#lee is such a good bean

[intrepidbeans]

If Mary Ann Skuttle has no fans, I’m dead 🍓

There’s two more weeks left in May to order stickers that will help combat sexual violence with WOAR Philly [link in blog description]

[1smolbean]

america does in fact have cultural positives. for example: buttermilk biscuits. i rest my case

[roadtohealthyeating]

The Korean Vegan is one of my favorite cookbooks. Last night's dinner featured its Spicy and Crunchy Garlic Tofu, it's so good!

(served with white rice, roasted green beans, and roasted blue bell squash)

[lucyandthepen]

sweet cream, cold brew | lmh ( m )

something about mark lee keeps you up at night, and you’re pretty sure that it isn’t the lingering smell of espresso on his shirt.

alternatively: mark is shy until he isn’t.

read the second part here!

pairing: nerd!barista!mark x reader verse: college au rating: r ( minors, do not interact! ) warnings&tags: unprotected sex, oral (f!receiving), fingering, slightly possessive/jealous dialogue, mark has a thing for tummy bulges because why not, implicitly that also means he has a big dick, a slight???? exhibitionism kink (not actually something that happens, only talked about), johnny exists in this simply to trigger something vaguely feral in mark, reader is a little bit assertive and schemes to get mark's attention, jaehyun is a nosy lil eavesdropper, i think that should be it?? word count: 26.4k

a/n: hello so this was a mess and honestly not a fic i would say showcases my best plot-wise but… what can I say apart from booty wurk mark has me in a chokehold and I needed to release some thoughts and feelings !!! please do not expect too much from the development of the story; i fear it’s quite long and choppy because my ideas were all over the place and i was wringing my hands and brain constantly and i was eager to get to the spicy parts !! this is also not beta’d/proofread, it’s currently almost 1am, and i’ve been writing this on and off for a full week with very few breaks so it honestly felt like a fever dream for me LMAO please forgive any oversights and mistakes; i’ll try to go back on them another day and fix them little by little! finally and …most importantly belated happy birthday, my beloved morkly!

p.s. this will probably be flagged as ‘mature’ by tumblr, which means there’s a high likelihood it won’t appear in tags or searches. please consider reblogging to boost the fic, if you feel so inclined!

You’ve heard tell of how caffeine has inherently addictive properties. 

The more of it you have in your lifetime, the more likely you are to experience symptoms of withdrawal whenever you try to have orange juice for breakfast in its stead. It sounds bad, actually, considering most addictive substances are, but you suppose that its benefits somehow outweigh its milder drawbacks. You’re not much of a coffee connoisseur the way some people — see: your best friends, Yeji and Jisu — are, trying one cafe after the other in pursuit of being able to nominate the winning beans of 2023 (an annual heated debate they participate in for no better reason than their own slow and useless entertainment during their six-hour long breaks), but you do know you’ve only ever experienced good things from having a cup every so often: better energy, a more focused approach to mental activities, and the ability to drive through fifty percent of a road trip without needing pop punk music blasting out of your speakers to keep yourself alert. 

The three of you are generally particular about the coffee you drink, only in different ways. While your friends have a tendency to demand only the best from any establishment — lest the staff hear fiery commentary about the flatness of the brew or the evident coarseness of the grind — you, on the other hand, are a singular individual of rather simple tastes. All you need to survive long days is a glass of vanilla sweet cream cold brew. No modifications to the sugar level or fancy new milk types are necessary; you’ll drink it as it’s served in a grande cup (or a venti, when things prove particularly grueling). 

Of course, you’re strict about other things in the experience of consumption —  like where it’s served and, more importantly, who serves it to you. 

While Yeji and Jisu have rated the Liberal Arts building’s on-campus Starbucks branch as a five with the strict label of POEO — ‘passable on emergencies only’ — branding the menu as “nothing revolutionary” and criticizing most baristas for subpar brewery, you happen to be extremely drawn to the place. Initially, you may have argued that this has to do with the fact that it’s walking distance from most of your classes, confined to the same general compound on campus, so you can always grab a quick recharger whenever needed, no matter how short the timeframe to do so is. Sometime later on, you may have found yourself asserting that the layout of the cafe, albeit small, is very convenient, considering that every table is situated next to an electrical outlet, so you’re never out of battery (important to other students for their laptops and powerpoint presentations, important to you because you have an unhealthy obsession with passing time on TikTok, scrolling past video after video of ASMR girls clicking their twenty-inch long acrylics with their crazy candyland designs), and this makes you feel at ease. 

A month ago, you finally came clean to yourself and, soon after, to your friends, and they came to understand, albeit begrudgingly and with no small amount of amusement, what made this Starbucks unbeatable in your eyes; it had one thing no other coffee shop could lay claim to.

What you know of Mark Lee is accrued from two major sources: long, surreptitious glances in the Modern World History class you share, and irritatingly brief interactions when you place your order from the other side of the counter behind which he stands, long fingers always poised to punch in your order at the speed of light. Sometimes, those encounters get cut even shorter when irate upperclassmen start prattling their orders out before you can even say anything past your own, except even this has its own consolation prize — an apologetic smile at you that seems only for you, although you’re not sure how much of this assumption is true. You’ll just believe it as you feel it. 

And what you’ve learned about Mark Lee has funneled down into two key points for you: first, he is single, a fact you were clued into when a group of his friends came to the coffee shop and sat around the table next to you. You hadn’t been eavesdropping; they’d just been pretty loud, but you’d also perked your ears the moment the one everyone seemed to call “Hyuck” — you aren’t sure if it’s his full name or a nickname, and you don’t particularly care — had leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper about having a vague master plan to set Mark up with an old high school friend’s younger sister that he was just waiting to spring on said Mark, busy slaving away on their six impossible orders near the espresso machine. 

You don’t really know what became of that plan, nor if anyone had telepathically been on your side to outright call it crazy (someone should have had a better reason than you, anyway) since the next moment, Hyuck’s voice becomes significantly louder when it orders the one named Jisung to collect the completed coffee and snacks waiting for them on the counter. However, you feel safe in the assumption that even if it had happened, no repercussions had followed, seeing as Mark still presently comes and goes from his shifts alone and in no clear hurry to meet any cute girls that are sisters of high school friends of his friends. Or, maybe you’re just ignoring what could be truth, but that’s whatever. 

Second, you’ve learned that Mark Lee should not actually be your type — at least, in theory. 

Saying you’re out of his league would be a bit juvenile, but if you had only so many words to describe the situation, you’d say so under duress. It isn’t so much that he’s beneath you in any way, but your interests and general social circles run different routes. Yours tend to be more classically patterned after constantly changing trends, and the people you interact with all seem to have similar goals; you like to call it ‘vibe networking,’ which, from experience, involves connecting with both groups and individuals that are equally aware that they will benefit in some way from any resulting acquaintanceship — whether it be by climbing the social ladder a couple of rungs or being able to call in a quick, off-the-charts favor for something very important and/or very exclusive down the road. You and your friends spend a significant amount of time in a year watching your style and image, something quite a lot of kids in the first couple of years of college tend to do, which means that while you don’t particularly like to spend your time following your grade trajectory, you do have quite a lot of pseudo-friends that all seem to offer something entertaining or helpful to you. 

Mark, on the contrast, prefers to keep his circle very close to his heart, it seems — that which acts as a receptacle for all his interests. You can tell that he likes to be up to date less with trending movies and more with comic books, a separate beast of a world that’s rather unknown to you. More than once, you’ve overheard him chat with his friends about Spider-man Issue Number Whatever-It-Is or engage in somewhat lively (sometimes rowdy, thanks to the Hyuck fellow) discussions about some webtoon you’ve come to understand is called Solo Leveling, which seems to have to do with monsters and hunters — two things you know next to nothing about. You’ve also never seen Mark holding anything remotely close to a magazine; his hands are always filled with either a freshly opened comic or a beat-up textbook. Maybe once or twice, you’ve seen him on his phone, but when you peeked over (surreptitiously, of course) on those occasions, you were met only with brightly colored panels and a singular word: BAM. 

In conclusion — you and Mark Lee live very different lives, likely never truly meant to intersect. 

And yet, you want him — not even in a way that speaks only to your curiosity, but in a manner that feels slightly delusional. More than once, you’ve found yourself having to shut your jaw close after realizing you’ve been watching him steam milk with your mouth slightly agape. Maybe it’s his side profile, which gives you a great view of the way his jaw tenses every time he puts whipped cream on someone’s frappuccino. Maybe it’s his eyes, which always seem to twinkle like he’s harboring some special secret every time someone in line asks for his recommendation on how to spice their order up. Maybe it’s his hands, steady and agile, with just the right showing of veins through the skin to tell you they’ve probably got significant strength to them too. Or maybe it’s just his mind — that thing he always manages to show off in class, working faster than lightning even when the rest of you are in your natural eight-in-the-morning stupor.

Whatever the reason for your interest, Mark Lee makes sure the Liberal Arts building’s Starbucks has you as a regular customer. 

You’re fully aware that this is the twenty-first century, which is why you could, as Yeji and Jisu have so kindly made known, simply ask him out. Under normal circumstances, you would have.

Unfortunately, in this particular area of your life, separate from all others, you’re something of a traditionalist. 

Actually, you just want to know what Mark asking you out would look like. Curiosity has fully gotten the better of you — how can it not, with how he breaks eye contact with you the moment it happens by accident in class, or with how pleasantly and shyly he smiles when you say ‘hey’ to him once you’re about to order? You’d like to see, first-hand, as a recipient of the experience itself, what he would look like taking control of a particular situation like that — something someone like him, so mild-mannered and laid-back, never really seemed to do upfront. 

You’d like to think you’ve given him clear signs. There’s a reason you always come in during his shift times, and it’s the same reason for why you have the same damn drink from the menu over and over again despite not even caring too much about coffee in the first place (something he admittedly doesn’t know and probably wouldn’t puzzle out, given how often you’re in that Starbucks, anyway). It’s that you want him to remember you.

Selfishly, it’s that you want him to think just a little bit more about you every single day. 

But if he does, Mark has never made it very clearly known; apart from taking your order in his genial customer service demeanor or letting a look of brief recognition pass his face over when you cross paths in the hallways, he’s never really shown heightened inquisitiveness about you. For all your differences, only you seem to actually care.

Frankly, that frustrates you, because if you have to think about him unhealthily, it would only be right for him to do that for your sake too. Still, you’ll shrug that hit on your pride off for as long as you can get his attention one way or another.

All you really need is for your plan to pan out as well as you think — and hope — it will. 

The thing is, you’re not even that bad at math. You’ve never really excelled at it, of course, but you wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re in dire need of help from anyone — the kind of help that feels like babysitting, at least.

However, Mark Lee doesn’t know that, and you’re not compelled to make that fact known to him when you notice that he’s leaning on the counter with his elbows, shoulders rolled forward and head bent down. He’s twirling his ballpoint in hand, wrist hovering over a worksheet, and you’re briefly distracted by the rapidly moving shadow underneath it.

His head snaps up when you gently knock on the counter, and the rest of his body follows suit, straightening as he shoves the paper away, one edge crumpling in on itself as it meets resistance in the form of the pastry display glass.

“Hey — hi, _________.” He knows your name, says it easily, and while you’d like to believe it’s because of his unprecedented interest in you, you know that it’s just because you’re always here and always having him write your name on the side of your cup. “Can I get you the usual?”

There’s no particular reason you order what you do; maybe it’s just rooted in the fact that when you first asked Mark for a recommendation, he said that the Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew was pretty good, and you were inclined to believe him (while pointedly ignoring the fact that it was, at the time, a new item all of the baristas were required to push to indecisive, slightly moony-eyed customers such as yourself). Whatever the case, you found the drink generally palatable, and you were also able to score the first of many smiles that fed into your two-semester-long infatuation with him, so it was basically a win-win scenario for all. He even got to do his job by getting some rube (see: you) into trying a new product.

“Hey, Mark.” You’ve long since given up pretending that you don’t know his name and have to check the tag on his cute green apron (why is it cute? You don’t know. It’s the same, standard, Starbucks green, but Mark makes it look homely and natural, somehow). You’ve been here way too many times over the last academic year for a nonchalant, were you talking to me? approach to work, anyway. “That, plus a lemon loaf, if you don’t mind. What’ve you got there?”

His eyes follow the trail of yours over to his wrinkled worksheet. “Oh — no, sorry. It’s nothing.”

“Is it secret?” Your bottom lip juts out, and you see his Adam’s apple bob dangerously, a small telltale sign of minute nervousness before he lets out a short laugh. “Didn’t know we kept stuff from each other.”

You don’t know what makes you say that so naturally. The both of you don’t do much beyond exchanging pleasantries.

“We — uh, well, it’s just a worksheet. For Park Hyosung’s class. College algebra?”

“I’m in Kim Junghwa’s. Can I have a look? I want to know if you’re suffering just as much as I am.”

He pauses, considering your request for a moment, likely wondering if there’s any harm in it before he smooths the paper out and turns it towards you. His handwriting’s a little messy, but his solutions are extremely neat. You see, like, one erasure, max. You also don’t see anything that interests you — except the name written at the top. Still, you can see at a general glance that more than half of his answers are correct; the logic of his organization is way too elegant and his writing’s too sure to be anything else. You whistle low, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Something wrong?”

“Pretty much the opposite. How is it that you’re doing this without breaking a sweat?”

“Oh, well — it’s not…” He doesn’t even know how to brag. Yet another item in the perpetually growing list of things you find cute about Mark Lee. “I mean, anyone… can?”

“I must not be anyone then.” You meet his quizzical look with a wry smile. “Either you guys are leaps and bounds ahead, or I’m really not going to make it through this semester.”

Another silence passes, just for a fraction of a second — short enough to be passable to others, but long enough for you to wonder if your humor code isn’t up to par with the rest of the world’s — before Mark’s chuckling lowly. His large palm comes down, covering a majority of his answers in the process.

“You’re kidding. I’m sure you’re doing just fine.”

“Mark, look at this face.” You gesture to your evidently dumbfounded, blank expression. “Does this look like the face of someone that’s doing just fine?”

You’re pleased to hear another laugh from him; you don’t know if he really finds you funny or if he’s just the type to be easily amused. You don’t want to know, anyway; assuming is better than actually finding out.

“That bad, huh?” He slides the worksheet away again, like he’s afraid his correct answers are going to offend you into leaving the cafe. Instead, his hands start working on your order, grabbing a cup and scrawling the shorthand of the drink on one of the little boxes. “Ever think about getting a tutor, maybe? If you really feel like you’re drowning, that is.”

“A tutor? I guess that depends. Are you free on weeknights?”

The marker makes a soft screeching sound as he drags it down with too much force, ruining the penmanship of your name. Mark takes a moment to stare at the mistake on the plastic before he looks at you, pointing the rim of the cup towards himself. “Sorry — am I free—?”

“You said I should get a tutor, right?”

“I thought — no, sorry, I was thinking more like one of those department-assigned tutors you can ask the faculty for, or something.”

“Oh. Are you not one of them?” You sigh, albeit a little over dramatically. Thankfully, he doesn’t really cotton onto your acting, too caught up in befuddlement at the turn of the conversation. “That’s a bummer. I was kinda hoping that if I was going to ask for help, I’d get an actual genius. You know — someone like you?”

You can tell by Mark’s expression that he’s torn between denying your compliment again and responding to your actual question; he looks both relieved and miffed when the student behind you clears her throat.

“Sorry, but— you know that there’s a line, right?”

You both apologize, Mark’s much more sincere than your own, and you step aside. His gaze follows you for a moment before it snaps back to the next customer, his voice abandoning that bemused uncertainty it had taken up with you. You don’t really mind; as far as you’re concerned, any dent in his barista persona when he talks to you is a step in the right direction.

You hang around the pick-up area, receipt in hand, watching Mark clear the line before moving to the actual stations near the kitchen area. There’s a concentration on his face that you find all the more attractive; he has a habit of chewing on his bottom lip when he’s trying to focus on getting the drizzle just right inside the cup’s cylinder.

He tends to try his best at everything, you figure. Not an unattractive quality — not by a long shot.

Mark finishes your drink first; the milk’s still only seeping, cloudy, into the coffee when he brings it over. He doesn’t even have to call your queue number, opting to meet your eye — albeit slightly nervously — instead. You reach out to hold the cup, a calculated move that allows you to brush hands against his without him being able to pull back on instinct. He doesn’t, nor does he really seem to want to, but his jaw tightens as a flush creeps along the curve of his ears.

“You really won’t help me?”

Your question’s abrupt, almost a little demanding, even if your voice is sweet. You’re not above asking this much, anyway, even if you technically want him to make the first move. The redness sinks down to his earlobes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t really say anything,” you tease. The cup’s on the counter now, so he can easily relinquish it to you at this point, but he still hesitates, only one hand slipping out from under the heat of your palm. He uses it to rub the back of his neck, chuckling softly, and you take this as a green light. “What time does your shift end?”

“Five-thirty. You sure you wouldn’t want someone better?”

You pull your cup slowly to yourself, and his hand, still lightly trapped by your own, follows for a few inches before he’s withdrawing, the counter between the two of you forcing the distance. A smile follows the shaking of your head, and you take a small sip of the drink before you respond simply.

“There’s no one better than you.”

Mark is a prompt kind of person; you learn this when, at five-thirty, he comes over to your table, tugging his apron off over his head. Of course, you might attribute that to his overall personality, but the fact that you spend the remaining two hours of his shift casting him glances from the left side of the coffee shop might have also been a contributing factor. The looks you give him aren’t even furtive; they’re deliberately long, so you never miss whenever he looks over to you from time to time.

He doesn’t hold eye contact for very long (he does it well enough when he’s talking to customers, but it’s not like you’re ordering another cold brew from across the room at that point), but you can read snippets of his thoughts through the fleeting gaze exchanges. He’s curious as to why you’re asking for help, now, of all times, when the semester’s more than halfway over. He’s surprised that you asked him, of all people, because he just can’t conceive of a world that isn’t within a television show where this kind of abrupt, overt request makes sense. He’s flattered that you even asked him out of the blue. He’s equal parts anxious and eager to know what’s meant to happen after his shift, once he starts fulfilling your request.

Most of all, he’s unsure if he’s reading you right — if what it feels like you’re doing is something he’s attaching too deep a meaning to. If he’s right in reading your signs.

You don’t really mind it; you like knowing that Mark somehow wears his heart on his sleeve, even if he tries to remain neutral for the sake of appearances. You also bask quietly in the fact that he’s looking at you twice as much as he ever has in the time you’ve loosely known each other. Still, his bubbling confusion and inquisitiveness seem to be interfering with the rest of his work, especially when you notice that he’s been wiping down the surface of a table two down from where you are for more than seven minutes.

In the hopes of easing whatever tension might be in his heart, you offer him a small smile, but that’s only met with his eyes immediately glazing over and inching a couple of centimeters above your forehead, where the story of Starbucks’ origins is drawn out in a faux-manga style. He pretends to find it interesting, as if he hasn’t seen it a million times from coming into this establishment day after day — you know it well enough, and you don’t even have to, considering you don’t work here — and you can’t do anything but hold back your laughter.

A small part of you says you should just give him the affirmative answer to his biggest question, but every other cell in your body says that it’s no fun if he doesn’t ascertain it for himself.

He has his school bag and textbook in tow when he approaches, taking the seat across from you. There’s a steely resolution on his face, like he’s been emotionally preparing himself for such a daunting task, but it eases up the moment you laugh lightly.

“You don’t have to act like I’m going to eat you.”

“I’m still not sure why you’re suddenly asking me to help you,” he admits. He’s also very honest, you note. Again, not an unattractive trait. “I’m not complaining. I just didn’t think you even had an opinion of me.”

“Why’s that?” You’re genuinely surprised. Mark drums his fingers on the front of his textbook, thoughtful — less for the sake of thinking what to say and more for the sake of considering how to say it. It’s clear he wants to avoid calling attention to the fact that before now, you two have had no reason to run the same track, let alone sit together and talk at a coffee shop, as if you’ve always been the best of friends.

“Genuinely just thought I was the guy who gave you your afternoon coffee every day,” he finally settles. Your eyes widen, and another laugh escapes you — a little louder this time, enough to call the attention of a couple of jumpy freshmen nearby.

“Well — let me put it this way.” You lean over slightly, cupping your chin in your palm. “Was I just the girl you made coffee for every day until now?”

There are clear cogs turning in his head; his eyes unfocus slightly as he thinks of the possibilities. His silence suddenly makes you somewhat nervous; your tone had been confident, and you’d only said that to prove a point, to push him in the right direction, but you realize that you hadn’t previously factored in the possibility that he might simply say yes — or, worse, say no just to avoid hurting your feelings.

You watch his lower lip curl in; he uses his tongue to smooth out the skin that’s slightly dried from work fatigue. You would much rather it peeked out, so you could imagine it against your own. His response is mumbled in a lower register, but you catch some key syllables — didn’t… not … stranger — pretty … you?

“Sorry?” You ask patiently, but the fact that he turns red and laughs again — something you realize is not only a trademark of his personality but also downright delicious of him to be doing — is all the answer you need to let the apprehension seep from your shoulders. “I didn’t catch that.”

Mark clears his throat. “No, I… didn’t think of you that way. I mean… you’re my classmate.”

“Sure,” your tone’s breezy, but the somewhat sloppy confirmation of interest in you makes your heart soar. He just needs more of a push. “And we’re basically friends, right?”

“Yeah.” His voice is unsure at first, like he can’t seem to wrap his head around the concept. You can tell that Mark’s notion of friendship is likely based on shared interests, of which you admittedly have none. Technically, if you were his friend, you’d spend less time just telling him the exact same order every single day and more time sitting around a table trying to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering with him. Still, he takes one long look at your grin and suddenly gains confidence in his next words, as if it somehow convinces him that the briefness of your old conversations had been a mutually agreed-upon thing and not the product of social distance between the two of you. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

“Right. Friends help friends, don’t they? I’d definitely feel more comfortable having a friend teach me than some stuffy upperclassman I don’t know.”

You see Mark’s lips move slightly, in such small movements you could have imagined it as breathing if you didn’t care too much (which you do). He mouths, to himself — friends help friends. For some reason, that boosts his conviction even further, and he nods.

“Makes sense. Well — for as long as you don’t mind me, then.”

“Mind? I asked you, so I should be saying that.”

“I’d never mind — I mean, of course I don’t mind.” He’s quick to correct himself, and you have to stop your own hand from reaching out to try to satisfy your curiosity, the desire to know just how hot his cheeks get when he blushes. “More than happy to help, actually.”

“And I’m more than happy to be here.” You beam at him, and he mirrors your smile. You don’t know what it is about the look on his face — the brightness in his eyes, or the slight lift of his eyebrows, maybe — but it gives you the impression that he might be feeling at least a fraction of what you are: the feeling of your heart lifting off a few inches from your rib cage. “Since we’re on the same page, I hope — should we get to it?”

From the moment that Mark opens his textbook to a chapter on inverted parabolas, he assumes a personality you feel you haven’t seen from him before. You realize that you really do know him in only two limited capacities — his classroom persona that seems to really only view himself and the material, focused on the board and the professor’s words (even up until the useless anecdotes) to absorb as much information as possible, and his more genial customer service form, always happy to assist in the trained, easygoing way you’ve come to meet so often.

Right now, he’s a blend of both, yet somehow neither all at once. He’s quick to catch the parabolas you draw, either wrongly or downright poorly. Despite initial hesitation, he always manages to say something; there’s already a pattern to how he does it, from his slightly awkward, “Ah, sorry, actually —” to the way his finger traces over what you’ve written, outlining the right curve. You find his interruptions so endearing that you start drawing them wrong purposefully — not enough for him to realize your schemes in their entirety, but enough to cast you a few amused glances, like he can’t imagine why you’d map out such an absurd graph. You get the feeling he wants to actually laugh at how ridiculous you’re acting, but he can’t tell if you’re seriously struggling or not, so he settles for a smile he thinks he does well in keeping to himself, but that you catch anyway. He’s patient, even when you have to rip out pages from the back of his notebook because of your ‘mistakes,’ like he’s still catering to your request for an extra pump of syrup for your coffee on sleepy days.

But there’s also that side to him that comes out when he suddenly remembers the distance between you that, before today, had felt unlikely to be closed. It peaks at odd moments, like when you’re borrowing his pen because yours is currently holding your slowly unraveling bun up, and your fingers brush against his. It surfaces abruptly when you lean in to watch what he’s drawing until he realizes how close you are, arm lightly grazing his, and his pen freezes, ink blotting on the paper for a second. It’s in those times that you can almost hear his brain churning out questions — like he’s wondering if you’re just oblivious or if you’re doing something on purpose that he can’t quite believe. Like he wants to ask you what’s on your mind, but he just doesn’t know how.

If he asked, you would reply without missing a beat. The answer, after all, is simple (him). But Mark never raises the question, only does something without fully acknowledging what he’s doing — the adjustment of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, the ruffling of his hair as though to shake off his thoughts, the clearing of his throat to normalize his tone before he explains something you’ve just asked about. There’s always that light tinge of pink to his face that makes him look even more endearing, and it fades and returns every so often for the better part of two hours.

By the time he rubs oncoming fatigue out of his eyes, the sun has already set; there are far fewer people around you at this time, and for as much as you like spending time with him and breathing in the scent of his shirt — always a tinge of Downy, barely cutting through the much more overpowering scent of espresso and sugar — your back has begun hurting from your front-heavy posture and determination to have your face as close as rationally possible to Mark’s. Still, you don’t miss out on the fact that the act of him cracking his neck to relieve tension makes your lips curl inward, trying to stifle an inappropriate noise in reaction to the view.

“I feel like I talked your ear off,” he pipes up, sounding a bit sheepish. “Sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop once you’ve gotten started. I’m just hoping I didn’t bore you to death.”

“Meanwhile, I’m here hoping you aren’t sick of my questions already.” You smile, closing your notebook and hanging the clip of your pen on the spiral. Your arms stretch up first, followed by your back, a light twist to relax your posture into normalcy again. Mark’s breathing falls quiet, like he’d been preparing to say something in response but had let it die in the back of his throat instead. You let your eyes drop, expecting to see him looking at you, as he mostly has been — on and off — since his shift ended, but his eyes are far lower than yours, the telltale redness now growing in evident splotches across his cheeks.

The hem of your shirt has ridden up; while there’s nothing outrageous about it, there’s a short expanse of skin that it reveals, for a brief moment. His eyes are slightly glossy, brow furrowed like he’s trying to find a solution to something he can’t fully understand. You’re not even sure about what he could really be looking at, or if there’s something he’s just thinking of that caught his attention while his eyes focused on a rather unfortunate spot. To test your theory, you suck in your stomach slightly alongside an inhale.

It should be objectively funny to watch Mark blink unevenly, left eye going first before his right tries to catch up, but you manage to stifle your laughter — poorly, though, because you end up coughing a little and breaking him out of his strange trance. You avert your eyes quickly enough for him to look vaguely relieved that you hadn’t caught him looking. So he thinks, at least.

“Anyway.” You feel bad that you have to tear his mind away from whatever faraway land it must be trying to burrow a hole in; the dazed expression on his face dims into hastily hidden embarrassment. You don’t want him to feel awkward, so you just busy yourself with packing up, making an unnecessary show of stuffing your notebook back into your bag as if it isn’t half-empty at this point. “I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.”

“Any time.” His first attempt is a little raspy, maybe from overuse of his voice today, so he clears his throat and tries again. A slow smile builds on your lips. “Any time, really. I’m glad that this is actually helping you; you pick things up surprisingly fast.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll probably be ready to tackle it on your own again, I’m sure.”

He smiles reassuringly, but all you can think about is how that’s not good. You should pretend to be a little dumber next time, or this will end much too prematurely.

The next five minutes pass in silence; you don’t expect to be knee-deep in conversation anyway since, as much as you try to convince him, you aren’t actually anywhere close to being those kinds of friends yet. There’s an unspoken rule to the give and take of things, where he pauses for you to get an item off the table and push it into your bag before he does the same with his own belongings. Neither of you really intersect paths, save for the moment you both grab your phones and stand at the same time.

His jaw falls open like he’s preparing to say something, then shuts as if he’s better decided against it. You decide to take the initiative to say what you’re assuming he wants to. “Same time, same table?”

“Oh — uh, yeah, for sure.”

You want to ask him to walk out with you. You want to lace your fingers with his, tug him out, and kiss him under the green and white glow of the sign outside. You want to know if kissing his collarbone means you’ll taste a hint of coffee. You think about doing it all somehow, especially since he’s fighting back a slight smile at the promise of tomorrow.

But it just isn’t the right time.

Instead, you place a hand on his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. The slow movement of his throat — yet another hard swallow — isn’t lost on you, and his eyes land on where the two of you connect. With a grateful smile, you bid him a soft goodbye, taking your leave first.

You don’t look back — at least, not until you’re fully in the cover of the darkness outside. On the gravel path, just out of reach of the lamplight, you chance one last glance back into the store. Mark is still rooted to the same spot, his backpack slung over one shoulder, staring at the table like he’s dissociating from what just happened — like he can’t believe the last couple of hours.

Your smile grows when you see his own, and his hand comes around to the back of his neck, rubbing it lightly like it gives him small comfort to let him know that it was real.

Baby steps, you remind yourself. You’ve already got one foot in the door, after all.

As the days trickle by, you fall into a more comfortable standing with Mark; there’s a routine to your meetings that seems to eliminate the initial and abrupt awkwardness of that first day. You come into that Starbucks at four, greet Mark, who doesn’t ever have to ask for your order, and spend the next hour and a half slowly sipping on it until the ice has thinned and watered down your drink substantially. In that time, you allow yourself to do whatever you want (as if you’ve ever done otherwise anyway), and what you usually want the most is a good view of him. You therefore use most of the minutes you have on hand to regard him from different angles — from the side when he’s frothing milk, upfront when he turns to leave cups on the pick-up counter, from the back when he’s clearing tables — interspersed with moments of checking your TikTok feed, clearing group chat messages, and sometimes re-curling your bangs with a portable iron from the school’s co-op center, a relatively new purchase you tote around these days. You do essentially anything in between to avoid acting too suspicious while he works.

Sometimes, you catch Mark’s eye too; the more your meetings increase in number over the course of a few weeks, the more deliberately he looks over at you, and the longer it lasts. You feel like you’ve made significant progress when your gazes lock and he smiles slightly, albeit a bit unsurely, instead of turning away like he used to. The other day, he’d even passed by while apologizing for how long you always waited for him — not that you ever minded, something you made a point to clarify with him before he walked away, carrying a couple of chairs from the back room with him to replace rickety ones.

That he’s able to transport them easily, as if he’s lugging a bag of apples from the grocery, does not escape your watchful eye.

What you like the most is that you start to learn more about him in a way that isn’t fueled only by your expectations and, therefore, limited by your imagination. You find out that he’s from a close-knit family with a rather cushy background, and this barista job is just for interest funding and experience, in that exact order. Most of his earnings are funneled into the things he collects, which apparently isn’t limited to comic books and special edition blu-rays with director’s cut but also a rather stupendous amount of PopMart blind box figurines. Apparently, he particularly likes the Skullpanda series even if he hasn’t completed it yet; your last session together had adjourned thirty minutes earlier than usual so that he could catch a pre-rush hour inner circle train to Hongdae, where the flagship store was set to open on that day. He’d promised to show you his pulls (as long as they weren’t embarrassing dupes). You learn that he likes to listen to loud music when he studies to stimulate his mind, and he has a playlist that’s just a jumble of songs from Punk Goes Pop volumes that makes him feel empowered for some absurd reason, like he’s going against the grain. You don’t really get it, but you do like that spiced-up rendition of Ariana Grande’s Problem that he let you listen to once.

Of course, there are things that you find out not through conversation but through continued, closer observation. You notice that he likes to put on chapstick even if his lips aren’t particularly dry, but he does worry on them often, most especially when he’s thinking hard about something. He has a habit of saying honestly… at the start of every other sentence, as if he’s concerned you won’t take his word on anything, even though he’s just talking about how unnaturally hot it was at noon despite it still being spring. He has long eyelashes that you’re equal parts attracted to and jealous of, and he bites the inside of his cheek whenever he wants to pep himself up after grueling shifts. He plays beats you’re not even sure he knows he’s creating against his knee with his fingers, so enthusiastic and consistent in this habit that you want to offer your thigh instead. His shoulders always go first before he laughs, and he does this thing where he raises his hand to cover his mouth at the start of it, which is a shame, because you’d do anything to keep seeing him smile like that — or, better yet, to be the reason for it.

Then there are those things you notice he tries to hide. He always turns his face halfway to the side when he blushes, something he seems to do without fail every time you smile at him. He has to temper the intensity of his grin when you take the time to compliment him on how cool his shirt is, or how nice his hair looks today, or how smart he is, like he doesn’t want you to know how good it makes him feel even if you want him to feel good about it, around you, because of you. Sometimes he denies it for the sake of responding, and his voice always lilts on the first syllable in his refusal to accept what you say, even though he knows you won’t take it for an answer.

And after a couple more careful experiments, you notice that Mark, out of the many things he’s interested in, seems to have a particular thing for your stomach.

You don’t know if it has anything to do with him not really seeing much of it in real life in his own time or if he just has his own kind of fixation on it, but you start to cotton on by the fourth time you meet. An hour of being hunched over a table that’s not at the greatest height in relation to your neck and torso has you stiff, and you’d leaned back in your chair, arms pulling to the air, hoping your spine might feel like realigning if you exerted enough tension pressure that way. Your shirt hadn’t ridden up this time, considering it had been tucked into your jeans, and it was because of this that you’d caught a flicker of something new in his face that you hadn’t seen before.

You could have sworn it looked like disappointment.

Of course, he hides it quickly, as he does with most of his emotional candor, but it’s enough to make you suspicious — enough to make you wonder if Mark is also just keeping something to himself. Or maybe you’re just projecting your own presently secretive nature onto him. Regardless, you think it’s odd that whenever you stand up or stretch, his eyes almost immediately fall to your midriff, like he wants to challenge your clothing into a staring contest before he thinks better of it.

You don’t mind, anyway. He can look as much as he likes. Maybe when the weather’s warmer, you’ll even cater to that interest and wear a crop top. Hopefully, that’ll be the push he needs to act on human instinct and ask you out or, like… bend you over. Maybe.

You’re often plagued with these kinds of thoughts in between the ones you try to keep as family-friendly as possible — now, more so than ever.

Sometimes, it’s easier, especially when you’re caught up in talks with him; despite the fact that he doesn’t seem like much of a conversationalist when it comes to generic matters, when either he or you are enthusiastic about a particular topic, he has a tendency to get carried away. There’s nothing impure about how his eyes light up when you remember to ask him about the movie he saw with his friends over the weekend or the way he hums old Nickelodeon cartoon theme songs under his breath whenever he’s looking for a page in the textbook. It’s more of a situation where you’ll observe something and immediately run with it despite it being an objectively normal action.

Like right now, as you’re watching him turn his pen between his fingers. Now, while he’s shaking his knee in mild impatience, as if he’s trying to will the answer to the worksheets you’ve both been trying to get through for the better part of the day faster. You’d made copies of the problems your professors had assigned and exchanged them under the premise of being able to practice more intensely.

However, whereas Mark is actually focused on solving, you’re just watching him out of the corner of your eye, wondering if he’s ever been told that his fingers are fuck-worthy on a singular, unique level or if it’d feel good for you to ride the thigh he’s currently moving, jeans and all. You consider the feeling of his warm palms on your bare waist as you do it, and you end up wondering if that’s what crosses his mind whenever he sneaks glances at you, too.

You’d know the answer to all those things if he’d fucking ask you out. Maybe you could do it after all. Maybe you should, instead of relying on slowly increasing the probability over such a long period of time. Maybe if you asked nicely, Mark might pull the shades down on the storefront windows and rail you against the glass.

You’re so lost in thought that it genuinely startles you when he plops his textbook over the worksheet, rattling your eraser dangerously close to the edge of the table. You’re still clutching your heart while he rubs his eyes a little too violently.

“Can’t,” he groans, and his neck gives into the weight of his head, allowing it to loll backward. “I feel like the numbers are just melting into each other. I swear, I thought I could read words out of them.”

“Maybe we were a little too ambitious with the double worksheet agenda,” you admit, even though you’ve barely gotten past half of yours and certainly haven’t touched a single item on his. “Should we call it a day for now?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, although he still takes the time to encircle his final answers before clapping his palms to his cheeks (an act that has your mind dangerously close to wandering off inappropriately again) to wake himself up. “Woah. I didn’t even notice how dark it is already. I’d say time flies when you’re having fun, but I’m not too sure about the ‘fun’ part of it…”

You trace his gaze towards the glass; the moon’s already out, surrounded by a smattering of low-light stars. You hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, probably because your mind had been on R-18 mode for most of the afternoon. Also, the days are getting generally shorter, but that fact doesn’t make you feel as embarrassed, at least.

“You got a ride?”

The question once again shocks you out of your small trance, and you turn back to him with wide eyes. “Well — no. Wait, I didn’t know you had a car. Why’d you take the subway, then?”

“Oh — no, sorry, I… don’t.” He looks suddenly sheepish, eyes dropping to the shiny surface of the table for a moment before they snap back up, as if he’s actually actively reminding himself to look at you. “I was wondering if you wanted me to — actually, more than that, are you going home already? Not that you need to stay; it’s not that important, but…”

You try to gloss over the fact that he had just been about to initiate another huge step in the right direction (i.e. offering to walk you home) by beaming at him, maybe a little too widely, if only to mask your disappointment at the sudden shift in conversation. “I have nothing waiting at home for me but a sandwich dinner and Singles Inferno, so hit me with whatever it is.”

“Oh, cool.” His lips turn up, and the corners shake, this show of happiness once again tamped down by his own inexplicable desire to maintain a safe distance. How are you supposed to tell him you’re desperate to bridge that gap without using those exact words? “I came from the flagship store yesterday — the one in Hongdae that I told you about?” He allows the smile to widen slightly when you nod in genuine understanding. “Got the last six boxes of the collection I’ve been trying to finish.”

You whistle appreciatively. “Can I ask you for a loan on my next phone bill? You know, once I’ve upgraded to something pricier.”

“Nah — just itching to complete the set,” he laughs. You wonder if he’s been doing that more often because he knows its crippling effect on you, though you doubt he’s that sly. Again, maybe you’re just projecting too much of your own motivations onto him. “This was probably about two months of saving up combined.”

“No new Iron Man issues to look out for, then?” Your voice is warm even though it takes on a teasing tone; Mark’s hand rubs the back of his neck, and his expression is a little sheepish, but you’re happy that the times he used to go completely quiet, opting only to blush at your attempts to act more familiar with him are pretty much gone now.

“Maybe next month.” You also like that he doesn’t really treat his hobbies as secrets, neither out of shame nor snobbishness. He explains these things to you the same way he does the topics you study — with an air of contentedness, like he’s happy someone listens to him without interrupting. On your end, you have no qualms with listening to his voice for hours, wondering when he’ll stop using it to greet you when you come through the door and when he’ll start saying your name in a way that makes you feel like you’re the only one he sees whenever you’re near. It’s a win-win situation (sort of). “I was actually debating between this collection and a really rare copy of Spi— well, never mind that. I just thought — since you were asking me a bit about blind boxes last time. You know, if you wanted to. With… me.”

As much as he’s become comfortable talking to you about things that don’t involve coffee orders and school, you can’t say that you aren’t doing your fair share of the work in connecting the dots; the demand for your efforts is exponentially higher in moments like this, when you think he’s trying to ask you something but can’t seem to find less-than-eager words to avoid what he thinks might spook you.

Luckily, he augments his fragments with action; reaching into his backpack — which you notice seems to be bulkier than usual — he starts extracting small brown boxes, all with the same design; it seems, for lack of better words, aesthetically gothic, and you reach out to pick one up, turning it over and examining the print on each side with vague interest. Mark starts laying them out on top of each other until there’s a small, somewhat unstable pyramid in front of him, then shifts his attention fully to you, just as you’re putting the box in your hand atop all the rest.

“I’d love to.” You beam as he does, and there’s a wondrous relief in his eyes that tells you he’s glad you manage to catch onto his words — or lack, thereof — surprisingly well. “For as long as you don’t blame me for any bad draws.”

“The contents have already been decided by my own hand — sort of,” he chuckles. “Point is, I would never do that to you. But I won’t lie; I kind of want to rely on your luck a little more.”

“What makes you think I’d have any of that running through my system?”

“Not sure — beginner’s luck, maybe? You just kind of look like one of those kinds of people to me — like… you’re just made of good things.”

You don’t know how to take this compliment; on the one hand, it’s easily one of the sweetest things Mark has ever said to you that doesn’t involve anything with actual sugar content. On the other, you know you’re not as lucky as he makes it sound, considering you’re still striking out on getting past the borderline of friendship with him. All you can do is smile, nodding and making to move closer to him by sliding into the next seat.

It’s hard to ignore the sight of him stiffening; something like surprise mingled with both fear and interest flashes strong across his face, but you don’t do anything to acknowledge the slight change in atmosphere, choosing to settle down comfortably and clap your hands. “So. What are the rules? What can I do, and what can’t I?”

“Uh.” His throat constricts at the right moment, the syllable getting caught and causing him to clear his throat. You know that this is the nearest you’ve ever been to him, the sleeve of your shirt tickling his arm. Upon closer, albeit brief inspection, you note that he’s also rather veiny. That doesn’t do your impurity any favors. “Not… really rules, or anything like that. Just — these are the ones I’ve been looking for. Not that you can really control it, but in case you were curious about that.”

You squint intently at the scaled-down images he points out. There’s one that looks like a penguin caught in an oil spill; another that seems to be in a polar bear costume, dozing; and — “What’s… halo? Halo…bios?”

“It just means marine life,” he answers quickly, like the thought means close to nothing to him to know something that obscure. Whoever said that smart is the new sexy wasn’t joking. “Like… all things that live in the ocean, that kind of thing.”

“And you know this because?”

He pauses, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I guess I must have just learned it when I was curious about what it meant some time ago. Isn’t that how we all learn things?”

You shake your head incredulously, and he smiles a little apologetically. “You never cease to amaze me.” Your nail drums against the silhouette of one with a question mark on it. “What’s this supposed to be? Can you draw your own figurine, or something?”

“No.” He’s clearly amused, but his expression’s still patronizing enough for you to not feel too bad about saying something idiotic. “It’s a secret design — a money drainer, basically. You could buy a full set of this and still not get it. Some people will open hundreds without any luck, so it’s really rare.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I try not to get too caught up in the secret thing,” he admits. “Otherwise…”

“No rare print comic books for the rest of your life, basically?”

He taps his nose, and you both share another laugh. It’s nice, you think, to have come this far — to be someone Mark can share his interests and thoughts with. You may have been stretching the word to its limit when you first punched your way into his social life and called yourself his friend, but it feels more real now, more natural to think about and say. Even if he still sometimes seems to be hyperaware of the gap between the both of you, there’s no denying, at least, that it’s been significantly reduced, and this much is a testament to that.

“Well, leave it up to me. I’ll let all of this beginner’s luck rub off on you,” you announce with overflowing albeit unfounded confidence.

You both decide to open a box each at the same time; Mark suddenly panics and asks you not to unseal the foil bag right away without looking at the card inside first, earning him one slightly alarmed look followed by a burst of laughter at his pained expression when you pretend to rip open the packaging. Comparing pulls, you identify them using the set chart — your luck doesn’t seem to be operating at full capacity yet because you can only offer him the card of one that looks like a floppy pigeon, which he responds to with a slightly apologetic grimace before saying he’s already pulled that thrice in the past. He, on the other hand, is turning the card of the polar bear over in his palm, trying not to make you feel bad for your duplicate pull by slipping it under his textbook when your eyes land on it.

The second round isn’t much better; both of you manage to pull something he’s already added to his collection, and as you’re ripping the seal to your third box, he pauses and watches you. You think it’s because he’s concerned about the obvious shit luck you’ve had thus far and wants to snatch it from you before your negative energy transfigures whatever’s inside into something he doesn’t want, and you’re just about to offer the half-opened package to him before he pushes the one on his end to you.

“No way, Mark.” Your eyes are wide, a palm up to reject it. “If that turns out to be another dupe by my hand, I’m literally going to walk into oncoming traffic.”

He has to control his amusement at your words so that it doesn’t completely shake his voice into incoherence. “I picked all of these while I was there, so if anything, you’re only riding off my bad luck. Besides, this is your first time doing this. I want you to have fun.”

“But,” your voice is pained. “Your money.”

“It’s not a big deal. With how few I need to complete them, I was definitely bound to run into more repeats than new ones.” He taps the front of the textbook — or, at least, the part of it not buried under the figurines and sealing tapes yet. “Probability mathematics.”

“I thought we already ended the study part of the day,” you grumble but concede, putting aside the one you half-opened to tear the top of his. You’re careful when you shake out the foil packaging, making sure to place it upright on the table before extracting the card. Both of your faces fall — yours more than his — when you see it’s a repeat of the polar bear.

“Almost. It would’ve been a pretty lucky pull earlier, so it’s technically not bad,” he tries to reassure you, but you childishly feel like you’ve been the sole source of his disappointment thus far. “Try the last one.”

It’s irrational, but you’re suddenly anxious about it. For some reason, you’re worried that this will topple the carefully constructed ladder you’ve propped up against Mark’s tower of social defense. Even if he’s being genial about your rotten pulls, you don’t know how much of it is just resignation to dismay on his part.

You say a small prayer, then fully rip off the seal; you don’t even take out the packaged figuring anymore. You just shimmy the card out of the box, turning it over when you notice it’s upside down.

For a moment, your shoulders deflate. It’s closest to this pastel purple figurine in the middle of the line-up, its stupid puckered lips almost taunting you. He hadn’t even mentioned it as something he’s looking for, so you almost feel like this has come to a horrible full circle. But then he grabs the box, checks the list, and looks back at your card again. He looks shell-shocked, and you’re not sure if it’s the strong air conditioning directed towards the two of you or if it’s just his hands, but the image he’s holding is shivering slightly.

You look more closely at it, and something just doesn’t feel right. Color palette aside, there are notable differences — different colored lips, a more intricate ear design, and closed eyes. It’s…

“Dream eater,” Mark’s voice is hushed, almost reverent, and very, very close to your ear. “It’s the secret one. You’re… incredible.”

“What are you talking about,” your words are just as raspy; you’re not sure if you’re actually choked up with emotion or something — over a figurine, you have to remind yourself. “You picked all of this. I just ripped open the box.”

The hush that falls over the both of you feels very concrete, weighty on your shoulders. His fingers creep towards the foil packet — the only one he actually opens because there’s no way he’s not keeping it. The shiny purple head gleams under the fluorescent, the glitter around the star and moon designs catching the light as he turns it left to right, like he’s worried it’s a fake. You can tell why people want these things so much; there’s a thrill in you that lingers, makes you feel warm and alert. It’s anticipation, despair, excitement, and triumph all in one sitting.

You’re stroking the smooth curve of the design by the ears lightly when Mark speaks up again and says the most outrageous thing.

“I want you to have it.”

“What?” You actually have to pop your ear canal in front of him with your pinky to make sure he knows how ludicrous he sounds. “This is… you said it was crazy rare.”

“Yeah. And you pulled it, with your magic. That’s like… unimaginable luck. Even more than beginner’s luck.”

“Like I said, I literally just opened the box.”

“No — you have like… the golden touch.”

“Please,” you hiss, a genuine testiness to your voice. “Do not. I was just here for the ride — the experience, and all.”

“Seriously, take it.”

“Absolutely not—”

It’s a chaotic moment of him trying to hand you the figurine and you outright rejecting it, with both your palms working hard to push it back to him. Instead of nudging the plastic back, though, you end up placing the full force of your hands against his fingers.

There’s no actual spark when you touch, but your reactions make it feel like there might as well have been; you even lock eyes in startled unison, like you can’t believe that just happened, before you pull away quickly, Mark drawing the figuring back to his torso while looking away towards the counter, where a lowerclassman is wiping down the stains. You want to scream at your warped reflection in the window. You barely initiate contact with him, but you imagine that if you ever did, you would prefer to not be saying something as abjectly negative as absolutely not while doing so.

Your mind flails in an attempt to mitigate the issue and water down the embarrassment, and clearly he’s struggling to figure it out too, because he pipes up before you can piece your thoughts together.

“No, really.” His tone is a lot milder and, consequently, a lot more persuasive this way. “You should take it. I want you to.”

“It’s not mine. This is your thing — your hobby.”

“That’s why I’m giving it to you. I swear — I want you to keep it.”

“Why?”

He lapses into silence again, but his face is much redder than earlier. His mouth opens in an attempt to say something, but he just manages to uh his way back into a state of quiet, which gives you a chance to speak instead.

“We can… share it,” you suggest. “Shared custody…. ish.”

His eyebrow cocks involuntarily, and his jaw falls again, but all he does in actual response is nod — slowly at first, then with more sureness to the act.

“Yeah. We can share it. I’d… like that.”

You’re glad that the bulk of the awkwardness has fizzled out fairly easily, and when you think about it, this feels like a pretty good course of action; you like that it’s this little link between the two of you now — something you share that no one else can touch.

Mark, you notice, is smiling as well — more to himself than towards you, it seems. His thumb grazes across the face of the figurine, slow across the lips, and you’re once again falling into a pit of nonsense by wondering when he’d do that to you.

“Thanks for staying with me, _________,” he finally says, and your heart jolts and melts all at once. “And for… doing this. For chatting with me. And giving me your luck, and all that. Great way to end the day… with you.”

You say no problem, but you instantly regret it when you realize you could have just said it didn’t have to end just yet.

“__________? Hello? Come back down to Earth?”

“Shut up,” you sigh at the guy seated across you — Seo Youngho, an upperclassman, your Gender Studies classmate, and current project partner, waves in front of your face. You shoo his hand away, which only joins his other one as he throws them in defeat above his head. “Stop moving. Be quiet. Don’t talk.”

“That’s the same thing as shut up and be quiet. What’s up with you?” He demands. “Fifteen minutes ago, you were full of ideas. Now I feel like I’m talking to a wax figure.”

You’d been engrossed in your report for the last hour and a half, and the subject matter is admittedly something you enjoy — the role of gender in Twenty-First Century Korean marketing and advertisement, a title Youngho had taken more than ten minutes to type into the Google Docs header because he was pissed off at how the numbers looked like in the fonts he chose. He’s an enthusiastic classmate and someone you’ve come to be friendly with, not only because he’s genuinely approachable but also because he has fits of nosiness and talkativeness at the strangest moments, so a chunk of your relationship is mostly based on social terrorism on his part. You like him well enough most of the time — save for the last fifteen minutes of this hour.

Because Mark had just come in for his shift fifteen minutes ago, and suddenly Youngho is much too noisy for your taste, and his head is honestly way too big to the point that it gets in the way of your opportunities to see Mark behind the counter. You even resent him for choosing a booth instead of your usual table all of a sudden, because your view of the central barista’s area is much more limited from this angle, especially since the huge espresso machine is in the of your field of vision.

You’re also (currently and abruptly) mad at Youngho because you remember that he’s the reason you’ve had to skip out on a couple of sessions with Mark. Like, it technically isn’t his fault that you have a lot of research to do for the literature review section of the paper, nor is it his fault that this is your final requirement that comprises a whopping forty percent of your grade, but like… you’ll blame him anyway. So you’re much more irritable, and you’ve definitely been missing Mark’s presence. In fact, you kind of just want to shove Youngho’s balloon head away and call Mark over to sit with you, but you’re not that much of an animal to actually do that.

Probably.

There had been inquisitiveness across Mark’s face when he’d come in; his eyes had trailed to the table at which you usually sat, surprised to find two guys hunched over a single phone there instead of the usual you, waiting for him with your eyes bright and your smile wide. You’d like to think it’s because he’s gotten as used to seeing you as you’re used to waiting to see him — like he just expects you to be there.

You hadn’t really known how to call his attention to where you were, especially since Youngho was prattling very matter-of-factly about the academic journal he’d unearthed yesterday and how he thought it would be useful in reshaping the methodology of your paper (whatever). There was a moment in which you briefly considered ordering another cup of coffee just to get in line to talk to him, but your hands were already shaking from the venti you’d had to keep yourself from passing out in front of your partner.

So you’re more than relieved when, half an hour into his shift, Mark finally steps out from behind the huge machine, a mug of water for himself in hand, and turns away from the front of the store to drink it — only for your eyes to lock as he twists his torso in your general direction.

The mug stops just inches from his lips, but you could swear he smiles at you briefly when he recognizes you, so you return the favor. Youngho’s face contorts into abject befuddlement, turning around to see what you’re grinning at.

“Oh, you poor sap,” he snorts, finally letting the puzzle pieces fall into place.

“What?” You’re still distracted even if Mark has taken a gulp of water and is now attending to a gaggle of girls still in the throes of discussing what to order.

“What what? You gonna spend the rest of the day eyefucking Mark Lee from over here? At least let me get a different table.”

“Shut up,” you repeat sullenly, coming back down to his level and finally — albeit reluctantly — meeting his eye (just because Mark isn’t looking your way). “What were you saying about the sample size?”

“That it’s much too large to be feasible, a point we closed twenty fucking minutes ago,” he says pointedly. “Is it a thing for baristas or a thing for smart guys?”

“It’s a thing for Mark Lee,” you sigh, following Youngho’s suit and shutting your laptop close. You’re at least glad he’s not annoyed that you’re delaying work for a crush, or maybe he’s also just equally lazy at this point. “You ever look at someone and think you would give it all up for a chance to hit that?”

“No, because this isn’t a porn movie, and I’m clearly not the main character in whatever’s going on in there.” He jabs at your forehead; you swat his hand away again.

“Well, I would.”

He rolls his eyes. “So do it, dumbass.” He says this so simply, like he can’t imagine why you’d be holding yourself back, which is a valid thing to feel, except it’s not really any of his business.

“Can’t.”

“Because?”

“Because it doesn’t fit into my elegant master plan. Also because I want him to ask me out. I just want that victory.”

“Oh yeah, there it is.” Youngho leans over, wiggling his fingers at your ears like he’s greeting a next-door neighbor. “Hey, delusion. Good to see you. Do you even understand how crazy it is that you’re taking a Gender Studies class while waiting for your dick-in-shining-armor like a damsel in distress?”

“Asshole,” you grumble, violently opening your laptop monitor again. “Get back on Google Drive.”

Thankfully, Youngho complies, and the next two hours pass in relative silence and productivity, with you hammering out a vague references list that he promises to format in your stead so you can ‘spend more time dreaming about Mark Lee between your legs.’ You want to strangle him, but there are far too many people in the cafe for you to get away with it. Also, aforementioned Mark Lee would only be a witness to your criminal record, and while you think there’s something romantic in killing for love, or whatever, you’re not sure it’d make the best impression on him.

“Next week’s my birthday,” Youngho announces as he stands to tug on his jacket.

“Congratulations,” you say wryly, peeking over his bulletin board torso to see Mark tugging off his apron and picking up his school bag. Your heart hammers in your chest as he looks over at you briefly, and something like embarrassment passes over his face before he busies himself with neatly folding the fabric. “Go away.”

“Usually people look uncomfortable for not knowing and then start thinking about what gifts to get the celebrant, but I always felt you were kind of a revolutionary.” He snaps his fingers right in front of your eyes, and you look up at him, a little offended. “I’m having a get-together — and by get-together, I mean it’s gonna be a rager. You should come.”

“When?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Can’t,” you chew on your lip, wondering if Mark is leaving. His movements seem particularly slow, but you wonder if he’s just taking his sweet time because he has nothing better to do. Of course, he would have something better to do if Youngho stopped fucking obscuring you from him and vice versa. “Busy. School… whatever.” Not completely untrue. Most of what you do with Mark has to do with school.

“This moony-eyed thing is just not for you, I fear.”

“Are you going to be here all day?”

“Are you? Why don’t you just fucking ask him out, you lunatic?” You can’t imagine why he sounds so exasperated. It’s not like this is his problem — or his business, for that matter. “Maybe if you did, you could fuck him and move on with your life and be an actual contributor to society’s development.”

“Has anyone ever told you how nosy you are?”

“Constantly.” He brings his palms down on the table, the thud shaking you out of another oncoming stupor. “Think about it. Maybe it’ll make you stop making that stupid face.”

“You’ve got a stupid face,” you mumble, sulking as he pinches your cheek as a goodbye before heading out of the shop.

At least you finally get to see Mark in full, glorious view — and you get to watch him come closer, although his stride is somewhat cautious.

“Hey.” Even his voice sounds unsure — almost like the way he used to sound earlier in your friendship. “I didn’t want to interrupt you and… your friend?”

“Oh. Well, you wouldn’t have been interrupting,” you inform him, completely genuine. “He was spouting a lot of nonsense.”

“You guys seemed pretty close.”

“I guess it’s a proximity thing,” you sigh, and Mark raises his eyebrows slightly in question. “We’re partners.”

“Oh.” The way he draws out the syllable is slow. “That definitely makes sense.”

The silence stretches out between the two of you again, with Mark checking his shoelaces. You almost grab your head; it hadn’t occurred to you until now how damaging missing meetings with him would be to your friendship. You feel like you’re slowly being dragged back to square one, and you want to give him an explanation.

“He’s actually… I haven’t been able to see you because I’ve been working on something with him.” you offer, trying to answer a question he didn’t even ask. “Sorry about that. I swear I’ll be back on track tomorrow.”

“No, no — I completely understand.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Thank you… for telling me, though. I— uh, appreciate that.”

“I’d love to see you tomorrow, though.” You try injecting more pep into your voice. “I’ve really been behind on my algebra. I’ve definitely been drowning without you.”

“Oh, yeah.” A small smile graces his lips, but you can’t tell if the reluctance behind it is from fatigue or something that looks oddly like sadness. “I’m down for tomorrow. Same time, same table, right?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Cool. See you, _________.”

You watch him turn on his heel, walking to the front door, and something like fear mingled with desperation clutches your heart. Fuck the traditional route, you think. You don’t know what it is about how he’s acting now, but it’s making you feel like he’s slipping through your fingers. All that hard work — there’s no way you’re letting him go.

“Mark, wait.”

You’re at his side, fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket before you can figure out exactly what you want to say. You feel as surprised as he looks at your sudden liveliness in action, and his gaze trails from your clenched fist to your face slowly, like he’s trying to memorize this whole position.

Your exhale’s shaky, but even still, you try not to sound overtly self-conscious when you ask, “Do you like Chinese food?”

Something in the furrowing of his brows tells you he can’t seem to see where this conversation is headed, and that slightly bothers him. “I like it well enough. Why?”

“There’s this really good dim sum buffet near my mom’s office. We tried it before — the Xiaolongbao is awesome.”

“Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I love Xiaolongbao. I’ll definitely have to check it out then.”

You want to tear your hair out. “How about — you know, checking it out with me? Tonight? You know… together. With me.” You already fucking said that.

You’ve never seen Mark blink this rapidly; he looks like he’s trying to crunch large numbers in his head. A small part of you actually worries that he’s malfunctioning, but just when you think he’s going to glitch out completely, he clears his throat. It bothers you how uncomfortable he looks. “Tonight? Oh man… it’s my cousin’s birthday tonight. I can’t… reschedule. Well, obviously. Maybe some other… time?”

Your ‘oh, yeah’ is small, and so is the ghost of Mark’s smile. You can’t help but feel like he’s pitying you a little, although he doesn’t seem like the type, but the thought of it alone makes you want to puke. He makes no motion to move, and you think he’s extending this awkward moment out on purpose until you realize you’re still hanging onto him and he has no way of telling you to let go nicely.

Fingers unfurling from his sleeve, you take a careful step back, but when he walks away, it feels like you’ve gone much, much further away.

The worst part is that you can’t even figure out why.

Luckily, the next few times you see Mark, you manage to rebuild a rather shaky bridge back to where you had been. You even manage to strong-arm him into sharing an apple fritter one afternoon, and you know it’s a bit sad to think about it a particular, untrue way, but you can’t help but pattern what you’re doing into some kind of pseudo-date. Pathetic isn’t a word you normally associate yourself with, but you’ve been borderline desperate for progress where there seems to be none, so you take small victories where you can get them.

Unfortunately, you haven’t been able to revisit your stupid dim sum plan; sometimes, he says he has somewhere important to be, but most of the time, it’s actually your fault. No — it’s Youngho’s fault, because he keeps bothering you to finish the project. You’re aware that he can’t do it himself, but since he’s informed of your current plight, he could at least stand to be more sympathetic.

And you hate the way Mark looks every time you splutter out that you have to take a rain check for that reason; it’s not even disappointment, or something, which would be much more understandable. It’s this mysterious kind of faraway look, where his eyes glaze over a bit and he seems suddenly very lost in thought — or completely dissociated. He never strays away from his normal response of “next time, then,” but that ‘next time’ fades into the weekend and into the start of next week, and you have to spend every other evening with an annoying Seo fucking Youngho on a Google Meets call instead of eating soup dumplings loveshot style with Mark Lee.

Thursday night rolls around, and the former performs the most irritating stunt yet: blowing up your phone with so many KakaoTalk messages that it almost buzzes off the table during your session with Mark. Luckily, he seems to have learned a thing or two from his comic books, catching it before it hits the floor.

“You sure you don’t want to answer it?” He asks, gingerly handing the phone to you like he’s afraid it’s going to explode from all the pinging.

“Without the shadow of a doubt,” you sigh, flipping the screen downwards. Buzz.

“It kind of seems important. Or, like… urgent.”

“He’ll live. Unfortunately.”

Mark falls silent, fiddling with the page he’s on. He’s neatly highlighted the formulas on the page with blue ink, and his finger keeps scratching at the slightly wet paper. Buzz.

“Didn’t you say you two were partners?”

“Yes. Also unfortunately.” Youngho is actually a great person, but you kind of hate how Mark’s paying more attention to his texts than to you right now. “What did you get for number ten?” Buzz.

“A hundred and twe— are you really just going to let it keep ringing like that? What if he’s… I don’t know. In trouble? Like, he needs you?”

You smack your phone on its back, hoping that the punishment reaches Youngho because he absolutely is in trouble — only with you. “He’s just making a racket because it’s his birthday and he probably wants a bunch of people to trash his parents’ house, or something.”

“Sounds like fun.” The dubious tone in Mark’s voice indicates that his idea of fun definitely isn’t that. Buzz.

“Not really, but I assume he’ll only pipe down if he manages to get his way.”

“He must really want you there.”

There it is again — that weird, distant expression that makes you feel like he’s trying to free himself from the tethers of the earth. You close your textbook in defeat; it wasn’t even like you got the answer to number ten correct anyway. Buzz.

“He just wants everyone there, I bet. But I probably should show up so he shuts up.”

“Oh — yeah, okay. We’ll call it a day, then?” He’s avoiding your eye as he starts packing his things, which is actually impressive because you have practically nothing but your book to keep in comparison to his pencils and protractor, so you just stare, willing him to look at you.

You want to know what’s going on in his head. You want to know what’s going on in his heart — what he thinks of you, why he seems warm one second then almost like a stranger the next. You want to know if he knows you like him and if him not doing anything even if he knows is a sign that he doesn’t like you back. You want to know if he’d let you kiss him, if he’d kiss you first, if you can meet not because of sweet cream cold brews or algebra but because you just want to be together.

You just don’t know how to ask. For as much as you like him, for as much as you want him, you haven’t figured out the most basic part of this — if you mean anything more than a two hour talk to him at all.

“Mark.” This feels awfully like the dim sum conversation, only somehow ten times more disastrous. “Come with me.”

“Sorry?” The appalled look on his face makes you squirm in your seat.

“I don’t really want to go, but maybe if we go together… we can just hang out a bit and leave once it’s boring… I think it’d be fun,” you explain lamely, deciding at the last second to drop the with you that had originally come with your sentiment.

“I don’t think your… partner will like someone uninvited showing up.”

“I’m inviting you.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“You’d be, like, my saving grace or something — my excuse to scram. We’ll say we came right from a study session; we only popped in halfway through for the sake of greeting him a happy birthday. Then we can just go. We can say — uh, we’ve got more work to do.” You’re practically begging him at this point, and you don’t even get why. You just don’t want him to leave looking the way he does — confused and a little detached. You want the Mark that had smiled at you while giving you your coffee — the one that had kindly pointed out an arithmetic mistake in the most gentle way possible. You want to open blind boxes with him, whine about your rotten luck, and part ways with his warmth still against your coat sleeve.

You don’t know what comes over you then, but you pluck up the courage and initiative to slip your hand in his. He stiffens a little, but you don’t care; your fingers squeeze his in urging.

Something in his expression breaks — cracks first, then falls away, before he’s nodding, still looking vaguely thoughtful.

“If you think it’ll help you, then… okay.”

The bus ride to Youngho’s neighborhood is uneventful because it’s quiet. You stand close to Mark at all times, but you barely touch, save for the times your knuckles accidentally brush his when you lurch forward slightly as the vehicle comes to a dangerously abrupt stop. He doesn’t ask anything about the party or the company that’ll populate it, which is just as well, because you don’t have a clue.

You know it’s the right house because the door’s wide open and there’s music coming from inside; you can’t make out much more than the deep bass pumping through the concrete, but you’re pretty sure it’s making your heart jump in your chest even more than it already is. There are quite a few people you vaguely recognize on the lawn, and even more that you absolutely don’t; a good number of them glance at you and Mark as you step through the threshold then look away, probably deciding you’re of no real consequence or harm to their moods.

Youngho’s easily spottable because of his massive height; he towers over the rest of his guests, and the red plastic cup in his hand calls even more attention because he’s lifted it over everyone else’s heads. You throw Mark an apologetic glance that he responds to with a short nod before you dive into the crowd alone, trying to weave your way to where you’d last seen Youngho.

“Bro, finally!” Youngho greets you, pretty much shouting over the music. “Where’s the gift? Did you leave it on the table?”

“Happy birthday, Youngho. Do you know how close you were to being blocked?”

“I see you brought mister espresso with you,” he ignores your comment completely, nodding to Mark. When you turn back to see him, you notice he’s squishing his arms closer to his sides, trying to minimize the space he takes up. “So what? Y’all get to hook up already?”

“No. I brought him here because we were in the middle of something and someone,” you stop, offering him a pointed look that’s also ignored. “Wouldn’t stop texting.”

“Cockblock,” the guy next to Youngho, who you now realize has been eavesdropping, singsongs. “Oh, sorry. You looked angry when you stomped through the crowd, so I wanted the juicy details. Name’s Jaehyun.”

You take the hand he offers you briefly, introducing yourself. When you say your name, realization dawns on his face, and he jabs his forefinger at you.

“Oh, dude. You’re that girl — the Starbucks Showstopper.”

“The what?”

“That’s what his friends call you.” He scratches his ear, seemingly racking his brain for more information. “I’m with Mark and a couple of his friends — Lee Donghyuck and Na Jaemin — in College Algebra.”

You completely gloss over the fact that you’ve finally found out the real government identity of the mysterious figure named ‘Hyuck.’ “They… talk about me?”

“From time to time. Not really. Once or twice. Donghyuck only calls you that because Mark apparently keeps blowing them off to hang out with you.”

“How do you know this?”

“I have ears. It’s not hard when they talk like no one’s around.”

You shush Youngho’s exclamation of and you’re saying I’m nosy?, your heart hammering hard in your ears, practically drowning out the music. “What… what else did they talk about?”

“Not sure. Something about not seeing you that often these days. Jaemin teasing Mark about getting dropped now that you don’t need his help anymore. Donghyuck piling on and saying you’ve got a boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Jaehyun still inches away from you when your voice rises in pitch and decibel. Some people around you start, then move away as well, as if scared you’re going to incinerate them. “They were just teasing him that you probably ditched him after you started dating someone. Your partner in some project, or what.”

“Oh gross.” The realization hits you like a speeding truck. Youngho’s expression is affronted.

“First of all, you bitch. Second of all, as if I would date someone who didn’t even buy me a gift. Or want to come. Or yelled at me after coming. Wow — now that I think about it, you’re terrible, _________.”

“Oh, shit; that someone was you?” The only person that isn’t tense in this conversation is Jaehyun, who laughs point blank at Youngho’s sour face. “I think they were offering to put you into one of their Death Note notebooks. Sucks for you, hotshot.”

“What a smudge on my good name,” Youngho sighs mournfully. “On my special day, too.”

“I desperately need you two to be quiet for one second. I have to — where’s Mark?”

Even when you stand on your tiptoes, you’re not nearly as tall as the two of them; it’s Youngho, with his freakish height, who manages to spot Mark by the bowl of nachos, looking as though he’s trying to decide if they’re safe for consumption. You hardly excuse yourself; actually, all you say is a distracted “later” that dismisses Jaehyun’s cooing that something’s going down and you should clue him into all the mess later as a thank you. Your appreciation of his sudden and somewhat short-lived presence in your life is still up in the air.

Mark’s busy making a sour face at the sip of punch he’d just taken; he only straightens up when you’re right in front of him, putting his cup down next to the nachos. “Hey. Did you get to find… um…”

“That’s not important.” Your hand bunches the fabric of his jacket in a death grip, something he barely has time to register, let alone question, before you’re tugging him through the throng of people. You want somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and you initially consider the lawn, except you know it’s strewn with cups and has stragglers debating whether to go home or not. You can’t risk any of them being expert eavesdroppers like Jaehyun, so you make a beeline for the stairs instead.

“We’re not leaving yet?” He has to shout over the music, but there’s no resistance in his stride; he follows you up and waits patiently, although a little perplexed, as you check the doors on the second floor. Two are locked, one is a bathroom, and the other is a messy, musk aftershave-scented place you can only presume is Youngho’s room. Talking in front of a sink and a toilet doesn’t feel like it’ll be very productive, so you just drag Mark into the bedroom, kicking aside the crumpled shirt on the floor — which you could’ve sworn you’d seen Youngho wear for class yesterday. “_________, what’s going on?”

“Mark Lee,” you burst out, ignoring the fact that his eyes widen slightly at your tone. “What’s your fucking deal?”

You don’t think you’ve ever sworn in front of him before; that much is evident when he continues to gawk silently, unable to find words to respond to your question. Or maybe it’s just the volume and force with which you demand an answer. The problem is that you don’t even know what kind of reply you want. A small part of you nags that this is uncalled for, especially at this level, with you practically caging him into an unknown room. In fact, even now, you’re still embarrassed at your behavior, wondering if you’ve gone too far and stepped over a line between you.

But the source of all your frustrations is, in fact, that line — one so strangely drawn, clear at some points and almost invisible at others. Sometimes, he seems simply content with the barest minimum of friendship: talking to you, helping you, politely laughing at your (terrible) jokes. But there are also times he blushes too hard for it to not mean anything, times that he makes you feel like you could mean a little something more to him too.

Yet, from there, he wavers, stepping back so as not to get entangled in something you don’t understand — like when he grows distant every time you mention Youngho to him. You don’t understand why he would unless he echoed, even just a little, the longing in you. But you also don’t get why he stays and builds more walls around himself, like he’s determined to ignore all the other signs — like he doesn’t want to know if it’s really true and will just accept the assumption that it is. You hate not knowing where you stand with him, and while you could easily ask, you know you don’t want to.

And for a long time, you’ve convinced yourself that it’s because you want to see Mark step out of his comfort zone and initiate something, but the ugly truth is staring at you: it’s simply just that you can’t stand the idea of seeing him come to the conclusion that you can’t be anything more to him than someone he makes a sweet cream cold brew for every so often.

There’s a moment of tense silence between you two, where you’re just staring at each other — him, perplexed, and you, agitated — and the only sound that passes is the faint but unmistakable voice of Youngho going who has the cake cutting knife? from somewhere down below. You try not to get caught up in the fact that Mark still looks cute when he’s dumbfounded.

“Sorry?”

“What,” you repeat pointedly. “Is your deal? Why have you been acting so weirdly around me these days? I thought — I thought we were… getting closer. I thought… we…”

You’ve confirmed it now; you’re the epitome of cowardliness. You can’t even say I thought we liked each other — because you know that you do, but you still can’t honestly, assuredly tell if he does. Maybe you just read too deeply into the smallest things — smiles before he asks for your order, glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking, sharing the dream eater figurine — to fuel your own emotions without really checking the depth of his.

“I thought we were cool,” you reroute your words, and they come out flat and lame. “But just when I think you’re warming up to me, you suddenly pull away. Like… you’re afraid of me. Or you don’t like me. I don’t know.”

“It’s not — I don’t — I’m not afraid of you,” he stumbles over his words, and even in the darkness of this space, you see his face turn bright red, very quickly. His feet shuffle, not because he’s lost his balance but because he seems to want to get rid of a sudden restlessness. “I do like you. We are — we were getting — we’re close. We — we’re friends. You said that, and we are.”

“Is it only because I say we are that you agree?”

“What? No, I—” His hand passes over his face, slowing at the curve of his chin. “I really like being friends with you. I like being around you.”

“Then why do you act so weird these days? Like — you’ll be fine one moment, then you’ll back off, like you suddenly remembered you don’t want to be around me.”

“It’s not like that. I’m — I don’t get…” He takes a deep inhale, recalibrating himself for a moment before his voice comes out again, less strained this time. “I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me.”

“How could I?” There’s something more than confusion coloring your voice; there’s hurt, too, and he looks as surprised as you feel at hearing it. “I wanted to be your friend. I was the one that asked you to hang out. I was the one who wanted you to talk to me, to help me, to go to a goddamn dim sum place with me. Why would I feel uncomfortable? Or are you just using this as some roundabout way to say you feel uncomfortable?”

Mark falls silent, and you don’t know why this speaks volumes all of a sudden. His eyes are trained to the tips of his sneakers, which are rising in soft bumps every few seconds; he’s curling his toes inside them. You feel like you’ve gotten the worst answer possible, and something grows cold in your chest.

“You feel uncomfortable around me.” You rehash, but it’s no longer a question. “You don’t know how to get rid of me.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“You think I’m only using you.”

“No.”

“Then what?” Your voice breaks, no longer out of anger, but a desperate sadness. The moment your eyes feel hot and prickly, you decide you want to end the conversation. It’s embarrassing, you think, for someone like Mark Lee — whom you like, who only ever sees you as a friend — to see you get choked up at a fucking birthday party at someone else’s house.

A beat later, you’re mumbling a half-hearted forget it, and you detest overdramatics, but you hate the idea of being in a room with someone who’ll never return your feelings even more right now; you push past him, already on the thought of calling a cab home instead of taking the bus so that no half-drunk businessmen coming from their company dinners see you crying.

But something warm wraps around your wrist, then closes over your hand, and you’re unable to move, Mark’s palm pressed against the back of yours. When you look back, you notice he’s still not looking at you, but his ears are practically on fire with how red they are, and you feel his fingers tighten slightly, tremble slightly against yours.

“It’s not that. I didn’t ever want you to think — I heard about you two. That you were dating someone. Seo Youngho.”

“What does that matter?” Your words come out a little more bitterly than you expect, and you have to remind yourself to reel it in. “That doesn’t explain your discomfort.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he repeats, still evidently careful in choosing his words. “Because you wanted to be friends.”

“I don’t understand,” you state bluntly. In the back of your mind, you note that Mark’s grip keeps tightening and loosening, unsure of whether to keep holding on or let go. But there’s something else, too — the soft graze of skin against yours, his thumb gliding over your knuckles.

“That was all you said you wanted to be, right?” He waits for a response, but when you don’t give him one, he lets out a shaky breath and continues. “You kept saying — we were friends. You wanted us to be close like that. I just wanted to respect it, even if…”

“Respect what?”

“That you didn’t want… anything else.”

The music downstairs is a bit tamer now; you hear the door opening and closing every so often, signaling guests leaving here and there, but there are still enough footsteps downstairs for you to know that there’s a crowd Youngho hasn’t gotten rid of and therefore has to attend to. That much is good; you’d get slapped with a homicide charge if he came up here all of a sudden.

“You were jealous.”

Mark’s fingers pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment. “I tried to stop. I don’t have a lot of practice with — well, I didn’t know how to approach the situation. I thought I was still acting normally; I didn’t think… I didn’t want you to feel weird and stop hanging out with me just because… I couldn’t fix it.”

“Your friends are assholes,” you mumble, and he finally meets your eye, equal parts startled and amused. “We aren’t. Weren’t. We never were dating.”

“Even without that, I thought… it was a bit embarrassing. Liking someone like you — someone as pretty as you, as nice as you — I thought it would make you feel weird. Then you’d start avoiding me too. Or, worse, you’d keep doing it just because… you… felt bad for me.”

You don’t know what you find more ridiculous — that you hadn’t seen figured it out or that you could have avoided all of this if you’d just been a little more honest with him too. Mark’s hand starts loosening around yours, a little too much, and you turn your palm and grip his hand before he can escape. He stiffens again, just like earlier, but you now understand better why he does.

“I just wanted to keep hanging out with you as much as I could. I thought… It’d be fine, just spending time with you, and I’d be able to like you for a while, on my own, then…” He looks a little pained. “Then just let you go. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you couldn’t let go?” You sigh softly, your palm guiding his until they connect, face to face, and you can finally lace your fingers into his. There’s no resistance, but his hand trembles slightly in yours still. “If there’s anything you should be apologizing for, it’s that you ever thought of doing it.”

Something clears in the air, lightens in his expression, and he chuckles, albeit a little shyly still. “It’s because I never thought someone like you would like someone like me.”

“I like you.” And it feels right to say it now, not at all out of the blue, never in fear of an answer he’s already given. “I like you when you smile at me every time you ask for my order. I like that you never get impatient when I’m getting my answers wrong. I like seeing you excited when you talk about a new series you’re looking forward to — something new you really want to collect. When you blush, when you laugh loudly, when you spin your pen in your hand — I like you in all those times.”

“Even when I’m jealous?”

“Especially when you are.” Your free hand comes up to cup his jaw, and you’re reminded of the fact that you’ve wanted to feel the strength of the angle under your palm for ages now. It’s not at all a disappointment, and your heart flutters irregularly in knowing you could’ve done this a long time ago, but it doesn’t matter because you’re doing it now, and fuck if Mark Lee doesn’t look good this close to you. “So be jealous — because now, you know you can be.”

Kissing him is better than you imagined, and you’ve imagined a little too much to be embarrassed at this point; there’s a heat to his lips that matches the one across his face, an upturn to them that makes you smile too. The setting’s not at all an expected one, but you’ll take it, not because it’s dark or because it’s private but because Mark’s in here with you, and you would have kissed him in a brightly lit football field full of people for as long as he’d let you.

You’d like to think he’s flushed for a reason other than shyness when you pull away, even if his laugh is quiet and breathy. In fact, when you murmur not enough, he’s the one that closes the gap this time, offering freely what you ask for with such little eloquence. The natural trepidation in his mouth relaxes, gives way to a curiosity that keeps you locked for so long that you forget you need to breathe, much more intent on finding out if Mark’s tongue tastes as good as you’ve imagined for so long.

It doesn’t; it tastes even better.

It’s still not enough, not by a long shot, but you have to resurface before you pass out like this, and even he looks a little dazed when you pull away — not in a bad way, with a grin on his face that you can only classify as endearingly goofy: slightly lopsided and a little shy, but with an unmistakable air of satisfaction.

“Months,” he mumbles, his lips still dangerously close to yours. Your eyebrows rise in questioning, and he laughs in that infectious way that makes you want to join in without even knowing what the punchline is. “I’ve been thinking of kissing you for months.”

And you do share the laughter this time, not out of amusement but of a happiness that spills without restraint. “But you’re suddenly holding back now?”

“Just letting myself bask in the moment, I guess. Letting it sink in so I remember everything.”

The two of you stand there quietly, still trying to fully parse the progression of events, and a small part of your mind registers that Mark’s thumb is still drawing circles on your skin. It’s also not enough — this touch, this closeness. You know now that he’s been thinking of you for months, and it reminds you that you spent that time dreaming of him too. And you remember you’ve always wanted to be even more familiar with him, and suddenly the desire is overwhelming; he’s right here, and you don’t ever want him out of your grasp again.

“Where are you going?” He’s only curious for the sake of it; there’s no alarm in the question because you keep your fingers tightly woven in his, tugging him along as you walk past him to the door. He’s still staring in wonder after the lock clicks shut. “What’s… happening now?”

“You waited months to kiss me, right?” He nods in response at your question. “I’ve been waiting just as long to have you too.”

His mouth falls open, but he doesn’t manage to say anything; his jaw tightens just as quickly when he feels your free hand trail down his chest, feather-light and asking for a green light. Your index finger stops just above his navel and draws back slowly, but not before you feel the shiver that runs down his torso.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you murmur, giving his hand a little squeeze. “But I just want you to know — I want to. I want you.”

A thoughtfulness settles on his face, and his eyes graze over yours, trying to read your seriousness. You don’t know how honest you look, but your words hold enough truth in them. A silence stretches over the next minute, but to you, it feels like an eternity, and you lose the test of patience somewhat, smiling softly at him.

“You don’t want to?”

“I—” His tongue peeks out, running over his bottom lip. “I do. It’s not that I don’t want to, but…”

“You seem worried.”

A hesitant nod. “I’ve never — well, no, I have, but not — with someone like you.”

“What’s someone like me?” You laugh airily.

“Someone pretty like you — I don’t know. Someone who seems to know exactly what they want. Someone who seems like… they could do better than me.”

“Mark.” You can’t keep the incredulity out of your voice. “I do know exactly what I want. I want you. The rest — I don’t care about. As long as it’s you, I want it.”

He cracks a smile, half of relief, half of disbelief. You don’t miss his hand coming up to press, warm, against your waist. “For real?”

Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt — an anchor to bring you closer, until the tips of your noses are brushing. “For real.”

The third time you kiss is slow, almost careful; there’s lingering worry in the line of his mouth that your lips try to ease until his slightly part under the movements of yours. You feel the tension leave his form in waves — first in his shoulders, then in his arms, until you’re able to press yourself closer and feel the slight give of his frame against your smaller one. He’s radiating an immense amount of body heat that’s pricking your skin and keeping you alert, and you’re hyperaware of the smallest things — the weak tremble in his mouth, the slight roughness of his teeth under your tongue, the ridges of his palate above it.

He tastes nothing like what he smells, you learn. Instead of the air of earthy coffee stuck to clean linen, you inhale a combination of spearmint and mild saltiness that’s made slightly sharper by the lingering splash of alcohol from his accidental sip of punch earlier. You decide then and there that this disparity is important to you; it makes you feel like you’re the only one who can have this experience — that everyone else can know his scent, but now, only you can know what Mark Lee tastes like.

You have to keep your wits about you to avoid this addictive stimulation of your senses; you let go of his hand only to lock your fingers around his neck, and there’s a show of trust in how he lets you lead him backwards, until his knees are hitting the edge of the unmade bed. The kiss breaks as he’s forced to settle on the mattress, and he looks up at you in what can only be described as a quiet kind of awe. He doesn’t complain when you place your hands, heavy, on his shoulders, using his sturdy form to keep you stable as you move to straddle his lap.

“I feel like,” his voice is hoarse as he speaks up. “We should have picked a different location. Someone… could walk in.”

“I locked the door,” you remind him, a light reassurance in your voice. He doesn’t say anything immediately, but it’s clear there are cogs turning in his head, and you think it’s unfair that he’s thinking way too hard about something else that isn’t you, right now, in this position. In a bid to rectify this, your face presses into the side of his neck, breathing in that familiar scent and leaving a light kiss on his skin right after. Your lips mark the moment he swallows hard at the contact. “Besides, would you really be that unhappy if someone did?”

His hands tighten against your waist, prompting you to leave another kiss against his collarbone. “What — what do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t like it if someone — say, Youngho — walked in to see me on your lap like this?”

The silence that follows your words is tense, and you can tell that Mark’s breathing has become shallower. Again, you can feel his throat constricting slightly, and you can’t help but laugh breathily as you nip at his skin, just under his Adam’s apple. He’s surprisingly easy to tease, you realize — quick to turn speechless and prone to hanging onto your words.

To say that you wouldn’t want to use that to your advantage would be a downright lie.

“Tell me,” you urge, your tone deceptively gentle. “You wouldn’t want him to see you kissing me like this? To see me wrapped around you, begging for more, saying your name over and over? You don’t want him to watch you take me — so he knows you’re the only one that can?”

A strangled groan punctuates your words, but it comes from him; his fingers dig hard into your side with barely constructed restraint. “What do you want from me, _________?”

“I want to know if kissing me was the only thing you wanted for months.”

You pull your head away, nudging his chin with the tip of your nose. Another groan escapes him, and his head tilts back slightly, almost like he’s praying. But when his gaze comes down to meet yours at your level again, you see a firm resolution in his eyes that stirs your heart — which takes off the moment he shakes his head, slowly but surely.

“Then,” you whisper. “What do you want from me?”

He doesn’t say so much as shows; he takes from you your breath, steals another kiss that’s now firmer and more openly demanding. Suddenly, his mouth can’t seem to stay still, trapping your lower lip in between his, drawing out your taste until it mixes with his against his teeth. You feel your head growing light again, and you’re pleasantly surprised that it’s suddenly become difficult to keep up with his lips, asking more from you without restraint. A hum of need sounds in the back of his throat, vaguely dissatisfied, and he’s telling you wordlessly that it isn’t enough right before he attaches his lips to the base of your neck, just above your collar. You think he’s just about to return the favor, but a laugh leaves you when you realize he’s taken it a step further, his teeth grazing your skin lightly, soft nips signaling how eager he is to sink his teeth in with only his slowly weakening self-control stopping him from doing it. Mark’s breathing is slightly labored when he pulls his lips away, warm breath fanning over your chest.

“It’s crazy — and stupid,” he croaks out, voice slightly raspy. “But I want it, and I don’t.”

“What do you mean?” Your fingers drag into his hair, combing it upward messily from his nape. He leans in for a quick kiss that’s somewhat misplaced, landing on the corner of your mouth instead of squarely atop it.

“I want them — him to see us. To see me with you, kissing you — fucking you, too. I want everyone to know we’re like this.”

You’ve never heard Mark say anything so forwardly before; a sweet, warm flush builds in your face, pleased at how comfortably he manages to say it — pleased that he’s saying it to you. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t want him to see you.” There’s a bluntness to his words, but hiding behind them is an undertone of pleading — a serious request. “I don’t want him to see how pretty you look. I don’t want him to see you when you’re bare, or how you look when I’m inside you. I don’t want him to see—”

His voice wavers and dies, and you wonder if he’s embarrassed, but when you read his expression, you see an unyielding longing. A smile tugs at your lips, and your hand comes around to cup his chin, thumb extending upwards to drag his lower lip down.

“You don’t want him to see what’s only yours.”

He swallows hard again, but he doesn’t wait long to nod. Understanding passes between the both of you, silently but completely, and Mark presses his face to your throat, feeling the hum resonate as he places another long, firm kiss there.

“You’re mine,” he whispers, in a way that almost feels like he wants to convince himself of something impossible to believe. He doesn’t even wait for your affirmation, prefers to read it in the way you shiver lightly once his lips travel further down. His kisses trail past the collar of your shirt, and his hands are unabashed in how they seek skin, pushing the fabric upward so he can settle the palms of his hands, warm against your waist. Oddly, they don’t travel upwards; they only brush against the dip, down slightly over the upward rise of your hips, then upwards again, almost soothingly. It’s almost like he wants his mouth to meet them, but he stops halfway, sidetracked by the curve of your breasts.

He barely pulls away, only does for a moment, enough to meet your eyes.

“You’re only mine,” he repeats, his voice softer now. You realize he’s still waiting for some confirmation, and when you do, you’re quick to give it to him — quick to erase any doubt.

“I’m yours,” you affirm in the same tone, in the same careful volume. “Only yours, Mark.”

Whatever else he wanted to ask for, he knows you’ve given assent; that much is clear when he buries his face between your tits, inhaling your scent. You briefly wonder if he might feel just as intoxicated around you as you do around him, if your pleasant dizziness in being this close to him, in tasting and smelling him is something he experiences too, but you don’t get much time to dwell on it the moment you feel his lips part, a slight wetness seeping through the fabric. He’s kissing your chest, teeth grazing just above the cup of your bra, nipping without any real objective other than to feel the pad’s slight resistance to his mouth.

You almost miss what he says as he shifts his head, lips brushing over the curve of your breast — another breathless ‘mine’ that isn’t ever punctuated; his lips still stay parted, mouthing at the cloth, like he’s desperate to feel what’s underneath through it. There’s pressure where his tongue presses flush against the shape of your tit, tightness whenever he chooses to nip, attempting to take the flesh and all that’s between you and him between his teeth.

Not enough, you think, even when a whimper of need bubbles out of you; you want to be closer, your thighs pressing against the sides of his. You’re close in almost every way, but you still inch yourself further forward, enough to feel the taut hardness in his jeans. Your hips settle right there, letting fabric ride against fabric as you center yourself.

No sooner do you press yourself flush against him do you gasp; the light sting sends a jolt up your spine when his teeth close around your nipple through your bra, and when you look down at him, you see the corners of his mouth pulled up in evident satisfaction. He’s quick to atone, his tongue dragging your shirt slightly upwards in his attempt to soothe, and for some reason, the push of fabric and the barely-there feeling of motion leaves you tingling.

“Mark.” Your voice comes out in a whine, but in the haze you’re in, you don’t really have a clear idea of what you’re asking for. All you know is that you want more of him, and for as much as he’s already given you in kisses and words, you aren’t even halfway down the list of everything else you wish you could demand from him. You say the only thing that comes to mind — the only thing that really encompasses what you feel. “Mark, I want you. I want more of you.”

His hands on your waist are replaced by the significant tightness of his arms, locked around your torso; you don’t even have the time to take in your awe at the fact that he can easily carry you, turn you over until you’re on your back, until he’s already eased one knee between your legs.

The way he looks down at you is a mixture of hesitation and desire, but the former’s erased when you reach out for him, murmuring another ‘more’ so you can pull him in. With one palm pressed against the mattress, he lets his free hand graze against your side again, bolder in its movements, and his fingers trace a path up to your breast, squeezing the soft flesh through layers. Your back arches upwards in response, eager for more contact, for touch that’s almost there but not quite, and he smiles when you make a noise of frustration from his fingers tweaking the soft nub of your nipple.

“Mark, please—”

“Would you really let him see you like this?” His thumb’s still idly grazing over your breast, following the rise and fall of its curve. You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice level despite the growing want that threatens to break through it. “Would you really let him watch you… get fucked?”

You shake your head, and his brow furrows.

“I’d let him watch you fuck me,” you correct him, and the confusion in his face gives way to pure satisfaction the moment you make this nuance clear. “It has to be only you.”

His grip tightens briefly against your breast again, and he leans down, pressing a surprisingly chaste and brief kiss to your lips.

“Then I’ll unlock the door next time and give him a show.”

You don’t know if it’s what he says or what he does after — his hands bunching your shirt upward until the hem’s just below your neckline — that makes your breath hitch, but you decide it doesn’t matter when you realize you’d much rather be focusing on the journey his lips take, slick against your stomach as he presses languid kisses down to your navel. His fingers hook into the waistband of your jeans, the weight naturally pulling them down, and you see his muscles tighten for a moment as he stops himself from tugging them off completely.

Mark’s mouth is unparalleled in its attentiveness, seemingly intent on making sure he’s covered every inch of your stomach in warm kisses, but you only realize he’s somehow stalling when he starts the cycle again, his nails digging into the taut elastic of your jeans as though to remind himself to curb his desire.

You take the initiative instead, raising your hips slightly to signal your want, acutely aware of the fact that you brush lightly against his thigh when you do so. His eyes lift first, followed by the rest of his face, and he’s watching you quietly. You might have thought he was unsure of what to do all of a sudden again, but his knee pressing closer, an unmistakable pressure against you, is enough to tell you that he’s only curious to know what else you’ll do.

The second time you grind against his thigh, his hands catch your hips, keeping them aloft just long enough for him to tug the band of your jeans downward; he peels them off you with surprising ease, returning to the same position between your legs, hands still firm on your waist. With that done, he only has the thin garter of your panties left to curl his fingers into, bunching it into his fists when you roll your hips up one more time. You manage a shaky noise when you feel the stark difference — the roughness of the denim against you, the stick and drag of flimsy cloth. Mark lets out a low but unmistakable hiss.

“I can’t believe—” his idea is cut short by the movement of your hips again, and his grip tightens, knuckles pressing into your skin. “Can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“What am I supposed to do,” you breathe out, the sound momentarily getting stuck in your throat. “So that you know it’s real?”

His fingers relax their hold, palms now pressed against your thighs; they travel between your hips and your knees, a soothing and thoughtful motion. “God — I don’t know. I just want — I just want you so badly. Like… I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have you now.”

You lean up, your weight resting on your elbow, and your other hand reaches out; Mark meets you halfway, bending just a little lower to press his cheek against your palm. There’s something intimate, something so giving about the way he turns his face to your fingers, pressing a fluttering kiss just under your thumb. The tips of your fingers trace the shape of his lips, even when they pucker again under your digits.

“Take me,” you murmur quietly. “Right now — from now on, every part of me is all for you.”

His exhale is shaky, but his fingers have a sureness to them; they slip under your thighs, cradling the backs of your knees, and lifting until they’re folded over your chest. You don’t even have the time to wonder if you should feel exposed all of a sudden; his breath warms the inside of your thigh as he presses his lips there — not a kiss, just a touch as he speaks.

“I want to taste you,” he mumbles, partly distracted with the act of inhaling the mild scent off of your skin. “Every inch of you — I want to know just how sweet you are.”

He lets his hold on your thighs relax, letting them fall apart; he busies his hands with your panties instead, hooking a finger into the strip of cloth just covering you. It’s clear you’re both aware that the fabric sticks light to your skin, poorly masking your wetness, and interest mingled with hunger flashes across his face as he pulls it aside.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, sounding like it’s a comment more for himself than anything else. His gaze flickers to you for a moment before it moves back to your pussy. “The prettiest fucking girl in the world.”

The pressure of his thumb between your folds causes you to forget what you wanted to say, and you know Mark had been nervous, but you realize that it doesn’t mean he’s supremely inexperienced by any means; there’s a quiet, understated confidence in the way he rubs slow, thorough circles, moving upward towards your clit. Your face, your neck, your whole torso feels flushed, but you power through the instinct to tilt your head back so that you can keep watching him — the minute changes in his expression, the slowly building strength in his touch.

“I want to taste you,” he repeats, looking up at you. “I want to know what you taste like when you cum against my mouth.”

You’re not sure if you’re gawking because you can hardly believe Mark Lee — your eternally blushing, mild mannered campus crush — had said all those words strung together into such a lewd sentence, but you’re sure as hell not going to deny him. Your hand travels down your torso, and he watches, curious at first, then awestruck when your index and forefinger settle against either side of your folds, pulling them apart in offering.

His eyes end up transfixed on your pussy again, observing how your fingers ease your folds further apart the more he massages his thumb against your slit. His mouth is slightly agape, intent on drinking in the sight, unaware that you’re trying to memorize this view of him too — Mark Lee, touching you, wanting you, eager to take you fully.

“I’ve always wanted to see what it’d look like with your face between my legs,” you say in a hushed tone, but he catches it anyway, briefly looking up at you again. “I’ve always wanted to know what your tongue would feel like against my pussy.”

Your index finger bumps against the tip of his thumb, and he stops its motions, allowing you to move his digit down until the pad of it hovers just in front of your tiny hole. You can see one cheek tucked between his teeth, bitten to muffle the groan you wish you’d heard louder.

“Won’t you show me?”

You think you hear him rasp out a ‘fuck yes’ before he bends down, pressing his half-open mouth against your pussy. The squeal of delight that leaves you is half-strangled as his thumb curls, hooking into your entrance. It starts a shallow, distracted motion, with his attention funneled much more clearly into keeping his tongue working. Flush against your slit, it drags up, and he releases a guttural noise at your taste, lips pursing slightly on the way back down — like he can’t stand not trapping every drop of wetness with his mouth.

The intensity of his tongue, the idle thrusting of his thumb — you’re not sure what you want to focus on more, and the result is you whimpering incoherently at the starkly contrasting combination of the two. Mark moves his mouth like he’s never tasted anything as good in his life; the sounds between your thighs are wet, sloppy — almost embarrassingly so — but you don’t have the presence of mind to dwell on that because Mark Lee is eating you out and that’s really all that you can think of.

The tip of his tongue suddenly flicks upwards; you keen, long and low, when it starts to circle your clit in that same intense, circular movement his thumb had gotten you used to. Your sensitivity skyrockets, and you’re completely unable to control the upward bucking of your hips, but Mark stays supremely unperturbed, his free arm winding under your thigh to keep the both of you steady. Your noises are growing embarrassingly loud, and you realize just how needy you’ve become when you vaguely notice that there’s a pattern in what you’re saying — his name, over and over again.

“Did you do that too?” He asks softly, his words slightly muffled against you. “Say my name, I mean — when you thought of me.”

“God, yes.” Your voice comes out strained, teetering on the edge of slurring. “So many times — every single fucking time.”

“Promise me something.” He lifts his head, and you see a fieriness in his gaze.

You nod — at this rate, whatever he’d ask you to do, you would without question. “Anything.”

His thumb presses in deeper, up to his knuckle and you reflexively tighten around his digit, but he keeps it anchored there, pushing down against your walls. He drinks in your gasp, the widening of your eyes, the way you chew on your lip with a singular kind of contentment on his face.

“Promise me — from now on, you’ll make sure I’m always there to hear it.”

The only kind of assent you’re able to make is a moan as he dives down again, mouth buried in your warmth, his nose pressed tight against your clit. His tongue moves in strong strokes, broad swipes that push your folds apart further, and his thumb, while not moving, increases in pressure to the point that you feel a heaviness adding to the growing pleasure. Your hands fly down, seeking some kind of sense and reason, and you thread your fingers into his hair, grip tightening as your climax builds in stride.

“Mark, I’m—” close, you want to say, embarrassingly so, but the moment he hears his name, his lips attach to your clit, and there’s suddenly so much more pressure as he sucks, almost like he’s desperate to draw out your orgasm. He chooses this of all time to start moving his thumb again, and this time, his movements are anything but slow and idle; they’re filled with the intent to drive you over the edge. “Fuck me, oh my god—”

“I want to,” he murmurs, pausing for just a moment to drag the tip of his tongue around the nub. “God, I want to. Let me see you cum first; let me taste how sweet you are.”

His thumb stops, buries deep into your pussy, and you’re not sure why this, of all things, is what pushes you beyond control; you’re only half-sure you say his name when your orgasm hits, the rest of your consciousness much too clouded by pleasure. He doesn’t stop, revels in the way you squirm under him as he hums low and keeps his tongue working against your clit. His licks become longer, more thorough as you come down from your high, your cries softening into whimpers as his tongue both attempts to clean you up and makes you messier in the process. His arm is still curled around your thigh, keeping you from inching away from him, even if instinct and stimulation are telling you to.

You’re barely lucid when you sit up, and Mark inches back, somewhat startled; you grab the front of his shirt, and the sight of his mouth, slick and glistening from your wetness, only makes you more curious to know what you taste like on him. You find out how tangy it is, how rich the two of you are together on his lips, and you’re able to fully appreciate the skill of the mouth that kisses you deeply, leaving traces of you against your tongue and teeth.

“Please — fuck me.” It’s the only thing you can say at this rate, only half-coherent and still trembling with desire, but Mark doesn’t seem to care that you’re stuttering over such a simple request. His thumb wipes traces of saliva off the corner of your mouth, kisses it clean for good measure, then straightens up, his hands working at his belt. You almost miss the fact that his hands are shaking slightly as he undoes the buckle and tugs it out from the loops.

You want to help — it’s the least you can do, after all, and your fingers push the button of his jeans out through the hole, his hands working in tandem to tug the zipper down. However, your movements falter when you hear a noise from just outside the room — the sound of the doorknob being jangled, the thud of a body gently hitting the door, as though worried it’s stuck. You glance up at Mark, ready to reassure him, but he either hadn’t heard or doesn’t care because he’s too busy stepping out from the pool of denim at his ankles, and you get completely sidetracked by the bulge straining against his boxers.

You almost ignore Youngho’s voice grumbling ‘Jesus Christ, now of all times? from behind the door, but you leverage it instead.

“Should we let him in?” You ask, tone innocent despite the evident deviousness in your words. It pays off, though; Mark’s cock twitches unmistakably under thin fabric, and he actually looks like he’s considering it. “You’re just about to fuck me, after all. Weren’t we going to — what did you say? Put on a show?”

He worries on his bottom lip, like he’s unsure if you’re serious, but in the end, he shakes his head, reaching out to smooth your hair away from your face and ushering you to lay back down. The lips that meet your forehead are gentle, almost apologetic.

“Not now,” he murmurs against your skin. “Right now, you’re all mine.”

You laugh lightly, nodding, and he chuckles too, but the sound of it slowly dies down when your finger hooks into the garter of his boxers. You can feel his breathing hitch as you tug it down, the elastic catching when it meets the shape of his cock, but you don’t make any move to free it just yet — for some reason, you want to see him do it.

“Show me.”

He complies without hesitation, one hand dragging the elastic down over his thighs, the other curling around the base of his length, and your face flushes as satisfaction works through your system at the bare sight of him.

Mark Lee is big — not monstrously so, but enough for you to make a pleased noise as your hand joins his, fingers barely wrapping around his girth. You give his shaft a gentle squeeze, and his exhale stutters, watching you stroke him, long and thorough in your movements. Your palm swipes over the tip, leaking precum, allowing it to slick up your hand enough to keep your movements smooth. You’re fixated on the tension in his lips, the throb of his cock against your palm, and the way his gaze never leaves your face, like a small, amazed part of him still can’t believe what you’re doing, even if you’re both half-naked already.

“I want to suck you off,” you plead, grip tightening slightly. He grits his teeth, stifling another groan, but he shakes his head clearly enough for you to slow your movements in mild surprise.

“Can’t — not now. I need to be in you so badly.” His breathing’s sharp and heavy, like he’s trying to keep himself in check. “You don’t even know — how long I’ve wanted to feel you.”

Your hold relaxes, and you let him maneuver you, his renewed hold on your hips dragging you closer to the edge of the bed. In this position, he can spread your thighs further, and you angle yourself optimally — enough for him to get a full view of your pussy, wet and still aching from your last orgasm.

“You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted to know how tight you are,” he continues, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes that makes you think he might be entrenched in fantasy. “How much I would have killed to see you — have you like this. I’m not gonna be able to wait anymore.”

His fingers dig into your sides, thumbs stroking your stomach in a weak pattern. The underside of his shaft presses against your folds, still half obscured by your panties, in a way that’s heavy enough to make you mewl, your hips reacting before your mind can, and he hisses softly as he feels his length glide along your slit before you relax your stance again.

“I can’t wait,” he reiterates, a breaking in his voice that sounds almost tortured. You don’t want him to either, want to see him buried to the hilt inside you, and you raise your hips again in need. “I want you so much it’s driving me crazy.”

“Then take me.”

And you’re not sure if it’s a demand or a plea, but he no longer stops himself; his hand fists his cock a few times, coating the slick of precum along his length before he lines the tip up with your entrance. His other hand’s flush against the inside of your thigh, a light pressure ensuring he always has enough space to fit himself between your legs — enough space to bottom out completely.

Mark’s considerate in his pace — maybe he knows he’s big, or maybe he’s just naturally careful, but he allows you the time to adjust to the stretch. Your nails almost puncture holes into the sheets, your grip so tight you wonder if it’s just to brace yourself or to hang onto the last threads of your sanity. He’s only halfway in, but you’re pushing fullness already, and he stops when his cock meets slight resistance, looking up at you in concern.

“You’re not—?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” you reassure him softly, and it’s true; the adjustment brings about slight discomfort, but it’s almost nothing to you — not compared to how much more you want. “Give me everything; I want all of you inside me.”

He pauses still, trying to read your expression for any lies, but when he can’t find any, he nods, his jaw tensing as he presses both palms against your thighs, keeping you open as much as possible to accommodate him. He doesn’t even stop when you whimper, feeling a tightening twitch in your pussy that also causes him to groan, until inch by inch, you’ve taken him, his hips flush against yours.

He doesn’t move — not yet, his eyes trained to where you’re connected like he’s once again unable to believe what he’s doing. You hear him mumble something to himself that you want to hear too; you squirm slightly, and he hisses through his teeth, looking up at you and finding the questioning in your face. He offers you a small smile, albeit somewhat strained.

“You’re tighter than I thought.”

“You’re bigger than I thought,” you hum, and neither of you is really to blame; the tight fit, the slight breathlessness it leaves you with, is perfect, you think — just what the both of you need. “Did you often think about fucking me?”

“Probably just as often as you’re making it sound like you thought about having me fuck you, I think.”

“Don’t get cocky,” you warn, but there’s no real heat in your voice.

“I won’t. But it makes me feel good — knowing you wanted me just as bad.”

“I still do.” Your gaze is lazy, a little hazy, even if you’re anticipating so much. Even just the feeling of Mark, throbbing inside you, is already slowly building the pleasure in your stomach again; you wonder if you could cum like this, given enough time, given enough patience. “I’m still waiting for you to fuck me. God, Mark— please.”

He chuckles good-naturedly, but even that’s drowned out by the long moan that leaves you once he draws his hips back; your body’s mildly shocked into a new adjustment, feeling a sudden emptiness that’s quickly mitigated by him filling you back up again. The pace is slow, almost torturous, although you know he isn’t doing it to get a rise out of you. He wants to ease you into speed, careful to help you adjust fully; his restraint in his movements is all the more evident on his face, in the furrowing of his brow and the determination in his gaze. Even with that, he can’t help what he says, so intent on controlling everything else he does that he lets his words spill out over your noises.

“Pretty,” he grunts out, and when your walls twitch around him, he accidentally thrusts sharper — just enough for you to whimper a little more loudly, and he has to reel his strength back again. “God, you’re beautiful. I should’ve told you sooner how much I wanted you. All those times I had to imagine you wrapped around me like this, wondering how much tighter you’d get once you came on my cock. All those times you drove me crazy while I was alone, when I could have been in you— I could have found out how good you felt. How pretty you’d look under me. And you’re still even prettier, even better than I ever dreamed.”

There’s an erratic melody of moans under his words, spilling from your mouth, and the fact that he riles himself up enough to increase his speed slightly doesn’t escape you. He’s a little less careful now, seemingly entranced by the view he gets, watching his shaft disappear into you only to come out glistening, and a part of you hates the idea of snapping out of his reverie, but the majority of your thoughts now lean towards wondering how much more you can get him to break free of his own self-imposed restrictions.

“I wanted to ask you so many times.” His eyes snap up, coming back into focus as he takes in the sight of you, flushed, hair tousled, gaze darkened. “Almost every day — I sat there, thinking about how all I could do was go home and fuck myself, frustrated you weren’t doing it for me. I should have taken you home with me right then and there — should have let you watch me touch myself thinking of you, should have let you touch me into cumming on your fingers.”

His breathing staggers as he leans in, eager to see you clearer, to hear your words, slowly becoming airier as they come out. For a moment, his gaze falls, torn between watching him move into you and meeting your eyes, but he ultimately chooses the latter once you speak up again, your tone even more hushed than before — like it’s meant to be a secret between just you and him.

“But there were times I wanted you even more than that, to the point that I almost felt like I couldn’t wait.” His eyes widen slightly, a few precious seconds of wondering if he understands what you mean, right before you confirm what he thinks. “I thought about making a move right then — I should have kissed you. I should have asked you.”

“Asked me what?” His voice is gruff with the effort to keep himself in check despite the fact that it’s clear to the both of you that it won’t last.

Your lazy smile’s illusionary; it hides the triumph swelling in your chest at knowing that he asked exactly what you hoped him to.

“I should have asked you to fuck me in front of everyone there.”

“God,” his eyes squeeze shut, his grip tightening. “Please. I can’t—”

“I should have bent over for you there, begged you to stretch me out right after our session,” you continue, bordering on merciless. “Mark, you don’t know — how badly I wanted to be on your lap, your cock in me, with everyone watching. How much I wanted you to fold me over that table, have people watch you pound me, have them listen to how good you make me feel. No one would ever even wonder; everyone would know I’m yours.”

You pause, allowing his eyes to fly open once again, and there’s a pleading in them that’s begging for release. Your eyes soften along with your voice, but you’re this far gone; you should at least see it through.

“And everyone would know you’re mine too.”

“Fuck,” he growls, and his hips stutter before new resolve fills him, his hips driving into you with the force of a strength you didn’t even know he had in him; your thighs tremble at the intensity, at the renewed impact, and feeling him drive his cock deeper into you has you crying out somewhere between a moan and a sob. “Fuck, _________. If I had known you’d thought about me like that — God.”

It’s your turn to shut your eyes for a while, allowing yourself to focus on his movements, breaching your tightness even faster now. You feel his hands skim up your sides again, fingers digging into the fabric of your bra and pulling them down until your bare tits are cupped in his hands. You shiver as his thumbs pass over your nipples, toying them into firm nubs.

“One day,” he hums out, his voice giving way to a slight hoarseness again. “I’ll do it. I’ll fuck you in front of him — in front of Youngho, in front of everyone. I’ll let them wonder how tight you are, how fucking warm you are, and I’ll let them leave knowing no one can know but me.”

It’ll never happen, you both know, but something about agreeing to something so absurd is what has your body almost shaking in longing, and it’s what causes him to press in deeper, folding your legs closer to your torso. Your hands do what little they can to help, keeping your thighs apart so as not to obstruct his view. You can tell it’s somehow not enough, not really all of what he wants when his brow furrows, and he shifts his weight, pushing into you at a new angle.

The stark difference has you gasping before you can control it. Immediately, Mark stops, and you’re already shaking your head before you even hear him say anything, presuming he’s paused out of concern. But before you can say you’re fine, his hushed voice cuts through the silence.

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“Do it again,” he mumbles, sounding distant. “Breathe in. Suck in your stomach.”

You’re not one to complain at such a simple request, albeit a little odd, so you comply, inhaling enough to tighten your torso. You’re surprised when you feel his cock twitch inside you, and you blow out the air alongside your question. “Mark, what are you—”

“I can see it,” he says in utter disbelief. “When you’re like this, I can — I can see my cock inside you. Just a bit.”

Your eyes follow his gaze, fixed just below your navel. From this angle, without any movement, you can’t see a thing, but you assume he’s not one to abandon fucking you so intently without good reason, so you press your palm against your stomach, just above your pelvis. Nothing really feels significantly out of place — up until the point when Mark draws his hips back again, and you feel the backward slide of his cock.

Your throat tightens, and you don’t really understand the feeling that spreads in you — a unique kind of arousal, knowing how deep he is inside you and how you’re taking all of him in despite the fit, because of the fit. Your hand falls away, allowing Mark’s to take its place, and he exerts just a little more pressure against your stomach in an attempt to get the most out of the experience when he thrusts back in. He groans, feeling the bulge push back up, and he quickly picks up the same pace, renewed in intensity so he can experience the rapid rise and fall he creates under his palm.

The faster he goes, the harder he presses, and you’re not sure if he knows it, but the onslaught of friction is what’s making you whine and squirm even more; you’re trapped, in the best way possible, in his hold, your hands back to clinging to the backs of your knees like a lifeline. Pressure from the outside builds on the slowly growing pressure inside, a knot in your pelvis that’s coiling so tightly you feel like you can’t breathe. If Mark notices how close you are, he doesn’t make it known; he’s busy feeling the outline of his cock against your stomach, and when he looks up at you again, his eyes are hazy.

“I would fuck you every single day, every single hour if I could feel this every time,” he whispers in a way that’s almost reverent. “Let me — I want to keep seeing you like this. I want to feel how deep I am inside you, too. Let me fuck you all the time.”

You nod, and your first attempt to say something is just another choked sob. When you do manage to get something out, it’s broken in tearful stutters. “M-Mark, I’m s— I’m so close… I’m — fuck—”

“Do it.” It’s not a harsh command but an urging made on short breath; through your misty vision, you see tension in Mark’s face and shoulders, like he’s bracing himself for something too. You barely register the ping in the back of your mind, too focused on the way he’s pressing his palm harder on your stomach, the way his hips quicken their pace — he’s close too. “Let me feel you — want to feel you cum all over my cock.”

You inhale, not to speak but to let out a loud whimper; your teeth dig into your lower lip as you try to stifle the moans that threaten to follow, but in the end, you whine out his name. Your thighs threaten to close, trembling as you finally reach your climax, an impossible explosion of pleasure, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut so that you don’t get dizzy from the stars that burst around your vision.

“Fuck.” Mark’s voice is strained, his one hand still firm against your stomach, the other sliding against the inside of your thigh. “You get even tighter — you feel even better when you cum.”

“Mark,” you hiccup, unable to do anything but flutter around him as he pistons harder into you. You don’t even know what you’re asking for when you say ‘please,’ but he somehow seems to, and you trust that your body’s saying something you can’t fully detect in this state, with your mind floating in the aftermath of ecstasy.

“I know,” his tone is soothing in contrast to the intensity of his thrusts. “I’ve got you. Just a little more — where do you want—?”

You blink slowly, his words sinking in at too leisurely a pace; his hips stutter dangerously before you’re able to respond. You barely even do that, your hand gently brushing over the one against your stomach, but he catches onto the meaning quickly enough.

You’ve never heard your name said in such a beautiful way; hearing him moaning it lowly is enough to make you whine again, and that noise is drawn out when he shifts and slips out of you fully. Your brain’s fuzzy, but your senses are at least sharp enough to drink in the perfect sight of him cumming — the way he leans his head back, jaw taut and eyes shut, as he pumps his cock and the heat of his release against your skin, pooling against your stomach once he finally cums. You see a shiver run through him, and then he’s still for a while in this position, the both of you basking in the afterglow of your highs.

You’re still weak and sensitive when Mark finally comes back down, a lucidity you don’t have right now coming back into his gaze. All you can do is smile when he leans in, catching your lips in another kiss — one that’s surprisingly soft and slow in comparison to everything else, but still leaves you breathless when he pulls away.

“Let me clean you up,” he murmurs, and you hum in agreement, your body limp as you watch him move off the bed and pull a handful of tissues from a box on the desk on the opposite wall. Even his hands are gentle when he scoops you up, shifting you until your head can lean against the pillows. They carry a scent you’re not used to, and your nose scrunches, rejecting the change, but that’s quickly overpowered by Mark’s familiar coffee-and-linen one when he presses next to you, careful as he wipes his cum off your stomach and thoroughly cleans between your thighs. From somewhere down below, you still hear hushed voices, and the front door slams shut again. People are still in the middle of leaving, but you know Youngho will likely run out of guests soon, and this makes you feel like the timing’s suddenly become urgent.

“I want to date you properly,” you start, slightly slurred but unmistakably blunt. Mark’s gaze snaps to yours, slightly amused, as he balls the tissues up in his fist. “You never asked me, so I’m asking you.”

He looks perplexed. “I just never thought you wanted me to, so I didn’t try.”

You reach up, locking your fingers into his hair and using your grip to pull him down. Your kiss is a little demanding, with a tinge of excess frustration, and he pulls away laughing lightly.

“Do you still think I don’t want you to?”

Mark hums thoughtfully. “I think you made a lot of things clear tonight. On my end, I was happy enough to be near you.” He smiles down at you, and in the faint light, you can see the flush slowly return to his cheeks. “Having you like this — dating you… there’s no way I’d say no.”

Your shoulders relax, satisfied with his answer, and you beam up at him — an act he easily returns, breathtaking and endearing all at once.

Moments later, you feel his arm wind around your waist; he allows you to lean into his side, his other hand crossing over his lap to stroke your thigh. His face turns, pressing a kiss to your hair, and you feel his lips move, hear the quick rush of a whisper. You tilt your head, eyes slightly wide in questioning. “What was that?”

He shakes his head at first, trying to pass it off as nothing. But when it’s clear your curiosity won’t abate, he chuckles softly, his hand gently cupping your chin so that you can only look at him. His thumb strokes your bottom lip gently, as if trying to coax the same words out of your mouth before he murmurs them to you one more time — and this time, he sounds fully convinced of them.

“You’re all mine.”

[lulujeno]

them as your older brother, finding out you have a crush on one of their members

— nct dream ᡣ𐭩

cw : some of them question ur taste in men but thats overall it, just some playful banter :D

a/n : really nervous for my exam tmr so i wrote this to calm me down ^^ gender neutral as always but it's a little shorter than my other one, hope you guys enjoyyyt <3

mark:

your crush on renjun wasn't that obvious at first

well that was until your youtube search history betrayed you

mark was borrowing your laptop one day and was so confused when the most recent searches was just renjun

"renjun fancam" "renjun cute moments" "renjun being mad at dreamies"

didn't put two and two together just yet but it was at the back of his mind for sure

would call you to visit the dreamies more often to see if his assumption was right okay scooby doo

you'd bring snacks and drinks most of the time, somehow always getting renjun's favourite stuff

texted you the moment he was sure that you do have a crush on his bandmate

you admitted it and since then he's been the #1 y/njun shipper

gives you updates about renjun

if it isn't obvious enough, he does approve of junnie (maybe a little too much)

renjun:

came to him one day for help since you were thinking of confessing to haechan

looked directly into your eyes and tells you you can do better than haechan

"haechan? of all people??"

proceeded to tell you that he already knows about your little crush

would tell you things that haechan likes or dislikes, even though he looks like he disapproves

secretly happy that its someone he knows really well and not some random douche

you'd notice jun's little ways of helping you get with your crush

you give him a small smile and he'd mouth to thank him later

would still nag to you because he really can't see what you see in his bandmate

"whatever makes you happy"

don't worry, he approved of haechan after seeing the way he treats you

jeno:

tried to act surprise when you said you found mark interesting

you hit him jokingly because of how bad his acting was

teases you about your crush

when you visit the dreamies he does that thing with his eyebrows and makes it really obvious that you like his bandmate

but for real though, he'd be really supportive and actually try to help you out

would still give you the 'don't get your hopes up' talk since he doesn't want you to be heartbroken

happy that you came to him for help with your little crush (you? not so happy because he's so obvious)

"mark did you see y/n's new hair?" "mark doesn't y/n smell good today?" "mark you're not gonna give y/n a hug too?"

you want to smack jeno every time he does it thank god mark lee is oblivious as hell

haechan:

thought that you were joking when you said like jaemin

realised that you were serious and suddenly theres plan a all the way till z to get you and jaemin together

one of then was to lock you both in a closet (in hopes that it ends with you guys kissing ONLY)

like jeno, tells you to not get your hopes up too high since the last thing he wants is to see his sibling cry over a MAN.

still questions why you like jaemin though, he thinks that that guy is weird

tried to tell you things to give you the ick about jaemin but it doesn't work

at one point he got too tired waiting for you to confess so he told jaemin himself

don't worry, he told you when he was going to spill the beans (yeah like 5 seconds before he said it)

jaemin:

jisung?? of all people??? that boy can't even take care of himself, how would he take care of you?

gives you a whole ted talk on why you should go for a real man like mark or jeno instead

ends up seeing what you see in jisung though

tall? deep voice? big hands? can dance? that ticks off everything in your list!

the talk ends with him being supportive and brainstorming ideas on how to make you guys a real couple

would straight up tell jisung that you like him

probably gave jisung a whole protective brother talk that scared the poor guy

tells you that it's the only way because things need to be clearly said to jisung or else he'd be too shy to initiate anything

asks for cat food in return if everything works out because he has children to feed!

chenle:

be fr, zhong chenle knows everything

so when you told him that you like jeno he did not bat an eye

tbh he was just waiting for you to admit it before going through with his plan

the plan? you accidentally tripping in front of jeno, landing on top of him, and kissing him

you just stand there thinking if your brother was actually stupid enough to think that it'll work

doesn't play when it comes to y/nno

but if jeno does end up liking you back suddenly chenle's favourite place is the gym

also doesn't play when it comes to protecting his sibling

warns jeno that if he breaks your heart then he will break other things!

jisung:

was appalled when he found out that you like chenle

chenle? zhong chenle?? his best friend of 8 years zhong chenle ???

give him a second to take it all in

finally connected the dots on why you keep asking for updates about chenle

would help you out in a subtle way

ways like making chenle sit beside you or asking chenle to call you instead of doing it himself

backfires soon after since he told chenle that you watch basketball

forgot to add in wives, you watch basketball wives not basketball itself

can't keep a secret for too long, especially one about chenle so give it 2 weeks tops before your crush finds out

fair to say it ended with both of them spamming you (one to apologise and the other? other reasons)

[minhosimthings]

The Elysian Angel || 18+

Synopsis: For the second day of your pact, you make a good friend in a good angel.

Pairing: detective!Jake × fem!reader

Warnings: smut minors Dni, oral (f receiving), anal sex, switch Jake, slight dom!reader, praise, degradation, p in v sex, dumbification, use of petname 'pup', mention of food and alcohol, Heeseung being an asshole

A/N: My apologies that this took a lot of time. Unfortunately I was travelling and i didn't find time to edit and do all that crap. Also my dumbass wrote the smut on the plane so again, apologies if it is not satisfactory. No I cannot for the life of me praise myself

Series Masterlist

The tiny cactus pot near his bedroom window had never seemed more interesting to Jake than now, as he thought over the events that had occured this evening.

Now, hungover and somewhat peckish, Jake thought of his two best friends, a drunk woman, and even more drunker pact. What had he called it? Something with Heeseung and jealousy and whatnot.

Ah yes Heeseung, Jake had a eureka moment, he had cheated on his wife had he not? And she had come to the police precinct and she had beat him in drinking bourbon...yes he remembered now!

Jake sighed to no one in particular as he cuddled into his blanket, watching the way his cactus blocked the shimmering moonlight from entering the room. He was weirdly craving sugar at the moment.

Maybe he should treat Heeseung's wife to his favourite cake tomorrow, he thought, what was her name again? Lee Y/N.

No not Lee, Jake yawned, no she's divorced now, his last thought came as he drifted off to an eager tomorrow.

|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|

"So—" Jake leaned on the table, staring into Sunghoon's eyes, "—how was it last night?"

"Heavenly." Sunghoon sighed dreamily into his coffee, "She gave me some advice on how to-."

"I meant the sexual part." Jake chuckled, "You know, the part where your peni-"

"Yeah yeah I got that!" Sunghoon coughed loudly, though there weren't any other officers in the break room at the moment, save for Jay and Jake who had been listening fondly to Sunghoon show off his new coat, "It was... great! Might I add, she can take a lot. And I mean a damn lot." He widened his eyes to maximise the effect.

"Maybe you just have a tiny dick." Jay snickered, which made Jake spill a waring amount of coffee out of his nose.

"Jake what the fuck!" Sunghoon recoiled, as Jake cleaned himself up, still laughing, "Hey don't do that around her alright?" Sunghoon made a disgusted expression, wiping off the coffee from the table.

"So where is she staying right now?" Jay asked, taking the attention away from Jake's sopping wet shirt, "She can't go back to Heeseung's so—?"

"I dropped her off at a friend's." Sunghoon sipped his coffee, relishing the bitter taste of the grinded beans, "And before you ask, Mister lover boy—", Jake laughed raucously at his quip, "Yes she's fine. And weirdly happy too."

"Where is this friend's place?" Jake asked curiously, glancing at Jay who was looking suspiciously at him, "I-I wanted to take her out...for some cake." He finished awkwardly leading the two men to look at him with raised brows.

"What?" Jake scoffed, "Can't I treat a lady to some cake before I- you know."

"Fighting Jongsoeng for the lover boy position Jake?" Sunghoon laughed, "I'm impressed." He took a look at a glaring Jay, which motivated him further, "Her house is on Baker's Street, the second one when you enter."

"Is that really necessary?" Jay questioned, the gravel in his voice was evident, "She never asked you to buy her cake."

"And yet I want to." Jake answered, downing his coffee in one go, before getting up briskly, "See you later boys."

"Um, sir you have files to complete." Sunghoon interrupted, but Jake was faster in striding out the door.

"Do them for me would you Sunghoon?!"

|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|

The atmosphere around the cafe was pleasant, as the cool evening wind blew against your face. The light brown coloured cake sat patiently in front of you, with only a few bite marks decorating it.

"Thank you for taking me here." You said to the man in front of you, who looked up at you with widened brown eyes, before offering a smile.

"No harm in treating a lady is there?" He poked at his own piece of cake with his fork, "I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything before we—" he smiled awkwardly, "—go into the details of the pact."

You felt him internally cringe at what he had said so you quickly diverted the topic. "Do you come here often?" You asked.

Jake's ever present grin appeared again, as he nodded, looking fondly at the small cafe, which smelled like pine trees to you, though perhaps it was from the fact that you were sitting outside. "It's one of my favourite places to come when I need to take a breather."

You smiled at the man's words as you took the last bite of the cake, closing your eyes to taste it properly. It melted right into your mouth, and you savoured the caramel flavour, sweet yet having a tinge of salt in it. You almost felt like you could have-

"What the fuck are you doing with her?"

That voice.

Your eyes burst open, to locate the source of it, the siren like tones which had once intoxicated you, not irritated you. You first landed on Jake, who was looking behind you with a somewhat terrified expression. Whipping your head around you saw him.

Lee Heeseung.

"And might I ask what you are doing here?" You tried to keep yourself calm, reminding yourself it's a public place.

"Y/N, what are you doing with him?" Heeseung's brow was dripping with sweat and his face was formed in a glare. He looked ferocious.

"I'm not your wife anymore Heeseung." You stated calmly, though you were internally fuming, "So please, can you leave us alone?"

"So you're fucking my colleagues now huh?" Heeseung chuckled loudly, catching the attention of a few people around, "Sort of forgives me for just fucking one other girl doesn't it?"

"Forgives you?"

Your voice cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. It had a tone to it which Jake had never heard before. It was....colder.

"Are you actually being serious, Heeseung?" You laughed, this time it didn't warm Jake's cheeks. It rather broke through his eyes like icicles.

"You don't have even one right to be forgiven. In fact you don't have any!" You scoffed, "I'm surprised you even have the gall to fucking approach me right now, because trust me, if I were you, I would have hid my face in my bedroom until I died." Jake was taken apart by the very new air of you he was seeing, "So please kindly fuck off would you?"

Heeseung's teeth gritted as he glared daggers at Jake, giving you one final, venomous look before spinning on his heel, and angrily stomping away. The sight of it was practically cartoonish.

"Are you alright?" Jake asked from behind you, you turned to see his worried eyes. His voice was the sweet honeyed one you knew well and proper.

"I'm fine, thank you Jake." You gave him a smile, concealing how much the incident had shaken you.

"It's getting dark." Jake lent you an arm which you gladly took, "Shall we head home?"

"Lead the way." You gave him a final grin.

|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|

"Do all detectives have such nice looking houses?" You chuckled, looking around Jake's apartment. Though not as homely as Sunghoon's was, it certainly was cozy, giving off the same rustic vibes as the cafe. A maroon divan sat in the corner.

"Was Sunghoon's fairy cottage that beautiful?" Jake chuckled, inviting you to sit beside him on the sofa. "Perhaps its just my preference of cottages." You chuckled, though you certainly had no complaint against Jake's apartment.

"You'd like Jay's house then." Jake said, leaning back against the wall of the sofa. Silence passed for what felt like an hour (though it was only five minutes), until Jake finally spoke up.

"How did Sunghoon ever get you into his bedroom?" Jake asked, startling you from the sudden break of silence, "Because I am extremely nervous right now. But then again—" he grinned, "—Park Sunghoon can get even a cupid into his sheets."

"And you can't?" You quizzed, admiring his features, as he shook his head.

"It's a bit shameful for a man to admit but–" he chuckled darkly, "–at the most I've had two women in my bed."

"Would that make me the third?" You fluttered your lashes at him, making him gulp, "Come on, detective Sim," you smirked, “Don’t you want to play with me?” 

Jake's voice catches in his throat as you lock eyes with him. Your eyes are soft and kind, like usual, but the more he looks, the more he begins to notice a hint of lust glazing them. Neither of you move for a moment, studying each other's expressions. Jake moves closer to you, though not close enough for you.

"Closer, detective." you smirk, pulling him closer to kiss him full on his plump lips. His hands find their way to your waist. He pulls you closer to him, and your legs seem to mindlessly straddle his lap. You can't fight the urge to grind your hips against his pelvis, slowly rocking back and forth.

He groans quietly as the two of you continue to kiss, and you use this opportunity to slide your tongue inside his mouth. His saliva has faint tastes of coffee and whiskey.

Jake's fingers mindlessly fiddle with the top button of your blouse, unsure as to whether or not he should undo them. You undo the top one, prompting him to undo the rest. His face is warm and pink as you pull away from the kiss leaving a string of salvia behind, and you can feel his cock harden beneath you as you continue to grind on his lap.

You push your hips into his, his hard-on pushes up into the wet patch on your panties. Slowly, he pushes your skirt down your thighs, and you momentarily stop grinding on him to help take your skirt off. Your bare thighs hover in the cool breeze from the evening. You leaned in for another kiss.

"Wait," Jake stops you, hands rubbing into your waist. With his lusty sinews, Jake picked you up, you wrapped your legs tightly around his hips to secure yourself as he led you into the adjacent room.

"I don't think we should mess my sofa up, eh pup?" The nickname had your core erupting into lava.

|•|•|•|•|•|•|

"You're so pretty..." Jake whispered into your ear as he lay you down on the bed. His bedroom, though tiny, was spacious enough, for you to collect your mind.

"Let's leave the compliments for later detective." You smiled at him, nipping the bud of his ear with your teeth, "For now, " you whispered seductively, "Shall we begin?"

You could feel Jake's nervousness, from the way his body tensed up. Inexperienced man, you thought, you were about to have a lot of fun.

“Open,” You said, leaning forward and tapping his chin, you were about to take the lead, if he wasn't going to. A woman couldn't have waited all day could she?

Jake complied, easier than you thought, opening his mouth allowing to shove two fingers inside, just like Heeseung had once did to you. He licked and sucked your fingers for two minutes, never breaking eye contact as his spit rolled down your hand. 

“Good boy,” you said, pulling them away as you began to touch yourself. Sitting back on your ass, you rubbed your clit, rubbing his spit into your sensitive button, letting him know how good it felt, how close you were to cumming with his spit on your cunt. You plunged one finger in and then another as you watched him bite his tongue, careful not to let even a small sound slip out. 

You let go of his hand so you could guide his head to where you needed his mouth. Your hands wound tightly into his hair, legs struggling to stay open as you felt the heat of his tongue against your core.

Jake slid it shallowly into your folds. The sensation made you whine and grab his head to push him further. He resisted but soon gave you what you want. Your chest rising and falling rapidly as he tasted you and let a gloriously loud moan vibrate against your center.

“Do that again- Shit, just like that, right there.” you moaned as you felt every bud of his sharp tongue, "G-Good boy...."

You weren't interested in taking it slow tonight, being wet since he had touched you.

He licked a stripe up your vulva, his tongue flat and getting every inch of your pussy till he reached your clit where he wrapped his lips around it and gently sucked.

Your back arched on the bed, one hand going straight to his hair as your orgasm quickly built. Your pussy clenched around nothing as he started flicking his tongue against you.

"Fuck...Jaeyun!" You screamed his name out, which built up the fire in him, "You're being so good for me...."

The other hand not threading through his tresses fisted the sheets of his bed tighter as your hips began to roll and grind against his face in circular motions, trying to catch that sensation of his nose bumping against your throbbing clit. Your body had a mind of its own, sinking deeper and deeper into the burning hot abyss of pleasure and reach the high you were quickly ascending to.

But before you could grasp that high properly, you felt a discerning movement.

"Jake!" You cried, suddenly feeling the familiar taste of his tongue leave your walls empty, "Why the fuck would you do that?!"

"Shh, baby." Jake shushes you, which makes you hold your tongue quickly. Jake let's go of one of your thighs and unbuckles his belt, pulling down his zipper and pushing down his pants. He lets out a deep breath again when he finally feels free and without his tight trousers around his hips. Jake looked magnificent as he admired you laying in front of him. Wild, primal thoughts flanked every neuron of his mind.

"Turn on your side for me." He commands you, with lust filled eyes, "Now." He adds as if it's an afterthought. You quickly obliged, finding his tone of voice enamouring you into obeying him. You couldn't wait for what he was about to do.

Jake knows it's wrong, to fuck another man's wife, but fuck—he couldn't help himself, and anyway you had agreed to this. So there he was, hard cock slipping between your thighs as he thrusts his hips slowly, biting his tongue to prevent the guttural groans threatening to escape his lips. Jake's veined hands slip under your bra, eyes rolling to the back of his head as his thrusts grow slightly faster while his hand grasps at your tit tightly, sinfully thankful that Heeseung had given you up.

"F-Fuckkk-" you groaned painfully as Jake slipped into your ass, you needed time to adjust, "Jaeyun wait—"

Your words meant nothing to him as every thrust stretches you to the shape of him, his cock ramming painfully into your cervix with each thrust. He takes you, uses you as his hips bounce against your ass, shaking you with the force of every movement. Your moans grew louder and louder with each thrust, you felt his hot breath against your neck, and yet he didn't stop, only growing more possesive by the second.

"Fucking hell baby." Jake's accented voice tingled against your skin, "such a good pup for me aren't you?"

The sensations of his mere words burn through your core as your toes curl while he fucks into you with such a possessive need that your whole body trembles with the overwhelming pleasure. His obeying tendencies earlier had changed into a much more obsessive one, turning you on even more.

His expression grows almost enamored at how you're squeezing him-tense, as he thrusts into you, balls slapping against your ass at his relentless pace. Hot, searing pleasure makes its way up your spine-emitting a low, almost inaudible, squeal from you as he pinches your clit.

You're constantly on the edge, slipping in and out of consciousness from his assault on your cervix, harsh-angry thrusts punctuating his words.

"Faster—" you moaned, not realising how much his dick was controlling your mind now, "Jaeyun, fuck—faster please...."

"Faster?" Jake's low voice vibrated on your skin as he chuckled, pulling you against him in a brisk fashion, making you cry out in pleasure, "Am I making you feel good baby?" You nodded, not even hearing his words, fuck he was making you feel better than ever.

"Dumb–" one thrust, "—fucking–" the second, "—pup." He accentuated every word clearly.

Your eyes roll back, and he fucks your hips right back on him with his tight grip on them. Even when the rope breaks, and you’re pushed under—thighs shaking in illicit euphoria as you leak around him, he doesn’t stop.

Like some rabid animal, he takes you back in-then out again with his movements—his thoughts becoming scrambled, accentuated with primal, violent pushes and pulls before he’s slamming back in you again as tears gather in your eyes.

"Jaeyun!" You scream again, feeling your cunt throb for even a mere touch of his dick, which was stretching your back out so well, "I want you Jake.. please.." your begging makes it just sweeter for him.

He gulps and kisses you passionate, tugging at your bottom lip with his teeth. Hands on your waist, he grips you tightly and flips you over onto your back, the skin on your back tickled as it hit the sheets. He grabs his shaft and runs his tip through your folds, teasing your clit a little bit.

"Fuck, Sunghoon was right," he breaths out, "You really can take a lot and nods. Slowly and carefully he starts to push his fat tip against your entrance, pushing and pushing until his tip was in.

He watches your face for any sort of pain or discomfort but sees nothing, so he pushes forward again until you knit your brows together in pain.

"don't stop, fuck." you whisper against his lips, which motivated him further, "Fuck~Jake!" You moaned, as he moved ever so slightly

The man began to move faster, starting a stutter in his hips that ended up colliding against yours forcefully. It hurt you, it was too abrupt, and that feeling remained there even though the pleasure clouded your mind and senses.

Jake leaned over your sweaty, flushed body to get a better angle, you could see his face better and closer.

He had flowing strands of his black hair stuck to his forehead from sweat, the rest fell on your forehead, tickling you. And his seducing gaze that evaluated each and every one of your expressions, as if he were memorizing them.

You lower your hips slowly before bringing them back up. Jake presses his face against your chest, his own arms moving to wrap around you. His hips move down, fucking into you.

You try to help him as best you can but your thighs are already starting to hurt from being in this position too long.

It didn't seem like Jake minded though. In fact once he notices you’re giving your body up to him he seems to find some super strength because before you know it he’s ramming into you.

His thin lips moved against yours and his tongue made your mouth open to give way to his.

And he was there, kissing you, giving you pleasure and pain, both in a play or duality. His hips were now moving precisely, at a speed that you both enjoyed. His lips dancing over your mouth took away the little breath you had left. The head of his erection began to hit a delicious spot deep in your intimacy that, along with the movement of his thumb squeezing and stretching your clitoris, made your mind blur and spin.

"You can take it," Jake said, noticing your expression, bringing his head down as his tongue swirled over your nipples. Your back arched at the contact, your legs beginning to shake as he brought his hand over to rub on your clit.

Your nails scratched at Jake's back ruthlessly, clawing and taking your way down as you felt the muscles tense underneath your touch. You get your orgasm building up slowly, a dam threatening to burst with every snap of his hips. Your legs began to shake underneath his grasp, your nails digging into the flesh of his back as he buried his head into your shoulder. His cock twitched inside your cunt a couple seconds later, indicating that he was close to his orgasm.

Your legs wrapped around his waist, keeping him close to you as he continued to thrust inside of you. His eyes rolled back, his cock shooting out ropes of cum deep into your cunt.

Jake's thrusts came to a slow stop. His hand left your throat and went to the back of your head, pulling you into a sloppy kiss. He pulled away and looked into your eyes for a few seconds before pulling out of you. He laid down next to you, staring up at the ceiling and breathing heavily.

"Whiskey?" "By all means."

|•|•|•|•|•|•|

"This—" You took a deep sniff of the liquid, "—is delicious."

"Jay gifted it to me." Jake took a sip from his glass, savouring the burning taste from the bubbling whiskey, "I feel as if our love language is gifting each other alcohol, especially Jay, with all his knowlege in it."

For the second time since the last two days, you couldn't comprehend why Jay's name had made the veins in your heart abruptly stop, like water against the rocks of a seashore. Though you certainly knew of the tiny red ants in your mind which whispered to you, about love and whatnot.

Well, you sighed to yourself, tomorrow was merely hours away.

Taglist: @diorsyun @jaeyunluvr @hoondrop @mxxninthesky @alvojake @wondipity @blurryriki @lilyuwon @heeliopheelia @pockettwinzz @heeslomll @seunghancore @shiningnono @noonareads @deobitifull @luvitria @wonibae @nyfwyeonjun @hwa-0403 @saanvilovessunghoon @bubblegyu00 @sunpov @heeheeswifey @chartrucewhore @slut4hee @heesangs-blog @rikiwaify-blog @soobieboobiedoobiedaboobie @kirinaa08 @heeshlove @seokseokjinkim @brownsugarbaybee @yzzyhee @anittamaxwynnn @kgneptun @penny44224 @ribbioniki @strxwbloody @immelissaaa @heesminee3 @nshmrarki @yawnzzhoon @sousydive @yunhoswrldddd @whateverhoon @cloud-lyy @missychief1404 @ensaz008 @sunsunl0ver @binniesbabe + taglist is open!

[strawberri-elixir]

Sleepless nights

╰⇢ Yuta Okkotsu/Toge Inumaki x Reader

" Secrets I have held in my heart, are harder to hide than I thought… "

Summary — Your second year of high school was supposed to be as boring as every other year, and for a while, that's exactly how it was. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious boy one night suddenly makes your life more interesting.

Warnings/Contents — swearing, shit humor, sfw, death related jokes, sexual jokes, probably angst eventually, modern au, smau

Note(s) — updates will be random but hopefully close to each other! there are written portions in order to be able to properly convey the story… sorry if you weren’t expecting that- also none of the photos are mine if it’s not obvious!

Status! — complete!

Masterlist

— Meet the stars! — Profiles

Okay lover boy

Hot weirdo

Go white boy go

FML

“I’m not jealous”

Late night studying

Slander

Cool beans

Good shit

HWLP

Friend-zoned???

Demoted

Study group, go!

He wants me

Knuckleheads

Group bridge jump???

Back pains

Finals day or our final day: Stay tuned!

Denial

Skill issue

Rocks…?

Delusional???

Toddler maturity

I like- no- love you

Weekend bets anyone?

Stalker much

Tell my mother I love her

Darling???

I love you too (The original ending)

— I love you too (The alternate ending)

bonus content:

— The set up

Taglist: closed

@sur-i-ki @aespaforlifersyall @camilo-uwu @butterflyqueen234 @shinsukeee @tanchosanke @meguemii @lees-chaotic-brain @you-always-made-me-blush @jayathelostdragon @chilichopsticks @polarbvnny

@instantmusico @sad-darksoul @hellyyy06 @rosieandthethorns @zellwa @iluv-ace @h3xi2g0n3 @morgyyyyyyy @bellaabee082 @koiir @g0rep1ty @k4romis @beaniedoodz @seventhcinema @macimcnaron @pumpkin6969 @wowowwin @neigee @someonethatisnobody @vndl-1 @yoyo-yui

@blehtotheblehtothebleh @c4ttheart @blogforblorboscreaming @creative1writings @tiredjxnna @mint129106 @mentallyunstablemanlover @anianurst @milesmorals @sleepytoges @azulsmermaidprincess @toges-cough-syrup @liveincans @jals-stuff @yievieslxt @yell-lemonade @inupibaldspot @hyssoplampflickers @lilysaltwater @ayxnxr @lovley212 @delightfuldragoncollection @strxkbylightning @saesofficialwife and a few more…

[zvaigzdelasas]

[The Economist is Private UK Media]

Making someone do porridge (or “eat rice and beans”, to use the Korean expression) for expressing their political views is [...] not generally associated with [South Korea]. Yet Lee Yoon-seop, a South Korean poet, is currently languishing in prison for just this. The 68-year-old was sentenced to 14 months in November for threatening South Korea’s “existence and security”. His crime? Writing a poem in praise of the North.

The law used to prosecute Mr Lee, the National Security Act (nsa), is designed to protect South Korea from spies and traitors. But it also bans South Koreans from visiting or making contact with the North, reading or watching North Korean media or saying anything good about Kim Jong Un’s [...] regime. Though South Korea replaced its former military dictatorship with a democracy in 1987, such restrictions on free speech show that some of the generals’ autocratic tendencies endure.[...]

The NSA was modelled on a law designed to quash pro-independence activities during Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Since 2003 there have on average been more than 60 NSA prosecutions a year, often for pretty clear espionage cases. A businessman and an army officer were arrested for allegedly selling military secrets to North Korea. Soldiers in the South have been prosecuted under the act for endangering morale by distributing pro-North propaganda.

But the NSA is too often used to prosecute satirists and raid the homes and offices of leftists. Some cases have been ridiculous. Kim Myeong-soo, a PhD student, received six months in prison and a two-year suspended sentence for selling books on North Korea that were widely available in public libraries. A South Korean woman was given a two-year sentence, suspended for four years, for owning recordings of 14 North Korean songs.

This is not Mr Lee’s first offence. But the claim that the sexagenarian posed a threat to South Korea is absurd. His ode was published on a North Korean website. Access to such sites is banned by the NSA and forbidden from a South Korean IP address. [...] It consists of a list of South Korean problems that Mr Kim, in the poet’s view, would instantly solve given the chance.

Mr Lee’s real offence appears to have been believing his own nonsense. By contrast, police decided not to investigate a man under the draconian law for selling shirts with a smiling Mr Kim and the slogan “Walk a flowery path, comrade”. That was OK, officials said, because he was selling them to make a buck.

Worse, the issue points to a broader authoritarian tendency in the South. Its president, Yoon Suk-yeol, often demonises his political opponents by calling them “anti-state forces”, a phrase lifted directly from the NSA. Unfavourable press coverage is routinely labelled “fake news” and the offices of offending outlets have been raided. The administration and its allies have sued more press outfits for defamation—which in South Korea can be a crime even when the offending words are manifestly true—in Mr Yoon’s first 18 months in office than any of its three predecessors did in total.

Yet even a more liberal government would be unlikely to remove the NSA’s illiberal clauses. No administration has made a serious attempt to address it in 20 years. There is no significant political support for scrapping the law [...]. The current administration at least flirted with allowing South Koreans access to North Korean media, but recently abandoned the idea. [...]

Mr Yoon talks often about South Korea’s democratic values. They are at the heart of his pitch for the country to be a strategic link between East and West, developed and developing countries. For that reason alone he should take them more seriously. South Korea is undoubtedly a democracy, but not a terribly liberal one so long as it locks up old men for their dotty opinions. Reforming the NSA would be a better rebuttal to the sentiment Mr Lee expressed than banning it.

22 Jan 24

[yanderemommabean]

Am I the only one who needs to be strapped down by the wrists and ate out against my will by alpha elias while I struggle to not show how good everything feels and beg for him to stop despite my arching body telling him the opposite?

Bonus if he flips darling over, jerks their hips upwards and sets a teasing pace with one hand pushing their upper body down so they can’t do anything but arch backwards into him and grip the sheets for dear life. All the while licking a stripe up their neck before burying his teeth into their nape to mark them, growling possessively when they refuse to moan for him, digging deeper and thrusting into them harder until they whimper in submission.

Bonus Bonus if it’s Doc Lee’s butterfly and he’s made to watch, threatening to cum inside them if he looks away.

((Female reader! Hope you beans can enjoy!))

“You’re so cute when you try to fight this” The deranged man murmurs against your skin, ice once again filling your veins as his fingers come to clutch at your thighs to spread them apart, massaging the meat and fat of them as he soaks in the sight of you, bare and open, ready for him to gorge himself on.

“The fact no one has kissed every scar and told you they were beautiful paint strokes on your canvas, shows me there’s truly less hope for humanity than I thought” Elias praises as his fingers begin to trace up and down your hips and the apex of your thighs. “Every pretty vein, every mark and mole, every scar from small to large deserves to be savored and kissed. You’re a beautiful soul who does nothing but give and give and give” he murmurs, placing a soft kiss to the top of your mound. “Such battle scars. Gorgeous even if they came from a time of hideous treatment to you”.

You feel his warm breath against you while your bindings only tighten, holding you still as the maniac worships you, praises you like you’re truly a relic or a god, as if He truly believed you gave him a purpose. You were ashamed of how your breath was stolen from you, his nimble fingers hardly touching you yet bringing out such pleasure, even when in such a state of panic.

“I know you say you don’t want this, that you only have feelings for that rat of a doctor…But I know he’s just simply brainwashed you. He doesn’t know how to treat you, hoards you like an object rather than spoil you like a lover”.

You spit something out to him, but the gag in your mouth doesn’t allow it to truly be heard. It's just more amusement for the psycho as you tremble and hiss like a terrified cat. How absolutely precious. Elias just grins, wicked and wild as he helps turn your head to face the right of you, where in the corner of the room, Lee had been bound and gagged as well, anger clear in his eyes and features as he venomously spews words that are muffled and garbled.

Elias just kisses down your bare body once again, amused and gleeful as the doctor struggles. “Oh don't tell me you thought this was a private show? Tsk tsk tsk then how would that doctor learn his lesson? No no my dear, he’s going to watch, and you are going to be good and put on a good show. I’d hate to have to take his fingers or pull his teeth, but if you insist on misbehaving…I can give it a shot”.

Oh god he was serious. Lee wouldn’t ever be caught, not by someone so easily. But again, Elias isn’t just anyone. He’s at this facility for a reason. His hand comes to cup your warmth, slowly letting his fingers spread your lips so he could feel the dewy skin, shuddering as he breathes in your scent. “Don't be too in your own head, lovely. Just relax, let me take care of everything else. Lee will be fine, if he can behave. Don't worry your cute little head about it”.

You whimper at that, his fingers sliding up your folds to toy with your clit, his eyes molten and hot as they watched you writhe and gasp from just a few quick circles being rubbed. Cute. You must really be pent up if that's all that gets you going. Not that he minds, mind you. Sensitivity just means more fun for him.

“Good. So good for me. Look at you, arching into my touch already. I haven’t even done anything” he muses, sliding his body back down until your legs were once again around his head, not that they had much of a choice. He hears Lees grunts and muffled vulgarity, but pays it no mind as he drags his tongue up from your fluttering hole to your twitching clit, greedily sucking the bud while his shoulders relax.

Yes. This is exactly where he needs to be. Between your thighs while you use his face, make him your little toy to use and throw away when you’re done. But of course, Lee had to try and take that luxury away from him too. If he had it his way, well, you’d be doing a lot more room visits for him that’s for sure. He doesn't mind following the majority of rules in this place, but he draws the fucking line at Lee trying to take you away from him.

Listening to your moans and whimpers as his tongue happily laps away, it almost makes him forget that the doctor is in here, watching as he drinks your ambrosia. He almost hates that he’s here, listening to you, but having him just an arms reach away and unable to take you, it gave him a wicked feeling of amusement.

His soft petal lips suck on your folds, moving to suck on your little bud aggressively as you gasp and try to kick, the pleasure shooting up your spine being too much and making you go taut, before once again relaxing as he holds your legs still and drags his tongue through your wetness again and again like a thirsty animal, drool covering his chin as he loses himself and tries to show your body just how much he loves you, loves your smell, your warmth, your taste- everything about you was mouth watering.

You have fresh tears dripping down your beautiful face when his viper like eyes stare back up at you, and his cock only throbs harder. He loves sending you to such planes of bliss that it’s too much to handle. So much love that you can’t fathom, so you cry. Every time you climax, it’s a sign of how much you love each other, right? That has to be why your pretty eyes are so wet and weary. You just feel so much love, you don't know what to do.

Don’t worry. He knows exactly what you need.

His hands grip your legs more firmly, lifting them up so they rested on his shoulders as he completely loses himself in you, giving you no reprieve or break as his mouth gets to work, slurping, sucking, licking and swirling right where you need it to, bringing you to the edge and not just tipping you over- with how strong it felt you might as well have been launched off, your body arching and shaking as Elias still, rather obscenely, eats you out, helping you ride through the orgasm as he continues drinking you down and savoring you on his tongue.

It’s wet, his face is covered, sweat drool and your essence is dripping down his face as he pulls away to lick his lips, chuckling darkly as he rubs up and down your legs that were still shaking on his shoulders. “Did that feel good? You came so hard baby, looked so beautiful, so sexy. Just a few more and I think it’ll shake that stage fright, don't you? Then we can really show that doctor over there how your body should be worshiped”.

(Hey! engage in some way if you enjoyed! Tell me what you thought! Comments show I'm doing good, or what I can improve on :3 Thanks for reading! -Mommabean )

[lindseybyrd]

A friend of mine has been posting quite a bit on Temeraire lately and I finally did it. I cracked the spine.

And friends.

I am in love.

Excuse me as I start live blogging my experience because hoo boy.

I just finished chapter three, but recap highlights:

Laurence being furious at the French captain for risking his crew unnecessarily and refusing to give the captain his sword back...until he realised the captain was trying to defend a dragon egg. Then deciding to return the sword because the captain had done correctly. Like. A+ characterization, no notes. It speaks so much to this character!

I love Temeraire's voice? Just, how he talks is so lovely.

On that note, Temeraire, it's so convenient that you have a full grasp of the english language and understand things like north, south, and lee. That sped us through a lot of complications real quick!

TEMERAIRE YOU ARE SUCH A GOOD BEAN.

Volatilus I would die for you. I love you. You are so sweet and kind and good. You are the best dragon. So sorry Temeraire, you're upper class Eton Dragon, Volly is my sweet little golden retriever and deserves all the praise in the world.

Hearing Volatilus enthuse about "Cows!!" watered my crops.

And on that note, Laurence you are such a snob. Calling poor Volatilus's mind "uncongenial" because he's not as smart as your INT+20 dragon. Volatilus was perfectly congenial. Leave him alone.

Please. Help.

I love everyone in this bar. T_T

[goldenhypen]

TASTE ⎯⎯ l. heeseung

pairing. bf!heeseung x reader | genre. fluff, may come off as slightly suggestive

word count. 0.5k | warnings. depending on how a certain couple parts of this scenario are interpreted, like i said, this could be suggestive,, but ig that’ll just be up to your imagination and interpretation-

a/n. y’all have spoken and so here i am with a heeseung drabble :> ,,,, i,,, have never written anything like this before ahahhsjsjs and it’s not smth i intend to do more in the future bc it’s just not my style but i’m trying smth new today :’> ,,,, enjoy :’>

your lips appeared soft and plump in your compact mirror as you applied a newly bought lip gloss.

its flavour contained hints of vanilla, releasing a subtle warm sensation onto your taste buds, along with a sweet taste of strawberry.

you smacked your lips together.

with two drinks in hand, your boyfriend, heeseung, arrived back, meeting you at the table outside the little café where you sat.

“thanks, baby,” you said with a smile before automatically leaning in for a kiss.

your lips met his briefly before pulling away with an excited grin, attention already diverted from him as you were ready to take a sip of the refreshing beverage.

“mmm, you taste good,” he let out, causing your head to whip in his direction. his comment caught you off guard. “what is that?”

letting his words sink in for a moment, you smiled at the compliment, “new lip balm.”

“you taste amazing,” he expressed again, in an almost trance this time as he found himself already leaning in for more.

and what began as a simple kiss almost evolved into a passionate makeout if it wasn’t for you pushing him away.

“what are you doing?” you laughed. “there’s people around.”

“you taste good, i really like this new flavour on you. what is it?”

“strawberry vanilla,” you answered happily.

“that’s nice,” he stated, eyes unable to meet yours, only fixed on your lips instead. he probably wasn’t even hearing your words as his focus was clearly elsewhere at the moment. “can i kiss you again?”

thinking about it, it would be too easy if you just gave in… so you decided to mess with him a bit first.

“nope,” you turned your head away, bringing your drink to your mouth to take a sip, cooling your body from the heat of the warm weather.

and heeseung’s gaze only remained at your lips as you sipped down the liquid.

“but—why?” he frowned, moving slightly to finally look into your eyes and pull you closer.

“baby, i said there’s people around. if i let you keep kissing me, who knows what this is going to lead to?”

“then—” he began as he formed an idea into words, whispering the next part of his sentence by your ear, “why don’t we take this elsewhere? like elsewhere as in back home?”

“heeseung!” you exclaimed, growing somewhat flustered.

he sought for an answer in your eyes, and you attempted to conceal a smile. however, it turned to be of no use, and you gave up, already beginning to stand.

staring at him as he watched you with curious eyes, with your drink now in hand, you spoke.

“well? what are you waiting for? lee heeseung!” you snapped him out of his daze. “let’s go!”

a/n. and this is what i meant by how different this drabble would be if it was for jungwon- sjsjsjd like if you try reading it again but imagine jungwon in heeseung’s place instead,,, def a whole new vibe fr shdjdj anyways thanks for reading, and reblogs and feedback are appreciated as always :> thank u! <3

taglist (open). @seroriis @raimbows4u @sultrybaby @kpop-nct @beans-and-jeanes @enhacolor @enhasfever @nokacchan @yizhoutv @xiaoderrrr @soobin-chois @tyunni @shinsou-rii @sungbeam @softkpopplace @belle643 @nar-nia @rapmonie2047 @pshchives @sunjakes @ethereal-engene @exohclipse @yeosayang @koishua @4ri-ki @sunoksunny @jaeyunjakesim @tnyhees @enaus @hoes4hoseok @palajae @clarakyunisageek @annoyingbitch83 @mirula @rcrystallocks @stepout-09-15 @zeraaax @ktttwwn @pistachiophobia @svnoofy @sweetjaemss @vatterie @mnsnts

[y4z1]

Black, Stained White. | MDNI

Pairing: Bang Chan x reader

Synopsis: You and Bang Chan get into a playful fight when he finds out he isn't your bias, but what unrolls after your fight with Chan is a very not-so-bestfriend like situation.

Warnings: making out, sex, choking-ish, reader is called babygirl (duh, it's chan), fingering, Daddy kink, choking kink, spanking, basically just MDNI

WC: 1.5k

Chan was sitting across you, on the bean bag in the corner of the room, while you were sitting on your bed. His cute dimples and crescent-shaped eyes were staring back at you—cute. You were sharing a hilarious memory of you and Felix's disastrous moment of baking, and how you had accidentally slipped over a banana peel on the floor. His giggles filling the entire room, it was like heaven to your ears. You loved nothing more than hearing Chan happy.

Out of all the people you'd met, you loved Chan the most. You appreciated that he loved you for who you are, unlike others. Throughout your relationship of several years, Chan had always been the one putting a smile on your face. And so, you did the same for him. You really can't recall a single memory where you guys aren't dying of laughter on the floor.

After recollecting yourself and taking a few deep breaths, you finally looked back at him—and bursted out laughing, again. "I'm so sorry, I'm actually so sorry I'll stop"

5 minutes pass and you finally stopped laughing. Chan got up and stretched his arms out, he was wearing a full black outfit. He slipped his beanie off and his orange curly hair poofed out which looked, not to mention, so damn attractive.

He'd dyed his hair plenty of times, but I guess since it's been a while you'd never realized how much you'd craved seeing orange-haired Chan.

His eyes perked up at your and his body facing you. His eyebrows furrowed and head tilted. "Hey, I've never asked you, who's your bias?"

You smiled and blushed at the thought of your bias—or seungmin, specifically. But you couldn't tell him that, what if he tells the other members and then they feel like they're not good enough or just not loved.

"I like all the members", you'd thought you'd gotten away with it but deep down you knew your lies were pretty obvious, and the guilt was plastered on your face.

"Stop lying, I know you have a bias". He was smiling at you again, inching closer by the second. His sexy, deep, Australian accent making your heart beat even faster as if it's not about to already jump out of your body.

You were scared, guilty, and flustered all at the same time. And he could clearly tell. "I won't tell anyone" he said with a warm smile to calm you down a little. And he kept his promises, he really did, he kept all of them in fact.

Without a second thought, you looked at him in the eyes. "It's seungmin...", you fidgeted with your hands. A shocked look on his face, "SEUNGMIN?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE LEE KNOW BIASED", now you were the one with the shocked face. "Lee know?! What makes you think that?!" You replied. He widened his eyes and his signature dimpled smile on his face, "your murderous personality"

You chuckled "wow. Okay but listen, by bias I just mean that seungmin is the one who catches my eye the most. I don't have a real bias because it just changes every 3 days. These days its been you in my mind all day" you covered your mouth and your eyes widened realizing what you'd just said.

He smirked at you, from what you could tell from the corner of your eye. He ruffled your hair, "awwwww that's cute, you love me that much". He was teasing you. In response you smacked his hand away. But, it just made the situation worse, he pushed you onto your back and hovered over you.

It turned into a fight of him trying to get his hands on your body as a way of teasing and you just yanking his hands away, though eventually it stopped when he stared at you with dark, lustful eyes.

His deep brown eyes stared back at you. Everything around you, erased. All you could see was him, and you. His veiny arms were around your head, pinning your body into the mattress.

Your eyes travelled down to his lips. It was as if his lips were pulling you in and you couldn't escape them. They were a soft shade of cherry red, and heart shaped. His bottom lip was tucked under his teeth.

Without even realizing how or when, you were centimeters close. His lips, still bringing you in, until both your lips finally touched and brought each other in for a slow, savory kiss.

He pulled back, getting confirmation that it was okay to go on further. You gave him an approval nod and smile, going in for another kiss. This time a more intimate and longing one.

Eventually, it turned into a full-on make out session. Your hands roaming eachothers body.

You both pulled away from lack of oxygen, and his left hand snaked around your thigh while he brought his lips closer to your inner thigh, gliding his soft lips up and down.

He left one or two hickeys along the process, making sure to mark his territory.

He inched closer and closer, until his face was less than a centimeter away from your heat. In a teasing motion, he lifted his long, slender fingers and traced your folds up and down through your soaked panties.

"so soaked for me, huh babygirl?" He said in a deep, raspy voice, making you even wetter than you already were. He knew the effect he had on you, and he used it to an advantage. He knew every single one of your kinks, every one of your turn-on's.

He eyes were on you the whole time, making sure you were okay with going further.

He teased you over and over again, you were starting to lose patience and he knew that. Nonetheless, you stared at him with doe eyes, knowing that'd drive him crazy.

Your panties to the side in seconds, while he slipped two fingers in, receiving a satisfied moan in return. Three thrusts and he pulled out, smirking at you. You whined and tried other devious tricks on him that you were sure would drive him insane. But damn did he have self control.

There was one trick you hadn't tried though. You'd always known he had a daddy kink, well who didn't—it's literally Chan we're talking about.

You put on a little pout and doe eyes for him, tilting your head. "Please, daddy?" You know that did it for him when he bit his lip and smirked even harder.

An unexpected slap to your ass caught you off guard. You gasped at the stinging pain. "Say it again, babygirl "

"p-please daddy?" A tear making its way down the side of your face.

Though he'd put up a cold persona, he'd made sure to not hurt you in anyway by slowly entering into your heat.

Your walls clenched around him and you wanted more. Patience long forgotten, all you wanted was his massive dick thrusting in and out of you at a godly pace.

And he fulfilled your desires, thrusting in and out of you, right as you adjusted to his length. His left hand wrapped around your neck tightly. You could barely breathe but he knew you so well, he knew it was one of your kinks.

You could feel the similar knot tie itself in your stomach, and within seconds that knot untied itself. You came together at the same time, staining the black sheets white.

He collapsed on top of you, while you ran your hand through his curls. You both laid in bed for a while until you regained your energy to go and shower.

Chan got up first, walking over to the bathtub and turning on the hot water. He made sure the water was the right temperature, and made his way towards you, carrying you bridal style. You giggled to yourself. "What's so funny" he asked with a small smile on his face. "Nothing, don't worry."

He laid you into the bathtub gently. He was walking back towards your bedroom, and damn did bro have a whole bakery back there (bet his back hurts from carrying the whole kpop industry and that humongous a-). Your eyes perked up at him and you asked "you're not getting in?". He stopped and looked back at you, "no, haha you can wash up first"

You got up and took one leg out of the bathtub, reaching for his hand. You pulled him down into the bathtub with you, water splashing everywhere.

He looked at you with wide eyes and an open mouth, "did you just try to drown me?". You giggled and responded, "hey I thought you could swim"

He put on a bland expression, trying to hide that smile that wanted to take over his face "yeah I'm gonna swim in like, half a foot of water"

Whether you were taking a bath, cuddling, or even at work, your bickering never stopped.

A/N: Wrote this at like 2 AM only cuz if I were to continue it later, it would be chilling in my drafts for years.

[shoverse]

what does love mean to you? — or, a record of lee minho's scattered and scrambled views on affection for oneself and others throughout the years.

🎧 lee minho, aged 7, audio transcript:

love? oh, mommy 'n daddy says that to me loads and loads! 'n mommy writes little notes and sticks them onto my lunchbox! i think i still have mine from today somewhere...here! haha, i always keep the notes mommy writes. i write some back too! err, just so she doesn't get mad if i haven't finished all the beans. well, it doesn't really work........do you know any ways?

🎧 lee minho, aged 13, audio transcript:

um, i think it means when you like someone loads, right? but you can also like them, uh, like-like and not love them...but i don't think i like-like anyone, not really. i love my mom! but it's different, like my friend changbin thinks he might like-like this other person in my class, i think his name is sehyeon? something like that. but there's this new person in my class, and maybe we could like-like each other if they don't already like-like someone else! um, not that i want to or anything. just a thought. yeah.

🎧 lee minho, aged 17, audio transcript:

it's kinda like...when your heart aches more than you'd like to admit, y'know? when you know you'd catch the stars in your bare hands and let them pierce your skin if someone you loved told you they liked how stars shine. oh, fuck, that's embarrassing, don't put that in. no, it's more like when, um, when you feel strongly about someone, and it doesn't have to be in a romantic way. i love my best friend changbin, but even if all the people in the world died and i would get infinite money and unlimited pizza i would not date him. anyway, i think i wanna. fall in love, that is.

🎧 lee minho, aged 20, audio transcript:

well, i met this girl, and i think she is love. um, but in the way that- well, i don't know how to explain it all that well. when something sits in the pit of your stomach but it's not fear and when something's caught in your throat but it's not tears. you get me? um, and i'm realising that it's fast, and i'm trying to keep up but it's just...hard sometimes to get us to work, to get her to listen to my feelings. maybe i feel too much? do you think so? yeah, love is hard work, but i'm holding out hope. what are we without hope?

🎧 lee minho, aged 21, audio transcript:

nothing. nothing at all.

🎧 lee minho, aged 22, audio transcript:

for me? love is my cats, definitely. please pretend i say something wise about eternal companions and hope and stars and puking out words like you'll run out of them if you stop. um, i'm trying to do this- self love? it's hard sometimes. that's all. but i know i have time. i know i'll have until the slow heat death of the universe to figure it out. or until one morning i wake up and i can smile at myself. yeah, life is good though. i think i'll stick to my cats for now. um, my hair was pretty this morning though, i gotta admit.

🎧 lee minho, aged 24, audio transcript:

still my cats, but i've made room for two more people. um, me, first of all. that one was hard, but time passes anyway. i'm still here, you know? and second- no, i couldn't possibly call them second. yeah it's, um, it's y/n. they weren't so hard. really, letting them in was the easiest decision of my life. um, but love is hope. not for a better relationship, but hope in a way where i hope that tomorrow will come. hope in a way that i hope the world is kind to us. anyway, love is slow. i mean, there's no rush. forever still has a long time to go. there is love everywhere, you know? i can feel it. this world is good.

🎧 lee minho, aged 25, audio transcript:

it's always this question, huh? no, i don't mind. anyway, there is so much love to give that i can't possibly tell you everything about love in a lifetime. yeah, love is still in y/n. i think it was always meant to be them, huh? can we believe that the world meant for us to be together? can we hope so? oh, of course we can. yeah, and i think everything happens for a reason. you weren't born as an accident, you know? this is your life and i'm proud that you're living it. oh, no metaphors this year. no, i realized that you can't really explain love in things. you can't really call love anything but love. tomorrow you will wake up and you will see there is so much beauty in life. yeah. see you next year.

📁 a/n; ANDDD SCENE EVERYBODY!!! THATS A WRAP!!! and yall dk how long it took me to find those goddamn aesthetic banners............GOD pinterest hates me i SWEAR. anyway if this flops i am officially Ending It All and Jumping. send tweet!

[hannie-dul-set]

HOME FOR THE BITCHLESS [4].

SYNOPSIS. wherein your friend offers a room for you to crash in while your dorm is being renovated, but fails to mention that your new housemates don’t know how to talk to women (oh, and they also have an ongoing bet about you, too).

PAIRINGS. choi soobin, choi beomgyu, lee heeseung, park jongseong, sim jaeyun, park sunghoon x female! reader. GENRE. housemates! au, rom-com, sitcom, reverse harem time baby. WARNINGS. general menace behavior, swearing, too much mentions of kissing and making out, it's beomgyu's turn to have a mental breakdown. WORD COUNT. 3.6k.

TAGLIST. @cerealdreamwriter @tyongff-ff @dinonuguaegi @certifiedmoa @blueberrgyuu0 @primantha @blu3bell4 @nunugget @hoshi-is-ult-bbg @captivq @tocupid @seosalad @ddazed-lhs @gyuszie @mifuyuyo @error-cant-function @twocupsofsuga @flowerbe0m @dangerousconnoisseurbanana @laviesm @keikeu @elavin @chaemmie @rikisly

NOTE. the chapter title is clickbait, actually. anyway, it's the beomgyu chapter! this one is for both the e2l enjoyers and haters!! hope you enjoy whatever the fuck this is!

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

CHAPTER 4 — kisses? kisses.

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT YOU GET TO STAY AT HOME FOR AN ENTIRE DAY. Supposedly, you and your friends had plans for the beach, but due to some circumstances that included one of their cars breaking down, it had to be canceled. You send an “Oh no, that’s too bad. Sad face. Sad face,” through text before punching your fist into the air in celebration and jumping back into the warm, welcoming embrace of your bedsheets, practically melting into the mattress.

Your plan is to stay in bed the whole day. Until you get hungry, so you force yourself out of your blankets and zombie-walk all the way down to the kitchen where you uncharacteristically find Soobin tinkering with the oven. He’s usually holed up in his room doing god knows what, so you’re curious to see what he’s up to.

You clear your throat to indicate your arrival. “Hey.” Your voice causes him to drop the tray a little too early onto the counter. “What’s that?”

“Oh, um. I was baking a little.” You’ve come to discover that Soobin can only talk to you when he’s not looking at you, so you say nothing when he focuses his gaze on the rather delicious looking arrangement of chocolate chip cookies on the tray instead of maintaining eye contact with you. “Y—you can have some— ah, careful! It’s still hot.”

It is still hot but it also tastes really fucking good. The cookie crumbles in your mouth and your eyes sparkle as you shoot him a thumbs up of approval. “Whoa. You can sell these.”

Soobin keeps his head down, but his pink ears are on full display. It’s cute. He lets you snack on as many cookies as you want and unties his equally pink apron. “Ah. I forgot.” You stop munching on the third cookie and raise a curious brow. His voice is hesitant when he says, “I have to leave for an appointment, but the cookies haven’t cooled yet so I can’t store them in the pantry yet.”

“You can leave it to me. Go do your thing.”

“Then...excuse me.”

He takes out the rest of the trays from the oven before shuffling off. Not long after, Heeseung’s nose pokes through the kitchen, beckoned by the scent of the freshly baked goods. “Soobin made them,” you show off on his behalf. He stuffs a bite into his cheeks before leaving. Apparently he also has somewhere to be.

It’s like Soobin’s cookies are luring them all down. Jake rushes down and wordlessly grabs a bunch before running out the door, saying that he’s late for his flight or something. Sunghoon shows up next, asking if you slept well last night as he picks out once from the batch, and your heart swells with tender pride at his attempt to strike a conversation. They grow up so fast. “Take care,” you bid him goodbye. He nods and heads out for his shift at The Lounge.

Jay also comes down for the cookies. “Got any plans today, champ?” he asks.

“Absolutely nothing at all.”

“Cool beans.”

“Very cool.” You push the tray towards him. He steals another bite. “Where are you headed?”

“Some lecture about fabrics. I heard they’ll be giving out some very nice gingham for participants at the end.” You can barely catch what he’s saying with the cookie wedged between his teeth as he pulls on his coat, but you tell him to have fun and, like the rest, watch as he leaves the house.

By the time it grows quiet, there are only five cookies left on the tray and you’re relieved Soobin had made more than one batch. It’d be a shame if he couldn’t even taste his own cooking. You carefully throw them all into a container, but pause upon realizing that Beomgyu is the only one who hasn’t come down, so he also hasn’t tried them yet.

He isn’t exactly your favorite resident. And although you aren’t particularly fond of Beomgyu, you also don’t want to spend the rest of your stay here with any bad blood with any of the boys. So you fish out a few pieces from the container and carefully arrange them on a nice looking plate. You even pour a glass of orange juice for him. Acting like a dumb little housewife for a guy you don’t even like a lot sure hurts your fucking pride, but you want to shove your sincerity up Choi Beomgyu’s ass until it forces him to be nice to you.

You’re extra careful when you climb up the stairs, hands full with the snack you prepared. It poses a struggle when you have to knock on the door, so you call out his name instead and hope for a response.

“It’s open— fucking piece of shit. You useless son of a fuck!”

Well, that doesn’t sound very inviting. 

But you invite yourself in anyway because after clearing things up with Sunghoon, you feel like you can conquer everyone else with ease. You’re overconfident. That was your first mistake.

The moment you crack open the door, your ears are attacked by aggressive keyboard noises and Beomgyu is hunched over in front of his monitor— three monitors, actually. You’re scared he’s about to destroy the computer with how rough he’s smashing every key, but he leans back not long after with an annoyed grunt and starts clicking things on the screen. “What do you want?” he asks without looking at you. It’s starting to rise, your blood pressure. You hope you last until the end of this exchange.

“Soobin baked cookies. I’m here to bring you some.”

He pulls down his headphones to his neck and the chair swivels to face you. An awfully aggravating move which is only exacerbated when Beomgyu’s eyes land on your offering and he stifles out a scoff. “Why? You trying to act like my wife, or some shit?”

You know what, fuck this, you’re not dealing with his ass.

“I’d rather kill myself than be your stupid fucking wife.” The desire to pour the sweet, sweet glass of orange all over his gaming setup nearly overtakes you, but you’re sensible enough. You settle with pouring it on his head instead. “Enjoy your drink, asshole.”

Maybe that was overkill, but you’re mad and sometimes you do impulsive shit (case in point, chasing down Sunghoon to his workplace). You would’ve smashed the plate on his face too, but Soobin’s cookies are too precious for that so you keep them intact when you stomp out his room, slamming the door shut in the process. It’s a good thing the rest of the guys are out of the house because the visual of you angrily marching into the kitchen and stuffing the rest of the cookies into the tupperware with a tightly knitted frown would definitely rouse some questions, and you can’t guarantee answering those questions nicely and possibly making a few of them cry (again).

The pantry door swings open and shut with a harsh noise when you enter to store Soobin’s baked goods. You place them next to the loaves of packaged bread on the middle shelf before letting out a heavy sigh. Beomgyu has ruined your day of relaxation and the only way to fix it is a good nap.

Unfortunately for you, that won’t be possible anymore. Unless you don’t mind napping in the dark recluse of your home pantry because when you attempt to pull open the door— it won’t budge.

Oh no. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

The door is stuck. You’re stuck. You have no one to blame but Choi Beomgyu.

Having an orange juice shower wasn’t part of Beomgyu’s calculations.

In fact, he wasn’t exactly calculating anything. He just spat out the first sentence that popped in his head and it ended up in a citrus-scented disaster. Maybe he should start using his head more the next time he has a conversation with you. That is if you still want to have anything to do with him. Beomgyu may have a dumb mouth, but he isn’t blind or stupid. He knows you don’t like him, and that might be his fault entirely.

Shit, this better not ruin my hair, he thinks as he runs his head under the bathroom sink, rinsing out the sugar from his roots but his shirt still smells of orange juice even after he’s finished drying up, yet he can’t be bothered to get a change of clothes so he just returns to his already ruined game of Counter Strike with a groan.

It’s not that Beomgyu hates you. In fact, he thinks you’re really cool and funny, but he’s emotionally constipated so he masks his chronic rizzlessness by being a massive douche. It doesn’t help that you sound really hot when you tell him to fuck off or swear at his general direction. The problem is, he can’t really tell you that, so he continues being a prick and picking fights with you whenever he can. Aren’t girls supposed to be into that crap? Beomgyu doesn’t watch a lot of romance films, but he’s seen how people thirst over Mr. Darcy. His Twitch chat also goes crazy when he swears on stream, and last time he checked a good chunk of his viewership are women. 

He’s sure he was on the right track. Until today— because that look on your face before you stomped out of the room was less hot-scary and more scary-scary. It haunts his mind as he plays another round with Yeonjun and the others, a ghost behind his eyelids. They’re yelling at him to get his shit together through the voice chat and that’s when he knows he needs to step out his room to get a breather.

Somehow, his feet lead him down to the kitchen instead of the covered deck. And his eyes are searching for your pissed off expression instead of the Red Bull his tongue is craving.

Must be in her room, he thinks. Cold air hits his face when he hooks out the energy drink from the fridge. Now that he thinks about it, it’s oddly quiet in the house. Usually, there’d at least be screaming or noise from Jake’s shitty relaxation playlist, but it’s dead silent right now.

Beomgyu prods around the island, looking for the Soobin cookies you mentioned. The only sign he has of their existence are the crumbs on the three trays splayed out in the sink.

Crash!

Okay, what the hell was that?

Thud.

It’s coming from the pantry. The fuck, is this house haunted?

Now, Beomgyu doesn’t get scared of shit. He makes his entire living from not batting an eye at video game jumpscares, so this is nothing. 

Thunk.

But if it’s his own house that’s haunted, he’s not gonna let the chance of kicking ghost ass slip through his fingers. The only reasonable thing to do is to kick the pantry door open.

So he kicks the pantry door open and bulldozes in.

“Wait, don’t leave the door—”

Slam!

It shuts behind him, depleting all the light in the room. He’s shocked to see you instead of a transparent old man from the 1800s. “Great,” you huff. “Now we’re both stuck here.” You’re the ghost. You’ve been the ghost this whole time.

Beomgyu turns around and rattles the door knob, but the door doesn’t budge. “It’s useless,” he hears you say from behind. His arm deflates to the side and he slumps, defeated. “Do you have your phone with you?”

“No. It’s in my room.”

“Well damn,” you flatly say. “Guess we gotta wait until one of the boys arrives.”

He turns back to face you, eyes narrowed in both suspicion and curiosity because what the fuck could you have been doing in here alone that made so much noise. “Hey, I know you hate me, but you don’t need to look so disgusted.” He isn’t disgusted. He’s about to lose his fucking mind because what’s the point of having a giant ass mansion when the pantry is so, so goddamned tiny that he can practically feel your body heat seeping into his own skin? 

One more step closer and he’d be practically pressed up all over you. It’s a good thing you decide to sink down and tuck yourself as close to the back shelf as possible, pressing your knees to your chest as you look up at him with unmistakable annoyance. “Sit down. We’re gonna be here for a while.”

“I don’t hate you,” he obliges your suggestion, mimicking your position against the jammed door. 

“I’m not stupid. You’ve been a bitch to me the moment I stepped into this house.”

“Well, I fucking don’t. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Sure.” You wrinkle your nose. “And I’m absolutely elated by the fact that I have to be stuck with you here for the next two, three hours.”

Now, you don’t need to rub it in his face that you can’t stand him. Looks like that bet prize is as good as out of reach, but at this point he doesn’t really care anymore— undoing his fuckups is the more pressing issue at hand. His throat is dry and burning when he attempts to swallow, but nearly chokes on his spit when the particularly malicious death stare you’re giving him falls into his attention. Maybe he should say something. “Do you really think I hate you?”

“Well,” you cross your arms. “I’m at the very least sure you don’t like me.”

How does he fix this? There’s no tutorial or cheat code for this kind of situation. He’s stumped, he’s totally stumped. “Isn’t like— isn’t enemies to lovers supposed to be a popular trope?”

Something tells him he made the wrong move with how your glare suddenly softens and becomes drenched in pity. He doesn’t like that. He prefers it when you look at him like you want to stab a knife into his gut and twist it counterclockwise. “I don’t know which bastard lied to you, but acting like a stuck-up asshole doesn’t fly in real life, buddy.”

Beomgyu lets your words sink in before slowly uttering, “It…it does not?”

“No. No, it does not,” you confirm. A beat of silence. “Beomgyu, do you have a crush on me?”

The thing about small, locked places is that he can’t run away. Beomgyu wants to run away. He can’t do that. So he swears at you instead. “Fuck off.” You have deemed his enemies to love strategy futile, but you’ve backed him in a corner (literally), so he has no idea what to do. Distraction— a distraction would be nice to ward off the rising heat in his cheeks and the scent of fresh orange wafting into his senses that awfully reminds him of your disdain. There’s a stash of kisses chocolates he’s been raiding on the shelves somewhere. Chocolates are always good for stress, and he’s very fucking stressed right now.

“What are you doing?” you ask, following up your curious glances by standing up and digging your nose a little too close into his business as he fishes out a piece of chocolate hidden behind the stack of spices. A gasp rips out from your throat. “You bitch! You’re the one who’s been stealing my kisses!”

Beomgyu winces and nearly chokes on the sweet. “If you put it like that, people are going to get the wrong fucking idea.”

“What people? There’s no one else here,” you sass, arms crossed with a particularly grated expression. “But alright. I’ll let it slide. Give me a kiss, I think my blood pressure is rising.”

“Quit saying it like that,” he grunts, dropping three pieces onto your open palm. 

You tear one open, carefully placing the chocolate in your mouth. “Speaking of making out.” No one said anything about making out, you’re driving him absolutely nuts. “This sorta feels like we’re back in high school playing seven minutes in heaven.” You pause, chewing on another piece. “Except I’m pretty sure it’s been way longer than seven minutes. Fuck. When are the others coming back?”

It’s like a flip switched after admitting to not hating you. You’ve stopped glaring at him and instead reserved yourself to looking at him like he’s some sort of sick puppy you’ve decided to take in. Like now— lips slightly pursed, brows slightly knitted, and it makes him want to bang his head against the door because bleeding from a self-inflicted concussion would hurt his pride less than being on the receiving end of your pity. “You’ve never played seven minutes in heaven before?” Your tone is so soft, it kills him. 

“Why would I want to play that stupid game?”

“Hey, don’t slander my high school memories! That’s how I got my first kiss.” Again with the goddamned kisses, fuck at this point you’re doing it on purpose. Beomgyu refuses to look at you, grumbling unintelligible complaints under his breath. The chocolate tastes too sweet on his tongue and it’s making him nauseous. “Don’t tell me...you’ve never had your first—”

“What the fuck is up with you and kisses, seriously what the fuck are you trying to—”

He finally snaps, but quickly quells his outburst. It’s all your fault. You’re riling him up on purpose. When he thinks you’d snap at him back like usual, you don’t. Instead you continue looking at him with that unusual softened expression. “It’s alright, Beomgyu. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He wants to kill himself. “Wanna kiss?”

His shoulders slacken. He gives up. There’s no way he can win against the impenetrable force that is you. “No, you can have your stupid chocolate all to yourself,” he huffs, scrunching himself up further on the ground.

“I’m not talking about the chocolate. I’m asking if you wanna make out.”

What the fuck.

What the fuck are you saying right now?

“It’s gonna take a while for us to get out of here and it’s not like we have anything better to do.” You throw another kiss into your mouth and you’re talking so nonchalantly like you just asked him to pass the salt, to open the fridge door— not to engage in something totally non-friendly, non-platonic, toeing the line of propriety. Does Jake know your level of insanity when he suggested you live with them? Is Jake aware that you just casually ask people to exchange spit with you and die? “Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m just giving you the opportunity to experience the two things you have yet to experience. Totally up to you, buddy.”

How could you ask to kiss and call him buddy in the same breath? Beomgyu is convinced you’re not normal, but that should’ve been evident with how much your very presence tortures them every single god damned day.

He says something. He’s sure he says something, but it leaves his mouth before he could register them and the consequences of his impulsivity arrive when you’re suddenly a lot closer than he remembers and his brain jumps ship and he’s panicking. He panics when your fist crumples his orange-stained collar. He panics because he’s never kissed anyone before so what the fuck is he supposed to do now?

Shit, he really didn’t think this through. Holy fuck, you’re actually serious, you’re actually about to kiss him. 

“Did you say the cookies are in the pantry? I’m gonna get— oh shit, this thing is stuck.”

The door rattles. Alarm bells ring. Beomgyu pushes you off in a panic and a loaf of bread falls to the floor when you bump against the rack. Warm light spills into the tiny storage. He can clearly see the ruffled expression you’re wearing.

“Well. These aren’t cookies.”

He snaps his head up to see Heeseung standing at the foot of the entrance, clearly confused and alarmed by the unusual scene in the pantry. Soobin’s head pops in as well. You’re rubbing the back of your head when you spring up to your feet. “Holy shit, thank god. I thought we’d be stuck there for much longer.” 

Huh.

“What happened?” Heeseung trails behind you as you leave.

“Stored the cookies and got trapped in the process. Beomgyu tried helping and failed. Jake needs to fix that fucking door.”

It was so easy for you to leave him behind after the mess you’ve made. Soobin offers to help him up, but Beomgyu’s mood has already soured beyond salvation so he ignores the outstretched arm and shovels himself up with a grunt and quickly catches up to you— you, who’s already sitting on the island and enjoyed your freedom with a box of macarons Heeseung brought. You, who’s nonchalantly offering him the powder pink dessert that probably looks like his very own reflection.

“Want some?” you ask, mouth full. He stares at the crumbs near your lips. It pisses him off. “They’re really good.”

“Don’t talk to me.”

You furrow your brows. “Are you upset because we didn’t get to—”

“I said don’t talk to me.”

He’s not upset. He’s not. He is. He’s not. Maybe he is but that’s not the fucking point here. The point is you’re evil and the absolute worst and how can you dangle a gold chain in front of him only to snatch it back away? Actually, it’s not entirely your fault. Beomgyu’s eyes narrow at Heeseung who’s a second away from booking it because he doesn’t want to get dragged in your crossfire. Too late. He’s already involved. He fucked up the moment he opened that god forsaken door. This has simultaneously been the best and worst day of his life because even though you've told him acting like a dick doesn't work— at least he knows you don't mind kissing him

If only Heeseung hadn't opened the fucking door. Beomgyu’s gonna fuck him up further in League tonight.

HOME FOR THE BITCHLESS. © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

[mazeinthemiroh]

Hey!!❤️ I just saw that your requests are open and I was wondering if you could do a Stray Kids headcanon where they are always simping for reader who is a member just like those videos on youtube where the title is 'skz being a bunch of simps for each other' so that but to reader yk, also you can choose if reader is actually their crush or not.🤗

stray kids crushing on the 9th member

genre: fluff

warnings: none

please like and reblog if you enjoy <3

chan

chan talks about you. a lot.

every time he does a channie's room, without fail he will mention you

and when he does, he's got this dreamy look in his eyes and an adoring tone in his voice

of course, he likes talking about all of the members. but he spends more time dwelling on you without even realising it

it is only when stays comment 'you've been talking about y/n for a long time, chan' that he gets a bit flustered and shakes his head, apologising and smiling bashfully

minho

minho teases you the most but is also the softest with you

it's a weird mix but that's just how lee know rolls!

he feels you understand him better than anyone else and that brings you guys closer to him

you have an unspoken understanding with one another. a simple glance across the room is enough communication for you both to feel reassured

he always has your back, and he knows he can trust you to do the same

that's why he feels he can be vulnerable with you, despite his avoidance of doing so,

changbin

denies he likes you

but smiles like an idiot when your name is even so much as mentioned in a conversation

and he praises you A LOT. whether you're there or not, he's always got something nice to say about you

he likes being your workout partner

mainly so he can show off his glorious arms and make you flustered

because, as much as he tries to deny it, he can't help but feel flustered by even the smallest things you do

he doesn't let it show easily though

hyunjin

he feels like you're the only one who truly understands him

he's a bit of a mystery to many. as much as he is close with the other members, he feels that he has a special connection with you

and hyunjin thrives on deep connections with people. it's not a usual affair for someone to come into his life and completely embrace who he is, flaws and imperfections as well as the good stuff.

so his feelings naturally grow because of this

being the emotional artist he is he channels his feelings through his artform in order to understand them. which means... a lot of painting of you. and he's embarrassed by how much you linger on his mind when he's painting but your face is all he sees.

jisung

hyper around you

but also tones it down when you tell him to

respects you more than anyone!!

he's pretty much putty in your hands tbh. like he is chill and casual with you but at the same time would do absolutely anything for you it's crazy

the other members take the piss out of him because he has never acted this way before

probably makes a conscious effort to calm down around you because you just get him happy and excited

felix

literally in awe of you

loves having deep conversations long into the night

he gets a little flustered when you give him eye contact for too long, perhaps looking away and clearing his throat

he essentially acts the same way towards you as he does with changbin ngl 💀 but perhaps more touchy and bold

very clingy and cuddly

you're his comfort person, and he is yours <3

seungmin

he wants to conquer his feelings

he's very mr. darcy about this whole scenario, really

will be quite cold or reserved near you, just so he can try and figure out his feelings by himself

doesn't ask for any help

you end up confronting him for being so cold around you which is not very hard to notice, considering he used to be so close with you before

and then he feels like an asshole and just ends up confessing to you anyways

jeongin

he's a shy bean

but has been getting better and better at hiding his shyness, and is pretty chill for the most part

can't help but feel his cheeks heat up when you go near him

i mean... stray kids in general is quite a clingy group, so cuddling is something unusual for any of you

but as much as jeongin pushes everyone's affection away, he doesn't put up as much of a fight when you're concerned

which you feel quite honoured about!