guess you’re getting to be an Earth tourist now,” you teased gently.

Ford chuckled, giving you a sidelong glance. “Ah, yes, perhaps. But I think I like this. . . rediscovery.” a small smile tugged at his lips. “some things are even better than I remember.”

The path opened to a clearing with a breathtaking view of the valley below, a sea of trees stretching into the distance, every shade of autumn imaginable. You stopped, a thought popping into your head as you took out your phone. “Hey, Ford,” you called, grinning. “take a picture of me?”

He looked at you, surprised, then down at the phone like you’d just handed him a puzzle box. “A picture?” he held the phone with both hands. “Of course, but. . . er, bear with me. These things were a bit. . . different last time I checked.”

You stifled a laugh, nodding as you struck a pose. “Just press that button,” you said, pointing at the screen. “It’ll be easy, I promise.”

Ford cleared his throat, focusing intently as he poked at the screen. "Alright. let me see. I just. . . press this here?"

But as he tried to get his bearings, he accidentally tapped the wrong icon. Suddenly, the camera flipped and his own face filled the screen — caught mid-frown, brow furrowed in confusion. He froze, staring at his reflection like it had personally betrayed him.

“Oh. . . uh. . .” his cheeks flushed as he looked between you and the screen, thoroughly bewildered. “It appears I’ve become the subject instead. Hold on. . . where did— no, this— ah, infernal contraption. . .” Ford mumbled, eyes squinting in concentration as he fumbled to switch it back.

You couldn’t help it — laughter bubbled out and you doubled over, nearly losing your balance. “Awww, Ford! you look so lost, it’s so cute!”

He looked up, flustered but laughing along with you. “Yes, well,” he grumbled, a crooked smile breaking through. “I can navigate alternate dimensions, but apparently, your ‘smartphone’ remains beyond my understanding. I think it’s mocking me.” with a sigh, he handed the phone back, an embarrassed grin still tugging at his lips. “Perhaps. . . perhaps I’ll leave the photographs to you, sweetheart.”

You took the phone from Ford’s hands, still chuckling as you swiped the screen to switch back to the camera. “Alright, here we go, Mr. Genius. Just try not to look too cute when you take my picture or I might just keep it as blackmail.”

“Blackmail?” he feigned horror, eyes widening dramatically as he stepped back. “Sweetheart, you wound me! I thought we had an understanding! I’m an esteemed scientist, not a criminal mastermind!”

You giggled and turned your back to him, posing with the beautiful autumn scenery as your backdrop. “Okay, now I’m ready!”

Ford cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure as he positioned the camera. “Right, focus,” he told himself. “just like in my journals. You know, I could’ve cataloged the beauty of this moment scientifically, but no, I’m reduced to a photographer.”

He pressed the button, and you could hear the faint click of the shutter. Turning to face him, you couldn't help but brighten at the awkward seriousness in his eyes. “You’re doing great! Now, maybe try a few more. I want options.”

“Options,” he repeated, still smiling, shaking his head in amusement. “Isn’t one good photo sufficient? the universe won’t implode if I don’t get a perfect shot.”

“Yeah, but what if I want to look cute in a different way?” you teased, putting your hands on your hips.

With a smirk, Ford nodded. “Alright, what would you like? a ‘mysterious thinker’ look? of perhaps a ‘fierce scientist’ pose?”

“Definitely the fierce scientist!” you exclaimed, throwing your head back dramatically. “I’ll pose like I just discovered a new dimension, just like my man.”

“Very well,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “On the count of three. . . one, two—”

But before he could reach three, you struck a ridiculous pose, one hand on your hip and the other dramatically raised as if you were battling interdimensional forces. “take that, Bill Cipher!”

Ford burst out laughing, shaking his head. You were just too adorable in his eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure Bill would be quaking in his. . . well, whatever he has in place of boots.”

He snapped the photo and you saw the corners of his mouth twitching, clearly trying to suppress his laughter. “Okay, now that was an excellent one. Hold on. . .” he leaned closer, inspecting the image as if it were a rare artifact. Ford seemed to have caught fire with the idea of photographing Bill's defeat.

“Let me see!” you leaned over, your shoulders brushing against his as you peered at the screen.

“Oh, this is just splendid. You look so cute, darlin.” Ford leaned closer to examine the screen, fixing his glasses.

Your heart fluttered at compliment and you nudged him playfully. “Now, you should get in the next one. I want a picture of us!”

He looked a bit apprehensive again, glancing at the phone like it might explode. “Are you sure? I mean, what if I fumble it again?”

“Trust me, you’ll be fine!” you shot him an encouraging smile, and after a moment, he relented, taking the phone back.

“Alright, alright,” he said, adjusting his glasses as if preparing for a complex experiment. “just don’t move too much. I need to concentrate.”

You stood beside him, leaning into his side, feeling the warmth radiating from him. “Okay, how’s this?” you asked, flashing a big grin.

“Perfect, hold still.” he raised the phone, staring intently at the screen like it contained the answers to the universe.

“Uh, Ford, i think you need to press the button now.”

He blinked, breaking out of his focus. “Right! the button!” he pressed it, and just as he did, his finger slipped, causing the phone to snap a picture of you both in the most ridiculous pose — your mouth still open mid-laugh and Ford’s expression a mix of shock and concentration.

You burst into laughter again as Ford stared at the photo, face turning a shade of crimson. “Well, that’s certainly not going to be framed,” he muttered, trying to suppress his smile.

“Oh come on, it’s adorable!” you pressed your cheek against his.

However, your laugh made the corners of his lips twitch upwards. “I suppose it has a certain charm to it,” he admitted, chuckling softly.

You grinned, putting your hand on his arm. “Let’s take another, hun, but this time, we’ll get it right. Just be yourself, Ford. No need for dignity.”

“One, two. . . three!” you both said at same time.

Click!

As the image captured, you both broke into laughter, the sound echoing through the autumn trees. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt this free, this happy, sharing this moment with your couple.

When Ford looked at the photo this time, a satisfied grin spread across his face. “Now that’s more like it,” he said, glancing at you with that spark of affection in his eyes.

As you admired the photos, a realisation suddenly struck you. “Wait!” you said excitedly, grabbing his arm before he could put the phone away.

Ford looked at you, curious. “Wait for what?”

“You’ve been gone thirty years, right? that means you haven’t tried my favourite coffee at that little café by the lake!” you could barely contain your enthusiasm, a wide genuine smile spreading across your face. “we have to go there right now!”

Ford raised an eyebrow, his lips curving into a smile as he followed your lead. “Well, you know I can’t say no to my seasoned guide of modern luxuries.”

🍂🍂🍂

The café was a cozy little spot nestled on a quiet corner, with big windows that showcased the lake outside. The scent of freshly ground coffee beans, warm spices, and just a hint of something sugary, like caramel or maple syrup, filled your nostrils. You spotted a chalkboard behind the counter listing their seasonal drinks and pointed eagerly at one in particular.

“That’s it! The ‘Golden Harvest Latte.’ It’s a mix of espresso, steamed milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and a swirl of caramel. It’s like autumn in a cup, I swear.”

Ford eyed the menu with interest. Well, considering his last ‘caffeine experience’ involved coffee brewed over a campfire in another dimension. . . he was open to something a bit more refined.

The barista greeted you with a smile. “Hey there! the usual?”

“Absolutely! and I have a new fan who needs to try it,” you said, motioning to Ford.

You turned to him, your eyes sparkling with happiness. “You won’t regret it! just wait until you taste it.”

And soon, the barista handed over two steaming cups topped with a dusting of cinnamon and an artful swirl of caramel. The scent hit you first, warm and sweet, making your mouth water. You handed Ford his cup, watching as he eyed the foam with curiosity.

He brought the cup to his lips and took a careful sip, eyebrows lifting as the flavors blossomed across his tongue. The richness of the espresso and a hint of spicy warmth from the cinnamon and nutmeg, all balanced by the buttery sweetness of the caramel.

“Wow,” he murmured, eyes widening. “yeah, this is delicious. I didn't know that a drink could have such a complex taste.”

You laughed, pleased by his reaction, and took a long, indulgent sip of your own. “Right? It’s like drinking a warm hug, this is my absolute favorite fall treat.”

Ford took another sip, clearly savouring it this time, his expression softening as he looked out the window at the golden leaves falling. “It’s funny,” he said quietly, “I’ve been to so many places, seen so many strange and alien things, but it’s these little, simple moments that feel the most surreal. Sitting here, with you, drinking coffee.”

You reached across the table, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Well, lucky for you, there are plenty of little things like this to rediscover. And I’ll be here to make sure you try them all.”

🍂🍂🍂

Stepping out of the café, the refreshing autumn air greeted you both, still tinged with the scent of cinnamon and coffee. Ford held the door for you, the smile never quite leaving his face as he watched you rummage in your bag for something. Finally, you pulled out your lipstick, a soft, rich shade that matched Ford’s turtleneck perfectly.

“Would you look at that,” you said, holding it up beside his collar with a little grin. “I guess I’ve got a good eye.”

Ford chuckled, glancing between the color and his sweater. “It seems I’m unknowingly fashionable. I’ll take that as a compliment.” his eyes lingered on you as you applied the lipstick, your lips soft and inviting, the color blooming in a way that seemed to suit the season and Ford watched, clearly entranced.

“What?” you asked, raising an eyebrow as you capped the lipstick, noticing the way his gaze softened.

“Oh, nothing,” he replied, though his voice had a gentleness to it, he swallowed, shifting his stance slightly. “just appreciating the moment.”

You took a small step closer, lifting a hand to rest gently on his chest. Ford’s breath hitched, neither of you spoke, both letting the warmth build in the silence, the soft murmurs of the town around you fading away.

“I think you might need a little color yourself,” you whispered, your thumb grazing his cheek as you leaned in. His eyes closed as your lips met his, softly, tenderly and you smiled in a kiss. The warmth of his breath mingled with yours and you could still taste the coffee and caramel. Ford’s hands found their way to your waist, holding you.

The world seemed to blur, the only thing that held you back was the feeling of his lips against yours, soft and warm, as if they had been waiting for this. Ford’s fingers brushed against your back, pulling you closer, deepening the kiss with a mixture of gentleness and longing.

When you finally pulled back, his eyes fluttered open, looking at you with a softness you’d rarely seen. He reached up, brushing his thumb across your cheek, unable to take his eyes off you.

“What’s got you so captivated now?” you asked, a smirk creeping onto your face.

“Just realising how lucky i am.”

you noticed the gleam in his eyes, as if he had finally, after all these years, found his way home.

#gravity falls x reader #gravity falls x you #x reader #gravity falls smut #stanford pines #gravity falls #ford pines x reader #gravity falls ford #ford x reader #ford pines smut #ford pines x you #stanford pines x you #stanford pines x reader #one shot #fluff #gravity falls fanfiction

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

Text

When private equity destroys your hospital

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 9-10), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

(Buckle up.)

Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tcacik details a national scandal: the collapse of PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-27-scenes-from-bat-cave-steward-health-florida/

Steward occupies a very special place in the private equity looting cycle. Private equity companies arrange themselves on a continuum of indiscriminate depravity. At the start of the continuum are PE funds that buy productive and useful firms (everything from hospitals to car-washes) using "leveraged buyouts." That means that they borrow money to buy the company and use the company itself as collateral: it's like you getting a bank-loan to buy your neighbor's mortgage out from under them, and using your neighbor's house as collateral for that loan.

Once the buyout is done, the PE fund pays itself a "special dividend" (stealing money the business needs to survive) and then starts charging the business a "management fee" for the PE fund's expertise. To pay for all this, the PE bosses start to hack away at the company. Quality declines. So do wages. Prices go up. The company changes suppliers, opting for cheaper alternatives, often stiffing the old company. There are mass layoffs. The remaining employees end up doing three peoples' jobs, for lower wages, with fewer materials of lower quality.

Eventually, that top-feeding PE company finds a more desperate, more ham-fisted PE company to unload the business onto. That middle-feeding company also does a leveraged buyout, pays itself another special dividend, cuts wages, staffing and quality even further. They switch to even worse suppliers and stiff the last batch. Prices go up even higher.

Then – you guessed it – the middle-feeding PE company finds an even more awful PE bottom-feeder to unload the company onto. That bottom feeder does it all again, without even pretending to leave the business in condition to do its job. The company is a shambling zombie at this point, often producing literal garbage in place of the products that made its reputation. Employees' paychecks bounce, or don't show up at all. The company stops bothering to pay the lawyers that have been fending off its creditors. Those lawyers sue the company, too.

That's the kind of PE company Steward Health was, and, as the name suggests, Steward Health is in the business of stripping away the very last residue of value from community hospitals. As you might imagine, this gets pretty fucking ugly.

Steward owns 32 hospitals up and down the country, though its holdings are dwindling as the company walks away from its debt-burdened holdings, after years of neglect that have rendered them unfit for use as health facilities – or for any other purpose. Tcacik's piece offers a snapshot of one such hospital: Florida's Rockledge Regional Medical Center, just eight miles from Cape Canaveral.

Rockledge is a disaster. The fifth floor was, at one point, home to 5,000 bats.

Five.

Thousand.

Bats.

(Rockledge stiffed the exterminators.)

The bats were just the beginning. One of the internal sewage pipes ruptured. Whole sections of the hospital were literally full of shit, oozing out of the walls and ceiling, slopping over medical equipment.

That's an urgent situation for any hospital, but for Rockledge, it's catastrophic, because Rockledge is a hospital without any hospital supplies. Steward has stiffed the companies that supply "heart valves, urology lasers, Impella catheters, cardiac catheterization balloons, slings for lifting heavier patients, blood and urine test reagents, and most recently, prescription paper." Key medical equipment has been repossessed. So have the Pepsi machines. The hospital cafeteria had its supply of cold cuts repossessed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/1agc1j4/comment/kolicqo/

It's not just Steward's nonpayments that reek of impending doom. Its payments also bear the hallmarks of a scam artist on the brink of blowing off the con. The company recently paid off a vendor with five separate checks for $1m, each drawn on "a random hospital in Utah" (Steward recently walked away from its Utah hospitals; its partners there are suing it for stealing $18m on their way out the door).

This company – which owns 32 hospitals! – has resorted to gambits like sending photos of fake checks to doctors it hasn't paid in months as "proof" that the money was coming (the checks arrived 22 days later).

Steward owes so much money to its employees – $1.66m to just one doctors' group. But the medical staff keep doing their jobs, and are reluctant to speak on the record, thanks to Steward's reputation for vicious retaliation. Those health workers keep showing up to take care of patients, even as the hospital crumbles around them. One clinician told Tcacik: "I watched a bed collapse underneath a [patient] who had just undergone hip surgery."

Rockledge has nine elevators, but only five of them work – the other four have been broken for a year. The hospital's fourth floor has been converted to "a graveyard of broken beds." The sinks are clogged, or filled with foul gunk. There's black mold. Nurses have noted on the maintenance tags that the repair service refuses to attend the hospital until their overdue bills are paid. The fifteen-person on-site maintenance team was cut to just two workers.

Steward is just the latest looting owner of Rockledge. After the Great Financial Crisis, private equity consultants helped sell it to Health Management Associates. The hospital's CEO took home a $10m bonus for that sale and exited; Health Management Associates then quickly became embroiled in a Medicare fraud and kickback scandal. Soon after, Rockledge was passed on to Community Health Systems, who then sold it on to Rockledge.

Steward, meanwhile, was at that time owned by an even bigger private equity giant, Cerberus, which then sold Steward off. That deal was performatively complex and hid all kinds of mischief. Prior to Cerberus's sell-off of Steward, they sold off Steward's real-estate. The buyer was Medical Properties Trust, who gave Cerberus $1.25b for the real-estate: three hospitals in Florida and three more in Ohio. Steward then contracted to operate these hospitals on MPT's behalf, and pay MPT rent for the real-estate.

This complex arrangement was key to siphoning value out of the hospital and to keeping angry creditors at bay – if you can't figure out who owes you money, it's a lot harder to collect on the debt. The scheme was masterminded by Steward founder/CEO Ralph de la Torre. De la Torre is notorious for taking a massive dividend out of the company while it owed $1.4b to its creditors. He bought a $40m yacht with the money.

De la Torre was once feted as a business genius who would "disrupt" healthcare. But as Steward's private jet hops around "Corfu, Santorini, St. Maarten and Antigua" as its hospitals literally crumble, he's becoming less popular. In Massachusetts, politicians have railed against Steward and de la Torre (Governor Healey wants the company to leave the state "as soon as possible").

Florida, by contrast, is much more friendly to Steward. The state Health and Human Services Committee chair Randy Fine is an ardent admirer of hospital privatization and is currently campaigning to sell off the last community hospital in Brevard County. The state inspectors are likewise remarkably tolerant of Steward's little peccadillos. The quasi-governmental agency that inspects hospitals has awarded this shit-and-bat-filled, elevator-free, understaffed rotting hulk "A" grades for quality.

These inspectors jointly represent a mismatched assortment of private and public agencies, dominated by a nonprofit called Leapfrog, the brainchild of Harvard public-health prof Lucian Leape, who founded it in 2000. Leapfrog likes to tout its "transparent" assessment criteria, and Steward are experts at hitting those criteria, spending the exact minimum to tick every box that Leapfrog inspectors use as proxies for overall quality and safety.

This is a pretty great example of Goodhart's Law: "every measurement eventually becomes a target, whereupon it ceases to be a good measurement":

https://xkcd.com/2899/

But despite Steward's increasingly furious creditors and its decaying facilities, the company remains bullish on its ability to continue operations. Medical Properties Trust – the real estate investment trust that is nominally a separate company from Steward – recently hosted a conference call to reassure Wall Street investors that it would be a going concern. When a Bank of America analyst asked MPT's CFO how this could possibly be, given the facility's dire condition and Steward's degraded state, the CFO blithely assured him that the company would get bailouts: "We own hospitals no one wants to see closed."

That's the thing about PE and health-care. The looters who buy out every health-care facility in a region understand that this makes them too big to fail: no matter how dangerous the companies they drain become, local governments will continue to prop them up. Look at dialysis, a market that's been cornered by private equity rollups. Today, if you need this lifesaving therapy, there's a good chance that every accessible facility is owned by a private equity fund that has fired all its qualified staff and ceased sterilizing its needles. Otherwise healthy people who visit these clinics sometimes die due to operator error. But they chug along, because no dialysis clinics is worse that "dialysis clinics where unqualified sadists sometimes kill you with dirty needles":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-dirty-business-of-clean-blood

The bad news is that private equity has thoroughly colonized the entire medical system. They took hospitals, fired the doctors, then took over the doctors' groups that provided outsource staff to the hospital:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

It's illegal for private equity companies to own doctors' practices (doctors have to own these), but they obfuscated the crime with a paper-thin pretext that they got away with despite its obvious bullshittery:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

The financier who decides whether you live or die depends on an algorithm that literally sets a tolerable level of preventable deaths for the patients trapped in the practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

Private equity also took over emergency rooms and boobytrapped them with "surprise billing" – junk fees that ran to thousands of dollars that you had to pay even if the hospital was in network with your insurer. They made billions from this, and spent a many millions from that booty keeping the scam alive with scare ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

The whole health stack is colonized by private equity-backed monopolies. Even your hospital bed!

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Then there's residential care. Private equity cornered many regional markets on nursing homes and turned them into slaughterhouses, places where you go to die, not live:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

The palliative care sector is also captured by private equity. PE bosses hire vast teams of fast-talking salespeople who con vulnerable older people into entering an end-of-life system before they are ready to die. Thanks to loose regulation, the nation is filled with fake hospices that can rake in millions from Medicare while denying all care to their patients (hospice patients don't get life-extending medication or procedures, by definition):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

If you survive this long enough, Medicare eventually tells the hospice that you're clearly not dying and you get kicked off their rolls. Now you have to go through the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare of convincing the system – which was previously informed that you were at death's door – that you are actually viable and need to start getting care again (good luck with that).

If that kills you, guess what? Private equity has rolled up funeral homes up and down the country, and they will scam your survivors just as hard as the medical system that killed you did:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori

The PE sector spent more than a trillion dollars over the past decade buying up healthcare companies, and it has trillions more in "dry powder" allocated for further medical acquisitions. Why not? As the CFO of Medical Properties Trust told that Bank of America analyst last week, when you "own hospitals no one wants to see closed." you literally can't fail, no matter how many people you murder.

The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit.

Last year, Tkacic wrote about the history of IG Farben, the German company that built Monowitz, a private slave-labor camp up the road from Auschwitz to make the materiel it was gouging Hitler's Wehrmacht on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Farben bought the cheapest possible slaves from Auschwitz, preferentially sourcing women and children. These slaves were worked to death at a rate that put Auschwitz's wholesale murder in the shade. Farben's slaves died an average of just three months after starting work at Monowitz. The situation was so abominable, so unconscionable, that the SS officers who provided outsource guard-labor to Monowitz actually wrote to Berlin to complain about the cruelty.

The Nuremberg trials are famous for the Nazi officers who insisted that they were "just following order" but were nonetheless executed for their crimes. 24 Farben executives were also tried at Nuremberg, where they offered a very different defense: "We had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our profits." 19 of the 24 were acquitted on that basis.

PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/retaliation#charnel-house

#pluralistic #Rockledge Regional Medical Center #private equity #looting #Steward Health #ponzis #maureen tcacik #Medical Properties Trust #Ralph de la Torre #Massachusetts #florida #Cerberus #too big to fail #pe #guillotine watch

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makeste · 5 months ago

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BnHA Chapter 425: New Normal

Previously on BnHA: Everyone was all “and with that we conclude our final battle for better or worse!! We will now commence our slow return to the new normal, beginning with our protagonist and deuteragonist who are miraculously more or less intact, albeit exhausted and mildly traumatized. Also the words ‘more or less’ are kind of doing a lot of heavy lifting there.”

Today on BnHA: The Big 3 and Aoyama are OUT. Shinsou is IN. The Tododrama is PENDING, and the mysterious figure in the shadows is UNIDENTIFIED. Also class 1-A finally becomes class 2-A and it only took them 425 chapters and TEN LONG YEARS. Can you imagine if this series had actually run throughout their high school experience like people once expected. “THE YEAR IS 2044 AND MY HERO ACADEMIA IS FINALLY WINDING TO A CLOSE.” There’s an alternate universe somewhere where this actually happened and we were all so very, very tired.

This is once again a shorter than usual reaction summary post, as opposed to my typical page-by-page liveblog. Not gonna have time to do those for a while yet most likely, but like hell am I gonna miss out on the last days of the series, so here we are.

Once again basing this off of @pikahlua’s spoiler translation summary here!

watching the eighteen inch tall Rat Principal standing at a podium overseeing this graduation ceremony is surreal in the most wonderful way. it’s like receiving your diploma from a sentient Funko Pop

I love how they established that Mic sitting there screaming at the top of his lungs is also a beloved U.A. graduation tradition, and that the senpais just roll with it while everyone else is in varying stages of trying to decide if it’s too late to transfer to another school

ngl sometimes I forget that Ochako and Toga were actually the second canonical f/f ship in this series. shoutout to Hadou and her adorable girlfriend whose name I absolutely cannot recall

absolutely wild that Horikoshi gives credit to Rat Principal for coordinating the entire disaster recovery nationwide. are you serious. the “world-famous” Principal Nezu?? you’re telling me this little capybara is effectively the secret president of Japan now or something. when does he even sleep

“the principal made great contributions to quirk morality education” is also a VERY interesting tidbit that I really want to know more about. “hey guys what if we did a better job at teaching people not to be dicks with their quirks” AND JUST LIKE THAT JAPAN WAS SAVED huzzah

“we lost many things, but we gained nothing” is both HILARIOUS and soundly depressing, but I can see what he’s trying to get at. still an odd choice for a graduation speech though. “our job is all about harm reduction, and we couldn’t even do that this time around, but in the future we hope to balance things out and maybe even get some net positive impact going!” lmao. again it’s all true, and in all honesty it’s spectacular that they managed as well as they did, all things considered. and I guess it would have been disingenuous to just ignore the reality of everything this particular school body has been through and pretend like everything is great right now. but I still can’t help feeling like there was probably a more inspiring way to get this message across lol

regardless of what he says, Aizawa 100% either bribed or threatened Rat Principal behind the scenes in order to stay with his class. and will do so again next year. he can and will keep getting away with it. he is never leaving these kids

and the sheer relief from all of them upon hearing it is all the justification he needs. these kids have four thousand nine hundred and seventeen accumulated traumas among them. they don’t need a four thousand nine hundred and eighteenth. this man is their father ffs. MINA WAS CRYING AND EVERYTHING

Kacchan watched that YouTube video about a dozen times until he managed to tie his tie all on his own with the one hand. and he did an amazing job. he’s such a model citizen now

also it looks to me like he has his right arm hidden in a sling underneath his shirt, which is interesting. if I’m not mistaken (and I very well could be, since it’s been a hot minute since I did any BnHA timeline math), the final battle took place sometime in early May, so this chapter is taking place roughly one month later. the hospital chapter took place about a week after the battle, so it’s been about 3-4 weeks since then. I really want to know what kind of shape Kacchan’s arm is in, but I guess Horikoshi will get to it when he gets to it

also, “we all gotta be together today” was a real wakeup call to me in that it gave me just an absolutely ridiculous amount of feels. just a totally unreasonable amount. and it’s like. listen, self. Kacchan has completed his character growth arc. he’s a team player and a leader who loves all his friends and they all love him in return. we’ve known this for years now. it’s an established fact. you can’t keep bursting into tears or whatever every time he shows it. this is no way to live your life. I need an intervention

anyways later this evening class 2-A is gonna have a celebratory movie night in the common room, and Kacchan is gonna fall asleep two minutes in peacefully surrounded by all his classmates, and they’re all gonna nudge each other and smile fondly and cover him with a blanket and stay up until 2am and Aizawa will have no mercy on them the following morning. it’s gonna be so wholesome you guys

(ETA: I decided to go back and have some more feels about this one tiny Kacchan panel, because apparently the four paragraphs I already wrote about it weren't enough. so the thing is, Sero's wonderment at Katsuki being out of the hospital initially read to me as half bemused awe, and half "oh boy, time to get back into our usual rhythm of antagonizing Kacchan!" but my second time around, I can't help remembering that all of Kacchan's classmates got to watch this kid getting tortured and strangled and stabbed through the heart in 4K. like, even if they were busy with their own fights at the time, there's no way they didn't see the footage later on afterwards.

and that had to have been traumatic for them. their friend literally died and was just lying there so still for so long afterwards. and him getting better and going back to his usual asskicking self later on doesn't just erase those memories, you know? especially with him having lasting, permanent damage afterward. not just his arm, even! like who even knows if his heart is going to be okay long term. when people get organ transplants they have to go on immunosuppressants afterwards because otherwise their body will try to attack the replacement organ. so I wonder how exactly it works when it's still your heart, but it's being held together by various bits and pieces of a spindly little floss man. idk, but I bet you it's still pretty rough.

anyway so long story short, I'm now reading this as one-third bemused awe, one-third joking antagonism, and one-third genuine "no seriously, is it okay for you to be here, please don't do anything to put your health at risk because we seriously cannot handle you dying on us again." and Kacchan's not even disagreeing with him lol, which has to be the most concerning thing of all. "they said it's okay if I rest." even he knows he's pushing it, but it was too important of an occasion to miss. anyway please take it easy kiddo.)

Aoyama leaving makes me sad but it makes total sense for his character after what he’s been through. he needs time to sort things out and continue down his own personal honor-regaining journey. respect

also glad to hear that it was his own choice and that both Rat Principal and Nao would have supported him if he stayed. I still to this day do not understand Naomasa’s actual level of authority lol. like, he’s supposedly a detective, and yet he seems to be personally in charge of every single important police operation, on like a national level. and he has the authority to make decisions like letting Aoyama go free. he is the law, literally

Aoyama trying to feed Deku some farewell cheese also took me out. like he just walked in there and was all “sorry everyone, I’m leaving, but I’ll still aim for the path of a hero and will one day return, don’t you worry!” and at some point in the midst of this tearful speech he made a beeline directly to Izuku and tried to give him some cheese that he apparently just had in his pocket or something. and Izuku was all “YEAH!” all solemnly but HE DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH THAT POCKET CHEESE. like he loves you and accepts you for who you are Yuuga but COME ON

at this point in the chapter it also became clear to me that Aizawa has his hair up in some sort of loosely assembled messy bun and that’s why it looks so especially flowing and gorgeous today. this is great cinema

and then AT LONG LAST, the admission of Shinsou into class 2-A. they tried everything they could to keep him out, BUT NOT EVEN THE END OF THE WORLD COULD STOP HIM. his rightful place

Ojiro’s scandalized response to hearing Fuwa refer to Aizawa as “Era-sen”, and then Fuwa subsequently revealing all of Aizawa’s secrets and Aizawa getting flustered and kicking her out, was one of the most delightful sequences I’ve read. “nooooo don’t tell them that, what the hell am I gonna threaten them with now”

Izuku has not even attempted to crack a smile since the final battle, aside from when he was frantically trying to reassure Kacchan in the hospital. I’m worried about him but also loving this a little bit, ngl. I am content to wait for you to eventually have a proper breakdown, mister Greatest Hero

also I singled him out on the whole not-smiling thing, but really this is true for just about all of them. my heart aches :(

were there really so many people freaking out over Izuku’s hair that Horikoshi felt compelled to throw in that “HEY DEKU-KUN, YOU SHAVED YOUR HAIR LIKE THAT DUE TO AN INJURY, RIGHT? BUT IT’LL GROW BACK, RIGHT!?” line in there lol. the hilarious thing is that this chapter was already in the books before 424 was released, so it means that Horikoshi anticipated the backlash ahead of time. the man knows his audience

and now for this mysterious little barefoot man randomly emerging from some rubble somewhere. who are you. fandom already thinks you’re everyone from Tenko to Hisashi lol. my personal theory is that he’s just a random citizen who’s hurt and traumatized and needs help. and unlike what happened with baby Tenko once upon a time, this young man actually will be helped by a hero in his moment of need, and it’ll be all hopeful and stuff because SOCIETY IS CHANGING FOR THE BETTER NOW HOORAY

or maybe he really is Tenko, idk. what do I know lol. don’t listen to me

lastly, Shouto out here immediately leaving U.A. after class and ruining my dreams of a class 2-A movie night. FINE THEN. GO AND BE WITH YOUR FAMILY my precious little life preserver. and I’m actually really, really excited to see what their endgame is actually, so yes, Horikoshi, bring it on please and thank you

#bnha 425 #class 1-a #wait no #class 2-a #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #this whole time we were led to believe this was the story of how izuku's generation became the greatest heroes #when really it was the story of rat principal's ascent to power #he waited until there was a vacuum and then he SWEPT RIGHT IN like emperor palpatine #it's his world now and we're just living in it

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beaniegaebie · 8 months ago

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i don't really have any solid conclusions about this yet but i noticed A Thing in a rewatch and i haven't found it mentioned elsewhere yet so here we go

(apologies for the appalling image quality you're about to see, i can't screenshot easily rn pls bear with)

OKAY so in the scene where crowley confronts gabriel about "shut up and die", something about the arrangement of book stacks caught my eye a little

the majority of the books are angled so that we mostly just see the page edges and not the spines clearly, EXCEPT for a particularly shiny and familiar colour combo right here-

but nothing too weird going on there, i thought, crowley coloured books in a bookshop so what? right up until i registered crowley's line when we get a closer look-

hhhhmmmmMMmmmm yes yes "everything just the way you wanted" huh, very interesting considering that we know how much thought goes into props huh

and for most of the shots we get of crowley in this position those freaking books are just quietly nestled right there in the corner-

look at that god damn framing i fuckin see you, you glorious bastards

so i paused to see if i could figure out what the hell was up with those fuckers and this is when i absolutely lost my mind, your honour

A and C you say?? in crowley colours???? framed like this?????? localised entirely within your kitchen???

anyway long story short they're two books from an Agatha Christie Crime Collection set (24 volumes, three stories per volume) and guess whats on the mfing front covers I'm-

(its a rant for another post but when paired with this other set of initials spotted in s2 i want to scream actually)

ANYWAY back to the books, through an absolutely unhinged comparison of the formatting of gold text blobs i reckon the two we have here are:

(on top) The Pale Horse; The Big Four, The Secret Adversary

(on bottom) 4:50 From Paddington, Lord Edgeware Dies, Murder in Mesopotamia

(I'm fairly confident but if anyone has a better image to confirm/correct this pls do)

now here is where I'll need a bunch of help from some Christie-heads out there bc I haven't read any of these and I've only seen the tv adaptation of one of them, so i dont know for sure if these are like A Clue, or A Cool Thing, or if I've just fully brainrotted myself into a fun lil corner here? wa-hoo

but here's some initial stuff that jumped out at me after skimming the basics:

(some of) the titles: Pale Horse/Big Four - death's horse ofc, the four horsemen mayb? the them+adam?? ; Mesopotamia is a very biblical choice bbz ; 4:50 From Paddington- azi likes trains i guess? idk that one's tenuous lmao ; honestly no idea with the other two but Secret Adversary feels a tad ominous

iirc Big Four just has kind of an unusual history, it was initially twelve short stories that she later compiled into one, and it was published fairly soon after christie's mysterious disappearance/reappearance

in Big Four, poirot fakes his death at one point and doesnt even let hastings in on it and I'm hoping sure its totally irrelevant to the ineffable bois

part of the Pale Horse story is a group of assassins that basically try to pass off all their murders as being actually caused by like ✨satanic powers✨ which is interesting

christie knew a fUCkton about poisonings thats why she wrote so many into her work and, while i don't believe the poison coffee theory myself, it sure is an interesting link with how cyanide is associated with almond smell/flavour and that metatron chooses almond syrup in particular

(ALSO random side note that is mostly meaningless but I've worked in a good few uk coffee shops and have never worked anywhere that stocks almond syrup; almond milk yes, hazelnut syrup yes, but never almond syrup...? prob just the places i worked though lmao)

EDIT forgotten point: I've seen some speculation that the bently's plate reading "CURTAIN" could be a reference to poirot's last story, along side that alternate scene of crowley ordering the sherry for "miss marple", its just one too many agatha christie references for my melted brain to handle and I'm SUS

so this is where i run out of idea steam and hand it over to you lot because i have no clue what this could mean, if it even means anything other than a cool set feature

is there something here actually or am i yelling into the void just for fun?

who knows, who cares!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #agatha christie #hercule poirot #miss marple #can't wait to hear y'alls thoughts #SO WHY IS THERE A KNIFE THROUGH THE 'A' HUH #AND WHY IS THE 'C' ON THE CHALKBOARD SO FADED HMMM #GAIMAN EXPLAIN #things that make me go ngkk

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zivazivc · 6 months ago

Note

What kind of nu metal music fits Les's band?

First of all I gotta clarify that I sent this ask myself because I accidentally lost the original through constant editing and drafting. I realize I could just make a regular text post but I'm quirky like that, and a question is a nice little attention grabber for those who are interested.

Anyway...

It's hard to point at one song and say this is their sound, because A: I'm picky, B: the band's style changes over time, and C: I don't know what I'm doing lmao

This answer is very long uhh I don't seem to be able to form short responses, mi scusi 😅

Back at home the brothers' music and then also the first year on the road with Flea the band sounds like the albums Music and especially Grassroots by 311. (Grassroots is such a banger of an album, I listen to it all the time, really recommend.)

Hed's the main influence on the band's sound because he's the main vocalist, songwriter and overall the most invested in the band succeeding (Les's main concern is making ends meet, and Flea is just enjoying the ride lol). At the start Hed and Les have had basically no contact with Rock Trolls so even though they're both more metal/punk than regular rock, their "rock side" is softer at this point. Hed also grew up with hip hop because of his peers so there's a lot of rapping in his lyrics. And he also incorporates reggae into his style a lot because of his favorite uncle, Kymani (one of the guys who live with Ish) who is a Reggae Troll. Hed is pretty much a sponge when it comes to music, much like Floyd. The closest I can come to describing his genre is a fusion of Rap Metal and Reggae Rock which are both already fusion genres jskksdjsk

(The band 311 has two singers and oddly they both sound like Hed and Les to me. SA Martinez (the higher of the two voices) sounds 100%, exactly like how I've imagined Hed's voice in my head. For Les I have a different voice claim because Les's personal style of music is much different from the band, but Nick Hexum (the lead vocalist here) is still in the second place when it comes to voice alone. Imagine my enthusiastic surprise finding voices for both brothers in the same band 😄)

examples from the two albums:

youtube

...

While driving around and performing small gigs they come in contact with the alternative and nu metal scene and meet a lot of Rock Trolls (mostly various Metal Trolls) and other mixed trolls, and in the following couple of years their sound gradually becomes heavier (Hed rediscovers screamo lol) and they go from rock to metal.

A year into their "touring" is also around the time Hed meets and starts dating Liv and gets her to join the band. Liv's genre has the heaviest sound of all of them (Industrial/EBM), which influences Hed and the band too. And with Liv on the drums, Hed takes over DJ-ing and is also able to put more focus on the vocals, which also makes Les step down and only sing backing vocals with the rest of the band if needed.

The band in this era sounds like the album Revolution by Insolence and to some degree Introduction to Mayhem by Primer 55.

examples from the albums:

youtube

...

Two years into the bands existence is when Floyd runs into them. At first he's more just standing there, observing their practices and performances warily, because he's had bad experiences with Rock Trolls in his one year alone and metal music still kinda freaks him out at this point. But he soon starts joining in in melodic parts and then it progresses into him singing longer and longer segments because he has the strongest vocals of everyone. And once he saves enough of his earnings for a guitar he starts playing the rhythm guitar too. (The guitar he took with him when he left the Troll Tree got stolen before he met the band.)

I guess I should clarify: Flea is the lead guitarist, Les is the bassist, and Liv and Hed switch on the drums and DJ-ing depending on the track. At one point they also get a keyboard.

It's also not that long before Hed and Floyd start actively writing songs together, sharing each others notes, and they start to split the singing parts more evenly. Hed even teaches Floyd screamo techniques, because he thinks Floyd has a great voice for them (He is correct, Floyd has a mean scream 😁).

During this time the band still pretty much sounds like Revolution by Insolence but with more melodic singing parts from Floyd (and screaming/shouting lmao). I think Verge of Umbra is another good band to compare, it sounds more clean and Floydy but still Hedy. (Man, I should write scientific research papers skjdkjf)

youtube

↑↑↑ song with the lyrics from the drawing at the top

youtube

From here on out I'm a bit unsure how the band's sound develops, but I'm pretty sure Floyd would unintentionally infect them with a mild case of radio friendliness (Pop trolls can't help their in your face nature lmao 😞). So for now I'm stopping here...

This took me days of searching and writing so I would appreciate to hear any thoughts you have if you've come this far and given some of the songs a listen. :)

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ohmyeyesmyeyes · 6 months ago

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i couldn't stand you - m. bunting

summary: (slow burn enemies to frenemies to friends etc / f!reader x mb) three years: arguments, truces, break-ups, moving houses...michael bunting wasn't nearly as irritating as you'd initially expected.

warnings: swearing, consumption of alcohol, reader is a pens fan, scenes with eating involved, reader is a chef, I PROMISE THE WRITING GETS BETTER THE MORE YOU READ (toronto to carolina sequence my fave <3), sid being an obliviously adorable cockblocker, angst/pining, fluff, the ending is so unfinished and doesn't do the 20k justice at all...(i lost inspiration)(but i might edit it in the future/do an alternate ending)

a/n: i got inspiration from this from that tom welling hug in cheaper by the dozen

In all honesty, you hadn’t really been paying much attention to Ellis, which kind of defeated the entire purpose of even stepping into the bar. Taylor had wanted you to meet her new boyfriend, and it had barely taken all of five minutes of being in his presence to deduce that he was not only a nice guy, but clearly liked her a lot, was funny, the whole works, etc, etc. Only, your attention had been (completely against your will) stolen by the…idiot sitting next to you.

You didn’t really know what else to call him. An impatient dick? That was also fitting. A bad driver? There wasn’t a 100% certainty in that statement, but it felt fitting given the incident from earlier that morning.

Nevertheless, when you’d clocked each other, the only empty space being that on the bench right next to him, there was no doubt he recognised you too. He’d rolled his eyes and scoffed into his beer, and you’d sat down rather aggressively and dropped your bag on the floor, downright refusing to look at him.

Hence, the intervening from Ellis, with his polite smile and countenance, a complete contrast to aforementioned impatient dick sitting on your left. Taylor had raised a brow, a silent question on her face but you’d simply shaken your head and accepted the cocktail she’d already ordered with a grateful smile.

“I’m confused.” Ellis muttered, leaning his head on one hand, eyes darting confusedly between you and Michael Bunting, Maple Leafs player apparently, “Do you two know each other?”

You shook your head, sipping your cocktail. Judging from the silence next to you, Micheal had done the same thing, neither of you too eager to explain anything. It wouldn’t have been a big deal. In fact, if the subject hadn't been poked and prodded further, you’d have probably been fine with it, maybe even accepted the fact that you were going to have to spend however many hours with him for the sake of your friends.

Who knew? Maybe you’d have eventually gotten past this pre-established dislike for one another, but Taylor was never really one for ignoring gossip when it was sitting in front of her – a trait that you rather found entertaining until you were the victim.

“What, so it’s dislike at first sight, or something?” She asked, eyeing the two of you with more intrigue than you were comfortable with.

In fact, her eyes seemed to shimmer like a greedy shark when you shifted uncomfortably in your seat, briefly glancing at the man on your left.

He was rolling his eyes. And you didn’t care to even guess if it was at you or if it was at Taylor, but with the morning you’d had – because of him – you turned back to her with more conviction this time.

“Pretty much, yeah.” You shrugged.

Taylor scoffed in disbelief, sharing a look with Ellis, “Why?”

“Because she’s a shit driver.”

You gaped, head snapping to Michael with appal. He was frowning in a way that just exuded arrogance. He actually thought he was right – the nerve.

“I am not–”

“Oh, yes you are.”

“The traffic in front of me was at a complete standstill, what was I supposed to do–”

“They were moving–”

“Oh, please. You were just in a rush because someone clearly forgot to set an alarm this morning–”

“I was not in a rush–”

“Then what was the reason for honking at me?”

“You flipped me a birdie!”

“You honked for no reason – who even does that?”

“You flipped me a fucking birdie!”

“After you honked!”

“You were too slow, you weren’t even looking at the road.”

“Yeah, because God forbid I skip a song in a traffic jam.”

He scowled, but said nothing else, sharing a rather irritated glance with Ellis across from him.

You, however, were a little different: sure, your jaw was ticking, your pulse was higher than usual from his stress-inducing attitude, but the first thing you did was share a wide-eyed glance with Taylor, whose jaw had dropped. You rarely fought with people, let alone in public spaces. In fact, the last time you’d bickered like that was when you and Taylor were little and arguing over who got to marry which celebrity from the magazine in make-believe play – but that was exactly all it had been: make-believe.

This was real life, and when you argue like that in real life, people tend to stare. You could feel strangers’ eyes boring into the side of your face and your cheeks flamed against your will. Add that onto the fact that Ellis – who you’d never met before, and were intent on setting a good first impression – had just witnessed you argue with his best friend? You were nothing short of mortified.

“Right.” Ellis sighed, scratching the back of his head, and all three pairs of remaining eyes sitting at the table zipped to him for some form of guidance as to what to do next, “So, now that everyone’s introduced…another round?”

There were muted expressions of agreements, and even just looking at Taylor, you could tell that she was about to slip out and join Ellis at the bar, even after your pleading.

You watched her go sadly, your hands tucked under your thighs, trying desperately to ignore the other presence. You weren’t sure how you’d feel even looking at him – didn’t know if you could. Not only for the embarrassment, but for the sheer…eugh of having to look at him.

Blue eyes, brown hair – not too dark. Apart from that, your mind was drawing a blank.

He cleared his throat. You ignored it.

“What’re your first thoughts on Ellis for Taylor, then?” He mumbled, half-heartedly trying to engage in conversation, and it was because you knew he was only doing it to try and ease some of the tension for Ellis that you turned to face him.

The flare of irritation that presented itself felt like an allergic reaction to simply looking at him, but you swallowed, trying to paste on a nonchalant expression. You could do this. You just had to stare at the blank spot on the wood just a little bit off from his face.

Only, he seemed to take your lack of expression and interest as something else, because he tilted his head towards you fractionally, a rather condescending look on his face.

“Your instincts?”

Instincts? You had instincts – not necessarily about Ellis and what it was Michael was asking about, but you had them. And maybe it was the patronising glare, maybe it was the day’s frustration, maybe you were just tired and needed someone to take it out on, but you ignored his context for the question.

“My instincts?” You repeated, and he nodded, eyes squinting slightly, “That you’re full of shit.”

***

Usually you’d have no issue avoiding Michael when both of your presences were dubbed mandatory to these kinds of things: there was space, there were people – no reason to talk or even look in each other’s directions.

Only, this time, Ellis’s birthday party, somehow the invitation had been extended to you and the get-together was small. Intimate. Maybe seven people in total, not including Ellis himself. And because Ellis was Ellis, a party meant drunk games – and if not drunk, certainly alcohol-induced.

And to your bitter astonishment, the only two people left without split-second partners for a rough game of charades was…you and Michael. In theory, it shouldn’t have been much of a shock: it was inevitable for Ellis and Taylor to pair up together, and you were Taylor’s plus one (even though Ellis had told you himself he wanted you there), and it had become increasingly obvious throughout the evening that Michael didn’t know anyone but Ellis and Taylor; everyone else seemed to have gone to school together and jumped into pairs pretty quickly.

Needless to say, when you’d looked around the room and locked eyes with an equally disgruntled Michael, the two of you hadn’t broken eye contact as you’d downed whatever was remaining in your glasses and immediately reached for a refill.

Yet, for all your displeasure in the pairing, there was an odd satisfaction in knowing that you’d both absolutely thrashed the living daylights out of everyone else. It scratched a competitive itch inside of you, and against your will, you felt yourself softening up to him. His grin had become less irritatingly smug when he was directing it at you after a speedy guess, and his failure to hide his equally competitive edge through the half-smirks directed at his lap when other couples failed were more endearing than grating.

(You just blamed the alcohol.)

Although, probably just as shocking as that turn of events, Taylor and Ellis were awful at charades. They’d gotten one word right in the allotted time, and although they’d tried to hide it, no one was completely ignorant to their harsh whisperings to each other and pointed gestures. Or the confused glances they seemed to direct straight towards you and Michael, who, unlike everyone else, were sitting side by side on the carpet, a sizable distance between each other and managing to neither look or speak apart from when it was your turn.

It was remarkable, really, that two strangers could guess each other’s frantic motions easier than people who knew each other in arguably the most intimate ways. It felt like a test of compatibility, and Ellis and Taylor knew they were failing – hence, in your head, said compatibility test was clearly false. Michael was living, breathing proof of that.

“And Team We Don’t Care Just Pick Whatever wins.” Taylor announced, glancing direly at the small scrap of paper that she’d been documenting the scores on, “Ten points clear from the runners-up.”

You raised your brows, sighing despondently at your glass because you weren’t quite sure you could look Taylor in the eye without feeling some form of inexplicable guilt. You, however, wanted to savour this moment of triumph.

And what better way to celebrate than to pour yourself another glass?

The kitchen was quiet, dirty dishes stacked near and in the sink, along with a plethora of glasses and bottles from where people had decided to mix their drinks. It was quieter and cooler, too: a place to rest and breathe for a second. Only, as soon as the first sip touched your mouth, you had to stifle a yawn, your eyes suddenly dry and heavy.

Half past twelve.

“You leavin’?”

You turned your head to see Michael standing in the doorway, clearly having just come back from the bathroom and with a rather blank look on his face. At your attention, however, he seemed to force his mouth into a slither of a smile, looking mightily uncomfortable under your gaze.

His eyes quickly dropped, momentarily drifting to your glass, a little hesitantly.

“Might do. You?”

You almost wanted to wince at the awkwardness emanating in the atmosphere. It must be the first time you’d ever willingly engaged in a conversation with each other – let alone by yourselves. The silence in the room seemed to intensify that realisation that there was no Taylor or Ellis to act as a buffer, but Michael looked remarkably calm and unbothered by that knowledge. In fact, at your question he raised his brows as though shocked you’d reciprocated the conversation and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired.”

There was nothing particularly to say to that, so you just nodded, standing by the counter. He looked as if he wanted to say something: his hands were tapping against his jean-clad thighs and he kept glancing at you and then away, something playing on his features.

“You okay?” You found yourself asking, much to his surprise.

“Yeah, I just…” He stepped closer, throwing a careful glance back towards the open door, “Has Taylor talked to you about me?”

You blinked, tilting your head.

She had, many times on many different occasions and with a variety of different tones. Just off the top of your head you could list that time you’d gone over to hers for a movie night and she’d softly suggested that you try to get along with him; that one time she’d caught you pulling a rather put-off facial expression after he’d said something questionable; that one time she must have been a second away from grabbing you by the shoulders; eventually she’d given up, but that was after the basketball incident when you’d thrown the ball a little too harshly at him and winded him in the park.

The ignoring each other thing worked – so why did you find yourself beginning to tolerate his presence? After all this time, surely, nothing would change so suddenly?

“Yeah.” You admitted, rather guiltily. In your defence, you’d tried to get along with him, but there was something about your personalities that clashed in the wrongest of ways. Both Taylor and Ellis had openly observed the two of you were pretty similar (you were a little offended by that statement) and would probably get along if you both put your pride aside, “Has Ellis…” You trailed off, watching him carefully.

He nodded, “Oh, yeah. He’s made a few bold statements about it, I’ll say that.” He huffed a bitter laugh, “But I was thinking–”

You pulled a face and he looked about ready to stop talking altogether, until he sighed, “Maybe we should just call a truce, or something? A fresh start, if not for us, for them. They seem pretty stable and if they’re for the long-term, then I think it’d be easier if we just agreed to get along, or at least pretend.”

Maybe it was the alcohol in your system, or maybe it was because tonight you’d found him a lot more tolerable than you usually would, but you nodded. And to that, he just blinked.

“Really?” He asked, almost recoiling in reaction.

“Yeah.” You shrugged, “Under one condition though.”

His face dropped – the almost triumphant smile that he’d nearly allowed himself to display had vanished completely in replacement for something harsher, more annoyed. His jaw had clenched and the hand he’d placed on the counter seemed to tap with more aggravation as he rolled his eyes in resignation, “And what would that be?” He asked, sounding rather like he already had an idea as to what it was.

“Just admit I’m not a bad driver.” You reasoned.

“Oh, I thought you were gonna…Nevermind.” He shook his head, holding his hand out for you to shake, “You’re not a bad driver.”

“Thanks.” Then, “Are you Michael or do you have any nicknames instead?”

There was a brief pause, and he looked at you like you were an alien, “Why?”

“I don’t know, Michael – you don’t look like a ‘Michael’, that’s all.”

“And what does a ‘Michael’ look like?”

“Probably twenty-thirty years older, balding–”

“Wow.”

“Is that a no?”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, “Purely because you don’t like it, no, I don’t have any nicknames. I’d rather you called me Michael.”

“Nice one. But when we’re in a public space and I yell your name, there’s gonna be at least three older, balding guys turning to look at me–”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Well, one of us has to be.”

Neither of you seemed to remember you were still holding hands.

***

One thing you never thought you’d be doing in your near future, was packing all of your makeup and three outfit choices and driving to Ellis’s place to have a conversation with Taylor. To be honest, there was a small part of you that was a little bit aggravated that to talk to your best friend you had to drive twenty minutes and risk missing packing something for the date you needed help with, especially seeing as though said date was in forty-five minutes.

Although, you did have time to reason with yourself in the car, the usual stuff: she could have just said no to helping you when you called her in a frustrated panic; the last-minute pep talk was probably going to make up for any residual irritation; on the bright side, though, at least Ellis’s apartment was closer to the date location than your own.

You knew you’d feel better once you got there – only…

“You have got to be kidding me.” You breathed a solemn laugh, head lolling backwards and cheeks flaming at the sight before you.

Michael Bunting standing in the doorway with a wicked grin on his face, each pore practically oozing mirth at your current situation, eating an apple. And sure, you’d agreed to get along for the sake of your friends, but you had no idea that would mean him being privy to your moments – nor did it mean you were particularly pleased to see him at such a dire time.

“Hello, sweetheart. Heard you were stuck?” He tilted his head, pouting in your direction, and you didn’t miss the way his attention zipped curiously to the backpack over your shoulder and the garment bags slung over your arm.

“Do you really not have anything better to do on a Friday night other than third-wheel your best friend and his girlfriend?” You asked, smiling flatly and walking through the door when he opened it further.

He shook his head, crunching a bite, and you stood in the hallway, patience ticking away by the second as you waited for him to finish eating to speak. There were voices drifting down the corridor, and you turned your head to see shadows and flickers of light in the other room, Taylor clearly on her way – thank fuck.

“I have a game tomorrow, gotta have a tame night.” He muttered, reaching out a hand to touch the soft plastic covering of your garment bag, “And I’ll tell you one thing, I am so glad I get to witness this.”

You pulled a face, “Ha ha.”

“I can already tell you’re gonna make my fucking night, so I’m gonna just thank you in advance–”

“Hey, stop psyching her out.” Taylor appeared, a crease between her brows that clearly hadn’t materialised at his words alone, and for a split-second, you and Michael shared a worried glance, any previous teasing evaporating along with it.

He nodded easily, holding his hands up in surrender and disappearing into the living room, his footsteps slow and leisurely as though he was hoping to overhear a snippet more, but before you could even spit out a greeting of your own, Taylor had dragged you into Ellis’s bedroom and locked the door – the man himself nowhere to be seen.

“Is everything okay?”

Taylor spun on her heel, flashing you an urgent glance, apparently brushing off your question of concern, “I should be asking you that.”

“Oh, I’m fine–”

She shot you a look of disbelief.

“Just nervous, I guess. And I can’t decide what to wear, so I brought some stuff.”

In the other room, Michael was sitting on the sofa, apple half-eaten and trying to ignore the rather violent knee shaking Ellis was doing by tuning into the faint sound of voices from the bedroom that could still be heard over the TV. He knew he should probably be focused on his best friend – who was anything but subtle in trying to convey the fact that he was clearly irked by something – but he also knew that Ellis would talk when Ellis wanted to talk.

He was also kind of curious as to what had gotten you in such a pickle: he knew you were about to go on a date (first, he assumed), but why the sudden panic? You’d turned up armed with a Hannah Montana-type level of hair, costumes and makeup stuff and he’d just eyed it all a little bit confused.

He was very aware of the fact that you were pretty – he’d seen you with the barest amount of makeup on (he assumed, he actually had no idea if you did) and in a pair of sweats, and his opinion hadn’t changed, so why all the makeup? Surely, if someone was to like you in that sense you shouldn’t have to dress up and put loads of makeup on?

He wasn’t too sure, really. His extent of first dates was restricted to his high school experience and he’d only been on a few since.

“Why the panic?” He found himself asking aloud, turning to Ellis like he’d hold the answers in the universe.

Ellis, however, turned to face him, a scowl already on his face, and it didn’t take a genius to gather that he wasn’t going to get much out of him with the mood he was in.

“What?”

“The girls.”

Ellis shrugged, turning his attention back to the TV, “Why would I know?”

Michael pressed his lips together tightly, trying to ignore the answers popping up in his head. Why wouldn’t Ellis know? He’d been talking to Taylor when you texted so if anything it’d be weird for Ellis to not know what was going on.

In fact, the longer he spent in Ellis’s presence, the more uncomfortable Michael felt. He shifted in his seat, the tense and awkward atmosphere feeling oddly claustrophobic and he felt the sudden desire to get out of the room, even if it was to fake a visit to the kitchen or something.

He pushed himself off the sofa, the apple core in his hand sticky and by the time he’d stood in there and looked out of the window, washed his hands and decided he was going to leave anyway, there was a voice in the hallway.

“-look stunning, I promise.”

There seemed to be a muttered reply, but before he could make his way towards the door and announce his departure, there was a call of his name.

“Bunting–”

“No, don’t.”

He looked right down the hallway, Taylor leaning against the wall. Taylor wasn’t tall by any means, so he could easily see you behind her. You were clearly uncomfortable with something, unable to look at him or any living thing, your eyes instead fixated on the plants on the table next to the door.

He had to remind himself to breathe when you rolled your eyes at Taylor and walked around her, your head down and pointedly trying not to make eye contact with him as you walked to the door to put on your shoes.

You were wearing a long black dress, not too long that you could ever trip over the hem, but long enough to accentuate the sheer length of your legs, and now he was close enough he could make out the little clusters of purple flowers embroidered onto the material.

He couldn’t really get his mind to focus on anything other than ‘wow, that dress fits nicely’; it accentuates your curves perfectly and…he needed to breathe. He cleared his throat awkwardly, wondering when it had suddenly become so dry and ripped his eyes away to blink at Taylor.

He couldn’t read her face, but he didn’t like the look on it.

“Yeah?” He asked, unable to help glancing back at you.

You looked…wow.

“Does she look nice?”

“Taylor–”

“You look really nice.” He blurted, his hands stuck in his pockets. When both of you turned to stare at him, apparently speechless, he felt his cheeks redden and his eyes drifted to the doorframe, a little mortified because you clearly hadn’t wanted him to say anything, but also because he’d said it embarrassingly fast and added a ‘really’ in there. And said it like he had a gun pointed to his head, which was one hell of a contradiction.

“Thanks.” You said, not having moved much.

He just nodded, wanting nothing more than to melt into a puddle on the floor and soak through the floorboards and pretend this moment never occurred.

He wasn’t supposed to like you, he pretty much swore that from the start. But he had a niggling feeling you were wearing him down somehow. He didn’t know what it was, but lately he’d been finding himself sneaking a smile at some of the stuff you said and did. Like you were actually getting along.

And maybe it was because he wanted to test that unspoken theory out – to see if maybe you could be friends – but as he left he waited in the doorway for Taylor to finish talking. He had a sneaking suspicion, though, that Taylor was only talking for herself. The look on your face: he knew you were grateful for what she was saying, but there was something akin to impatience on your face if he looked hard enough.

And it was that, and the fact that the fake smile you’d plastered on your face was slowly slipping with every second that passed and every glance at the time on your phone, that he found himself stepping a little closer, whipping his keys around on his finger, “Hey, are you okay for a lift?”

Taylor shut up and looked to you for confirmation.

There was a pause and he almost regretted asking it–

“Are you offering?” Your voice was different to how it usually sounded when you were speaking to him; softer, perhaps a little more vulnerable.

And when he looked at you, he wasn’t quite sure what it was but it felt different. His stomach sort of dropped and he…lost his train of thought.

Still, he managed, “Yeah. I can drop y’off on my way home, it’s no problem.”

“You’re leaving already?” Taylor asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired.” He didn’t really want to say that he didn’t feel like he was welcome at this particular moment in time, not with Ellis clearly in a mood, but he did feel a stab of guilt when he thought about leaving Taylor to deal with it by herself, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” She brushed it off, taking a step back and glancing between you and him with an odd glint in her eye, “I’ll let you go. Have fun.”

There were a few hushed mutters as he stepped out of the apartment, waiting by the elevator for you to join him, and almost as soon as you shut the door behind you, you sighed.

He still didn’t say anything, and instead turned to watch the numbers tick up to the floor, before an audible ding sounded and the doors shuddered open. He let you go first. And if he thought the tension back with Ellis was bad, this was a whole other level, because he swore he could hear the cogs of your mind working on overdrive – about the date or about his uncharacteristic behaviour, he couldn’t possibly guess, but it was driving him crazy.

“You good?”

“Hmm?” You looked at him, shocked at his words, and he’d never seen you this frazzled before, “Oh, yeah. Just nervous, I guess.”

He swallowed, uncertain. He wanted to say something to make you feel better – heck, he had it lined up in his head to just blurt out, but the only thing stopping him was that it might make it weirder, and you’d already been bombarded by that kind of thing from Taylor. And then he thought of you on your date and–

“If you tell yourself that the nerves are actually just excitement, I find it usually eases some of the, y’know, nerves.” He stuttered, glad the doors opened once more.

“Thanks. Also, thanks for offering to drive me here, you really didn’t have to.” You murmured, and he found himself shaking his head.

“You don’t have to thank me, it really wasn’t any trouble.”

“Do you get nervous before your games?”

The question startled him to such an extent that he almost tripped over the rug in the entryway, but his sneakers squeaked against the floor and he felt his body jolt a little.

Was he actually losing it or was this considered a civil conversation? You weren’t at his throat with some quick witted jab, and you weren’t looking at him like you wanted to wring his neck.

It was weirdly refreshing.

“Sometimes.” He admitted, holding the door open to the car park, “It’s usually hit and miss though, it depends on who we’re playing. The car’s this way.” He pointed to the other side of the garage at your hesitation.

And it wasn’t until you’d buckled yourself in and he’d turned the engine on that either of you spoke again.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

He breathed a bitter laugh, “I’m usually nice to people, y’know, I’m not a–”

“Dick?”

“Yeah.” He shot you a look, “You test my patience, though. You bring out the worst of me.”

You seemed to ease up a little at his confession, managing a small smile, “Likewise.”

“I just…” he trailed off, pulling a face before momentarily losing his train of thought as he pulled out into traffic, “There’s a time and a place for that kind of thing. And I could tell Taylor was starting to grind your gears, so…”

You hummed, “Yeah. She’s great but sometimes she, like, I don’t think she knows me as well as she thinks she does. Sometimes I just need quiet.”

So, he thought, that’s what he’ll give you.

***

Unknown Number: SOS

Unknown Number: HELP

Unknown Number: PLEASE HURRY

You: Who is this?

Unknown Number: Michael Bunting

You could hear the yelling and the dumping of objects into a hollow box even through the door, and it was both the noise and the frantic messages that were still pinging through your phone that had you instantly pushing it open. If you hadn’t had some semblance of a warning from the messages, you’d have probably assumed the entire place had been ransacked by burglars: drawers had been turned upside down with the contents littered across floors in an attempt to find their individual belongings; there were cardboard boxes piled and stacked, stuff sticking up – and, more importantly you guessed, both co-habitants standing in the middle of the living room, yelling about something or other with a stricken Michael Bunting awkwardly holding a TV remote and waiting by the door like a kid.

It was clear from his face that he had no idea what to do. And despite the situation, you were able to find some amusement in that.

Although…

“What’s Taylor doing here?” You asked, the both of you still loitering in the doorway, watching your friends rip each other up like it was usual Saturday soap.

He shrugged, and you felt the heat of his stare burn the side of your cheek until you couldn’t take the silence. His cheeks were pink and he looked to be stuttering.

“What?”

He winced, “I kind of walked in this morning and she was in the kitchen.”

You blinked, your attention switching back to the arguing couple. Ellis had a cushion in his hand and they were both insisting it was theirs, only when you looked closer, you noticed Taylor’s bare feet and the Blue Jays t-shirt she was wearing, and you turned, shocked and disturbed, to Michael.

“When you said this morning…”

“Yeah?” He was refusing to look at you properly now, and that little seed of disbelief that had planted itself in your brain seemed to bloom, and a pebble of stress dropped in your stomach. His cheeks were still a bit pink, but it was hidden by a thicker wad of stubble than when you’d last seen each other.

“What time was that?” You continued, watching the delicate lines near his eyes appear when he pulled another face, almost confirming your thoughts with just a look.

“Nine.”

You nodded, “Right. And was she, y’know, dressed?”

His eyes closed briefly, a whisper of mortification barely heard over the yelling – but with the two of you standing shoulder to shoulder sharing a doorway it wasn’t missed, “Barely.”

You huffed a small laugh at his expense because he clearly hadn’t been prepared for his best friend’s now ex-girlfriend to be in the kitchen wearing next to nothing that early in the morning, and at the sound he sent you an offended glance.

“Sorry.” You apologised, turning to watch the spectacle with a barely-there smile that became increasingly difficult to hide the longer you felt him stare accusingly in your direction – if anything his undying attention only amplified the hilarity of his earlier memory and you had to lean your forehead against the wood of the doorframe and turn your back to him to block the image from your mind entirely.

“Listen, she’s pretty and everything, but…it’s weird for me.” He mumbled, folding his arms.

“Was it your first time seeing a half-naked woman?”

He rolled his eyes, “You’re hilarious – shut up, don’t even say it. You know why it’s weird. It’d be weird if you walked in and it was Ellis with, like, a bowl of cereal covering his crotch.”

You wrinkled your nose, frowning, “I didn’t need that image, but point taken.”

You turned your attention to the bickering couple in front of you, now waving a fly swatter. In truth, you weren’t really sure why you were here or why Michael was here. Taylor had asked you to come with her when she’d made her so-called ‘appointment’ to pick up her stuff from Ellis’s place, but looking at them now she didn’t really need the help, or moral support. And neither did Ellis.

In fact, they were standing in front of each other arguing, and it was probably the least stressed you’d seen Taylor in weeks. Sure, their voices were raised, but there wasn’t anything malicious being said or anything physical going on. They were simply picking up objects and having a loud debate over whose it was, and it was that arguing combined with the obvious ‘last time together’ thing that made you think maybe this was more for closure for each other than anything else.

Even from Taylor’s point of view, she wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but she’d said it felt like everything between them had just gradually fizzled out for no apparent reason. It was odd, really: they’d seemed like such a good fit at the start and now, even like last week, they’d be in the same room and have more interest in talking to either you or Michael than showing interest in each other.

And it was that that had you turning to the man next to you, something plucking at your heart strings. It felt an awful lot like the dread you’d felt earlier, except it was laced with something heavier. Like knowing you’d never see your childhood pet again.

“Are they still broken up?” You found yourself asking, wanting him to turn his attention away from the scenes in front of you both.

He blinked once more before turning his head to look at you, about to say something on the tip of his tongue but clearly changing his mind at what he saw on your face. He tilted his head, eyes zipping from each of yours – back and forth – before his mouth curved up slightly at the edges, his expression taking an odd turn.

“What?” You asked, paranoid at the way he was looking at you.

His grin broadened, and he tilted his head adorably, “Nothing. But, yeah, they’re still broken up.”

You nodded, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. There was something rising in your chest, a tightness edged with panic, like you were aware time was clearly running out for something but your head wasn’t quite sure what.

“We’re still gonna be friends, right?”

For a brief moment, you didn’t know what to do. Your pulse seemed to kick against your sternum and that tightness in your chest eased, an inexplicable reaction that you couldn’t quite get ahold of its meaning.

“Us?” You looked at him, and where he previously had a smile on his face, it was now replaced with a kind of cautious curiosity: his mouth was pulled tightly and there was a slight, very slight crease between his brows that deepened when you spoke again.

His eyes briefly skitted to your right before returning to meet yours, “Yeah?” He said, but with the way his voice ticked up at the end it almost sounded like he wasn’t too sure himself.

And you were so shocked at the words falling out of his mouth that you could only blink and stare, “I’m your friend?”

You supposed it wasn’t too shocking: after the initial agreement it had taken a while to warm up to each other, but you’d eventually gotten to the point where you’d managed to unintentionally create some inside jokes, and, sure, you’d still bicker like children from time to time, but the teasing was less malicious and more fond, like you’d known each other for a while.

And it was in that moment that you realised that tightness in your chest was because you just assumed that, like Taylor would lose Ellis, you would lose Michael.

His eyes narrowed uncomfortably, and you could tell he'd gone a little defensive at your questions, probably assuming his own assumptions weren’t exactly reciprocated, “Yes.” He said, a little forcefully, “Aren’t I your friend?”

You nodded, awkwardly scratching your cheek, “I just assumed you only spent time with me because of Ellis and Taylor–”

“Nah.”

You nodded slowly, a small smile creeping onto your face, “Oh.”

He paused for a beat, watching you carefully, “Is that a no, then?”

“No, it’s a yes.”

“Good.” He grinned.

***

He was next to you one second and the next he’d just disappeared completely. It was the strangest thing.

It wasn’t like he was particularly easy to lose in a crowd, either, not with those shoulders and – well, actually, he was quite small so in hindsight, it was pretty easy to lose him in a crowd, especially when he was just another suit-clad man with a fairly recent haircut and shave.

You sighed in defeat, sitting back in your chair at the table surrounded by strangers that weren’t all that interested in your presence. You’d checked your phone at least five times within the past three minutes, expecting a quick text for an explanation and you hadn’t really been able to stop looking at the bar, helplessly expecting his face to materialise in thin air.

It was pretty shitty what he’d done: he’d all but begged you to come with him to one of his friend’s weddings and after you’d had to rearrange plans just so you could agree (he’d been so desperate he’d actually offered you a thousand dollars to go with him), yet the second you both enter the reception location, he dips?

“Excuse me, hi–”

You snapped your neck towards the unfamiliar voice, heart pounding like a jackhammer in your chest at the unexpected intrusion, and managed a polite, albeit confused, smile as you found yourself faced with a pretty raven-haired woman. You’d never seen her before, but with the way she was looking at you, you were almost forced to second guess yourself.

“Oh, hi.” You replied, brain spinning and throwing out names, but your face clearly contorting into one of utter bewilderment, much to her amusement.

She chuckled, “Sorry, you don’t know me.” She said, slightly oddly, and you tilted your head, connecting the dots from what she hadn’t said.

“But you know me?” You asked, and she shrugged, her cheeks colouring slightly.

“Not exactly, but I saw you come in with Michael–”

“Oh.”

She cringed, “Yeah. I am really sorry for approaching you like this, but I was just wondering if he was okay?”

You just blinked.

“You know,” she continued, clearly sensing your confusion, “because of our breakup?”

Oh fuck.

You tried to hide the shock from your face – as though this wasn’t new news to you – but try as you might, you felt your brows rise a little and your heart rate quicken. He’d never mentioned anything like that to you. In fact, you guys rarely ever talked about relationships, even despite you currently being in one (though it probably wasn’t going to last with the way it had been going recently), so you just assumed he hadn’t been in one.

Nevertheless, you nodded, “He’s fine.”

She eased after that, smiling in relief, but still hung around as though you were supposed to say something else, but in all honesty you weren’t sure what to say. You didn’t know if he was okay, not if he’d seen her and bolted; you didn’t know when it was that they’d broken up, and you didn’t know how much he’d want you to say.

So you sat in the chair, smiling awkwardly – probably appearing pretty rude – and just sighed.

“I’m sorry, I can’t say–”

“It’s fine, I understand.” She replied, smiling tightly, “Enjoy the night.”

You watched her walk away, and as soon as she disappeared through another set of doors, you picked up your phone and started to wind your way through the crowds to at least guess where he could have gone. There were little booths and food carts off around the edge of the room, along with some photo booths and drinks stands – it wasn’t until you reached the photo booth right near the entrance that you stopped for the first time.

There wasn’t a queue to this one, but there was a strip of photos in the hatch and a pair of freshly shined shoes under the curtain. You paused, taking a peak at the photos.

It was him, alright. Four photos: one of him in a ginger wig, one with a pair of huge glasses on, one with a moustache on a stick and the final one with all of them combined. If it had been any other time you supposed you’d have laughed, but all the photos did was fuel your desire to get the curtain open.

All he did was raise his brows at your appearance and shuffle over on the bench, tucking himself in against the wall with a defeated, unsurprised smile. You passed him the photo strip and he breathed a short, mirthless laugh before tucking it in his pocket and turning to you, an almost embarrassed look on his face.

“Sorry for ditching you.” He mumbled, looking genuinely guilty.

You shook your head, a pang of adoration shooting through your system for the man in front of you. You didn’t quite know where it suddenly came from or why it occurred, but you did know that it meant he was precious to you in a way you hadn’t even realised. You guys weren’t exactly close – there were obviously things you didn’t talk about (as evidenced), but you cared about him. Wanted him to be happy.

Wanted to wipe that forlorn expression off his face because he was clearly beating himself up about leaving you but still a little caught off guard by…

“You don’t have to apologise.” You smiled reassuringly, before asking, “What’s her name?”

His brows raised, and he tutted as he pulled an uncomfortable face. Whether it was because he hadn’t expected the question or because he was stealing himself, you weren’t at liberty to say, “Jess.” He managed, eyes zeroing in on some lint on the floor by his feet.

You just nodded. If he wanted to talk about it, you knew he would – he wasn’t exactly an open book when you prodded him, but you were all ears regardless.

“We were in a serious relationship for three and a half years before we broke up. That was a week before I met you. I wasn’t really coping well so Ellis dragged me out to that bar. I’m okay now, though. I still get a bit sad about it but I think I’m more sad for the me I was when we were dating than the me now, if that makes sense.” He spoke to his shoes, his arms crossed against his chest, as though to spit the words out and force himself to talk about it, that also meant he couldn’t face you, “I had a feeling she was gonna be here tonight, it was actually why I invited you, but the second I saw her, I don’t know, I just walked away. And the weird thing is that I don’t know why I walked away, because when I saw her I felt nothing. Maybe I walked away because I feel like I should have felt something, like walking away from her was something that was expected of me.” He sighed, swinging his head towards you, his eyes momentarily dropping to the necklace that sat comfortably against your sternum before darting back up to your face, “I’m just a bit confused.” He admitted.

You reciprocated his wry, self-deprecating smile, patting him on the arm fondly, “Me too; I actually thought you wanted to spend time with me–”

“Shut the fuck up.” He breathed a laugh, shaking his head.

That despondent expression had gone, the tension practically drained from the lines of his face, and you rejoiced at the smile now there – a real one, not one put on for the sake of it.

You took a breath, and whether he could sense that you were about to say something potentially cheesy, or something that neither of you would really say or do, his smile dropped, but only slightly. His eyes were focused on you, and you almost wanted to shrink back under his gaze – you two were sitting pretty tightly together: this photo booth bench was only made for one person, so there was little to no room to even look at each other properly. You’d both had to lean backwards against the walls to not end up touching noses, and for some reason, that hadn’t even occurred to you until that very second.

The breath in your chest shook a little, “I know…Um…” You laughed uneasily, “I know you said you were okay, and I know we don’t usually do this kind of thing, but if you ever feel like it…just for the support – that my hand is here for you to hold if ever you want to.” You inhaled, and this time it was you who was unable to look at him, “And that it’s okay to feel confused about it all. You don’t have to have an explanation for everything, but there’s nothing you can feel that’s wrong in any way. And if you ever want to talk about it…I’m always gonna be here for you.”

When you finally found the courage to turn to him again, he was looking at you in a way that was almost equivalent to the secret adoration you harboured for him, and you fought to keep your cheeks from flushing and your face from smiling like a damn fool. With the way the LED overhead lights were shining on you both – the heat of them warming the box pretty quickly, made worse by the two bodies also in there – your eyes drifted to his nose. You’d never really noticed it before, but the light seemed to hit it just right to enunciate the straight bridge of it. There was a scar just above his lip, darker and also more pronounced from the fresh shave (he’d not got rid of it all, there was still a light bit of scruff left), and although he wasn’t smiling properly, the creases by his eyes seemed to suggest otherwise.

He swallowed once he noticed you’d turned your attention back to him, and he nodded, lips twitching, “That really means a lot, hearing you say that.” He said, rather hoarsely, “It also goes both ways, too.”

You tilted your head in question.

“The hand thing – you can hold mine…for support.”

“Ah.”

“I actually do have something to say, now that I’m thinking about it.”

When did his eyes get so fucking bright? It almost angered you that you’d never noticed it before.

“What?” You asked, mildly curious as to his next words.

Though, nothing – absolutely nothing – could have prepared you for the bombshell of his next words.

“You look really beautiful tonight.”

***

“I know I said to avoid Tim Horton’s today, but I didn’t really mean to avoid–Oh, what the heck?”

His phone was immediately pocketed, and the smile on his face immediately dropped, and he stepped through the door without another word, leaving you both severely confused at his sudden actions and slightly light headed at the speed he’d managed to do all three things in. He simply stood in front of your now shut door, a mildly horrified look on his face and his hands tapping against his short-clad thigh.

“Why are you wearing shorts, it’s freezing outside?”

Your question of appal seemingly went unheard, because the crease between his brows only deepened and he pulled a funny face: his mouth turned down at the corners but he wasn’t angry or upset.

“Um…Okay, so you can tell me to shut the fuck up with what I’m about to ask you…” He trailed off, his eyes never leaving your face – all it did was elicit you to swipe against your cheek, expecting your hand to come away with pen or some dirt or something, because he was looking at you like you were an alien.

It was weird. And creepy.

“But have you been crying?”

You blinked, tilting your head with wide eyes.

He didn’t say anything but he copied your actions, before snapping into a more serious role, “No, but I’m being deadly serious.”

You hesitated, and he took that as your answer, his entire body deflating.

There was no point trying to hide it, clearly not if he’d just taken one solid look at you immediately after walking through the door and managed to figure it out. If anything you were a little impressed he’d recognised it because you’d never cried before or in front of seeing him ever – there hadn’t ever been a situation where he’d have seen your post-cry face to recognise it for what it was, and it wasn’t even as if you actually cried much. Maybe two minutes, tops.

“I broke up with Sam this morning.” You bit the bullet, willing your eyes to not tear up as you spoke the words into existence, but as you did so, the lump rose in your throat so impossibly quickly you physically couldn’t bring yourself to say anything else. Not if you didn’t want to actually start crying.

So you waited, and you watched and you looked as he stuttered, his eyes darting all over your face before going to your living room area. He circled his attention back to you after his forehead had creased and he’d seen what was on the TV, looking suddenly more comfortable than he had mere seconds ago.

“Are you okay?” Was the first thing out of his mouth, his backpack sliding off his shoulders easily to be deposited by the door, and all you could manage was a weak shrug, teeth scraping against your bottom lip to stop it from trembling.

You hated crying, and there was nothing worse than crying in front of someone else – you had no idea how he’d react if the dam did end up breaking, but if the soft, sympathetic gleam in his eye as he took an unsure step towards you was anything to go by, you had an inkling you were in safe hands.

He nodded at your uncertain gesture, “That’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

The crack in your chest seemed to split further, as though someone had thrown an axe straight through it, and all you could do was nod, your arms crossed tightly against your chest as though they’d somehow protect you from the inevitable hurt and grief of the next few minutes, hours, weeks and perhaps months.

But, despite all of that, the fact that he’d shown up out of nowhere sheerly because you hadn’t had the energy to pick up your phone, and because he clearly cared, you felt okay. Better than you had earlier when you hadn’t even spoken the truth to anyone.

He was right, you didn’t want to talk about it – but he was here. And he was pulling a Tim Horton’s box out of his backpack, giving you space and time and he was so heart-achingly patient that it almost sent you into another spiral of tears for a whole different reason. There was something about him that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. His friendship was different from yours with Taylor; you loved the girl to pieces but if you’d have told her like you’d just told him, she’d have corralled you into spilling your guts about everything, and you didn’t need that.

You needed peace and quiet and the familiar security and the unspoken knowledge that, yes, you were upset, but you were going to be okay.

“Thanks.” You mumbled, stomach growling when the smells emanated from the open paper bag.

He nodded wordlessly, but looked up with mild horror at the sounds your stomach made, “Hungry?” He joked lightly, already rooting through your cupboards to gather plates.

“Just a bit.” You replied hoarsely, helping him upturn the various boxes onto the plates, before, wordlessly, you both crashed on the couch, your eyes burning each and every single time you blinked. Your throat was aching with the effort to not succumb to the growing lump that had planted itself there, and you were so exhausted. So, so exhausted.

“Thanks for the food.” You said, between mouthfuls, the hungry cramps of your stomach easing with each and every bite. You didn’t let him answer before you jumped into your next question: “How was work?”

You watched him out of the corner of his eye, swallow, also looking at you for a brief moment – as though to suss you out and to gather his thoughts – before he shrugged, a small smile on his face, “It was so bad.”

“Really?” You managed a laugh, the muscles in your face feeling tight at the sudden movements. His face was a picture: he was grinning brightly, the corners of his eyes crinkled and his brows had jumped up his forehead, mind clearly playing something on repeat.

“Really. Willy did the bare minimum and just giggled at me the entire time which made me worse at it, and I – fuck, I couldn’t concentrate on the people in front of me when there were people ordering down the line, and then Mo and Auston showed up too–”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head morbidly, “Dead serious. Wearing wigs and the most ridiculous clothes I’ve ever seen, and they ripped us apart, man. I can’t even do it justice, you’ll just have to watch it when it comes out, oh God…” He trailed off, breaking into a small fit of giggles that was so infectious you had to put your own food back down and concentrate on now choking on your drink.

“It was bad, but you had fun?” You summarised, grinning as he nodded, practically glowing at the memory of it.

“I think it’s one of the best days I’ve ever had.”

You just laughed, tucking into your food once more as it became clear he didn’t have anything else to say about it–

“Why’re you watching this?”

Your eyes jumped to him across the couch, briefly frowning in confusion before remembering exactly what you’d been watching before the knock on your door. The frame had been paused mid-first period of the game – there wasn’t anything particularly spectacular about it, and you wondered if he recognised it at all.

He tilted his head, a hint of confusion lacing his tone, and you swallowed, nerves picking up and your heart thrumming in your chest. You never really talked about hockey with him, at least not from your perspective. You guys talked about the Leafs and his games and his practices and his teammates, but you’d never really broached your affinity for the sport. And the longer you’d left it, the more awkward you’d felt it would be to just admit it outright.

“It’s my favourite game.” You admitted quietly, fighting the urge to smile fondly.

He hesitated, his head swinging from you to the screen and back again, and he asked, a little breathlessly – as though he was trying to wrap his head around everything bouncing around his mind – “You watch hockey enough to have a favourite game?”

You nodded, “I love hockey.”

“You do?” He asked, voice higher in pitch than it had been. The surprise was painfully evident, and with it, so was the guilt that seemed to make itself known.

“Yeah.”

He nodded slowly, “I thought you didn’t know who I was?”

“I didn’t. I’d just moved to Toronto, like, a week before you started I think, and the Leafs aren’t exactly my team, y’know?” You explained, watching him carefully for any traces of possible betrayal he might feel, “It was a hectic time to be keeping up with any NHL news.”

He blinked, before shrugging, “Makes sense. Your team’s the Preds?” He raised an inquisitive brow, and for some reason you knew then that you’d both be locked in this amusing back and forth for a while. Of course you would: there’s no greater hockey fan than a hockey player, let alone a hockey player playing for their childhood team.

You scoffed, barking a short, almost offended laugh, “No. I mean, I have nothing against the Preds, but it’s the Pens for me, all the way.”

He arched a brow at your reaction, a smirk beginning to play at the corner of his mouth, “I mean you no offence when I say that.” Before, “I want you to win, though–”

“Just me?”

“Micheal Bunting against the NHL, yeah.” You rolled your eyes, “The Leafs are…I want you to win unless it’s against the Pens. It’s a conflict of interest.”

“What do you do when we play with each other?”

You widen your eyes comically, “Lock myself in a dark room and don’t come out until the game’s over.” You shrug, answering honestly, “It depends whose situation is the most dire, I guess. I always want the Pens to do well, but you’ve thrown a spanner in the works. You’ve made hockey complicated.”

“I’m honoured.” He laughed softly, “Why’s this one your favourite?”

“Sixth game of the Stanley Cup Final, 2017. I don’t know why that one specifically, it’s just the last one we won when I was back home, so it reminds me of…well, home, I guess.”

“You miss it?”

You nodded, almost wistfully, “Yeah. I sometimes think about moving back.”

“But?” He encouraged, almost afraid of what you were about to say.

“I don’t know. I have friends here, a job, somewhere to live; I guess I have that back home too, or I would given the time. I think I’m just waiting for the right moment to go back.” You trailed off, your voice becoming nothing more than a mere whisper, but he caught it – with a slow nod and the parting of his mouth.

You’d seen him speechless before, but he always managed to find something to say. The silence that ensued after spoke volumes, mostly just because you didn’t understand any of it.

He reached over after that, taking the remote, before hesitating and turning to you, shocked when he found your eyes already on him, “What counts as the right moment?”

He pressed play when you shrugged.

***

Even after the conversation you’d both had last year about you leaving, you never would have imagined he’d be the one leaving first. It had always been a possibility, maybe even something you’d thought about since becoming friends, but there hadn’t really been anything to suggest he would leave. At least, not until the last season.

And it hadn’t ever felt realer than this moment: standing in the doorway to an empty house, your clothes sticking to you in the early Summer heat with your hands on your hips and feeling much more emotional about the prospect of a Bunting-less Toronto than you’d initially prepared yourself for.

He was wandering through the empty rooms, double and triple checking everything after you’d done the same, and for those lonely three minutes without him, you got a glimpse of what it’d be like not seeing each other every few days. You couldn’t exactly remember when Toronto had suddenly become him, but the idea of it felt strangely intimidating. It almost felt like you’d just moved in again, not knowing anyone or where anything was.

It was scary.

He came back into view, hand resting on a door frame as he stopped suddenly in the exact spot he’d looked up to you in. You offered a reassuring smile, standing up straight, but you could both tell it was strained.

“Checked everything?” You asked, voice tight, but you didn’t want to ruin this moment for him. He’d been looking forward to settling in Raleigh since he’d signed the contract – at least, once he’d gotten over the initial disappointment and sadness of leaving Ontario.

And you were excited for him, for this new opportunity and this new experience.

You’d just never really anticipated how you’d feel.

“Yeah.” He nodded, swallowing, looking grave and strange.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” He breathed a laugh, walking towards you and scratching his beard – he’d started leaving it longer between each shave now – “Just gonna miss this place, I guess.” He swung his hands in front of him, coming to a direct stop in front of you and swivelling on his heel, taking one last, long look at the place he’d called home for years.

You hummed in agreement, “Me too.”

You hadn’t even realised how true that admission was until you’d said it out loud. It sent an uncomfortable zing down your spine, like pulling down a zipper, and you shivered, rubbing your arms just to give yourself something to do.

He turned to look at you, eyes assessing your every motion, and you froze. You didn’t really know where to go from here. The car was packed, the house was empty: you’d drop by the estate agent’s on the way to drop him at the airport, and from then on he’d be in Raleigh – at least, in every way that mattered to you. Sure, he had his training camps and he had his away games, but you’d very rarely get to see each other.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, unable to say anything.

But where did you go from here? You?

Well…you’d been toying with the idea for a while, but–

“You ready?” He breathed out, lips pressed together with his hands on his hips.

You nodded, managing a smile, but the lack of effort into pretending like you weren’t in the least bit affected by it was noticeable.

“Let’s go then.” You whispered, leading the way to the front door, slowing down each time he turned to get another look – never too far ahead, not wanting to let him out of your sight. These moments felt crucial, somehow. It was the last time you’d actually be able to look at him properly; his eyes, hair, smile, arms, legs, clothes. You felt silly soaking it all up.

He followed closely on your heels, taking the keys from you on the porch and turning round to lock the door behind him for the last time. He didn’t say anything, but his mouth twisted and he ran a brief hand across his brow bone, almost as though he was wiping away some sweat or satisfying an itch.

You tried not to make it obvious you were keeping an eye on him, ensuring to stand behind him, a few steps down to give him the space to collect himself if he needed to. And when he turned back around, he tried to keep his head down but you still caught his red-rimmed eyes and his sucked in cheek and his shaky smile as he caught up with you.

It was silent in the car, too, no music playing through the speakers. He was looking out of the window, eyes catching onto everything that swam passed, drinking it all in.

Each time ‘for the last time’ flew through your mind, you’d have to catch yourself and reign in the prickly eyes and the tightness in your chest as best as you could without drawing too much attention to yourself. It felt pointless, though, because you knew it was inevitable that you’d both end up shedding a few tears at some point.

The only thing that seemed to do it was the knowledge that it wouldn’t even be the last time, because he grew up near here. He’d come back when he could; you’d see each other at the Marner wedding next month, too.

It wasn’t the end of the world, but it felt like a part of it was dying.

“Here.” You mumbled, voice hoarse and wiping at the underneath of your eyes (no tears had fallen, but you could feel them welling up).

He looked up and out of the window, eyes zeroing in on the window of the estate agents. His seatbelt came next, and before you could convince yourself otherwise, you followed him in, ignoring his curious eye but taking the hand he offered anyway. It was something you’d both taken to doing lately, even in mundane moments like this.

Whether it was the knowledge that time was running out or if it was just a comfort thing, you never spoke about it. It just happened. And it seemed today was one of those days you both needed it.

Only, as he made his way towards the desk, you branched away towards the other side of the shop, hands ripping apart. He only threw a confused look behind, but carried on when his own agent walked out from the back of the shop.

You, however, found yourself standing in front of the magazine rack, hands clenching and unclenching at your sides, eyes roving over the words on each, searching for the correct one. Nothing seemed to ease the hollowness under your sternum, though.

There was some comfort when you found the right one, though, picking it up and feeling the comfortable weight in your hands. It felt like a breath of fresh air, and the twinges eased only slightly at the familiar cityscape on the front.

You swallowed, rolling it up in your fist and making your way back over to where he was chatting to his estate agent, a pen in his hand and some papers in front of him. The key had been stripped of its keychains, and for some reason that little difference brought everything back again.

You wanted to reach for his hand, but you held back for a moment. The estate agent caught your eye and you managed a polite smile, but it dropped the second they looked away.

And before you could blink, Michael was pushing himself off the counter, snatching his keychains and pushing everything else back towards the agent with a final thanks, and then he turned.

He blinked, eyes dropping to the programme in your hand, and you tried to hide it by moving it behind his leg, but he wasn’t having any of it. There was a crease between his brows, and he didn’t look to be on the verge of tears anymore, but there was a specific ticking to his jaw – his entire being was still tinged with a veil of melancholy, but he gently took it from your hand once you’d stepped outside. You let him, your fist unfurling.

Your face seemed to act of its own accord, an odd wince appearing as his lips parted.

“You’re really gonna do it?” He murmured gently, an odd glint in his eye.

“Think it’s time.” You breathed an uncomfortable laugh, somehow not able to look at him or anything else.

He was so magnetic it was honestly a chore trying not to give him all of your attention, least of all when he was looking at you differently. It wasn’t something he’d done a lot before, but you’d noticed it a lot more recently: his eyes would fix themselves on you with an unfamiliar intensity, and even when you’d catch him red handed, he wouldn’t ever let up. If anything, the attention from you seemed to make it worse (or better?) because he’d start to smile and he’d expel a stuttering breath, like he hadn’t previously been breathing.

Each time, though, you never failed to blush slightly. Your cheeks would feel warm and you’d only be able to stand his look for so long before ultimately looking away, trying not to appear too flustered by it.

“Yeah?” He asked, handing you the programme back, “You can’t stand to be in a different country than me, eh?” He joked, but you could sense the underlying seriousness to his question, as though he was fishing for a specific answer.

“You wish.” You managed, scoffing slightly but unable to hide a small smile at the familiar dynamic.

It vanished the second the first wave of homesickness took hold of you though, and he noticed. Just grabbed your hand again.

The drive from the estate agent’s to the airport was even worse. Every time the sign appeared on the side of the road, you’d have to inhale and remind yourself to keep breathing in order to stave off the oncoming bout of tears. The entire time you were fighting against the wetness gathering in your eyes, and your nose had started to run – each sniff meant he’d look at you out of the corner of his eye and if anything, that made it worse, because as time went on and as you pulled into the parking lot, you could hear his sniffles too.

You put off turning the engine off. The second you did, he’d climb out, and you weren’t sure if you were ready for that just yet. Judging from the utter stillness he was exhibiting in the passenger seat, he was the same.

Your hands were still clenched around the steering wheel, the rough plastic doing nothing to cure your cold hands, not even when the sun was shining through the windshield and warming the entire vehicle. Your body was on high alert, blood not really flowing to your extremities.

You’d never been so numb yet so aware of everything in your entire life: the way the hairs on your arms stood up when he turned in his seat to face you was almost drowned out by the pounding of your heart in the sheer effort it took to not show the tears wobbling on your waterline.

It was a plane taking off and the sheer volume of the engine that snapped you out of the haze, your hands unclipping your seatbelt, but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to even touch the door, flinching when the belt smacked against the inside of the car.

“I feel weird.” He muttered, eyes staring straight through the windshield and into the car parked nose to nose. He sniffed once, before unclipping his own seatbelt, and you watched him in silence as his shaking hands hovered above his lap before eventually settling on top of his cap, a shuddering breath passing his lips.

The sight was such a contrast to how he’d been earlier that morning – he’d gone from bouncing on his toes with giddy excitement to suddenly folding in on himself and the entire world crumbling at its edges.

You pushed open your car door, fully intending to make your way around to his own door and start from there but the second your feet hit the tarmac, he’d also pushed himself out of the car, his door slamming behind him. He’d made it to the trunk before you could even shut yours behind you or ask if he was okay, but it looked as though he’d made the decision to pretend he hadn’t just admitted his inner turmoil.

You helped him lift his luggage out of the car (there wasn’t much: most of his actual things had been packed in a moving van the day before to meet him in Raleigh tomorrow) in silence. The trunk shut.

You swallowed nervously, eyes darting to the entrance of the airport before jumping back to him. He had one fist clenched on the top of a suitcase, his other dropped by his side, gaze focused and unwavering into the glass window of the trunk, blinking every so often.

You cleared your throat and the corners of his mouth twitched before he turned to look at you, feet shuffling against the gravel.

And he looked so despondent and not really like him at all that you didn’t have any choice whatsoever but to grab his free hand, which, similar to yours, was cold to the touch. You were both watching your fingers intertwine slowly, sliding over each other before finding solace in their places between each other’s knuckles. Three squeezes on your behalf and a small step forward had him pulling his suitcase along, an apprehensive and equally unreadable expression on his face.

“I could have stayed here longer.” He said, the both of you crossing over, a distracted gleam in his eye as he looked up at the entrance, nose scrunching on one side.

“If you stayed longer you’d want to leave less when you have to.” You reasoned, “And it’s better to move into your new place and get everything unpacked and ready for the season before it starts, to really get used to Raleigh, yeah?”

He nodded, swallowing, “Yeah.”

“Still feel weird?”

He nodded again, looking to the floor as you walked through the entrance.

You frowned, a stab of something really getting you right in the ribs as he only looked up when the airport atmosphere bled into his bubble. It was busy, but it wasn’t the busiest you’d ever seen it: people were milling about, double checking for passports and boarding passes, everything ready at hand, and at the strangers’ checks, Michael’s own hand pulled away from the suitcase, forcing you to stop walking towards the first checkpoint, and patted against the pocket on the outside of his backpack.

He pulled it all out without looking, peering into the plastic wallet you’d given him to keep everything important organised so he wouldn’t have to check it all at this moment, right in the doorway. You reached over, letting him fret, and wheeled his suitcase over by the inside window, dragging him with you.

“What are you doing?” He asked, brows knitted as he continued looking into the wallet, not sparing you much of a glance as you patted imploringly at the straps of his backpack.

“Take it off.” “Only if you ask me out first.”

“Sorry, I just want no strings attached.”

His eyes slid over to yours, his cheek sucked into his mouth to stop himself from grinning, and he gave you his wallet, shrugging his backpack off easily and dropping it on the floor next to where you’d parked his suitcase.

“Now what?” He asked, eyes darting back to your hand like he wanted to grab it again, but decided against it.

“I don’t know.” You breathed, “How long do you have left?”

“Two hours-ish until boarding.”

“Oh.” He had to leave now, you supposed, eyeing his luggage like they were the ones taking him away, and that ache in your throat reappeared before you could even blink, and you were rendered speechless.

You watched him nod, and reach for his bags, but he must have changed his mind because the next thing you knew, your back was pressed up against the window, his arms wrapped around your shoulders and your head resting against his collarbone.

There was a moment when all you could focus on was the sudden envelope of warmth that circled you, the cacophony of smells: deodorant, fabric softener, a slight twinge of sweat and something else entirely – something very familiar – and before you could even sigh at the ache in your chest, you’d melted into him completely, your own arms hooking around the backs of his. You tucked your forehead down into his chest, pressing at the supple muscle, hands tightening in his shirt.

It wasn’t very comfortable: the ridges of metal edging the glass panes were digging into your back, and–oh.

There was a shuddering against your forehead, and you froze, before tilting your head up to see his eyes screwed shut in an effort to not let anything show.

“We’ve still got the Marner wedding – it’s gonna be okay.” And despite yourself, despite the watery smile on your face, you laughed a little, “You’re gonna enjoy Raleigh–”

“It’s not that.” He shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and blinking to get rid of the blurriness before dropping them to his sides again, the both of you still in entirely too-close-for-comfort-quarters.

“The weird feeling?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, his chin wavering, and he inhaled sharply, “It’s just gonna be so weird not seeing you.”

“FaceTime exists, as do away games to Toronto.”

“I’m not even in that division anymore.”

You sighed, “Pittsburgh is, though.”

Silence.

He was doing it again: “Stop looking at me like that.”

He frowned, “Like what?”

“I don’t know, just–” You rolled your eyes, reaching to tug him back into you like before, only this time your hands slid up his back to rest across the tops of his shoulders, and he sighed into the touch, his own rough palms dragging up your neck to plant a soft kiss against your hairline.

You stayed like that until he really had to go, but there weren’t any tears.

***

“Do you like him?”

The question hung in the air for a good few seconds, you pulling a face, heart pounding like a jackhammer against your sternum before you could even find the words and the ability to talk, “He’s infuriating.”

“Do you like him?” Taylor’s voice rang out through your phone speaker, her eyebrow raised very matter-of-fact, and you’d never wanted to scream at her before, but you were cutting it pretty close with the way she was looking at you and the tone she was using.

You hesitated, your face falling. The words were caught in your throat, the admission you’d practised like a teleplay in your head, but the only thing stopping you was the way things would change. Sure, it would only be little things to start with, like Taylor nagging you with it, or her insufferably smug ‘I told you so’s. But eventually that meant that you’d have to do something about it, because Taylor could never leave things like that alone, least of all with rock hard evidence.

But…maybe you needed that?

“I…” You looked away from your phone, body trembling with an invisible cold, “Did I tell you what happened at the wedding?”

She frowned, “The Marner one?”

“Yeah.”

“The one that happened, like, Summer last year? Fucking months ago?”

You cringed, “That one.”

THE MARNER WEDDING:

“My God, are you a sight for sore eyes.”

Michael Bunting was never one to care about his appearance, least of all after crawling off a plane, but somehow he’d found himself in the bathroom of the airport, fixing his hair and straightening his clothes. All for it to fly completely out of the window when he strolled towards the exit and the first thing you did was say that. He couldn’t tell if it was the grin on your face or the sheer excitement racking your entire being that caused it, but he’d never felt sillier for feeling nervous about this moment.

“Could say the same thing about you.” He retorted, feeling the tightness in his chest dissolve, “What’s that?” He reached a finger to tap the underside brim of your cap, the sudden intrusion making you blink and jump slightly.

You knew what he was talking about: the black cap on your head, the sticker placed over a hidden logo with your handwritten message scrawled on. He furrowed his brows, eyes tracking over the words, before tilting his head in confusion, reading it aloud, “‘This is indeed my first rodeo’.” He said it slowly, as though he was worried he’d read it wrong, and before he could even ask you what it meant, you felt his fingers pick at the corner, peeling the sticker back.

He smiled sarcastically, patting it back into place with more force than necessary, the pats like small smacks against your forehead, “Shoulda known. What’s with the rodeo thing?”

“Bridal party thing.” You shrugged, “I’m not sure really.” You reached out to take the small suitcase from him, your own hands trying to pry his fingers off the handle, but he only held on tighter, “Let go.”

“No.”

“Yes.” You sighed, looking him dead in the eye hoping he’d get the hint and succumb, but he shook his head, his other hand peeling your fingers off him one by one, more condescendingly than anything else, “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want the dead body to fall out.”

—

“Hey, I forgot to ask earlier,” he called from the bathroom, the door shut as you took turns: he was cleaning his teeth and trimming his beard etc, and you were getting changed – later, you’d swap, “but how’s the property hunt going in Pittsburgh?”

You grinned, slipping the straps of your dress over your shoulders. Even the mere mention of your future plans had you smiling like an absolute idiot; you couldn’t wait to get back there. If you told the you that had just moved to Toronto what you were about to do, you were sure she’d have had a stroke from the shock. For so long, you’d envisioned living your life in Toronto and staying there. Moving back home felt more like a fever dream or something you shouldn’t do, because surely moving back to your home city meant you’d failed at something? At least, that used to be your thought process.

In reality, you just missed your family too much – every time something happened, whether it be a proposal or an illness, something in you just ached to be back there.

“It’s going okay. I’ve got a few places lined up that my parents have viewings booked for to check out, but there hasn’t been anything that’s stood out so far, but…” you paused, sitting on the edge of the bed to sort out your shoes, “I’ve got an online job interview with a company back there next week and the starting date, if I get it, is on par pretty much with moving in if there’s a place found within the next two weeks or so. But that’s only if everything goes well. Reality is I’ll probably end up moving back in with my parents for a few weeks until I find a place which isn’t exactly ideal.”

There were a few bangs, things getting placed on the counter, before his muffled, “Can I open the door?” Could be heard.

“Yeah, I’m decent.”

He creaked open the door, leaning on the handle as it swung open with a dopey grin, and it took everything in you not to stall at the sight: he was only wearing dress pants and a pair of socks, his hair tousled and damp from the shower. You’d seen photos of hockey players shirtless before, but there was something breathtakingly stunning about seeing Michael without one. He was your friend, and friends kept their shirts on – but…you swallowed, rather wishing you didn’t have to tear your eyes away from his toned figure and the smattering trail of hair, and turned your attention to his face.

The grin on his face had frozen, and despite not even looking further down than his neck you could see his chest rising and falling, eyes narrowed playfully as he stood up straighter, eyeing you with something that screamed trouble in all ways imaginable.

“Were you just checking me out?” He let go of the door handle, one hand pointing at you in an accusatory manner, and you just blinked, frowning.

“No.” You shook your head, pasting an incredulous ‘how could you’ look on your face to try and deny what had, in fact, been absolutely true.

He hesitated, his eyes roving your face for a single speck of a lie, “You were looking.”

You shrugged, “I’ve just never seen someone so…well-built before, that’s all.”

He nodded, pressing his lips together to stifle another grin, “So you were checking me out?”

“No, I was looking. There’s a difference.”

He lifted his hand, thumb and pointer finger closed together, a slither of a gap between them, “Tiny difference. So tiny there might not even be a difference.”

You sent him an unimpressed look, one that you hoped would mean he’d shut up about it because the second you even so much as hinted at him being right, it’d be over. He’d hold it above you for the rest of your lives, and you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of that, not if you could help it, “You’d know if I checked you out.”

He fell for it, his smile dropping in curiosity, “How?”

You shrugged, “You’d just know.” You took a deep breath, “Why’d you open the door?”

“I was gonna ask you about this job interview next week – what’s it for?” He disappeared back into the bathroom, but the mirror in the room still provided you with the perfect angle to watch his focused motions as he ran a towel through his hair and picked up an electric shaver. Each time he moved, his body rippled, and you hated that you couldn’t stop looking.

“It’s a cheffing position at a hotel, but it’s almost like a club. There’s an entire golf course; the restaurant is gorgeous; it’s got a spa, and it’s just…it’s like an old estate house in a period film, it’s just beautiful.” You raved, fiddling with your makeup bag as you waited for him to finish.

“Sounds incredible.” He muttered, nodding at you to join him and shoving his things to one side, “What makes you think you won’t get it?”

You shrugged, placing your bag on the counter, missing the way his eyes dragged right across your figure in the mirror, his hand still shaving his cheek with close concentration. Perhaps if he’d wavered, you’d have caught the action, but you didn’t, carrying on, “They can’t really ‘interview’ me without trying my food. I had to ask if it was okay for an online thing and it was lucky they even agreed, so…I don’t know, it just feels too good to be true.”

“Why?”

You sighed, “It just does. Something has to go wrong somewhere.”

“Not necessarily.”

“I don’t want to get my hopes up, that’s all.” You said it forcefully, throwing something back into your makeup bag and not even looking in his direction. He slowly lowered his hand to the counter, eyes fixated on you for a whole different reason.

You’d gone from being so infectiously excited about the prospect to suddenly…not.

“Everything okay?” He asked softly.

It had been four weeks since you’d last seen each other, and although he’d felt your absence like he’d never expected, he’d never felt it more than he had now. Ironic, considering you were standing right next to him. To have gone from texting each other with updates every day in Toronto to that eventually dwindling, mostly because he didn’t want to bother you too much – he’d assumed the same on your end, too – it was a big adjustment. He’d caught himself reaching for his phone a few times or eyeing it as each notification came through, and the remembrance of ‘oh, shit, we’re in different countries’ or not seeing your name pop up sent a shot of disappointment so deep through his chest that sometimes he’d actually have to massage it away.

It kind of killed him, though, that he didn’t know what was wrong. If he’d have still been back here…

“Yeah,” you clenched and unclenched your jaw, “it’s just stressful. There’s so many decisions that need to be made, and I have a date to move out now but I just want to go back to a job lined up at least. It’d be worth it then.”

His mind whirled, ideas of what to say lining up like there was no tomorrow, but he wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say. He swallowed, nudging your arm with his elbow to get you to turn your attention back to him, and smiled smally in the mirror when you met his eyes, “I think it’s worth it anyway if it’s something that makes you happy. And it won’t be the end of the world if you don’t have a place to live or a job immediately. It might be ideal, but if it doesn’t work out, you’ll figure things out. Everything will fall into place, it just might take some time, that’s all.”

It was almost magical how quickly the sudden tension dissipated. The dread in your stomach and your racing heart calmed almost instantly – the very second you allowed yourself to believe his words. You knew he wouldn’t say something like that and not mean it, and the fact that he believed in you to that extent – to hear him topple each and every single doubt in your mind to the ground – had you fighting to grab ahold of him. Whether it be his hand or to hug him or to just check to make sure he was really there. It didn’t matter that one half of his beard was neatly trimmed and the other wasn’t; it didn’t matter that his hair was wet or he didn’t have a shirt.

You wanted to tell him you missed him at that very moment. Especially when he looked at you like that again.

Michael blinked, eyeing you. He was aware the entire room had come to a standstill and that all you were doing was simply breathing and looking right at him, and it was the latter that was odd. There was something skewiff about the way you were looking at him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Your mouth had parted, and there was a faint, dainty crease between your brows, like when you were thinking about something. If it weren’t for the fractional tilt of your head or the softness to your eyes – they kept bouncing across his face like it was the first time you’d actually looked at him – he would’ve thought that’s what you were doing: thinking.

But then you huffed a laugh, almost shocking yourself, and snapped back to reality, that look disappearing as quickly as he’d noticed it, “Yeah.” You placed a hand against your cheek, eyes darting away from him briefly, and when you pulled your palm away, he could see the growing darkness of your cheeks, “Thank you, I really needed to hear that.”

You looked towards the counter, hair falling in a curtain and hiding your face, and not for the first time since he’d come back, a homesick pang seemed to resonate to the tips of his fingers, as though his entire soul had been plucked like the string of a guitar.

—

He kept telling himself that his arm was around your shoulder, his fingers against your skin, because your strap kept falling down – and he could tell it was irritating you. (He’d also made the mistake of actually looking when it had fallen the first time, the sharp motion catching his eye, and he had no intention of replicating that awkward moment again.) It had absolutely nothing to do with the alcohol in his system, lowering his inhibitions, or the way you’d scooted closer to him because of the tight-packed bar, or the fact that he’d realised mid-way through the ceremony that what Mitch was saying about Steph was eerily similar to how he felt for you.

Mo kept shooting him a look over Tessa’s head when you weren’t looking, and Willy had hilariously looked shocked when he’d had to correct him that, no, you were just friends, even after knowing that exact same fact for over two years now.

But you? He didn’t think you were thinking too much about him at that moment. Your eyes were fixed on someone further down the bar – someone that he wasn’t particularly fond of during the season in the first place – and he was having a hard time trying not to let it get to him.

Sidney Crosby. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, but you kept glancing back at him and he could practically sense you vibrating at the mere knowledge that he was metres away. He was half-expecting you to straight-up ditch him to go talk to the man himself, or he would have if you hadn’t shaken your head at Mitch with a hilariously terrified look on your face when he’d offered to introduce you. Michael had an inkling you did want to meet the guy, but just didn’t want to appear too eager.

And realistically, he knew he had absolutely no reason to even be the slightest bit jealous of the guy. He wasn’t even sure he was jealous, but the thought did make him uncomfortable; though he wasn’t entirely able to think about anything other than the vows from earlier.

“Want me to help you out?” It was Willy talking in his ear. He didn’t even need to look at the blonde to know it was him; the garish chain peeking out between a shirt that was unbuttoned dangerously low down, and the cologne emanating from him. Bunts figured he must douse himself in the stuff before he steps outside, but he’d seen Willy get ready and the only conclusion he’d reached was that guy must just smell that good naturally all the damn time.

He didn’t know why that was the first thing that popped into his mind at that moment. What he did know was that nothing good ever followed Willy when he uttered those words.

“Absolutely not, no.” He was very aware of his fingers still hooked onto the strap of your dress, keeping it held tightly against your shoulder. And on the way your other shoulder was pressed right against his chest. And the fact that you were chatting to someone he wasn’t quite sure he recognised – but the point was that you weren’t listening.

“What, why?” Willy frowned, pouting and swigging a bottle of something. Michael didn’t like the look on his face.

“Because.”

“Because you’re scared?”

His silence was enough to answer Willy’s question.

“You need help.”

Michael frowned, “Like, mental help or–”

“Me help.”

“I just said no.”

“I heard you but I’m electing to ignore that and follow my own instincts.” Willy flashed him a grin and Michael felt his stomach drop, watching and unable to move as his ex-teammate walked to his other side, coming to stand next to you and whisper something in your ear that had you recoiling, your head gently bumping against Michael’s shoulder. He pretended not to notice, but he couldn’t help drinking in your reaction.

He had no clue what Willy had done or said, but he could feel his heart beating in his chest, and he was half-expecting you to turn around and ask if he was okay, but, much to his own intrigue, you shook your head, an awkward apologetic expression on your face.

Willy shrugged, but there was a crease between his brows. And because Michael knew him so well, he could tell something had been proven.

Willy then reappeared at Michael’s other side, and you returned talking to who you’d been chatting to before, a triumphant smirk on his face.

“What?”

Willy said nothing.

“Dude.” Michael could feel himself getting agitated, his hand was tapping anxiously against his thigh and because he was so fully intent on focusing on Willy, he was completely ignorant to the way you’d turned around at the sudden shaking, eyes zeroing in on his spare hand with confusion. Willy noticed it, though. He also noticed the way your hand twitched before clearly thinking the better of it and turning back around.

“I just told her one of my friends thinks she’s cute.”

Michael blinked, nervous.

“Point is,” Willy continued, “That that was obviously untrue. I mean, she’s cute, but she never even thought twice about it. Didn’t even turn around. Said she’d rather not and stayed standing with you.”

“That proves nothing.”

“It proves she’s not looking at other people.”

“Barely. You’re clutching at straws.”

Willy rolled his eyes, “Okay. But you better do something about it before someone else comes along and she chooses them, okay? Because it’ll happen.”

—

You were about ninety percent sure that you were one of the only people in the entire cafe who didn’t have a hangover right now. It might have something to do with the fact that you hadn’t had much to drink last night because you wanted to be as sober as possible just to soak in as much of Michael as you could and actually have a chance of remembering it.

You had no idea when you’d see him next. He was leaving for a training camp in a few days and you had a feeling the next time you’d see each other you’d be in Pittsburgh, all being well. You still had to sort out your paperwork and the whole visa situation still had to come through before anything could happen, but other than that, both of your timelines were one giant question mark.

That seemed to weigh on you heavily now you were sitting opposite each other. His hair was slightly scruffy, none of the gel in from earlier, and he had bags under his eyes – a telltale sign of his own hangover.

He’d acted weirdly last night. You couldn’t really put it into words, but since walking into that bar it was like he wasn’t entirely there all the time. Like he was distracted. He kept checking his phone, and before he’d met up with you for breakfast he’d appeared with a gift bag with a book in it and smiled each time he caught sight of it.

You had a horrible feeling that he was seeing someone. It’d make sense, even if it did come as a bit of a shock considering the four week mark, but who could blame him? He was a catch if you did say so yourself.

You’d tried to put the bubbling anxiety at that idea to the back of your mind, but the more you looked at him, it only felt weirder.

“How’s Carolina?”

The touch of his fingers ghosted your shoulder, a blazing reminder from the night before.

You blinked, goosebumps rising on your skin at the mere memory. What the fuck?

He looked up, nodding with a grin, “I love it so far. I’ve met up with some of the guys that stayed in Raleigh and I’m getting along with everyone well so far. It’s really pretty there, too. How’s Toronto treating you without me?”

You flicked your food over on your plate, “As well as it usually does. It’s quieter, though.”

The conversation wasn’t anything you hadn’t already talked about over text or FaceTime; it was something you kept coming back to when you just wanted to hear him talk. You weren’t entirely sure when that had started. You paused. You’d done for months, even back when he was in Toronto.

This time, when he answered, he leaned closer over the table, and for a brief moment you thought he was going to admit a secret or pick something off your face, but when you looked up he was doing It again.

And this time you didn’t shy away from it. In fact, if the spike in heart rate was anything to go by, you revelled in the attention. And the revelation just took your breath away.

“I know this might sound weird…” He trailed off, eyes carefully gliding over features, and although you didn’t know it was possible, your heart rate skyrocketed, the pounding tingling the tips of your fingers and causing a raucous rushing in your ears. Without even realising it, you’d leant closer across the table, too, the only thing separating the two of you being the condiments rack.

He seemed taken aback at your proximity, eyes widening and his mouth stuttering, “I do miss you, y’know.” He whispered, cheeks reddening almost immediately.

You blinked, allowing your mind to digest the gravity of his admission. Something happened: it felt like something in your brain sighed or something in your chest loosened, something you weren’t even sure existed suddenly being clicked to life, and you smiled shyly. You were completely unfamiliar with what it was or what it meant, but you knew there was a point of no return: you’d be chasing whatever this was for the rest of your life, without a doubt.

Where you’d felt jilted moments earlier, something evened out – it felt smooth, there was no ache when you breathed, and your mind cleared, the only thing on repeat…him.

Oh.

There was a zing straight down your spine, and you shivered at the feeling of it.

“I’m gonna say something even weirder…” Your voice came out shaky, shakier than you’d initially like it to be, and he automatically glanced at your mouth because of it, “I miss you too.”

He blinked, stifling a grin by placing his hand over his mouth, and you took the opportunity to change the subject, not wanting to dwell on anything too long for fear of what it could mean, what it could lead to, “Are you gonna let your hair grow out?”

He pulled a face, his hand moving to his hair self-consciously, “You don’t like it?”

“No, I like it.”

“What about the beard?”

You hesitated, “I…Do you want my opinion?”

He pulled a face, like you were crazy for even asking, “I literally asked to get your opinion.”

“Keep it like that, then.”

“What’s this about my hair, though?”

“Nothing.” You breathed a laugh, wondering how an innocent question led to this entire ordeal, “You look good.”

Silence.

His cutlery clinked against his plate as he looked up, your own hand frozen midair around your cup of coffee, him staring at you incredulously and you staring at a stain on the table, a little too afraid to look at him. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t acted like you’d told him a monumental piece of news that’s changed the entire trajectory of his life. It also shouldn’t be too much of a big deal because he’d told you you looked beautiful before, and that hadn’t been an issue.

You broke first, taking a sip and mustering the courage to look at him once more, raising your eyebrows at the utterly shocked look on his face.

“I look good?” He reiterated, speaking each syllable with his entire body. His breathing was shallow, and for a moment you worried if he was about to pass out.

“Yeah.” This time it was your turn to act like he was crazy for asking, “You always look good.”

He breathed a mirthless laugh that bled easily into one of amusement as he pointed a finger at you, “You were so checking me out last night.”

You blinked, replying blankly, “If you’d have left it five more seconds I’d have lost my mind.”

He grinned mischievously, risking a wink, “Duly noted.”

You rolled your eyes, scratching your eyebrow to try and hide your face with your hand as you stacked your plate on top of his, “You ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

For some reason you hadn’t pushed yourself up and out of your chair very quickly. By the time Michael had tucked his chair under the table and was standing next to yours, his head turned to the side – distracted – you’d only just finished tidying up the table. And because his attention had been stolen, and because he was standing so close to your chair, when you finally did make a move to stand up…

His head snapped in your direction, the sudden motion making you flinch backwards, legs bumping awkwardly against the table, and his hand shot out, flattening against your back. If you were more honest you’d have said you didn’t need the stability: all you’d done was knock your calves against the wooden legs – but the sudden, unprompted touch on the small of your back had you freezing where you were, breath hitching in your chest against your will.

You were watching his face before, trying to pick out exactly what had caught his eye, but this time you could see when the realisation of what had happened set in: his mouth parted like he was about to say something, and his eyes were wide – probably slightly alarmed at the almost-stumble he’d seen in his periphery – and was, for lack of better words, practically hugging you to him. You were forced (though there wasn’t a single cell in your body that felt reluctant) to catch yourself in his arms to prevent yourself from being catapulted straight into him.

He wasn’t wearing a hat. Usually he did, but today he’d left the hotel room without one, and you’d never really thought twice about it or missed its presence more than you did at that moment. A hat would have given you space to think, time to not spend looking straight at him, time to not fantasise about what would happen if either of you happened to lean in at the same time, but–

He’d folded first, his gaze flicking down to your mouth for a brief moment before returning to your eyes, the palm on your back not wavering one bit. He didn’t even take a step back to let you stand up properly, but instead stood there, holding you, waiting. Waiting for some indication from you that, yes, it’s okay to close the gap.

Your heart was thundering in your chest, and you were sure he could feel it against your ribs if he concentrated hard enough, but you couldn't bring yourself to focus on that for too long. Not when the sight of him in front of you was so enticing.

You inhaled quickly, wanting to say something but not quite finding the words, and he waited once more. He only seemed to do something when you chanced a glance at his mouth, not even intending to, but also not doing anything to stop yourself from sneaking a look, and his head dipped–

“Oh, hey guys.”

It happened quickly and a lot less clumsily as to how it had started: Michael blinked at the sudden interruption, seamlessly stepping backwards and pulling you with him, his hand dropping from your back once you were safely on your feet. You were a little slower, only managing to keep your breaths even and to turn your attention away from him in time to see exactly who it was that had just shown up.

Only, your bewilderment and vertigo increased when you set your eyes on the familiar figure taking a seat on the table next to yours, completely and utterly oblivious to what almost transpired.

Sidney Crosby was sitting grinning in your direction, and your mind went blank for a whole host of different reasons. The main one being Sidney Crosby was grinning at you. You were vaguely aware of Michael’s hurried motions, placing your hat on top of your head after a quick greeting. You heard your name, and you smiled politely.

Your face didn’t feel like your own, you were aware of moving your cheek muscles, but everything felt strangely foreign.

And then Sid was looking at your cap, and suddenly you were back in your own body.

“Cool hat.” He pointed, leaning sideways on his chair, and your smile broadened.

“Yeah, Pittsburgh Penguins, maybe you’ve heard of them?”

He laughed, feet kicking slightly under the table, and you felt Michael stiffen next to you, “I don’t think I’m familiar, no. They any good?”

You shrugged, “Won a couple of cups, made us locals proud. There’s this guy, Sidney Crosby, he’s pretty cool.”

He pretended to pull a face, “Oh, I know that guy.” He sighed, shaking his head.

“You don’t like him?”

“Hate that guy.”

***

“What the fuck.” Taylor all but yelped through the screen once you’d done a quick rehash of events, before falling completely silent, her head in her hands.

You nodded, “I know. I got Sidney Cros–”

“Fuck Sidney Crosby, babe. With all due respect, fuck that guy.”

You swallowed, “Yeah, okay.”

“What are you gonna do about Michael?”

“We haven’t really talked since the wedding.” You mumbled sadly.

***

A meal was all you had. In three months, all you managed to snag of his time was a home cooked meal in your new apartment, and even then he couldn’t stay for more than a few hours. You didn’t just have to worry over the fact that things had clearly changed since the wedding, but you had to worry about cooking him a meal that adhered to his plan of what he could and couldn’t eat, and it had to be edible.

So, it was safe to say you were feeling a lot of pressure. Cooking at work was completely different to cooking at home: not only were you usually too exhausted to even cook something that nice when you got in, but there was something personal about cooking for people you know. It always felt like they were judging what you’d made, trying to decide if you were good at your job or not. Sometimes it felt like a make or break deal. If they didn’t like your food, they wouldn’t like you.

And while that had never been the case for Michael, tonight felt different. For starters, it felt like you’d had to fight tooth and nail to even get him to come over for a few hours, which was new.

In all honesty, you were even hesitant in the entire…ordeal. Because that’s what it was, really, it wasn’t a quick catch-up, it was an ordeal. The last time you’d felt this nervous was when you were back in school, and gosh you didn’t miss the feeling at all.

He knocked three times and you had to stop stirring the pasta (shocker!) sauce to answer the door.

“Hey.” He sighed, flashing a tired smile, and in that instant all your anxieties seemed to diminish. They hadn’t disappeared completely, but it was as though the volume had been turned down, and you could breathe easily.

“Hi.” You answered almost breathlessly, and his brows jumped up his forehead in amusement, the small crinkle of a smile making an appearance, “I feel bad for pestering you now. You look exhausted.”

He shook his head, “Don’t, I’m glad I came.”

And then he did something he’d never done to you before: he leaned in and he pressed a delicate kiss on your cheek. The exact place he’d touched with his lips seemed to flame before you even registered what he’d done, and in that same moment, you were catapulted back to Toronto. Tucked next to each other under a blanket, an episode of The Mentalist on, both of you utterly immersed in the plot.

You blinked, not entirely sure where that had come from, and grinned, his scent filling your senses, soon to bleed into your apartment and your couch and your cushions. The one thing you loved about having him around was that you could tell he’d been here even days later: whether it be the faint smell of his cologne when you sat down or the plants that had been purposefully switched around on the windowsill – something you tended to notice when you finally crashed, and it never failed to put a smile on your face.

“This place is adorable.” He commented, easing himself onto the couch, feet up and reorganising the cushions around him, and all you could do was stand off to the side, simply watching him get settled.

“Adorable wasn’t what I was going for.”

“What were you going for?”

“Cosy.”

He hummed, tearing his eyes away from you to have another quick glance around, “It’s that too.” And then he rounded back to you, still hanging around in between the living room and the kitchen, not really wanting to leave him alone but much too devoted to the food to even think about asking him to follow you in there, “How are you doing?”

You shrugged, “I’m really happy here.”

He fell asleep straight after he finished eating.

***

His stuff was everywhere: boxes and bags stacked and piled and thrown in the right rooms; zips unzipped and lids open, objects and clothes and cutlery scattered across floors like he’d picked up a handful and left a trail of nuts for you to track his steps.

It was a mess, but it was a reassuring mess. You hadn’t really believed him until he’d shown up at the airport, and even then it had taken three days for you to actually comprehend the luck of it all. It took you fourteen minutes to walk to his apartment, now. Not over an hour on the plane, not counting the taxis and waiting for your luggage.

Quite frankly, it blew your mind.

It had taken you so long to adjust to even being friends with him, to then adjusting to him moving to Raleigh when you were still in Toronto, to then adjusting to you in Pittsburgh and him still in Raleigh…and now you were both in Pittsburgh and it had taken you approximately three days to get used to it. Not weeks, not months where you’d keep forgetting you couldn’t just show up outside his apartment.

You’d caught yourself laughing at it on more than one occasion.

For now, though, despite the welcome mess (as proof of life), you were looking straight at him. You’d caught yourself doing that a lot lately, but there was a reason this time – not just a genuine wonder at his mere presence.

He walked back into the room, arms stretched out in front of him, clearly assessing the new jersey, and you swore, right then and there, that you’d never loved him more. For all his shit-talking on the Pens over the years, he was now wearing their jersey, much to your appreciation.

“I like it.” You spoke first from your position on his couch, your arm in the box of merch and kit he’d been given (he’d allowed you to have free reign over some of the items, all you had to do was ask him first), your teeth briefly scraping over your bottom lip. It wasn’t the first time he’d worn a black jersey, but it was the first time he’d worn one with a Penguin on the front and yellow text that spelt his name on the back, “A lot.”

You were grinning, and when he looked up to see you shaking with glee, he shook his head, huffing an amused laugh, “Of course you do.”

“I still don’t think I’ve gotten used to you not wearing blue yet, though.” You muttered, and he nodded, mouth flattening but face somehow still smiling.

“I do miss it, but I think I’m getting used to it.” He shrugged, before grabbing the front of the jersey by the NHL logo and chucking it off his shoulders and throwing it straight at your face, “You can keep that one if you want, I’m not short of any.” You heard him say, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric, and you pulled it from over your eyes, hand wrapped in the material – to see his cheeks flush at your expression. It seemed to worsen when you dropped your eyes to his bare torso.

“Thanks.” You averted your eyes quickly, instead focusing on smoothing the jersey out in your lap, fingers tracing the penguin before flipping it over for his name. Out of the corner of your eye you saw him reach into the box next to you and pull out a few t-shirts before a cap was in his hands and he was brandishing the logo in your face.

“Have you seen one of these before?” He asked, pointing to the circular black and yellow logo: the Pens motif was in the top half of the circle with two crossed-over sticks in the bottom half, and you shook your head.

“I don’t think so.”

He spun it around in his fist, eyes flicking from the hat to your face, “You want it?”

You hesitated, “Are you sure you’re allowed to let me have some of this stuff? I feel like they’re giving you different kits because you’re actually part of the organisation and that normal people aren’t supposed to have them.”

He blinked, jaw clenching as he took in your words. And before you could even say anything else, he placed the hat rather lopsidedly on top of your head and rifled back through the pile of clothes for the sheet of paper before throwing himself down next to you, the piece of paper held out so you could read it too.

You felt a bit pathetic at how quickly you felt your pulse start to pick up at the contact: his entire torso was leant against your shoulder, and although it meant you got an unobstructed view of…everything, and although you appreciated it, at the same time it felt a bit cruel. Like dangling a bone in front of a dog.

“It doesn’t say I can’t give it away.” He mumbled, turning to face you, his forehead bumping the brim of the cap. You blinked in surprise, but didn’t miss the way his eyes just casually flickered down to your lips, or the way his hand dropped down, still clutching the sheet, once he realised you’d not actually been looking at the words.

He’d caught you looking at him.

You cleared your throat, cheeks flaring but not too ashamed considering you’d just caught him looking at you, and his eyes zipped back to your face, an awkward silence ensuing. Neither of you moved. You didn’t know if you were too scared to ruin the moment or if you were physically frozen by what could have happened – could still happen. Stillness seemed to be key. His breath was fanning softly against your face, and you were sure the same went for you.

It was eerily similar to the whole Sid-situation. Only this time you were in the privacy of his own home, he was notably shirtless and the risk of getting interrupted was low, but not entirely zero.

You felt your own lips part at the same time his head moved an inch closer as though he was testing the waters, but before you could even think about leaning in, his mouth was moving.

What?

His cheeks reddened, and the blush seemed to travel down his neck and bleed into his collarbones, his attention now flicking between you and something off to the side, clearly too nervous to even look at you and speak.

“I asked if you were free on Thursday?” He whispered, his gaze travelling back down to the piece of paper still in his hand.

He hadn’t moved away from you but the stab of disappointment at the lack of his attention and the realisation that he’d chosen not to kiss you was profoundly disturbing. You didn’t like it, the way you practically yearned for him. The idea that your enjoyment in life was tied to what a random man did or didn’t do was absurd, and if you were being honest with yourself, you did feel a bit pathetic that you’d let it get to that point.

He was your best friend, for fuck’s sake. You weren’t supposed to actually fall in love with him – that was something that only happened in the movies or in novels.

But…he was kind, he was funny, he was charming, he clearly cared for you.

Did he feel the same way? It was impossible to tell in your eyes. Sure, it had just looked like he wanted to eat you, and you’d caught him looking at you like you hung the entire galaxy before, but who’s to say he didn’t look at other people like that?

And in all honesty, you’d spent so much time trying to not look at him that you’d given him plenty of opportunities to (if he did) sneak glances at you when you weren’t looking.

You sighed, folding the jersey, acting like his skin on your forearm wasn’t burning. Like you were completely normal being in his presence, “I should be, yeah. How come?”

He raised a brow, shyly turning back to you, “I was wondering if you wanted to go out?”

Something fluttered in your chest – it felt an awful lot like hope, and when you answered, your voice sounded off. You weren’t breathless, so to say, but your voice cracked and sounded ropey to your own ears, “Go out where?”

The question almost felt futile, especially with the wry smile he just sent your way. You had a feeling, but even thinking the feeling out loud in your head felt like you were about to jinx it, so you fought to keep your mind quiet. Everything else though (heart rate, blood rushing, the feel of his fingers tapping rhythmically against the inside of your wrist), that was loud.

His tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek when he looked down at where he was delicately touching your wrist. His motions stopped, but the warmth never left.

“With me, I was hoping.” He didn’t look at you as he spoke, and you held your breath the entire time, a part of you wanting to make sure you’d just heard him correctly and weren’t imagining it, “Like a date.”

“A date.” You echoed, flipping your wrist over completely so your palm was pointing to the ceiling. He didn’t tear his eyes away from your hand, but you could feel his heart thumping through his back from where he’d pressed himself against your shoulder and a smile fell naturally on your face. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was soft. The kind of smile that was only ever really reserved for him.

His hand didn’t falter in its motions as he dragged his fingers down the inside of your wrist to swirl a pattern on your palm, fingers tracing the lines and creases gently.

It took everything in you not to scream.

He just hummed, and when you tore your gaze away from the side of his face – he wasn’t giving much away – his chest was thumping in time with his pulse. Was it possible for nerves to make him catatonic? You’d never seen him this nervous yet so calm and collected at the same time.

You inhaled, feeding your starved lungs, and tried not to shudder when his fingers slowed only to tangle and interlock with yours. It was like he was testing it out, seeing how you fit together, whether your personalities blended as well as your bodies did–

You felt yourself blush at that insinuation, and squeezed his hand, prompting him to look at you instead of away.

He did so slowly, first peeking at you out of the corner of his eye with a small breath of relief when he saw you weren’t annoyed. Then he turned his entire head towards you, leaning back so he wouldn’t knock into the hat again, and his mouth twisted, still awaiting your reply.

“Have you been wanting to ask that for a while, or…”

His stare went blank, and you could tell her was trying not to roll his eyes at your teasing questions, obviously stalling to get a rise out of him. It was working, “Put me out of my misery first.”

“Okay.”

He blinked, leaning forwards slightly, “Okay I’ll go on a date or okay I’ll put you out of your misery?”

“Both.”

He smiled, using his free hand to swipe at his nose and look away briefly, flustered. His chest was still pink and blotchy and you nudged him playfully with your elbow, “Your turn.”

“Uh…” He hesitated, “maybe, like, since you told me I don’t look like a Michael.”

You stared at him, jaw unhinged and dropped in shock, “But that was–”

“Two-ish years ago, yeah.” He nodded, pulling a face at himself, “What can I say? You charmed me.”

“But I was rude to you..”

“I wouldn’t say rude–”

“I wanted you to not like me.”

He froze, “You did?”

“Yeah.”

“It had the opposite effect.”

And then you laughed. Right in his face, not very loudly, but you laughed at him altogether, “You liked me when I couldn’t stand you, I would’ve said no.”

He rolled his eyes, flicking the underside brim of the cap he’d given you, “Good job I held out then, isn’t it? At what point would you have said yes?”

“When you left for Raleigh.”

“Wow.”

“You gotta remember, I was in a relationship for a while–”

“Oh, that guy.” He muttered, bitterly, "I think I blocked that out-"

You interrupted him, leaning closer to briefly press your mouth against his, effectively shutting him up. Even at the brief contact, and even as you were pulling away you could feel the relief of it dissipate from your shoulders, like a worn out elastic band had finally snapped. You paused, a breath away from him, and his eyes slowly blinked open having tried to chase your mouth.

Even despite that, he still maintained his grin, "That's a good tactic." He muttered, hand sliding up the side of your neck as his thumb slid gently and delicately across your jawbone. His eyes zeroed in on the motion, clearly enjoying the way your skin reacted to his touch, goosebumps rising to the surface and eliciting a shiver of pleasure from you.

It was barely three second of contact, but it had changed your genetic makeup.

He was addictive, even the smug look on his face as he pressed his forehead against yours, chin bumping towards yours. You held you breath in anticipation, eyes instinctively fluttering shut - it was difficult to ignore the pounding of your heart or the tingling beneath his fingers.

"Noted." You breathed, unable to help smiling at his tone, "You gonna make me wait until Thursday now-"

"It's rude to keep a lady waiting." Was his answer.

#michael bunting x reader #michael bunting imagine #michael bunting oneshot #michael bunting fic #nhl player x reader #hockey player x reader #nhl fic #nhl oneshot #nhl imagine #hockey fic #hockey imagine #hockey oneshot

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mononijikayu · 14 days ago

Text

chapter (5) — his primadonna!

GENRE: alternate universe - actors/celeb au!

WARNING/S: not safe for work (nsfw), r-18 and above, actors/singers au!, romance, fluff, minor angst, slow burn, humour, slice of life, will they won't they, light-hearted, flirting, playful, possessiveness, teasing, explicit content, possible, kissing, sexual content, innuendos, drama, feels, hurt/comfort, falling in love, love, happy ending, actor/singer! sukuna, actress/celeb! reader;

WORD COUNT: 4.5k words.

NOTE: i really have a hard time finding titles for songs because i listen to so many while doing all these and it just??? i end up finding myself in conundrums of the will i use this or not??? also, yes sukuna is a bit older than reader! the first year trio are in their early 20s, reader is a bit older. there will be more of hey lover soon enough, i promise. other than that, i hope you enjoy this!!! i love you guys!!! 🫶

TAGLIST: @kunasthiast, @midnight-138, @v3nd3ttal3on, @r0ckst4rjk, @theshxaverse, @cheescakebroom, @kariatenoh, @ggukfikz, @sukunadckrider ;

masterlist

hey lover! series

YOU REALLY WERE BOOKED AND BUSY. Immediately after wrapping up another variety show, you were already on the road for another one after you teased the location on your Instagram. People could only wonder what this one could have for them to enjoy. They all started to do a guessing game.

And because you spoiled the location already, some fans figured it all out. So, your agency soon enough announced that your next work adventure was going to be a reality travel show with your other Jujutsu Kaisen co-stars Fushiguro Megumi, Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara.

It works pretty well, between the four of you. You were all very close, since you all went to the same drama and theater school together. You were only a year or two above them in age, it was hard not to have the same energy together.

The news had fans buzzing with excitement, since they liked all of your dynamics in the show and there were very few scenes of you all together, which the fans were craving for. This trended almost immediately on social media, being reposted by your co-stars and even the Jujutsu Kaisen official social media channels.

But perhaps the most notable was from veteran actor Ryomen Sukuna.

"Excited to see bedhead from my bubs." He quote-tweeted the video from the show's official twitter page.

And of course, almost immediately, everyone was going wild.

The hashtags #y/nsukuna, #HESDOWNBAD, #MYBUBS and #HERBEDHEAD were trending all at the same time.

"HUH!??? SUKUNA??? WHAT KIND OF POST IS THAT???"

"bro is not normal about y/n cause what do you mean he's saying he's excited for her bed head???"

"ARE WE GLOSSING OVER THE FACT THAT HE CALLS HER BUBS???"

"ryomen sukuna is down bad guys like its over for him (hes just like me)"

"guys guys, yall are not thinking about the wider picture......sukuna has pictures of y/n with bedhead"

Of course, Ryomen Sukuna likes to add fuel to the fire.

He quote-tweeted that fan and said, "Of course I have bedhead pics of y/n. There's a folder."

You also were not helping your case when you commented, "Do I at least look pretty in them, darling?"

Within a few seconds, the scarlet eyed man slyly replied. "Bubs, you're always pretty. No need to question that."

You liked the post almost as fast as when lightening strikes.

And of course, the world burns once more as your fans lose it.

➽──────────❥

EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR SHOW WAS FUN. And you were enjoying yourself at every taping of the episode, because it really did feel like a genuinely planned friendship road trip all across locations the show chose for all of you. You had never had a show be this fun like this.

The premise was simple: you and a group of fellow cast members would explore different destinations, taking part in challenges, meeting the locals, and showcasing each unique place's culture.

Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi were all pros at making the atmosphere fun and welcoming. Even in acting school, they were all like that and you loved that about them. It made everything so much more fun.

With each location, everyone brought their personality to the forefront, and it made for the perfect mix of laughs, banter, and unforgettable moments. You all took turns driving, cooking, and planning activities, making each stop a collective adventure.

Today had been particularly intense, with endless shots, physical challenges, and more retakes than usual. Now, after the long drive to your next destination and running on only a few hours of sleep, you felt the exhaustion settle into your bones.

As the car bumped along the final stretch of road, the warm glow of a cozy cabin nestled in the mountains came into view, and relief washed over the group.

Nobara let out a deep, dramatic sigh as she spotted the cabin. “This place better have decent beds, guys.” she muttered, twisting in her seat to stretch her neck. “I'm not waking up with another crick, or someone’s going to pay.”

Yuji snickered, tossing his bag onto his shoulder once you all arrived. “Trust me, we’re all on the same page!” he replied with a wide grin. “And that reminds me, can I get some sympathy? Megumi here takes up half the bed when we share. He’s, like, dead asleep, but somehow there’s no room for me.”

Megumi’s expression barely flickered, though there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just sprawled out like a starfish, Yuji.” he countered dryly, adjusting his own bag with a shrug. His usual calm made the subtle quip land even harder, and everyone burst into laughter.

You rolled your eyes, the exhaustion temporarily lifted by the familiar rhythm of friendly banter. Nobara, ever the force of nature, hooked her arm around your shoulders, pulling you into the moment with a grin.

“So, guys.” she began with a pointed look. “You’re on dinner duty tonight, right? Please tell me you’ve got some magic in that suitcase of yours. I’m about to pass out, and the last thing I want is to wake up for ramen noodles.”

A smile tugged at your lips as you took in her expectant expression. “I’ll do my best with whatever we’ve got. But fair warning, if it’s instant noodles, I was never here.”

“Noted!” she laughed, patting your shoulder with faux solemnity. “I trust you’ll deliver.”

As everyone wandered off to settle in, Yuji threw an exaggerated thumbs-up over his shoulder. “Let’s go, resident chef! You’re a legend on camera and in the kitchen now. We're in for a treat!”

After a while, the crew had set up some lights in the small, rustic cabin kitchen where you were stirring a pot, trying to summon the energy to finish cooking.

The smell of food mingled with the quiet, comforting sounds of the cabin settling around you, though you could feel your eyelids drooping. Just as you stifled another yawn, Megumi drifted over, holding a steaming mug of coffee.

“Here.” he said quietly, his voice softer than usual. “You look like you need it more than I do.”

You took it with a grateful smile, letting the warmth of the cup seep into your hands. “You’re a lifesaver, Megumi. Seriously.”

He tilted his head, smirking just a bit. “Only as much as you saved us from yet another ramen dinner. This is... actually pretty good.”

His understated compliment made you laugh, even as you fought the lingering fatigue. Moments later, Yuji and Nobara poked their heads into the kitchen, the smell of food having drawn them in. Yuji rubbed his hands together excitedly.

“Look at this—our pro chef on set! Where did we luck out finding you?” he joked, pulling a few plates from the cupboard.

“Come on, Yuji, don’t distract the one person who can cook!” Nobara chided, though her eyes sparkled with anticipation. “Let’s not ruin our one decent meal tonight.”

Soon, everyone gathered around the makeshift dinner table, the crew even joining in as laughter and conversation filled the small cabin. The exhaustion you’d felt earlier melted away, replaced by the warmth of friendship and the satisfaction of good food.

These simple, shared moments, the laughter, the teasing, the shared triumphs over long days—reminded you why you loved every bit of this adventure. You really felt relaxed, after working in high stakes productions for a while now. This was a deserved break.

As the night wore on, the cabin was filled with tired but happy voices, sharing stories and jokes until everyone drifted off, still smiling. The promise of a new day of filming awaited, but for now, you soaked in the peace, knowing these were the memories you’d cherish long after the cameras stopped rolling.

➽──────────❥

IT WAS ROUGH THE NEXT MORNING. Not only were you driving in the morning, you had to wake everyone up. You already had an alarm set up and everything. But not all of that ever went to plan today, after your phone buzzed over and over. In short, you woke up to a flood of notifications.

Apparently, one of the crew members had captured that moment when Megumi handed you the coffee, along with his rare, dry joke in the kitchen. And of course, it was posted as a Behind The Scene shoot clip for the previous episode.

You expected that, of course. The whole pension house has cameras. The dim cabin lighting made the moment look even cozier, with Megumi’s slightly amused expression as he watched you laugh. Fans were absolutely losing it.

Of course, now that this was all over the place, the world will take over it. Social media was soon overflowing with edits, fan comments, and new ship names. People had screenshotted the entire scene, focusing on every little glance and smile, with captions like #SoftMegumi, #ChefxFushiguro, and #MegumiTheSimp.

"DID Y'ALL SEE HOW HE LOOKS AT THEM? I'M IN SHAMBLES?" one fan tweeted, sharing the clip on repeat.

"HE REALLY GAVE THEM THAT COFFEE LIKE IT WAS A LOVE CONFESSION, GUYS IM NOT OKAY???" another wrote, complete with heart emojis and a collage of your laughing face next to Megumi’s rare, softened smile.

Some of the edits were next level—fans had slowed down the footage, added romantic filters, and paired the whole thing with soft, soulful ballads that made it look like a scene from a romance movie.

The “Chef and Softie” ship was officially launched, and fans everywhere were on board.

Yuji, of course, was all over it. He reposted one of the fan edits with the caption, “Megumi looks happier here than he has in years. Should I be worried? 👀😂”

Meanwhile, Nobara was gleefully teasing you about the whole thing. "So, when’s the coffee date?" she teased, holding up her phone with an edit of you and Megumi staring at each other. “I saw all the comments—there are people already drafting wedding invitations for you two!"

Megumi tried to brush it off, but when Yuji pulled him aside to show him the edits, even he couldn’t hide the slight blush rising to his cheeks. He was always such a shy type, especially when he gets teased or praised.

Oh, Gojo would have a field day with this one if he was here. Megumi was lucky that he wasn't even online right now because he was busy with his new film.

“They’re really reading into it.” he muttered, though he didn’t look entirely displeased. "We're friends. I got coffee, you look like you needed it. Of course I'll get you one."

Cue the chaos: Ryomen Sukuna, in true dramatic form, making his feelings known on TikTok.

It all started to get even more worse when a fan edit of you and Megumi went viral on TikTok. The “Chef and Softie” ship was sailing strong, and fans were ecstatic.

Yuji even tweeted it, tagging you both with, “Did I just become the third wheel?? 👀😂”

@ItsRyoSuku:

"So, that’s how it is, huh? You’re into him now? @TheOneY/N”

This, of course, set the app ablaze with fans screaming in the comments:

@FushiguRizz:

“OMG Sukuna’s JEALOUS HAHAHA 💀 #TeamSukuna”

@SoftieXChefEndgame:

“BACK OFF KING OF CURSES, #TeamMegumi4Life 😤💖”

You, sensing an opportunity to stir the pot, replied:

@TheOneY/N:

"Aw, darling 😘 Don't be jealous. You know you’ll always be my #1. Right, bubs?"

The replies exploded as fans flooded the your reply with more chaos and new fan edits, hilarious ship names like #ChefAndCursed, and endless laughing emojis.

@MegumiStanAccount:

“BUBS?! 🤯🤯 @TheOneY/N OUT HERE DOMESTICATING THE KING OF CURSES I’M DONE.”

@LoveTriangleDrama:

“Y’all realize this means we have a LOVE TRIANGLE on our hands??? chef’s kiss 🍿 #ChefAndSoftie #CursedCoffee”

Ryomen Sukuna wasn’t done, though. Minutes later, he fired off a reply:

@ItsRyoSuku:

"Bubs?? If you think I’m letting Fushiguro get away with those coffee stares, you’ve got another thing coming. >:)”

At this point, the exchange has been shared everywhere — especially on Twitter where it was trending with hashtags #TeamSukuna and #ProtectMegumi. Fans had fully split sides, and edits were everywhere.

Even Yuji was horrified—but laughing.

@YujiItadoriOfficial:

“Guys, this was NOT supposed to be my life… #GetUncOffSNS 😂”

It quickly turned into a frenzy, with fans speculating about “The Battle for the Chef’s Heart” and even pitching fictional scenarios of you, Megumi, and Sukuna all vying for each other’s attention. By the end of the day, the “love triangle” had gone viral, with Yuji groaning and shaking his head.

“Seriously.” he muttered as you all read the tweets, “Unc's just losing it. Clearly, he’s only thinking about you.”

You tried to keep a straight face, but you couldn’t hold back your laughter as Yuji scrolled through the comments with an exasperated sigh. Every time he refreshed, new comments flooded in, fans fully invested in the “Chef, Softie, and the King of Curses” triangle that had taken over Twitter.

@BestiesWithCurses:

“Is it just me, or did Sukuna just out himself as a full-on softie under that murder-y glare? 🤔 #CursedSoftieConfirmed”

@MegumiDefenseSquad:

“Megs doesn’t need protecting, but we WILL #ProtectMegumi from all curse-related jealousy out there!! 😂”

@ChefSukunaShipper:

“Listen, they called him DARLING and BUBS. Sukuna’s in the soft-zone for her ONLY, confirmed 💖”

But then came the fan art—a goldmine of exaggerated, hilarious comics and sketches of you, Megumi, and Sukuna in all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. The best of the batch was a comic panel of Sukuna glowering in the background as you and Megumi shared a coffee, titled “The Cursed Love Triangle.”

Yuji held up his phone to show Megumi, who glanced at the screen and immediately looked away, a faint blush on his cheeks. “It’s… they’re really running with this, aren’t they?”

“Oh, you don’t even know,” Yuji laughed, scrolling to another edit with Sukuna in a tux, Megumi in an apron, and you standing in the middle with a confused look. “According to this, you’re both about to get down on one knee.”

Nobara chimed in, wiping tears from laughing too hard. “They even have hashtags for your ‘rivalry,’ Megumi. #TeamMegumi’s doing battle against #TeamSukuna for ultimate coffee rights!”

Megumi groaned, glancing over at you with an embarrassed smile. “Maybe we should just let Sukuna win.”

Of course, Sukuna, apparently with notifications on, took that opportunity to jump back into Twitter tweeting:

@ItsRyoSukuna:

"Nice try, everyone. 😈 The only winning here will be me taking MY seat beside @ItsTheOneY/N Got it, ‘Softie’?”

Fans went wild at this, and new edits started rolling in within minutes. Twitter was flooded with art of Sukuna claiming his “throne” beside you, while Megumi stood off to the side with a coffee, looking exasperated.

You decided to end the day with a final tweet:

@ItsTheOneY/N:

“Who knew coffee could spark this much drama? 😅 #NoTeamJustTea 🍵”

It didn’t stop the fans from picking sides, but it did give everyone a good laugh. The “love triangle” might have been a joke, but you had to admit that seeing the edits and fanfiction of you, Sukuna, and Megumi “competing” over coffee and affection had made the whole trip that much more entertaining.

When Yuji finally got on his account, he was exhausted. This was his uncle after all. Everyone is BEEFING with him. Yuji just can't help but facepalm.

“I just… I’m done. I don’t want to hear about coffee, ‘bubs,’ or anything love triangle-related for at least a week.”

The next day, though, everyone noticed Yuji slyly checking Twitter to see if the ship had started trending again on live television in the next aired episode.

The topic did in fact trend again, much to Yuji or Megumi's liking.

➽──────────❥

YOU WERE EXCITED FOR THE SHOW TO FINISH. With filming almost wrapped up in your last city, you were so ready to finally get back to the comforts of home, and, frankly, to more sleep. As fun as the trip had been, full of late-night laughter and challenges with Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi, you missed your own quiet moments.

But mostly, you missed Sukuna. Between his prep for hosting the music awards and your packed filming schedule, you’d barely exchanged a handful of texts in days.

So, while lounging in your hotel room, a little tired and missing him more than you wanted to admit, you decided to let it out on Twitter.

“I’m super sleepy, but I miss Sukuna. He’s a good hugger! 😴💤 #TravelingAlone #WishHeWasHere,” you typed, hitting “Tweet” without giving it much thought.

And that was that. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

Within minutes, your mentions exploded. “WAIT, does she mean the Sukuna?” one fan squealed. Another posted, “She just confirmed they hug…like a lot. THEY HUG TO SLEEP TOGETHER?!?!”

People were in full-blown fanfiction mode, concocting elaborate stories about you and Sukuna cuddling, secretly sharing hotel rooms, even whispering sweet nothings.

Just as you were debating whether you should tweet a clarification (or maybe just let them have their fun), your phone buzzed again. It was a notification from Sukuna himself.

He’d quote-tweeted you with a simple reply: “Miss you too, bub. 🖤”

That one tweet? Pure chaos. The reactions started pouring in with shrieks of excitement, hearts, and stunned reactions. “He just called her bub?!!” “I didn’t even know I was rooting for them, but here I am, #SukunaY/N!”

Unable to resist, you retweeted his reply with your own message: “Can’t wait to explore this beautiful place, but it’d be better with you here, darling! 😘”

Your castmates had spotted the tweets by now, crowding around and teasing you mercilessly.

“Oh wow, are you two public-public now?” Nobara grinned, nudging you.

“Y/N, this is serious rom-com-level stuff right here, and with Unc too? Crazy stuff!” Yuji laughed, winking.

Megumi looked genuinely contemplative. “This is making me wonder why my love life is so uneventful,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

Just as you were laughing at their banter, your phone buzzed again—a private message from Sukuna: “So, is this you hinting I should crash your little trip? Because I’m nearby, doll.”

A grin crept onto your face, and you quickly typed back, You totally should! I’d love the company.

A few minutes later, Sukuna confirmed, Alright. Just booked the flight. Pick me up later, sweetheart.

You barely got any sleep that night, excitement buzzing through you. When his flight finally landed the next morning, you were there, half-nervous, half-thrilled, waiting by the arrivals gate.

Sukuna strolled out casually, dressed down in a black hoodie and jeans, but still somehow looking like he owned the whole airport. Tattoos peeked out from his sleeves, drawing a few interested stares from passersby.

“Long time no see, doll,” he murmured, pulling you into a tight hug with that familiar, easy confidence that made you feel instantly at home.

You laughed, “Took you long enough. Thought you got lost or something.”

“Please. I think I’d know how to find my way to you in a blackout.” he teased, arm slipping possessively around your waist as you led him toward the exit.

A few fans who had been waiting nearby looked shocked, quickly snapping pictures, and before long, the hashtag #SukunaAtTheAirport was trending.

Everyone wanted to know why he’d flown out, what he was doing with you, and if there was something big on the horizon. The tension was undeniable, and you could already picture the theories fans would concoct.

As you walked through the crowd, Sukuna leaned down, whispering in your ear. “You know, I could’ve made my entrance even more…dramatic. But I figured I’d go easy on you.”

“Oh really?” you replied, trying to look unbothered. “Well, I’m just glad you didn’t make too much of a scene. Wouldn’t want to embarrass your new favorite travel buddy.”

Sukuna chuckled, his eyes gleaming. “I’ll make up for that later, darling. You’re getting the VIP treatment.”

The thought made you laugh, wondering just how over-the-top his “VIP treatment” was going to be. By the time you made it back to the hotel, fan theories about Sukuna crashing your trip, “spontaneous romantic getaways” and even engagement rumors were spiraling out of control. But with him beside you, laughing and exchanging private smiles, you didn’t mind one bit.

➽──────────❥

SUKUNA MANAGED TO GET A WHOLE WEEKENS OFF. You were excited when he told you all about it. The moment you stepped into the hotel room, the buzz of excitement between you and Sukuna was palpable. You tossed your bags aside and turned to him, ready to unleash the whirlwind of ideas you had for the day.

“Okay, so what’s on the agenda, Mr. VIP?” you asked, crossing your arms with a playful smirk.

Sukuna raised an eyebrow, an amused grin creeping onto his face. “You have a lot of questions for someone who just pulled me out of my busy schedule. I could just take a nap instead, you know.”

“Please, no naps yet! We need to capitalize on your presence here. Let’s explore! We have to make the most of this trip!” You practically bounced on your heels, unable to contain your enthusiasm. “Plus, I still owe you that coffee from when you were busy—remember?”

His smirk deepened. “Fine. Coffee it is. But you’re buying,” he teased, giving you a mock serious look.

“Deal! But only if you let me choose the place,” you shot back, feeling a competitive fire igniting.

“Let’s see what you’ve got then,” he replied, folding his arms with an exaggerated air of skepticism.

As you headed out, the two of you were met with curious glances from the hotel staff, and you could already see a few fans lingering around, whispering and pointing. They were clearly waiting for the latest updates, and your heart raced at the thought of being at the center of the attention.

“Are we about to create some real drama here?” Sukuna asked, noticing the crowd gathering outside. “Should I be on my best behavior, or are we going full chaotic?”

“Let’s keep it cute for now, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t have your special energy,” you replied, grinning.

Sukuna feigned offense, clutching his chest. “You wound me, darling! My energy is unparalleled!”

The two of you walked out into the bustling streets, and your phone buzzed with notifications every few seconds. “You know,” you said, scrolling through the latest tweets, “people are going wild about you being here. They’re already predicting our romantic escapades.”

“Romantic escapades? Pfft,” he scoffed, glancing sideways at you. “You mean me rescuing you from boring coffee shops and dragging you into a karaoke bar, right?”

“Hey! I love a good karaoke session!” you shot back. “But let’s try to stick to our plan first. Coffee, then who knows? Maybe karaoke afterward?”

“Fine, but only if you sing ‘I Will Survive,’ and I want a dramatic performance.”

“Of course! But only if you join me! Two-for-one special,” you laughed, nudging him playfully.

As you strolled through the city, Sukuna’s presence felt electrifying. The way he casually interacted with the environment, his low chuckles at your jokes, and even his light teasing made you giddy. You found a quaint little coffee shop with a cozy vibe and promptly ordered your favorite drinks—something sweet and frothy for you, and a dark roast for him, because “real men drink coffee like adults,” he insisted.

As you waited for your drinks, you couldn’t help but lean closer to him. “So, how does it feel to be out in the wild instead of behind a camera?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s refreshing, actually. I’m usually surrounded by a lot of people I don’t like.” he replied with a wry smile. “But it’s different when I’m with you.”

Your heart did a little flip. “Well, I’m glad I’m on your good side.” you teased, sipping your drink and relishing the moment.

Before long, your phones buzzed again. Sukuna glanced at his and chuckled. “Looks like you’ve got a fan club keeping tabs on us!” he said, showing you a tweet that read, “Y/N and Sukuna getting coffee together? Official couple status confirmed!”

“See? Look at them shipping us!” you laughed, shaking your head. “They have quite the field day with this.”

Sukuna shrugged nonchalantly, his gaze steady on you. “Let them. I don’t mind being their poster boy for their fantasies about us if it means I get to hang out with as my primadonna, bubs.”

Your cheeks flushed, and you couldn’t help but grin. “Alright then, poster boy, what’s next on your agenda after coffee?”

“Maybe we could find a spot with a great view? Something to give them a real show.” he said, his mischievous smile returning.

“Now you’re talking! I know the perfect spot,” you replied, your excitement bubbling over. “It’s a little hidden rooftop terrace I found last time I was here. The view is stunning, and you’ll love it!”

As you made your way toward the terrace, the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange.

The city was coming alive around you, the sounds of laughter and music filling the air, and you felt a rush of happiness at sharing this moment with Sukuna.

Once you reached the rooftop, the view was breathtaking, and you both stood there for a moment, taking it all in.

“Wow, bubs." Sukuna said, leaning against the railing, “You weren’t kidding. This is amazing.”

“I’m glad you like it!” you said, grinning as you pulled out your phone to snap a few pictures. “Let’s get a selfie to commemorate this.”

“Selfie time? My Instagram’s gonna blow up, don't you think?” he teased, striking an exaggerated pose, pulling you close.

You snapped the picture, laughter bubbling up as he made a silly face. “Now that’s a winner! This will make them go wild!” you said, showing him the shot.

“Just make sure to tag me, or I might feel unloved, bubs.” he joked, but there was a hint of sincerity in his voice that made you smile wider.

As the evening continued, you both settled onto a cozy ledge, enjoying the soft breeze and the distant sounds of the city.

The atmosphere was perfect, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the start of something special—not just for you and Sukuna, but for all the fans who were eagerly following your adventures.

“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the trip?” you asked, leaning against him comfortably.

Sukuna turned to you, his expression softening. “Honestly? Just more moments like this. The coffee, the views, and you.”

You felt your heart flutter at his words. “You know, if we keep this up, we might have to face the fans’ expectations for more.”

Sukuna chuckled, his eyes glinting with mischief. “Let them think what they want. I don't really care. As long as I get to hang out with my favorite person, I’m game for anything.”

You smiled, the world around you fading away as the two of you shared a moment of connection that felt like it belonged only to you.

And as the sky darkened, dotted with stars, you couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of something even more incredible.

Later on, Sukuna asked you to send the pictures to him. He wanted to post them.

His caption?

'My primadonna.'

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