#like okay. when i was younger i thought i would only fall in love after getting to really know the person (which was true! it happened!)

[snailfen]

anyways in normal news: Nebi Questions Whether Or Not They Are Ace Again (this time featuring arospec!!!!!!!)

[zreamy]

i'll love you forever

pairing: park sunghoon x fem!reader

summary: you were sunghoon's first everything; first friend, first love, and first heartbreak. after years of quietly crushing on you, he was finally ready to confess. so ready to confess, that he told his parents the two of you were already dating! it was an easy enough lie to keep up and he kept it up for months, what could possibly go wrong? he thought. little did he know, you would have a falling out and stop talking for months.. and then, you'd both get invited to spend a week at home with his parents, who still believe you're his girlfriend.

genre: smut, fluff, angst, college au, childhood best friends to lovers, fake dating

warnings: minors dni, fake dating is pretty mild (sorry), she kinda doesn’t rate him at the start, these two kind of exist in a vacuum a little bit idk i had a self-enforced word count to stick to and broke it.. (im within the 10% allowance !), sunghoon in a vest, sunghoon arms, sunghoon

word count: 21,858

playlist: click here.. (for my non-spotify babes, the main song is light by wave to earth (which for some reason i put last.. whatever))

author's note: for silly @asahicore. happy birthday pooks i hope it's amazing and that u enjoy reading this when u have the time !!! LOL (lots of love) also im never writing without telling you things again this was so absurd.

to everyone else.. ok happy reading also emma did not beta read this so im sure it's missing its charm .. anyway it's for emma not you 😭 anyway i hope u enjoy regardless and lmk ur thoughts! omg this is the first fic im nervous about posting.......... please enjoy or else.

In the three years since Park Sunghoon moved away for university, he’d been doing a pretty good job of going home to see his parents. They’d welcome their baby back to the nest with open arms and wide grins. With a rehearsed level of indifference, his younger sister, Yeji, would say, “Oh, I didn’t know you were coming home this weekend.” when she saw him at the dinner table. Sunghoon pretended to only be marginally hurt by this. 

In the last three months, he hasn’t so much as sent a text to his parents. 

Or to you. 

Ignoring texts from his mother is devastating. Between classes, he watches as, “Hi, sweetie, I love you 😍,” turns into, “Missing you, honey, know you must be busy but spare some time for your old mummy, no?” which turns into, “Getting really worried now, are you doing okay? Has something happened with YN? Talk to me, I love you, my baby boy!” 

Ignoring texts from you is easy because texts from you never come. 

Sitting at the end of his bed, Sunghoon rereads a text his mother sent a few minutes ago: Please talk to me, son. Really worried and YN isn’t answering calls either. What’s going on with you two?

When he leaves his room, he finds Jake lying on the couch, and with his keys in hand, Sunghoon says, “I’m going home.” 

And the drive is great! At least, he tells his mum it is. In truth, the drive home without you was nearly impossible. Your ever-expanding home time playlist buzzed through the speakers in his car, but without you there to screech along to the songs, it wasn’t the same. He felt your absence the most when he stopped to get petrol and you weren’t there behind him struggling to carry enough snacks to feed a small family without offering to pay. 

The look of worry on his mum’s face stirs a pit in his stomach. “Why are you so quiet these days? God, you look so tired,” she says, frowning. “Is it school? Or something with YN? It’s not like her not to text back.” Her brows crease as she whispers the word unless. She pulls him into a hug, her chin resting perfectly on his shoulder, and her comforting hand strokes the hair on the back of his head. “Breakups are never easy, honey. I’m so sorry, I know how much you love her.” 

Breakups are never easy. The sentence hangs heavy over his head. 

Whether she knows it or not, she’s handed him a get-out-of-jail-free card, the opportunity to set things straight, to end this mess once and for all. No further questions, and most importantly, no more lies. 

For the first time since he left your flat three months ago, Sunghoon lets himself cry. He’d imagined this moment countless times, his first cry since you ended things. In his mind, it was always intense. Today, as it happens, only a few salty tears leak from his eyes, spilling onto the cuff of his sleeve, darkening the blue cotton in tiny indigo splotches. 

“We didn’t break up,” he says in a small voice—for some reason. “I’m just having a hard time.” Neither statement is technically untrue, but the words taste rotten in his mouth.

The tightening grip of his mum’s arms around his body is what brings on the harsh, shoulder-racking sobs he’d been anticipating. For a while, they stand like this, Sunghoon weeping into his mum’s cardigan until she sends him upstairs to lie down, promising a cup of tea that never comes. 

His childhood bedroom is chilly, so he changes into clothes he left behind and climbs into bed, pulling his duvet up to his chin. He turns his head to look at the walls and the room around him, everything is exactly where he left it in the summer. It should be comforting, but it’s weird to be home without you. 

There are photos of you and him everywhere, growing up and around each other through different stages of life. The two of you together during the summer your family moved in next door, you wore glasses back then and were the first friend he’d made in his life. Sunbathing and sharing earphones at the beach, listening to music together on your iPod classic. Sunghoon in thick glasses with a stiff smile and your arm around him on the first day of high school. Wide grins at the start of this summer, the last time things were okay between you. 

Overwhelmed, he stares up at the ceiling, only realising he’s crying when a hot tear slips from his eyes to tickle his ear. Because Sunghoon likes to upset himself, he screws his eyes shut and thinks about the night before you stopped talking. 

Though he didn’t know it at the time, you’d left Yeonjun’s place to sit with him in a tiny restaurant on campus, the one you’d only visit to toast to each other’s heartbreaks. It had become a ritual — ever since your first year boyfriend dumped you after two weeks — to cry as much as you wanted and drink as much soju as your bodies could handle before stumbling back to your apartments. 

Having spent years suffering from an unrequited crush on his best friend, Sunghoon was always the one to comfort you. But that night was different; you were there to comfort him. It was easy enough to play the part of ‘boy whose crush likes someone else’ because he spent your entire friendship in that role. He’d had no problem accepting his fate, but his composure started to slip when you met Yeonjun. It was the first time you’d dated someone who Sunghoon had reason to be jealous of. In every way, Yeonjun was better than him—taller, funnier, hotter. Sunghoon knew he didn’t stand a chance. He took it personally, you liking Yeonjun instead of him, and let his jealousy consume him from the inside out. 

This jealousy led him to start telling you about Minjeong—lying to you about Minjeong, and his feelings for her. She was a girl from a college out of town that he saw on his Instagram Explore page. He followed her by accident, and by some stroke of luck, she followed back. Sunghoon didn’t really have feelings for her — he didn’t even know her — but she was a girl that you didn’t know, so you wouldn’t be able to meddle. 

It only took a few weeks for Sunghoon to become so upset about your relationship that he couldn’t hide his emotions anymore. So, in a fit of tears, he told you over the phone that things ended badly with Minjeong, and he was in urgent need of a soju ceremony. 

But the night was missing its usual comforts.

It was strange to be the one crying, to see you looking put together and ordering the food. To see you pouring the drinks and raising your glass to propose a toast to ‘Hoonie’s first heartbreak’. You were driving that night, so you only had a tiny sip of soju and let him drink as much as he needed, the way he always did for you, at the same table, in the same restaurant for years. 

Hours later, in your car, you entertained his drunken rambles, though he remembers how your lips were set into a frown that he wanted to kiss away while you gripped the steering wheel like you thought it would run from you. Sunghoon was more drunk than he’d been in a while, drunk enough to let you sling his arm over your shoulders and keep him upright until you reached his flat. 

The voices coming from Yeji’s room disrupt the memory. He’s thankful.

“Your brother’s going through something, so be nice to him this weekend.” His mother’s voice is her version of hushed—a loud whisper. 

Yeji’s response is harder to make out, but he doesn’t miss the way their mum says, “I mean it, missy.” 

A dramatic sigh rumbles through Yeji as she barges into his room without knocking. Sunghoon sits up, feeling an ache in his back and crossing his legs. 

“Mum told me to lay off you today, which is fine, but before I do, I need to tell you something.” 

Yeji pushes the door shut behind her, and the open window makes it slam, both of them flinching from the sudden noise. She pulls her hair out of a silk scrunchie and throws herself on the floor. A pang of irritation forms in his chest, knowing that he could immediately find the empty hanger in his wardrobe where the shirt she’s wearing used to live. 

“I hate you and your perfect golden boy image, Hoon. Would it kill you to fail a class for once? I don’t know how I’m supposed to carry on your legacy.” She’s looking up at him, her chin in her hands and irritation written in the crease between her thick brows. 

It’s impossible to know if it’s because of Yeji’s complete lack of boundaries or the fact that her ‘perfect, golden boy’ big brother is on track to fail three out of three classes and get cut from the hockey team, but Sunghoon immediately bursts into tears. 

“Oh, uh.. I’m sorry?” Yeji offers. “I was kidding if that helps.” 

“I’m alright, it’s okay.” The tears don’t stop stinging his eyes. “Why do you want me to change everything about myself?” 

With a frown, Yeji pours out her frustration and mild resentment. She doesn’t understand how Sunghoon effortlessly conquers every aspect of life while she struggles. Neither do their parents, who had been baffled by her plummeting grades since she moved to boarding school, especially when Sunghoon’s academic performance has only soared since he left for university. The weight of this perceived injustice pulls Sunghoon’s shoulders down with guilt as she talks about the expectations he has inadvertently set for her. 

“But other than that, I’m good.” She shrugs, sitting with her legs out, and leaning back on her palms. “How’s YN?” she asks. It’s clear from the brightness in her voice that she thinks she’s helping. 

Sunghoon cries again. 

Back on campus, he’s trying to scrape together what’s left of his academic career with the help of two of the smartest guys he knows, and their friend Jay. Though the word ‘friend’ feels a little strong at the moment given the way Jay’s goading him. 

Sunghoon rolls his eyes, sitting back in his seat. “There’s nothing you can do that I can’t,” he says, meaning every word. 

Jay scoffs, shrugging and raising his brow in a way that, over the years, Sunghoon knows to interpret as his ‘about to say something ridiculous’ look. “Pretty sure I could call YN right now, and she’d answer.” 

There’s a pit in Sunghoon’s stomach as Heeseung turns his head in the other direction like he’s been slapped, trembling with stifled laughter. At least Jake doesn’t hide his amusement, throwing his head back in a fit of giggles that draw nasty looks from the other students in the library. Sunghoon doesn’t waste his energy trying to argue because Jay’s right.

Now composed, Heeseung turns back to the table, flipping through some of Sunghoon’s course materials to find whatever his class was doing in class that week. The English Literature class he’s taking — The Modernist Movement: Joyce, Woolf, and Hemingway — is the same class he had to send a million emails over the summer to get enrolled in, but it’s the same one Heeseung aced two years ago. Lucky for him none of the boys seem to be in the mood to make fun of him for trying so hard to have a class in common with you, and then practically failing out of it before the term had started properly.

“This class is, like, beyond easy, dude.” Heeseung pauses to sniffle and twist the stud in his ear. “Everyone in my class aced it. How are you doing so badly already?” 

“I only took it because YN thought it’d be fun if we had a class together, but.. I kind of haven’t been going since we stopped talking.” Sunghoon shrugs, pretending to be unaffected. 

As if the mere mention of your name has some sort of summoning power, like saying Biggie Smalls in the mirror three times, you appear in his eye line, rounding the corner with a furious stride. Your demeanour crumbles when Jay waves at you, and you grin, waving back, but as soon as you look Sunghoon in the eye again, the rage comes back, and you smack a hand on the table when you reach it, leaning over to him. 

“Sunghoon, a word?” you ask.

He thinks you’re asking, but it’s hard to tell with the way you set your jaw afterwards, and the way the warmth of your signature vanilla scent hits him hard. Dazed, Sunghoon lifts a hand, pointing at himself. “Me?” 

“Does anyone else at the table answer to Sunghoon?” 

“Okay,” he says, somewhat pathetically, nudging Jay for laughing at him. 

As slowly as possible, Sunghoon pushes his chair from the table and stands up, following you to the corner of the references section where only anthropology students in scratchy thrift store knits, and Jay, come to check out encyclopaedias by volume. You look good, save for the rage written all over your face—which, honestly, Sunghoon thinks he likes.

Sunghoon isn’t sure what to expect, so he says, “Hey.” He’s being cautious, waiting a moment to gauge your reaction. “What’s gooooood?” His cheeks burn as soon as he closes his mouth around the vowel, but you laugh. You laugh, and it’s beautiful and happy, and you’re laughing because of him—or at him, but he’s glad either way. 

Annoyance quickly clears all traces of amusement on your face. “Were you ever going to tell me we’re spending next week at Mum and Dad’s?” you ask. 

Sunghoon gasps dramatically, clicking his fingers. “I knew there was something I’ve been meaning to do.” 

His attempt at lightening the mood falls flat, and you only nudge his shoulder gently, sighing. “Can you be serious? For once in your life, even for a second, can you please think about how the things you say affect me?” You’re frowning, crossing your arms over your chest and looking at your feet. “It’s not fair, Sunghoon. For you to keep saying things—making plans involving me and then acting like I’m the bad guy when I turn you down.” 

“I don’t think you’re the bad guy at all,” Sunghoon admits. “If anyone is in the wrong, it’s me, I guess.”

You scoff, looking at him like you hate him. “You guess? Are you serious?” You look furious, but you sound hurt and Sunghoon hates it. Hates himself. “I can’t have this conversation with you right now. Tell mum I’m sick, and it’s contagious.” You roll your eyes and walk away, leaving Sunghoon alone with his thoughts and judgemental stares from students in crochet scarves so long they graze the floor. 

He sighs, slumping against the wall. How does he keep getting it wrong with you? 

Back at the table, Sunghoon manages to act like he’s not falling apart and makes some serious headway on his missing assignments with Heeseung’s help before they call it a day as the sun starts to set. 

When he gets home, he lies down on his bedroom floor, spending hours poring over the conversation you had. Over the minute changes in your facial expression, the tone of your voice, and the endless list of things he should have done, rather than watch you walk away. 

The moment feels familiar, both identical to and worlds apart from what happened after you left three months ago. When he managed to scrape the last shreds of his dignity from the kitchen table, he dragged his feet to his room and lay down like he is now, face to the rug. That day, he left his door open and lay so still that Jake thought he was dead. Sunghoon remembers wishing he had been. 

For once in your life, even for a second, can you please think about how the things you say affect me? The words run on a loop in his mind, over and over, until he can’t remember the order of the sentence or where you put emphasis. They’re cutting all the same. 

Sunghoon sighs into the itchy fibres of his black rug before rolling onto his back. In the diminishing purple light of the setting sun. he looks at the walls of his room. At the Fleetwood Mac poster, he stole from Jay when they moved out of their first year dorm, that curls away from the wall towards the ceiling—a diagonal strip of shiny tape being the only indication of the otherwise invisible tear through the face of Stevie Nicks. 

He’s glad when his phone rings, cutting through the quiet, though the sight of your name and the anatomical heart emoji next to it only dampens his spirit. Reluctantly, Sunghoon answers the phone, holding it to his ear. 

“I just got off the phone with Dad..” You trail off. Tangible silence follows, so thick it weighs on his chest. “I’ll go home with you.” 

“You will?” 

“Yes. Goodbye.” 

Sunghoon reaches your flat at five in the evening. You don’t smile when you open the door for him, nor do you invite him in. Instead, you dump your bag at your feet and he cringes, looking from the floor to you. You’re aggressively beautiful and cosy-looking as you pull a jacket over the sweater you wore that night. Sunghoon’s heart aches in his chest and he wonders if you even realise. Suddenly, the memory of the last thing you said the morning after hits him like a truck: Then let’s not be friends at all. 

A familiar weight lands on his shoulder—your hand. Concern lines your eyes as you ask if he’s okay. 

With a lump in his throat, Sunghoon nods. 

In the discomfort of his car, the two of you sit in silence while he starts the drive home. 

“How’s Yeonjun,” he asks, eyes flicking towards you but regretting it immediately when he sees how you clench your jaw. 

“No,” you say simply, shaking your head. “You don’t get to ask me about him.” 

These are the only words you exchange until Sunghoon stops for petrol. He has enough fuel for the rest of the journey, but he feels like dying and thinks the fresh air might quell his thoughts of running his car off the road. Like always, the two of you get out and head into the kiosk, where he follows you wordlessly through the aisles, watching you debate on snack choices before settling on the same things you always get. Sunghoon pays for your snacks and you roll your eyes but don’t protest, mumbling thanks as you take them into your arms, leading the way back outside.

He knows he needs to tell you before you reach the house, but he’s not entirely sure how to say it—so he just does. “My, uh.. my parents think we’re dating.”

You stop so suddenly in front of him that he almost bumps into you. Stepping around you, Sunghoon keeps walking. 

Over the top of his car, he watches your face cycle through all five stages of grief until anger comes back around in the loop as you scoff. “Why do they think that?” Your face is devoid of expression now, the blankness over your features dragging a sharp chill over his spine. 

He stares blankly at you, processing. “Because I told them we’re dating,” he mumbles. 

“Why did you.. do that?” You tilt your head, eyes pressing shut in a long blink. “What are you even talking about? Why did you.. What?” 

A thin layer of sweat coats his palms despite the cold. Why did he do that? “We can stage a breakup during the trip or say we broke up right now,” Sunghoon offers. “Just one night, YN, please.” 

The wind whistles by, ruffling your hair and jacket that you hug tightly to your chest. Behind you, Sunghoon takes note of the group of girls standing by the pumps, all five of them jerking their heads abruptly when they notice him watching, suddenly finding interest in the scattered litter and flickering halogen bulbs in the steel canopy over their heads. 

You’re staring when he looks back at you, nostrils twitching with a sniffle before you sigh. “Or we could say that you’re a liar and end things there,” you say. “Or better yet, you go down there on your own and tell them the truth.”

Sunghoon’s gaze drops, his thoughts racing in his mind. He knows you’re right. At some point, his parents will have to find out, and it’d be better for them to find out now. Sunghoon sighs, nodding. “Alright,” he concedes. “I’ll take you back.”

An angry laugh comes out of you as you shake your head. “No need, I’ll walk.” 

The station you’re at is neatly nestled in the middle of nowhere, on a road so narrow he’s not even sure it has a pavement. You’re halfway through the three-hour drive, so there’s no telling how long the walk would be, never mind the fact that the sun is already setting and it’s deep enough into October for the wind to sting. 

“From here?” he asks, incredulous. 

“Yes, open the boot so I can get my bag.” 

Sunghoon can only bring himself to say your name, a desperate whisper. 

“Open the boot.”

He repeats your name as if it’ll make a difference, he’s pleading with you, begging—though he doesn’t know for what. 

You go to the back of his car where Sunghoon joins you, a pit in his stomach when you step away. With misty eyes, you look up at him and his heart breaks. “Please.”

Sunghoon knows you well enough to know that you’re not actually going to attempt the walk home but also knows that you won’t back down if he keeps challenging you. He nods, opening the boot for you and getting into the driver’s seat—your move. 

You stand there, unmoving, and long enough passes that he thinks you’ll actually leave. The boot closes softly and you join him in the passenger seat. You sigh, buckling your seatbelt. “Let’s just get this over with.” 

For the rest of the journey, you sit in silence as Sunghoon briefs you on the relationship, fighting a smile as he thinks about being your boyfriend—even if only for a night. You scoff when he ‘reminds’ you that you’ve been together for four months now and the only reason you haven’t been able to come home recently is that your schedules don’t match up very well anymore—which couldn’t be further from the truth as, before term started, you went out to celebrate the fact that your class schedules couldn’t be more suited for seeing each other. 

Finally, at Sunghoon’s childhood home, the two of you smile and laugh for his parents before going to bed. Your relationship has only made his mother more averse to the idea of you sharing a room under her roof than she had been when you were younger. He’s relieved about this, and in the solitude of his bedroom, he lies on the duvet of his twin bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about the last few hours. 

With his parents, you’d sat up in the living room watching TV. They sat on the couch together, his mum nestled in his dad’s side, while you two sat on the couch opposite, mirroring their position. If your complete stiffness was anything to go by, you were less than comfortable with his arm around you and Sunghoon felt terrible for begging you to go along with this. It was after midnight when you all went upstairs and you let him kiss your forehead before all but slamming the door to the guest room in his face. His heart twirled and his mum beamed at him before saying goodnight again. 

Now, at 3 a.m. he can’t sleep. Flinching at the knock on his door, he furrows his brows and goes to open it. It’s you. Standing there with your hair scraped away from your face in one of his t-shirts. Your eyes are red, brimmed with tears as you step into his room and sit on his bed. 

He closes the door softly, heart aching at the sight of you so upset, and when he sits next to you, his heart tears apart because you move over, putting a distance between you. It falls out of his chest onto the floor when he realises you’re not wearing your necklace. 

Sunghoon suspected you might have stopped wearing it, it only made sense that if you didn’t want him, you wouldn’t want the necklace he bought for you either, but at least earlier, your sweatshirt sat so high he couldn’t see if you had it on or not. 

It was a gift for your sixteenth birthday, after your first heartbreak. He was so upset and angry that you let some loser hurt you that way, upset and angry that someone could be loved by you and fuck it up. Sunghoon was inspired by Jay, who’d gotten a pretty necklace for his girlfriend, and talked about her cute reaction for weeks, how happy she was to have a piece of him with her all the time. It was a locket, with a picture of Jay in one side and a picture of her in the other so the pictures would kiss when she wore it. 

While at the jewellers with Jake, Sunghoon thought something like that might be a bit much for the two of you and eventually picked out an equally pretty piece with his first initial on it. He wrote a corny note to put in the box, something about how ‘boys come and go but Sunghoon is forever’ and gave it to you with trembling hands a few nights later—it was the first time he ever made you cry. Immediately, he thought he’d done something wrong and was ready to snatch the box and run back to the jewellers (even though he trashed the receipt). You hugged him and told him you loved him. Sunghoon’s been riding that high ever since. 

Until tonight at least. 

“Are you okay?” he whispers. 

“I’ll do it, Hoon.” Your eyes lift from the floor to meet his gaze. “For as long as you need me to, I’ll pretend.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, Sunghoon feels lighter, an unbearable weight slipping from his shoulders. You haven’t called him ‘Hoon’ in ages, and he can’t tell if you’ve said it out of vulnerability, or even noticed that you’ve said it at all, but it warms his heart nonetheless. However, he’s not fully at ease, still curious about your sudden change of heart and why you’re crying. 

“What happened?”

You pull him into a hug, and his eyes bulge out of his head. “It doesn’t matter,” you say, the words muffled by the skin at the base of his neck. 

For as long as he’s known you, you’ve smelled like vanilla, a sweet warmth that grounds him. Yet it’s only after these months apart that he’s able to put a name to the sensation: home. The realisation of how much he’s missed this feeling, missed you, floods him with a rush of emotion so overwhelming he can’t find the words to press the issue. A moment passes before he remembers to hug you back, his arms finally wrapping around you, pulling you close, and you sink into his hold. Months ago, he would have kissed the top of your head and mumbled reassurance into your hair, but tonight, Sunghoon settles for stroking the back of your head and hopes it’s enough. 

“You can talk to me, you know? You can always talk to me.”

A heavy silence follows, sharp as a dagger—scraping his skin, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge and lodging itself between his shoulder blades. Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat when you cling onto him even tighter, shifting so close you’ve had to settle in his lap. His heart races in his chest, pounding a rhythm so loud it fills the room. 

Finally, you speak, assuring him that you know and that you’re okay. At this, Sunghoon holds you as tight as he can, and neither of you speaks for the rest of the night. You fall asleep like this, in his arms, so deeply that you don’t even stir when he lies down. 

Rubbing your back, he watches the clock on his nightstand, the piercing green LED digits cycling through two whole hours right before his stinging eyes until you wake up. Sunghoon presses his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep when you kiss his cheek and leave his room. 

For the entire morning, you stay in your room, and although Sunghoon is concerned, he decides not to bother you. In the afternoon, he sits at the dining table with his mum, listening as she talks about work. When she asks him, he gets up to make a cup of tea for her. It’s at that moment when you finally come downstairs, looking so effortlessly pretty. Your hair is still damp from the shower, and you’re bundled up in one of his old sweatshirts. There’s a bright grin on your face that leaves his heart thudding. 

“Baby!” you squeal when you see him, charging towards him and wrapping your arms around him from behind. “Good morning.” Your words are muffled against the back of his t-shirt, and the four-letter word, and the sugar coating it, make his cheeks burn. 

“It’s great to see you too, YN,” his mum says with a smile. “My night was amazing; I slept very well and had no dreams.” 

You let go of Sunghoon and walk over to the table, kissing his mum on the cheek and wishing her a good morning as well. “Sorry, mum, how are you?” 

His mother doesn’t seem to have the heart to correct you either, allowing your 3 p.m. ‘good morning’ to go unnoticed. 

Sunghoon carefully fills both mugs to the brim and, with extra caution, carries them to the table. He places a steaming cup of peppermint tea in front of his mum and a milky coffee in front of you. A warm smile spreads across your face as you mouth a ‘thank you’, and his knees turn to jelly. 

The next day, after eating an early dinner with his parents at the table, the four of you go out on a walk along the bike path you used to take for school. His parents have gone ahead, not intentionally, but because Sunghoon can’t stop you from dragging your feet. 

As with most things in the town where you grew up, nothing about the trail has changed. The leaves are yellowing in standard form for the season, and crunching under his feet with each step he takes. The only foreign experience is the silence that you’re determined to uphold. Everything Sunghoon says to you is met with either a hum, a nod, or no acknowledgement at all. At this point, he feels like he could drop dead at your side and the most you’d do is step over his body like a fallen branch. 

After letting you go ahead, the weathered slats of the wooden footbridge sag in the middle under his tread. It’s been like this for as long as he can remember and he wonders how nothing has been done about it. The stream rushes under it, loud and unruly, the smell of wet grass both comforting and suffocating as you look over the railing. It’s like something from a postcard, the low-hanging branches sweeping back and forth under the breeze, the grass lush and green around the path, murky water thrashing against the mud and rocks underneath with you in the middle of the frame, peering over the edge.

You keep walking when Sunghoon approaches, leaving him alone on the creaky bridge with nothing but the ache in his chest. He looks up, staring at the grey clouds in the sky through the gaps in the leaves, and sighs. 

Eventually, he catches up with you, grabbing your hand and locking his fingers with yours when his parents slow down. You stiffen, looking up at him with cut eyes and a creased brow. “What are you doing?”

Sunghoon matches your clipped tone. “Holding my girlfriend’s hand.” 

“No one’s looking, boyfriend.”

“You think my parents aren’t going to wonder why we’re lagging behind?” 

A scoff—your fingers remain defiantly stiff. “Do you think your parents are going to care whether or not we’re holding hands?” 

“My mum might after the show you put on yesterday afternoon, baby.” Bitterness covers the word like a blanket, a stark departure from how you said it. 

A long sigh rumbles its way out of you before you fix your lips into a strained grin. “Sorry, sweetheart, this is my first time pretending to be in love.” 

As your words hang in the air, Sunghoon’s emotions brew like a storm within him. Frustration gnaws at his patience. All hopes for a smooth week are dashed, though determination simmers in his chest with a strong resolve to make this work, to fix your relationship. It doesn’t stop the sharp pang of hurt piercing his stomach—he knows you don’t feel the same way, he knows you’re faking, but the word ‘pretending’ hits him like a truck anyway. 

“We held hands all the time when we were friends,” he points out.

Your smile drops immediately, hurt flashing behind your eyes. “Yeah, and now we’re not.” 

If there was a competition for who could hurt Sunghoon’s feelings the most, you’d be a shoo-in for first place. With distinction. 

“Exactly!” he says, feeling the sting of his own words. “Because now we’re dating.”

At the sight of his mum turning around, you switch up in an instant. Lock your fingers with his, wrapping an arm around his bicep, leaning into him, giggling. It’s forced but his parents are far enough away that all that matters is the curve of your lips.

“You two okay back there?” she asks. 

“Perfect! I feel like a kid again!” you call back, beaming up at Sunghoon in a way that makes his stomach flutter even though it doesn’t meet your eyes. 

The two of you don’t talk at all when you get home, with you hugging his parents goodnight and running up the stairs. 

“She’s not feeling too well,” he explains, nodding when his dad tells him to make you some tea. 

His parents spend the whole day at work, and you spend the whole day following him around like a shadow until the evening when they return. He doesn’t pretend not to like it.

Sunghoon helps you make dinner, turning leftover rice into fried rice with the help of some eggs and vegetables. It’s nice moving around the kitchen with you, watching you scramble eggs in his t-shirt and bump his hip with a playful frown when he eats some of the peppers you’re chopping. 

His parents watch from the table, cooing over the two of you and he does his best to fight the blush forming on his cheeks and neck. Embarrassed, he hugs you from behind, hiding his face in your neck—the scent of your coconut conditioner mixing with your vanilla perfume doesn’t do anything to stop the flush. 

Over a bottle of wine, the four of you eat together at the table, swapping stories about your days. Sunghoon tries to hide his surprise as you lie about the time you spent at the play park by your primary school, competing for height on the swings and spinning on the roundabout until you couldn’t stand up. You grin at him, and it meets your eyes as you hold his hand under the table, and kiss his cheek.

After eating, his parents head upstairs, leaving to clean up together. You hum a song he’s never heard as you load the dishwasher, carefully placing the plates and cutlery in the rack, shaking your head when he hands you the glasses you’d used. 

“Leave ours,” you say. “If you want.” 

Sunghoon nods, putting them back on the table, where you sit in the seat across from the one he was sitting in. He sits too, staying quiet rather than saying the wrong thing. You don’t speak either. It’s reminiscent of the past—the hours you’d spend in the same room, only speaking to share a funny post you’d come across or to ask if you were hungry. 

His eyes track your movements—reaching for the half-empty bottle on the table to pour yourself another glass, filling it to the brim. Before putting it down, you offer him some, filling his glass too when he nods. The three glasses of wine he’s already had must be the reason he wants to reach across the table and hold your hand, run his thumb over the soft skin on the back of it. 

Sunghoon doesn’t know why you’ve been so nice to him all day or why it makes his chest hurt. 

“You know you don’t have to be nice to me when we’re alone, right?” The words come out before he can stop them.

Over the top of your glass, your brows knit together. A sound of confusion, a low hum, comes from your throat as you try to finish your sip. “What?” you ask finally. 

“I only asked you to do this because of my parents, you know? You don’t have to sit or talk with me when they’re not around.” 

Sunghoon’s known you long enough to recognise the look that flashes across your face. The way your eyes narrow and your brows tug together, the little pout that sets on your lips before you speak; you’re hurt.

“Why can’t I just be nice to you because it’s the right thing to do?” 

Because it hurts, is what he wants to say. He wants to cry, to beg you to forget everything he said that day. “Because I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than I already have.” Is what he settles for. 

Your face softens. “I don’t feel uncomfortable around you, Hoon. We were best friends for ages, I don’t think you could ever make me uncomfortable.” You pause to take a gulp of wine. “Why can’t I just want to be nice to you?” 

Sunghoon has to chew on his cheek to distract himself from how much your word choice stings. The implications of were and all of your past tense. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

“What for?” 

“Everything.” 

There’s a sadness in the way you run your fingers on the base of your glass. The way you chew on your lip, how your hair falls when you tilt your head and how it moves when you shake it. “It’s not your fault,” you say. “I don’t know anyone who would choose to have unrequited feelings for their best friend.” 

Wow, he thinks. You’re on a roll. Sunghoon wonders if you’re meticulously choosing your phrasing to upset him. Wonders why you feel the need to remind him that his feelings aren’t reciprocated as if he didn’t live through and spend hours reliving the day he confessed. 

“But I didn’t have to tell you about it. It was unfair of me to spring that on you when I knew about Yeonjun.” 

“Did you.. did you think I was going to leave him for you?” 

“Maybe?” Sunghoon chews on his lip—he has no idea what he thought would happen. “I think I thought I loved you enough for both of us, that you might play the part for fun or out of curiosity, and.. I don’t know, just learn to love me.”

“Hoon,” you whisper, frowning. “How could you even think about settling for something like that?” 

Sunghoon shrugs. “It’s not settling if it’s you.” 

Silence takes a seat at the table after he speaks, interrupted only by the ticking clock on the wall—a glittery mess of scrapbooking paper and washi tape layered over each other that Yeji had decorated at summer camp years ago. You’re picking at your fingernails, letting flecks of black polish fall to the table, stark against the varnished oak. 

“I know it’s not my place to ask,” Sunghoon starts after a while, hesitant and only continuing when you nod. “But what did Yeonjun say when you told him? About.. everything?” 

You take a long sip from your glass and sit quietly for so long that he thinks you’re not going to answer him—he doesn’t blame you. 

“I didn’t.” 

He waits for you to elaborate. You don’t. 

Sunghoon nods slowly, deciding not to ask any follow-up questions. Instead, he takes another drink, scrunching his nose at the bitter taste. “He didn’t ask why we stopped hanging out?” he blurts out.

“I told him we fell out but I didn’t say why.” You shrug, but your posture is stiff. 

“Where did you tell him you were going to be this week?” He knows it’s not his business at all, that he’s pushing your boundaries, but he can’t help his curiosity.

“Nowhere.” 

“You told him you were staying on campus?” 

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Your gaze shifts, avoiding his as you toy with the stem of your glass. You drum your nails against it, letting the dull clink ring out. 

“So you just left?” 

“Does it make a difference to you?” 

Sunghoon nods.

For a while, you tug at the drawstrings on your hoodie, pursing your lips to the side, considering this. “Yeonjun and I aren’t together anymore.” Your admission is so shocking that Sunghoon’s jaw drops. He tries to cover his surprise by coughing, his tongue sticking out like a small child. “I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want you to think it was because of you.” 

Sunghoon’s thoughts move at lightspeed, too fast for him to catch onto any of them and process this information. His emotions compete with each other—disbelief, guilt, and a painful glimmer of hope he hadn’t dared to acknowledge until now all at the forefront. 

“Was it?” he asks. “Because of me?” 

You scoff—an incredulous sound that doesn’t match the sad look on your face. “I don’t know, Sunghoon. Do you think my boyfriend used me to make his ex jealous because of you?”

He’s not sure what he expected you to say, but this is.. Complete disbelief eclipses him as his heart sinks in his chest, shock, and guilt bubbling in his stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” he says after too long. “That I wasn’t there. That I haven’t been there.” 

“You didn’t know,” you say, gaze softening as you look up at him. 

“But I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about it.” 

You shake your head. “I made me feel like I couldn’t talk to you about it. All you did was change the friendship, I’m the one who ended it.”

“I still should’ve been there.” 

“You’re here now, right?” 

Sunghoon nods, earnestly. “Always.” 

Only one thing comes to mind when you repeat the word ‘always’ before taking a sip from your glass, downing its contents. Sunghoon gets up and crosses the room with wobbly steps to open the fridge, where he pulls out as many bottles of soju as he can hold in his hands and puts them down on the table. He goes back to collect some glasses from the cabinet, puts some of the leftover fried rice from dinner into the microwave, and brings it all over when it’s done, with bowls and utensils. You watch him with a fond smile as he opens a bottle and he hopes you think the flush on his cheeks is from all the drinking you’ve been doing. 

“Is it bad that I’ve missed doing this?” You’re grinning now.

Sunghoon shakes his head, raising his glass. “To YN’s fifteenth heartbreak.” 

You grin, clinking the rim of your glass against his. “To YN’s fifteenth heartbreak,” you repeat. 

Both of you down the glasses, and Sunghoon refills them, pouring the soju with an oddly steady hand. As you eat spoonfuls of rice and sip your drinks, silence settles over the room. The soft glow of the kitchen lights forms a warm ambience, a cosy familiarity that brings up simple memories—doing homework together at the table while gossiping about your classmates, the first New Year after you were both eighteen and had your first drink with his parents. 

For at least an hour, the only sounds are the occasional clinks of forks against bowls, glasses hitting the table, the faint hum of the refrigerator and the steady tick of Yeji’s clock. Sunghoon’s eyes meet yours, and he can’t help but notice the slight change in your expression when they do. 

You clear your throat, running a hand through your hair. “This is my sixteenth, actually.” 

“What?” 

You take a small sip of soju, staring down at the table. “My fifteenth heartbreak was losing you. Yeonjun is my sixteenth.”

In the two days since your soju ceremony, Sunghoon finds himself sinking into the role of your boyfriend like a hot bath. But there’s no use pretending it doesn’t hurt. Pretending it doesn’t hurt when you kiss his cheek before bed, or when you reach out to push the hair out of his face or snuggle into his side on the couch; because it does hurt—a lot. It hurts to think that in three days when you put your bags in the boot of his car, you’ll sit in silence all the way home. When he drops you off at your flat, you’ll close the door in his face and stop talking to him again. These realisations are harder to confront when he’s alone in his room, like now. 

About an hour ago, you asked if you could borrow his car, saying there was something you needed to do on your own. It seemed important, so he handed over his keys with no question. Sighing, Sunghoon gets up from his bed and heads to the shower, where he jerks off to clear his mind. On his way back to his room, he notices the light leaking from the open kitchen door that illuminates the landing. 

He hears the lock on the front door clicking, and stands at the top of the stairs, dripping water onto the carpet while listening attentively. His ears perk up when he hears a gasp—his mother. 

“What’s this for?” she asks. 

“I just..” You trail off. “I know it’s not much, but I wanted to thank you both for always looking after me.” You pause, and Sunghoon holds his breath, waiting. Your voice trembles as you continue. “It’s been hard since my parents went back home, and I guess it was still hard when they were here, but you both supported me. I don’t think I could’ve managed without you guys. I want to make you guys proud, you know? And I’m trying, really, so this is me saying thank you. I’m sorry it took me so long.” 

He grips the railing by the landing, digging his nails into the wood until they start hurting—an ache in his fingertips that makes him wince. 

An odd feeling settles in his stomach, a bittersweetness tinged in his fondness for you, and the gentle shock of realising how much his parents have done for you. Growing up, you became an honorary member of Sunghoon’s family. His parents showered you with gifts during holidays and birthdays, which you often celebrated with them rather than your own family. 

The memory of your parents’ sudden decision to move across the country still lingers, and Sunghoon vividly recalls the tearful conversation he overheard at the top of the stairs. Your parents understood the enormity of their request but had earnestly asked if Sunghoon’s parents could continue looking after you. 

His chest tightens when you start crying. 

“You don’t have to thank us for anything, sweetie. Just you being here and taking care of our boy is more than enough thanks. You never forget our birthdays, and you always come and visit when you can. You’re doing a great job, and you should give yourself some credit,” his dad says, a little choked up. “We’ve always been proud of you.” 

Sunghoon’s eyes sting with tears and his skin gets dry in the spots where the water from the shower is evaporating. He presses his fingers to his closed eyes, forcing a few tears to fall and walks the rest of the way to his room with his eyes shut. He can’t hear anything through his closed bedroom door, which he decides is a good thing as he coats himself in moisturiser and swipes deodorant under his arms with intention to spend the whole night alone. Once he’s dressed, he gets into bed and pretends not to be bothered by the way his wet hair dampens his pillow. Under the duvet, he tosses and turns before sighing and heading to Yeji’s room.

In her absence, the room’s subtle transformation is stark. The sage green-painted walls, once a backdrop to the A3 faces of Wave to Earth and Beabadoobee, now bear the faint imprints of those missing posters. Tiny, shadowy rectangles are the only remnants of the 6x4-sized pictures of her and her friends, of her and Sunghoon, that she took away with her to school.

Her hairdryer is still on her desk where she’d left it for him to use and he sits in her stiff wooden chair, plugging it in. The airflow starts immediately, hot and loud, humming throughout the space as he runs his fingers through his wet hair, feeling cosy under the heat. His shampoo is fresh and soapy scented under his nose, and his reflection watches him in Yeji’s mirror, eyes red and concerned while his hair blows around his head. Sunghoon closes his eyes and finishes his hair, sighing as he lets his worries slip under the whir of the fan. 

Finished, he shuts off the dryer and opens his eyes, flinching at your reflection in the doorway behind him with a soft smile on your face. “Mum and Dad are going to open a bottle of wine if you want to join,” you say, meeting his eyes in the mirror. 

Sunghoon can’t find it in himself to speak, only nodding in response. You smile wider but don’t move. He unplugs the hairdryer and leaves it on the desk where he found it before crossing the room. Without giving himself a chance to think about it, he pulls you into a hug and kisses the top of your head, smiling into your hair when you wrap your arms around his waist, holding him closer. 

You’re sitting on the edge of the bathtub, mumbling sleepily that you’re never going to drink again, and Sunghoon leans over the sink brushing his teeth, he’s glad you have the decency to cover your mouth as you speak. 

“Brush your teeth and go back to sleep then,” he mumbles around his toothbrush. 

You don’t respond. 

Sunghoon sighs through his nose, spitting foamy toothpaste into the sink, leaving bubbly, blue splatters on the porcelain. “And quit staring at me, I can feel your beady little eyes on the back of my neck and it’s freaking me out.” 

“But you’re so pretty,” you coo. 

There’s a flutter in his stomach and he rinses off the sink and his mouth, buying himself some time. With a hand on the Listerine, he lifts his gaze to meet yours in the mirror and stops short. You’re still staring at him, features soft and glowing under the afternoon light. You look like an angel; a gentle smile spreading over your lips, and a sleepy glint sparkling in your eyes, wide and gorgeous as you watch him. Sunghoon gulps, mumbling his thanks and looking back at himself. He hopes you can’t see the flush on his cheeks. 

“Go back to sleep,” he says. 

“Will you come and lie down with me if I do?” Your voice is a sleepy drawl, coming out in a slow, high-pitched slur, and your eyes are closing on themselves. 

Lying down doesn’t sound like a terrible idea, especially not if it’s with you, so he nods. “If you brush your teeth, then yeah, baby, I’ll lie down with you.” 

You chuckle softly at Sunghoon’s agreement, the sound carrying a mix of exhaustion and genuine amusement, showing no repulsion to him calling you the B-word. He didn’t mean to, it’s been a confusing few days. You nod, saluting to him and getting up to join him by the sink, using your hip to bump him out of the way, but he feels like he’s glued to the spot. 

“Move, baby,” you mumble sleepily, reaching for your toothbrush. “We can cuddle in my bed,” you suggest, to which Sunghoon only nods, taking your words as a cue to unstick his feet from the floor and go to your room, playing the word ‘baby’ on a loop in his head. 

He stands in the doorway staring at your bed, the duvet is all crumpled in the middle, and the pillows are in an L shape at the top corner. He sighs, he can’t go on like this, can’t stand around hoping even a tiny part of you called him ‘baby’ and it meant something for you as it did for him. It’s not fair for him to project his feelings on you like this, but he can’t help it. You’re already pretending for his parents, so would it be so bad to pretend for his sake as well? Even if only until the day after tomorrow when you leave? 

The sound of the bathroom door shutting behind you snaps him out of his thoughts, your bright smile making his heart race when you tug him by the sleeve to your bed where the mattress dips underneath you as you curl into his form, resting your head on his chest and falling asleep. You’ve shared the bed before, countless times, but he knows you’ve only asked him because you’re tired. Because your brain is foggy with drowsiness that clouds your judgement, not because you want him there, not because you miss him when he’s two doors down the hall, tossing and turning at night thinking about you. He wonders absently if you can feel his aching heart beating through his chest, a painful, yet all too familiar rhythm that pulls his own eyes shut, plunging him into a deep sleep too.

It’s dark in the room when he wakes up, the sun already down behind the curtains and the soft yellow of the bedside lamp casting a glow around the space. You’re staring up at him, smiling and you don’t look away when he catches you. “What is it?” he asks, voice thick with sleep. 

“Nothing,” you mumble. “I just missed you.” Sunghoon has no time to respond or even register what you said before you clear your throat, speaking again.  “Come on, dad’s cooking tonight, he’ll need help.” 

Helping Sunghoon’s dad with dinner always looks an awful lot like Sunghoon eating snacks on the kitchen counter and staring at you as you help his dad cook. Tonight is no exception, he’s sitting on the island, and his snack of choice is a family pack of Chilli Heatwave Doritos his mum bought for Yeji. He’ll have to remember to replace them before leaving seeing as he’s reaching the halfway point. 

You go back and forth with his dad about measurements, with you rummaging through the drawers for measuring cups while his dad says it’s best to trust your gut. Reluctantly, you nod, chewing the inside of your cheek as you watch him eyeball the seasoning. 

The gas stove turns the kitchen into an oven, and you complain about it while opening a window, pulling your hoodie over your head and leaving it in Sunghoon’s lap. Time stops when you grin at him, the light from the stove hood illuminating the necklace you’re wearing, his initial resting on your chest and glowing under the light. He chokes around a crisp when he sees it, catching your attention with his coughing. 

“You’ll spoil your dinner, snacking like that, baby,” you scold, using a hand to push his knee. “We’re almost done, I swear.” 

All he can do is nod, cheeks burning as he folds the crisp packet over before putting it back in the bread bin where he found it. 

“Wow,” his dad says, resting his hands on his hips and shaking his head in amusement. “Being in love looks good on him, he’d never have listened if I said that.” 

It’s already your last day when Sunghoon picks up Yeji from school. She grumbles for the entire half-hour drive and all the way to the front door about why the two of you couldn’t have started the trip today instead of ending it, but all of her irritation dissolves when she sees you in the hallway, leaving the front door wide open to fling her arms around you. You and Yeji exchange compliments for a while — You look so pretty. No, you look so pretty. I love your hair. I love your hair. — as Sunghoon locks the door and watches with a smile.

“God.” Yeji sighs, holding you by the waist and craning her neck up to look at you, as you push some of her hair from her face, pinning back her wispy bangs with the palm of your hand. Yeji giggles. “I’m so happy you two are together, even though I have no idea what a girl like you sees in my loser brother.” 

Sunghoon rolls his eyes, leaning back against the wall. Despite his mild irritation at Yeji’s words, he finds the sight of you with her so adorable his stomach flutters. Over the top of Yeji’s head, you look at him with a fond smile. “He’s not so bad.” 

It doesn’t sound like a compliment, but Sunghoon takes it to heart. 

Like always, Yeji manages to capture your undivided attention and the two of you giggle and whisper with each other all afternoon while Sunghoon watches, too enamoured by the sight to care about being left out. An hour or so passes like this, until his parents get home from work, excited to see Yeji after a few weeks, and you leave her side, coming to cuddle with Sunghoon instead. 

It’s nice being home with everyone, laughing and sharing a meal before his family walks the two of you to his car with at least a month’s worth of cooked food for you to share at university. Yeji makes you pinky promise that she can visit you and waves with a pout on her face until the car is out of view.

Contrary to what he’d been expecting, the drive back is nice. Your playlist is on, and you’re telling him about all the new songs you added, catching him up on things with Chaewon and Yunjin, and all the things you got up to in the time you spent apart. You tell him about a new café that opened up near your place and how you’ll have to go together when he has the time, and Sunghoon bites his tongue before telling you that he always has time for you. The first half of the trip goes on like this but you start dozing off around the halfway mark, your sentences becoming few and far between, eventually turning into half-mumbled thoughts that end prematurely. 

You’re still asleep when he reaches your flat, head propped up against the window with your soft lips parted, looking too pretty and cosy to wake up. Instead, he drives in circles around your block, deciding to wait for you to wake up on your own. It only takes a half-hour but you blink your eyes open, stretching your neck before looking around and out the car window, recognising the street. You don’t say anything, only smiling when you look at him, a small curve of your lips that makes his heart race.

He gets out of the car with you, opening the boot to get your bag before pulling you into his chest for a hug, liking the way your arms settle around his waist. “Thank you,” he mumbles into your hair. 

Sunghoon doesn’t follow you when you take your bag from him, only watching from the back of his car. You don’t notice until you reach the main door, looking over your shoulder and frowning at him. “Aren’t you going to walk me up?” 

The two of you walk in silence up four flights of stairs as the lift in your building is out of order. Your bag feels much heavier in his hand now than it did outside. At your door, he watches you dig around for your keys, sighing with relief when you find them. 

“Do you want to come in?” you ask from your open doorway.

“I—uh—I have training in the morning and I’m already pretty tired, so..” He trails off.

Unfazed, you nod. “Right, of course. I had fun this week.” 

“Yeah, me too.” 

You smile at him, sweet and sincere. “Text me when you get home, yeah?” 

Sunghoon nods, saying goodbye. Out of habit, he doesn’t leave your doorstep until he hears the lock click shut, and walks back to his car with his head down. 

True to his word, he sends you a text to let you know he got back to his place safely and you read it immediately but don’t reply. It’s empty in the apartment, Jake is out with his football team and the space is larger than usual in his absence. Far too tired to even consider going out and joining him, Sunghoon goes through his night routine, putting his phone on the charger and stepping into the shower where he spends entirely too long wishing he could live in this week forever as he scrubs his body. With brushed teeth and damp hair, he goes back into his room where his phone lights up with a notification; a text, from you.

YN🫀: i’m glad you got home okay, i just got into bed :) i don’t want to make you uncomfortable or overstep or anything and you can say no (obviously).. i’ve been missing you so much and didn’t know how to reach out or if you wanted me to but i had soooo much fun this week and spending time with you again made me happy, so i’d like it if we could keep hanging out, like before yk? ik it’s a long shot ahahaha but just say you’ll think about it? 

hoonie: You’re not overstepping at all, I’ve missed you too, so bad. I had soooo much fun this week as well and I’d like it a lot if we kept hanging out, thank you for agreeing and coming along 😚 If you’re free after Lit tmrw you could come over? Or we could go out and do something, whatever you prefer

hoonie: I missed you so much.. 

hoonie: 🤍

The texts greet you as the first rays of Monday morning light filter into your room, instantly lifting your mood. Your bright smile doesn’t escape Chaewon’s notice as you find her in the kitchen, bathed in the soft light seeping through the sheer curtains. The kettle is boiling with a loud rumble that fills the whole room and leaves her yelling as she speaks to you. 

“Good trip?” she asks, coming over and hugging you. “Never leave me for that long again,” she mumbles into your shirt. 

“It was a week, Wonie,” you say, rolling your eyes even though you missed her too. 

She leans away, looking at you with knitted brows. “It was nine days.” 

“The longest of my life.” 

Chaewon pulls air through her teeth, tilting her head and releasing you. “That bad, huh?” she asks, walking back to her seat at your tiny square table and shooting you a look that tells you to join her. 

During your trip, you gave her nightly updates over text, so you know she knows how much you enjoyed yourself, but you elaborate anyway, sitting across from her. 

“No, not at all,” you say, shaking your head and trying to fight a smile. “I had fun.” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you have to bite your bottom lip to stop the grin curving them; it doesn’t work. 

Chaewon raises a suggestive brow, crossing her arms over her chest. “How much fun?” 

“You’re disgusting.” 

“I didn’t even say anything!” she defends, holding her hands up. “I made an implication. It was only a matter of time, you two have that whole.. lifelong best friends to lifelong lovers thing going on, and it’s hot.” 

“Shut up.” 

“You’re telling me, you spent nine days playing lovers with Sunghoon and you still don’t want him? You’re a lost cause, people would kill for that chance,” she says, tilting her head. “I think I would kill for that chance.” 

“Don’t touch him.”

“Oh?” 

“Jesus, Chaewon, it’s not like that. Hoon’s too sensitive for your roster.” 

“I never said it was like anything, you’re the one who’s dangling me over the ledge for saying I want to fuck your hot best friend.” 

“Sunghoon isn’t hot; he’s..” You find yourself at a loss for words, unsure how to continue your lie. Of course, Sunghoon is hot, you’ve known since you were seventeen and spent the summer at your grandparents’ house, only to come back to find your previously scrawny best friend having ditched his LEGOs for dumbbells. You sigh. “Just leave him alone.”

Chaewon grins, eyes sparkling as she leaves the table. “Okay,” she says in a singsong voice, leaving you and the irritation in your stomach alone in the kitchen.

You sigh, pressing your eyes shut and trying to will away your discomfort. It’s not like Chaewon would actually try anything with Sunghoon. Right? Even if she did, it wouldn’t bother you, nor would it be any of your business. They’re grownups and reserve the right to explore their options. Still, there’s a nagging feeling you can’t shake, an uninvited guest in the back of your mind. 

When you check your phone, you realise you have half an hour before you need to head to campus, so you leave to get ready and text Sunghoon back on the way to your room.

you: sounds good, see u later 🤍

After showering, you stand in front of your wardrobe, towel hanging from your body as you pick an outfit. For some reason, you feel under pressure, picking a pair of jeans that do the most for your ass and a low-cut top that Sunghoon once — drunkenly — said he loved on you.

You have the residual sting of mouthwash on your tongue, and one foot out the door when your phone vibrates in your hand. 

hoonie: Do you want to head to class together? 

you: sure! i’m omw out, where should i get you? 

hoonie: .. I’m outside your building :D 

Breathing a laugh through your nose, you don’t fight the giddy smile on your face as you make your way downstairs to meet Sunghoon. Through the glass in the main door, he’s standing at the edge of the pavement and kicking a stone between his feet. The top of his puffer jacket covers the bottom half of his face, and the draught nips your skin when the door opens. Two girls you vaguely recognise stumble in with smudged makeup and heels in their hands, smiling at you while holding the door to let you out.

“Hey!” you call out, jogging over to him. 

Sunghoon turns around, his head poking out of his jacket to grin at you, holding a travel cup and an abundance of tinfoil in your direction. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d have eaten anything yet, you don’t normally in the morning,” he says, a sheepish smile spreading over his lips when you take it. “Matcha. Ham and cheese toastie.” 

“Did you make these?” you ask, inspecting the familiar cup and appreciating the warmth it provides. 

He hums, nodding his head.

You ignore the heat spreading over your cheeks and thank him with a hug, grinning when he offers to hold your drink while you eat on the walk. The toastie is still hot, the cheese coming close to burning your tongue as you chew, but you appreciate it wholeheartedly, humming contently with each bite. When you’re done, you shove the foil into your pocket, taking your drink from him and smiling around the sweet taste of a matcha latte as he tells you about his schedule for the day. 

“I’m meeting with Coach after class to talk about my grades, but I’m all yours after that.” 

“Talk about your grades? What’s wrong with your grades?” 

Sunghoon groans, head falling back and highlighting the bump of his Adam’s apple. “My grades are.. I failed my coursework this month, so I have resubmissions during finals, and I think he’ll bench me if I fail again.” 

He sounds like he’s being serious, and if the look on his face is anything to go by, he is. The news creases your brows because for as long as you remember, Sunghoon’s grades were your parents’ favourite point of comparison.

“Really?” you ask. He nods. “What’s up? Is something the matter?” 

A humourless laugh slips out of him before he pulls air through his teeth. “Yeah, my best friend didn’t talk to me for three months.” 

“Oh..” Guilt stirs your stomach as you look up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you, it’s not like I was trying to talk and you ignored me.” He nudges your arm with his elbow, giving you a warm smile. “But if you feel as guilty about it as you look, you can tutor me for Lit.” 

“Deal.” 

Sunghoon grins, wrapping his arm over your shoulders and holding you close; the action itself isn’t unusual, but the increased heart rate it brings about is. “You’re too good to me,” he says, holding onto you for the rest of the walk to class.

At his request, you sit with Sunghoon in the back row, watching as the lecture hall gradually fills up in front of you. He seems well-prepared, with his laptop and a small notepad and pen neatly arranged on the desk in front of him.

Throughout the class, your eyes inadvertently track his every move. He diligently types up colour-coded notes, occasionally pausing to write things in his notepad before continuing to type or stopping entirely to listen. There’s something melodic about his actions and the way his fingers run over the keyboard. 

During a five-minute break, you glance at his screen. What you find is more than just lecture content; it’s a document adorned with Sunghoon’s own musings about Hemingway’s style and carefully analysed quotations that go beyond the class discussion.

“How are your notes so good?” 

“I picked up the book over the summer when you mentioned it,” Sunghoon replies with a shrug, a shy smile playing on his lips as he leans back in his seat. “I liked it.” 

A slow nod is your response, though your thoughts swirl like autumn leaves in a breeze. The last time Sunghoon read for leisure, you were in primary school, buddy reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But this—this is different. You can’t help but stare at him, awestruck as you take him in. His eyes are wide, shining amber in the sunlight as he pushes some of his hair from his face, frowning when it falls back where it was. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mumbles. 

Sunghoon takes a new line in his document and points at the screen where you watch the cursor move through the words he’s typing: I would’ve read and annotated the Bible if you wanted me to..

There’s no time to digest what he wrote or the funny feeling in your chest as you reread it before he deletes the whole sentence, pressing his lips together and looking out the window. Speechless, you stare at his side profile, willing your heart rate to slip back to normal. Steep-sloping nose, plump lips flattened into a line, two points of the triangular mole constellation on his face. Analysis worsens your condition, breath hitching in your throat before stopping entirely. Warmth and trepidation blend within you, fuzzy enough at the edges to seem like one thing—a single force that makes your palm itch with desire, desperation, to reach out and run a finger over his features, feel the bump of the mole on his nose — the most prominent — against your skin. 

You remain this way — silent, watching — even when your lecturer resumes the lesson, and Sunghoon starts typing, writing, and listening again. Polite enough to pretend he doesn’t notice your gaze searing into his face.

After class, and his meeting with Coach, you let Sunghoon lead the conversation and the way to your flat, where you find Chaewon and Yunjin sitting on the couch, whispering to themselves while the two of you study at the coffee table. It’s uncomfortable, an awkward height, too high for the way you’re sitting but you feel calm under the supervision of Chaewon and Yunjin—you won’t do anything to merit teasing in front of them, no matter how badly you want to feel Sunghoon’s face in your hands or stroke his cheekbones with your thumbs. 

To the best of your ability, you answer the questions he has for you—he’d written a ton in his tiny notepad during class, his own concerns clear with each neatly-penned iteration of: How to see actions/dialogue for what they are and not what I want them to be? written in the margins and you try not to feel heartbroken for him.

Three hours have passed by when you walk him to the door, the two of you wrapped up in a bubble so secure you’re surprised to find Chaewon and Yunjin still sitting on the couch. They don’t say anything about Sunghoon in his absence, or the fact he’d given you his sweater when he noticed you were cold. You’re not sure why their silence disappoints you.

Instead, Yunjin asks you about trivial things like dinner while Chaewon sits in silence. 

“What flavour for ice cream?” Yunjin asks, rolling her eyes when you tug on the blanket but not complaining. “And don’t say something ridiculous like mint chocolate, YN.” 

“That happened once! And it was three years ago.. How was I supposed to know you hate fun?” 

Chaewon leans into you, letting you curl your limbs around her from behind as you rest your chin on her shoulder, liking the way her clean scent tickles your nose. 

“Mint-cho isn’t that bad,” she starts. “It’s a little jarring, sure, but it’s kind of sweet. Like watching people come to terms with their feelings for each other.” 

You nod your head, humming in understanding and furrowing your brows when Yunjin scoffs, staring straight at you. Her tone is equal parts cutting and loving, so you know she’s not trying to insult you, but don’t know what she means when she says, “It must be so nice to be as oblivious as you.” 

Yunjin never elaborates, and you never ask, actually feeling the statement’s journey in through one of your ears and out the other when dinner arrives. The three of you share pizza, ice cream, and secrets — the three pillars of 20-something-teenage-girlhood — at the kitchen table, with Chaewon sitting in your lap and picking pepperoni from your slices. 

It’s only hours after Yunijn’s gone home, that her words circle back to you, the statement and all of its weight perching on your chest with all the debilitation and persistence of a sleep paralysis demon.

“I think I’m getting sick,” you say as soon as she opens her door. “It’s been coming on for a while now, at least a week, maybe more.” 

Unimpressed and exhausted, Yunjin looks down at you through half-closed eyes. “Do you..” She pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing. “Do you have any idea what time it is right now?” 

“Yes. It’s three a.m.” 

“Exactly. See a doctor if you’re sick, I’m going back to sleep.”

“This is an emergen—” Yunjin cuts you off by pinching your lips together. “It’s three in the morning,” she reminds you. “You can’t yell like that in my hallway, come in.” 

You nod, crossing the threshold and taking off your shoes next to hers. “Sorry,” you whisper when the door is closed. 

Using her hand, Yunjin lifts your chin, squinting as her eyes adjust to the light when she flips the switch to inspect your face. “You don’t look or sound sick,” she mutters, flicking the light back off and going to her room. “What are your symptoms? And why did you come here?” 

You don’t have an answer for her last question so you ignore it, following her and tripping over a pair of her shoes in the process. “My cheeks start burning like crazy and my heart races, sometimes it gets hard to breathe.”

“You seem fine to me.” 

A shoulder-slumping sigh slips from your lips. “That’s the thing. I’ll be fine and then Sunghoon shows up with his pretty smile and perfect hair and I feel like I’ve run a marathon.” You know how it sounds, choosing your wording meticulously to let Yunjin be the one to say the words out loud instead of you—it’ll be easier to confront that way. 

From the doorway, you watch as she arches a brow, her interest piqued. “Oh?” 

“I know.” You nod, head bobbing rapidly in furious agreement. “It’s only a matter of time before I cough up a lung and die in his bedroom.”

At your words, Yunjin doesn't reply, only lifting her duvet and getting cosy underneath. You feel like you’re glued to the spot, waiting for her to say something, anything, but nothing comes. All she does is pat the empty spot in her bed. 

“What are you smirking for?” you ask, entering the room properly and closing the door. 

Her response only comes after you’ve taken your jacket and hoodie off, sitting next to her under the covers. “It’s nothing,” she says, laughing. 

“Tell me.” 

Yunjin sighs, resting a hand gently on your shoulder. You think it’s meant to be comforting but it’s the opposite. “You’ll be fine, I promise. Lovesickness isn’t deadly.” 

Feeling the weight of her reassurance, you settle down properly and sigh when your head hits the pillow. Lovesickness. Hmm. 

Closing your eyes, you try to sleep but can’t help tossing and turning as Yunjin snores behind you. You pat blindly around the end table for your phone, grabbing it and wincing at the brightness of your screen. Chewing on your lip, you open Google, looking up ‘lovesickness’ and frowning immediately at the results. Endless negativity fills the screen, terrifying words like ‘unrequited love’ forming a pit in your stomach. There’s nothing negative about what you feel for Sunghoon, nothing unrequited—you think. 

It was obvious during the trip, painfully so. In the way he’d tuck your hair behind your ear when his parents weren’t there to see, or how he slipped up and called you ‘baby’ in the bathroom, blushing when you said it back. You can’t fake something like that.. Can you?

Yeonjun did.

Shaking your head, you open Instagram to distract yourself. Jake’s story comes up first; he’s at a party where Jay is losing a game of beer pong, and at the other end of the table is Sunghoon grinning with a bright red lipstick kiss on his cheek. You lock your phone, using your hands to press on your belly to stop the stirring. 

Oh, you think. Lovesickness. 

When you wake up, the first thing you do is check Jake’s story again. The video is still there and that terrible stir in your stomach churns on, burrowing deeply into a pit of canyon-like proportion—so vast there’s a safety railing lining its edges. 

You eat breakfast in silence with Yunjin, zoning out mid-chew to figure out the origin of these feelings and how to handle them. Suddenly, the moment hits you clear as day, vivid like you’re watching it on a screen—it was your third night at his parents’ house, after your walk. 

You felt bad about how you acted, and what you said, so went straight up to your room. With nothing but the bedside lamp turned on, it was dimly lit, shadows cast on the walls as you sulked, replaying everything in your head. Guilt wrapped its long arms around your body, making you feel sick as you thought about it all. About the hurt etched over his face with every word you said, and the frown that stuck around for the rest of the walk as his hand clung limply to yours. 

There was a knock at the door, so gentle you almost missed it, and Sunghoon was standing there when you pulled it open, chewing on his lip with a mug in his hand. Steam skated over the opening, a rich chocolatey smell hitting your nose but the real kicker was the mug itself. In its place on Jake and Sunghoon’s mug tree, it was unassuming, a regular white mug, but upon meeting hot water, the face of young Sunghoon appeared, grinning with his tiny glasses on. It was a gift from one of his old coaches and though he never used it, it was your absolute favourite cup in the world. 

You felt soft around the edges when you looked up at him, his eyes wide and unsure as you met his gaze—he brought that mug three hours across the country so you could use it again. The thought shifted your heart into a comfortable position, settling in your chest with overwhelming warmth and an increased rate. 

“Hi,” you said, clearing your throat. 

“Hi,” he repeated, holding the mug out for you to take. “It’s still hot so be careful.” 

Nodding, you covered your hands with your sleeves, taking the cup from him and asking if he wanted to come in. Sunghoon nodded, shutting the door behind him and standing by the bed, watching you set the hot chocolate on the bedside table as you sat down. The two of you stayed like that for a while, with him only moving when you patted the spot next to you on the duvet. Your train of thought escaped you as soon as he sat down, the warmth of his familiar fresh, citrusy scent taking over and becoming the only thing you could register. The smell of summers with him, long days at the beach and short nights spent on the couch at random parties, cuddled into his side with his arm over your shoulders. The smell you’d come to associate with comfort and home—with Sunghoon. 

“It’s not fair for me to treat you like shit just because I’m annoyed, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that earlier. I’m sorry.” 

A crease ran over Sunghoon’s thick brows as they tugged together, he shook his head. “You don’t have to apologise. I roped you into this whole thing and didn’t even try to think about how you would feel. I’m sorry.” His eyes carried a mix of regret and sincerity, mirroring the weight of his words.

“Anyway, I only came to bring you that,” he said, pointing at the cup. “And to check up on you, I’ll get out of your hair for tonight.” Sunghoon wiped his palms on his pants before standing up, reaching behind him to pick up the cloth he brought. For a moment, he stood there, staring down at it in his hand while you thought about telling him to stay, telling him that you wanted him in your hair—whatever that meant. But he spoke before you had the chance. “You left this, at mine, after.. well, you know. I’m sure you left it intentionally, I mean it was folded up perfectly on the end of my bed, so I know you did, but it didn’t feel right keeping it, you always wore it more than me.” 

Sunghoon extended his hand, holding it out to you and you knew exactly what it was as soon as the fabric touched your skin after so long. It was the shirt Jay bought him for Christmas in first year—they were roommates still trying to get a feel for each other. For a few weeks, Sunghoon had been pestering you about what he should get for Jay, saying it didn’t feel right not to get him anything, and you suggested a targeted t-shirt, one you’d been laughing at all day after seeing an ad for it on your timeline. Sunghoon was sceptical, but bought the red shirt anyway, hoping Jay would find BEING DAD IS AN HONOUR, BEING PAPA IS PRICELESS funny. He did. And Jay bought Sunghoon a targeted shirt too, your favourite. It was black and two sizes too big, with I NEVER DREAMED I’D BE A SEXY FIGURE SKATER BUT HERE I AM KILLING IT written over the chest. 

“Goodnight, YN,” Sunghoon said, crossing the room to leave but hesitating before closing the door. He poked his head through the opening and sighed. “I really am sorry.”

That night, you fell asleep in the shirt, the thinning, yet cosy, fabric wrapped around you like a hug as your heart started to beat a new rhythm, one that eerily echoed the five-foot-eleven figure skater who you let break it. 

This morning, Yunjin claps her hands in your face, seeming irritated when you look over at her. “You have class in an hour, what are you doing?” Before you have the chance to speak, realisation covers her face. “Oh, the feelings.” 

You nod solemnly, too caught up in the butterflies raiding your stomach to come up with something to say. 

At lightspeed, you scarf down the rest of your food, apologising for showing up so late as you head out the door. When you get home, you take the fastest shower of your life and feel grateful Chaewon isn’t around to tease you about the smile you can’t wipe from your face thinking about Sunghoon—you’ll text her later.

You run to campus, feeling the brisk autumn wind beating against your face while the rest of your body overheats under your jacket, hoodie and long sleeve. Despite the discomfort and ache in your lungs, you don’t stop until you reach the door of your lecture hall, huffing and puffing into the faces of classmates who don’t take any notice. Of course, in a stroke of pure luck, your lecturer is late, and you realise bitterly, that all of your huffing and puffing was in vain—you would have gotten to class with time to spare even if you walked.

It’s not a total waste though; you use the time to update Chaewon. 

you: i have news wonie..  i like sunghoon

wonie: …………….. fork in the kitchen yn what’s the news? 

wonie: OHHHH news to YOU.. can i call? 

She calls you immediately. You answer without thinking because your lecturer still hasn’t arrived, and there’s no one sitting close enough to hear or notice you taking a call. 

“Are you going to tell him?!” Chaewon’s voice is so loud you wince, pulling the phone away from your ear. 

“I don’t know.” You shrug even though she can’t see you, still holding the device at a distance just in case. “I don’t have any confirmation that he still.. likes me. It’s been a while, and I was pretty mean that day. 

Chaewon groans and you can picture her throwing herself onto her bed, exasperated. The rustling that comes through the receiver only frames the image, hanging it up. “Did you have to tell him to get a grip?” 

“You know..” You trail off, chewing on your bottom lip. “In hindsight, probably not.” 

A beat passes, she’s thinking. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll help you.” 

“I.. have never been so worried in my life.” You sigh, picking at your freshly painted nails. “But I know you’ll do something no matter what I say, so do what you want, Wonie, but please be subtle about it.” 

Chaewon squeals down the phone. “I love youuuuu!” And it’s the last thing she says before kissing the mic a few times and hanging up. 

Slumping in your seat, you don’t have any time to stress about Chaewon’s plans because your lecturer walks in, with a travel cup in her hand and a paperback tucked under her arm. 

She apologises for being late, running a hand through her hair as she announces that you’ll be watching a film, an adaptation of a book you read at the start of term—Ian McEwan’s Atonement. You spend the first hour of the movie falling in and out of sleep until a text comes through from Sunghoon, and sheer excitement keeps you up.

hoonie: Wanna study together after class? 

you: of course!!!!!! 

hoonie: 🤍

The rest of the movie goes by in a drag, and you come away from it with a mild irritation towards Saoirse Ronan.

you: class just finished, heading to lib rn 

hoonie: Shit, still in the locker room, sorry !!! Omw, can you get a table? 

you: i’ll try..

It takes a while but you find an empty booth on the second floor, and set your bag on the plush green seat to take pictures of your surroundings to send to Sunghoon. You sit on the side facing the stairs so he can see you when he arrives. The thought of seeing him makes your heart race and you try out a few natural-seeming poses for when he’s here, cycling between resting your palm under your chin and sitting with your arms crossed a few times until the top of his head comes into view. 

Seeing him knocks the wind out of you as he approaches the staircase, taking them two at a time with his damp hair clinging to his forehead and neck. It doesn’t help that he’s wearing a tight black vest, and his sweats are hanging low on his hips. A breath you didn’t realise you were holding slips out when he lifts his head, spotting you immediately as a grin spreads over his lips and he raises his arm to wave, the veins in his forearm peeking out to say hi too. You can’t tell if it’s his lack of winter wardrobe or your newfound appreciation for him that’s making his biceps look so huge but it’s hard to look away, even when he reaches the table. 

“Are you hot?” you blurt out. 

Sunghoon laughs, raising a brow and something about the way he’s looking down at you makes your cheeks burn. “Depends who’s asking.” He takes his backpack off, leaving it on the table as he sits down, dumping his jacket and hoodie in a pile beside him.

“I’m asking,” you mumble. 

“Then, yeah, I’d hope so.” 

Is he flirting? It sounds like he’s flirting. Flirt back! “Nice arms.” 

He looks down at his biceps for a beat before looking at you warily. “Are you flirting with me?” He can’t fight the smile twitching at the corners of his lips but he tries his best, pressing them into a straight line.

“A little. They are nice though,” you admit.

Sunghoon grins. “Thanks, I’ve had them for a while now.”

You can’t come up with anything to say, too distracted by the way his smile reaches his eyes, lighting up his whole face and forcing a flustered heat to spread over your cheeks and neck. It’s only when you look away from him that you remember what you’re here for. It’s a study date, not a study date—there’s a difference. 

You hand Sunghoon the material you’d printed for him over the weekend, excerpts from texts you’d studied in class, so he can practise close reading and proper citation. As he makes his way through them, you can’t help stealing glances, smiling at the way his tongue sticks out a little while he focuses, or how he twirls his pen in his fingers while he’s thinking. You aren’t making the best use of your time together, copying out the slides from class yesterday, but you can’t help noticing the way he watches you when he thinks you can’t see. The small smile on his face while he does so only flusters you, an odd weakness settling in your knees as your cheeks heat up. 

After a while, Sunghoon sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Could you stop watching me?”

“If you noticed me watching, that means you’re watching me.” 

He shrugs, chewing on his lip. “Well, yeah. I’m always watching you,” he says like it’s a given. “But you don’t normally watch back, it’s distracting.” 

“You’re distracting.”

A playful smile curves his lips as he arches a brow, smugness painting his face. “Am I?” 

Too scared to verbalise your response, you nod slowly, hoping you don’t look as wound up as you feel. 

Sunghoon’s eyes flick over your face, flashing with something you don’t recognise. At least not from him. He sits back in his seat, assessing you and eventually shaking his head. 

“You know,” he says, eyes glowing with something you do recognise: cockiness. “If my sexy arms are getting to you that much, I can always put my hoodie back on. Wouldn’t want my little tutor getting distracted, would I?” 

Oh. 

Your stomach turns with want, mind reeling from his tone and the way his gaze lands on your lips. Sighing, you roll your eyes and try to seem unaffected. “Sunghoon, I never said your arms were sexy.” 

His phone starts to go off, buzzing against the table and he turns it over immediately, screen down on the surface as he shifts his focus back to his work. He chews on his lip while he does, eyes flicking back and forth between his phone and the words on the page. Curious, you lean over the table, elbows propped up as you rest your chin in your hands. He doesn’t spare you or his phone, which vibrates another four times, a glance.

“Are you going to get that?” 

Sunghoon shakes his head. “It’s nothing.” 

You hum, letting just enough curiosity seep into the sound that he’ll elaborate without being asked to. It doesn’t take long for him to deliver.

“It’s just Chaewon,” he says, running his hand through his hair and lifting his head. Sunghoon smiles. “We’ve been texting a lot these days.” 

“Cool.” You nod a few times, aiming for nonchalance but hitting bobblehead as you wait for him to continue. He doesn’t, only humming in response, nodding too. 

After a beat, he picks up his phone, angling it just high enough that you can’t see the screen. He reads the messages, an exhaled laugh coming from his nose as the tips of his ears redden—Fuck. This is worse than you thought. 

Chaewon’s commitment to girl code runs deep—she’s been rebuffing Jake since first year when she overheard a girl she’d never seen before telling her friends she thought he was cute. So you know without having to read the texts that nothing she’s saying is even remotely flirty, you can smell the auto-caps and use of the word ‘buddy’ from across the table. 

What you hadn’t counted on, however, was the potential for Sunghoon’s feelings to shift. If they really have been texting more, can you rule out the possibility that he might like.. her? Chaewon is a catch, beyond a catch, and you’d already turned Sunghoon down. Brutally. Of course, he’d move on, he has moved on. 

The rest of the study session is spent manifesting, writing Park Sunghoon over and over in the back of your notebook. You fill three pages while brainstorming ways to snatch a lock of his hair until he suggests that the two of you call it a day. He walks you home, telling you about how Jake’s been bribing him with food to get a ride to the LEGO store across town for the new Marvel set. 

“With or without the meals, I would’ve taken him, but his ramen is my favourite, so..” Sunghoon says, climbing the last step of your building and holding the door open for you. “He even brought a slice of tiramisu to the rink for me after practice.” 

“You’re terrible,” you say, frowning up at him as you search for your keys. “Do you want to come in?” 

Sunghoon chuckles, shaking his head. “I have a meeting with one of my lecturers soon, I’d have to leave in—” He pauses, rolling up the sleeve of his jacket to check the time. “—eight minutes.” 

“I’m cool with that if you are,” you mumble, suddenly shy. 

A bright smile spreads over his lips and he nods, following you in. 

Chilled by the harsh wind, the only thing on your mind is a hot drink as you lead Sunghoon to the kitchen. He shakes his head when you offer him one, sitting on the countertop and exhaling into his palms before rubbing them together. You can’t help but frown at the sight, feeling guilty that you can’t change the weather to suit him. At your thought process, your brows raise. Wow, you think. Is this who you are? 

You busy yourself with the selection of hot drinks you and Chaewon have accumulated, eyeing each container from top to bottom. A purple tub of Cadbury’s hot chocolate that you’re sure is on the brink of expiration, coffee—sachets of the instant stuff you’ve grown to like since leaving home, Earl grey from one of many brands, or the fancy silk tea bags Chaewon’s mum brought home from a trip—rooibos or plum-apple-cinnamon. 

Craving something sweet, you settle for hot chocolate, pulling the heavy container from the cupboard next to Sunghoon’s head and setting it beside your cup. He’s on his phone, scrolling too fast to take in anything he’s seeing and he shakes his head when you ask if he wants something to drink. 

On the dish rack, Chaewon’s mug catches your eye, so you pick it up to dry it off and put it down next to yours. “I’m going to check if Wonie wants any,” you say, wiping imaginary crumbs from the counter onto the floor. 

Sunghoon only clears his throat, shaking his head. “She’s not home, one of her acrylics popped off so she’s at the shop waiting for a cancellation.” 

The information itself isn’t jarring but hearing it from Sunghoon is. You put on what you hope is a neutral smile and nod, taking milk from the fridge and assembling your drink on autopilot while thinking of ways to redirect the conversation. 

“If you knew you’d have to go back to campus so soon, why’d you walk me home?” you ask, watching your cup spin in the microwave. “I could’ve walked on my own.” 

Sunghoon is already looking at you when you turn your head, his cheeks puffed out with air as he blinks slowly. Because I love you, is what you hope he’ll say. You think you need him to say it. 

“Because you don’t have to do anything on your own when you have me,” he says instead, and it’s infinitely better. 

The words seep through your every fibre, his intonation and lucid affection making a home for themselves in your heart, spreading warmth from head to toe. Your smile becomes a radiant grin, only brightening when he shakes his head, smiling down at his feet. 

Sunghoon hugs you in the kitchen when it’s time for him to leave, his arms holding you tight to his chest as he rocks you back and forth. You inhale his scent, all warm citrus under freshly washed cotton and something exclusive to him.

Wiping the smile from your face feels impossible. You don’t let go when he does, and a sweet laugh — a giggle, you think — tumbles out of him as he mumbles that he really has to go. Still, you cling onto him, taking clumsy steps backwards, with your arms locked around his waist, to your front door, smiling as you watch him put his shoes on. 

“You don’t have to walk me downstairs, honestly,” he says, looking down at you in the doorway.

“I want to.” 

His lips quirk up at the corners, a full smile breaking through and causing your stomach to flutter with so much force you’re sure it’s visible through your shirt. His eyes fall to your lips, lingering, before he clears his throat, looking away. 

“I’ll text you when I get to the door, promise.” 

You lock your pinky with his. “Send a selfie, just so I know it’s you and not someone else using your phone.” 

Sunghoon’s head falls back in a laugh. “Should I just call you? That way you can make sure I get back to uni in one piece.” 

You nod.

“That wasn’t anything with Chaewon earlier, I just needed advice on some girl stuff..” He trails off, searching your eyes. It’s obvious that he’s telling the truth, that he wants you to believe him. You do. “I wasn’t sure if that was something I could talk about with you.” 

Girl stuff. Hmm. You try not to read too much into it and look at the bigger picture instead—your best friend is going through something and doesn’t feel like he can come to you about it.. You squeeze his pinky reassuringly, a flutter in your stomach when he smiles. 

“You can talk to me about anything,” you say, meaning it. 

Sunghoon presses his lips together, humming and unlinking your fingers. “Next time,” he says after a beat, waving at you. 

You shut the door, locking it while watching through the peephole, he leaves as soon as the lock clicks shut. In the kitchen, your hot chocolate is cooling down, and your phone rings in your back pocket. Sunghoon’s calling. 

Hanging out with Sunghoon. Making sure he sticks to the time-blocked schedule you made for him. Quizzing him on biology terms until he gets restless. If the last two weeks were an episode of Family Feud, those would be the top three answers to the question: Name something YN is doing right now.

Thankfully tonight, it’s the first one. 

You’ve been sitting on the couch for so long, Jake has both left for football practice and arrived from football practice. Conversation ebbs and flows—an hour or so of nonstop talking, followed by another hour or so of comfortable near silence. 

It’s during a quiet hour that Sunghoon sits up straight, clearing his throat before saying, “Let me ask you something. He retreats to the other side of the couch, turning to face you with his whole body. “I don’t want things to be weird after I ask, so no matter what your answer is, I won’t bring it up or ask again.”

Arching a curious brow, you nod. “You can ask me anything,” you say, meaning it.

Sunghoon’s face is impressively blank—minus the motion of sharp teeth worrying plush lip, there’s absolutely nothing behind his eyes that seem to stare right through you. 

Eventually, he asks, “Can I kiss you?” He says more. Big, scary words like for closure and moving on, but they don’t register. They don’t matter. 

Your heart pounds at the base of your throat as you find interest in your hands that sit in your lap. Even without looking at him, you can’t get over the slight crease he had in his brow and the slight tremor in his hands. 

“For closure,” you repeat, though your voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming from you, muffled under the thump of your heart. 

Sunghoon nods. “For closure.” 

A humourless laugh sneaks past your throat as you look at him. You shouldn’t have. In the lamplight, Sunghoon is golden and glorious. Warm light casts one side of his face, diffusing gently over the steep slope of his nose, highlighting his moles and the look in his eyes, gentle and curious all at once. Unwillingly, your gaze falls to his lips, parted, tempting. 

One firm nod of your head brings Sunghoon’s hand to your face, his palm cupping your cheek with soft skin as his thumb traces your cheekbone. You grow anxious under his stare, under the drag of his eyes over your features, taking them one at a time like he’s committing them to memory.

Leaning in, your eyes flutter shut as your lips meet his and he freezes, mouth completely still on yours. Delicately, your tongue traces the seam of his lips, soft and plump, until they part for you, moving with yours. Sunghoon’s kiss is unpolished when it reaches you. It’s hesitant but tender, clumsy but sweet, he’s trying and he’s perfect; your favourite. 

The kiss is.. it’s everything. It’s the racing of your heart, the thudding, the vibrant buzz you can hear, feel humming against your ears. It’s a rush of blood to the head, a lightness all over that pulls you out of your body. It’s Sunghoon’s soft lips curving into a smile against yours, his gentle hold on your face never letting up as he holds you as close as he can manage, and it’s every bit as lovely as the rest of him.

Palpable is the heartbeat of your friendship, beating to a lull under the surface of the kiss, fizzling out into nothing, a steady silence, flatlining to give way to something more, something bigger. 

Every brush of your lips against his is a revelation, a confession. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, you tell him with your kiss. You’re everything I need. His free hand finds yours, locking your fingers and squeezing, the action timed well enough to make you think he hears you, to make you think he’s saying, we’ll be okay, I still love you. 

With that, he pulls away, a delicate tension piercing the air. Blown eyes and laboured breathing—he’s beautiful, fuzzy around the edges with warm orange and all of the love in your heart. Breathless, you chew on your lip, cognisant of Sunghoon’s hand in yours and the sparkle in his eyes as he looks at you. 

Belatedly, you squeeze his hand back, smiling. “Was it everything you ever dreamed of?” you whisper, part teasing, all curious.

Abruptly, Sunghoon stands up, letting go of you in the process. “I have to go.” 

You want to stop him, you think you’re supposed to. To grab him by the arm and kiss him again, to yell in his face that you love him until he understands. But you don’t. Instead, you stay seated, staring at Sunghoon’s back and following him with your eyes out of the room and down the hall until he’s out of sight. 

It’s your first time being so upset after a kiss, and you can’t tell if it’s his leaving or the mention of him moving on that’s tripping you up so much. That’s causing melancholy to crawl from the shadows, sinking its jagged nails into your skin to pull you under. 

You love him. He’s gone. 

Eyes stuck on the doorway, time stretches over the room around you, thick and malleable, wet and cloying—clay stuck under your nails for days as the fire in the kiln rages on. 

Sighing, you get up and wait at his door. You ball your hand into a limp fist, knocking weakly. Sunghoon doesn’t reply. You try again, harder. Still nothing. 

Barging into the room, you find him sitting on the end of his bed with his face in his hands. 

“Don’t move on.” The words come out before you realise and Sunghoon lifts his head, squinting at you. 

“Huh?” He tilts his head, watching closely as you approach him, tipping it back enough to meet your eyes when you stand over him. 

You take a breath, holding it until your head starts to spin. “I don’t want you to love someone else, Sunghoon. Please don’t move on.” 

The stillness that follows is disconcerting, a long quiet you can feel on your skin, amplifying the blank stare on his face as he looks up at you. His eyes flash, a spark of hope behind them so bright it stings to look at.

“Do you..” He trails off, his lips moving to form the next word though stopping short.

“I do,” you whisper, nodding. “I’m sorry for taking so long.”

An exhaled laugh comes from his nose as he grins, shaking his head. “You like me?” he asks, excitement and disbelief fighting for authority over his voice, his hands holding your waist and pulling you down into his lap.

“I love you,” you admit, settling on his thighs. 

“You do?” His eyes are wide and gleaming, searching every feature on your face before settling on your own.

You nod. “So much.” 

Sunghoon’s chin tips up, his lips pressing against yours, excited pecks that can’t turn into much more for the smiles on your faces. You rest your arms on his shoulders, hands clasping behind his head, nervous fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“So.. will you be my boyfriend? For real?” 

Tilting his head, he tries and fails to fight a smile. “I will. I’m a little bummed though.” 

“Why?” You raise a brow, and the word tips up at the end with it. 

“I wanted to be the one to ask you.” Sunghoon’s honesty warms the room, endearing you completely. 

You grin, loving the heat spreading over your cheeks. “Ask me anyway.” 

“Please can I be your boyfriend?” 

In the weeks that followed, it became immediately clear that boyfriend Sunghoon operated on a pendulum swinging between sexual ferality and terror. He’d get distracted during study sessions at home, finding more interest in biting at your neck than stream-of-consciousness prose, but closed his eyes if a sex scene came on TV. He’d buck his hips against yours while making out but flinch at the sight of condoms in the store.

He wasn’t ready to have sex and didn’t know how to tell you, so you took matters into your own hands, asking if you could wait until after his results for resubmission came in, saying you didn’t want the distraction for either of you. Sunghoon agreed, pecking your cheek and holding you tight to his chest. 

The only thing was that your lecturer hadn’t given him an exact date, so every morning, you held your phone in a vice grip waiting for Sunghoon to update you, and every morning, you got the same text: Nothing today, baby ☹️ 

This morning, you’re brushing your teeth when he texts you, in all caps: NO FUCKING WAY I GOT A 98 !!! LOOK !!!

When the picture comes through, it’s of him in the mirror and you choke on mouthwash at the sight. He’s smiling, bright and beautiful, in a black vest that he’s holding up a little to show his stomach, though his palm is in the way of his toned abs, and it cuts off right at the top of his grey sweatpants. 

Your mouth goes dry as you click on it, fixating on every little detail you can find: the thickness of his fingers against his phone, the dip in his collarbones, the breadth of his shoulders and the cinch of his waist. In a fit of desperation, you try swiping at the bottom of your screen, willing the picture to magically extend. It doesn’t. 

hoonie: Finger slipped.. You like?

you: mm.. 

you: 98??? HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT YOU!!!

hoonie: All you.. do you like the picture?

you: i love it………….

hoonie: My girl 🤍

Another picture comes in, and sure enough, through the glare of his laptop screen, you see: Course name: The Modernist Movement: Joyce, Woolf, and Hemingway. Marks Awarded: 98.0.

you: well done baby !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hoonie: Thx 😁

hoonie: Can I have my prize now ha ha .. haha 😈

you: just for that emoji, no you absolutely cannot.

Your resolve isn’t strong enough when it comes to Sunghoon, because purple devil emoji and all, you show up at his door with condoms in your bag and a bouquet of lilies behind your back. 

The door creaks open and Sunghoon greets you with a grin. “Hey, gorgeous. You proud of me?” 

You beam at him, holding out the flowers. “I’m very proud, Hoon, well done.” 

“I don’t want to ruin the moment,” he starts, taking the bouquet from your hands and sniffing the flowers with an approving smile. “But hearing you say you’re proud of me is awakening something I didn’t know existed.”

“A good something?” 

“Mm,” he hums, arms finding your waist before he pecks your lips. “A very good something.” 

Sunghoon’s words hit your lips and your core, a desperate heat flooding your stomach as he kisses you deeply, his body pressed tightly against yours while he pulls you into his apartment. He kicks the door shut with his foot, slipping his hand under your jacket to settle in your back pocket, not quite squeezing but holding your ass as gently as he can manage. 

He breaks away from you, love in his eyes as he stares down into yours, catching his breath. “I don’t think we own a vase.” 

In his kitchen, you rifle through cupboards to find something to hold the flowers, eventually finding a whiskey decanter in the cupboard under the sink, and holding it up for Sunghoon to see.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “It’s Jay’s. It’ll work right?” 

You nod, taking it to the sink to rinse it. Sunghoon wraps his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder watching you fill the decanter with water and flower food before grabbing the bouquet. He presses open-mouthed kisses to your neck and you struggle to stay focused as you cut down the stems on the flowers, arranging them neatly. 

“Can I take a photo?” he asks when you’re done. 

He’s smiling when you turn around to look at him, a soft curve of his lips that makes your heart race, a deep tenderness in his eyes when you meet them. You smile too. 

“They’re yours, baby, do whatever you want.” 

“A photo of you with the flowers,” he clarifies. 

Warmth settles in your chest, a grin spreading over your lips from ear to ear. You nod, taking the decanter in your hands when he lets go of you, holding the flowers up beside your face and smiling for his camera. As his phone shutter clicks away, you steal glances at his face behind it. He’s watching the screen with a smile, telling you how beautiful you are.

“I want pictures of you too,” you say, handing the flowers over. 

“I’m yours, baby, do whatever you want.” 

Sunghoon poses for your photos, smiling sweetly in some and sniffing the bouquet appreciatively with closed eyes for others. He’s glowing and he’s beautiful and your heart triples in size while taking picture after picture until your phone tells you it has ten percent. 

“Thank you, YN,” he says. “I’ve never gotten flowers before, I love them.” His arms settle around your waist, lips pressing against yours before you have the chance to respond. 

You try anyway, mumbling against his lips that you love him. In response, Sunghoon grins, but the feeling of his cock growing hard against you is distracting, a lust-coated thorn in the side of the butterflies fluttering in your stomach. With locked lips and uncertain steps, the two of you bump into corners and trip over your own feet, stumbling to his room and parting only to tear his hoodie over his head.

Breathless, you pull away, eyes trailing over him and picking up on everything, from the tremble in his hands to the lust-addled worry in his eyes. He’s nervous, you think—though it escapes you, the last word coming out like a question.

Sunghoon scoffs, his hands resting on your waist under your shirt, skin clammy against yours. “Of course, I’m nervous.” 

“You don’t have to be.”

“I just want to be good for you.” 

“Don’t worry about that, let me take care of you, Hoon.” Your palms drag up his torso — firm abs through soft cotton, defined chest over racing heart — to rest on his shoulders. “Sit,” you say when he nods. 

He gulps, taking a seat on the end of his bed under your gentle push, eyes widening when you sink to your knees between his legs and reach for his drawstring, pulling the ends to untie the knot. 

“Wait,” Sunghoon says, breathless, scrunching up his face and dropping his head. “Let me calm down, baby. At this rate, I’ll come just seeing your hand on it.” 

You giggle, resting your head on his thigh and wrapping the drawstring around your finger.

“I’m serious, YN,” he mumbles, laughing as he takes his vest off. “I need a minute.” 

Sunghoon’s eyes are pressed shut as he tries to collect himself, lips pouty and kiss-bitten, slightly parted with ragged breaths slipping out. You wait patiently for him. He’s so pretty like this, with the crease in his brow and the pretty pink flush dusting his cheeks as his chest rises and falls. You can’t help but smile, leaning into his touch when his hand rests on top of your head, his blunt nails grazing your scalp. After a while, he seems more at ease, his eyes finding yours and he smiles shyly, telling you he’s ready now and lifting his hips from the bed to let you pull his sweats and underwear down. 

Free from the constraints of fabric, his cock slaps his stomach with a wet sound as the tip meets his skin, leaving a pearlescent streak over his abs. The sight makes your mouth water and you can’t look away. “Pretty,” you whisper.

Wrapping a hand under his tip, you swipe it with your thumb, taking time to memorise the flutter of his eyelids, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, and the soft sigh he lets out. You stroke him slowly, liking the way his breath picks up as his brows knit together before you take him in your mouth. It’s a tight fit but you do your best, spurred on by the way he tugs at your hair and stutters through a holy fuck as you take as much of him as you can. 

Sunghoon goes silent, only squirming when you use your hand to stroke him near his base. Self-conscious about his lack of vocal affirmation, you look up at him through your lashes, and the pure bliss on his face is unbearably attractive. His eyes are rolled back under furrowed brows, his mouth hanging open as he throws his head back.

“Am I doing okay?” you ask, using the moment to catch your breath.

He nods, inhaling shakily and screwing his eyes shut while his hips buck up into your fist. “I’m.. You’re doing such a good job, baby, so good.”

Satisfaction courses through you from the praise, a high that dulls the ache in your jaw. Still watching him, you massage his balls in your palm, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his tip when he whines. You tongue at his slit until he thrusts back into your mouth, tip hitting your throat, and he gasps when you gag, his arm coming up to cover his eyes. A belated apology slips from his lips, mumbled as he strokes your hair with a shaking hand and goes quiet again. When you speed up, his breath stutters, the muscles in his thighs contracting around your head as you suck and lick and drool on his cock. 

A moan of your name, and his hand holding your hand down, are the only warnings you get before Sunghoon comes, spilling his load right down your throat. Whining, his hips buck up against your face, pushing further and further until he falls back onto the mattress.

Your throat is hoarse and aches while you use the back of your hand to wipe at your lips, enjoying what’s left of his taste on your tongue. Deep red tints his neck and chest, a pretty flush gleaming under the sheen of sweat on his skin. He’s mesmerising, as he tries for air through swollen lips and looks up at you through squinted eyes. He reaches for you, cute grabby hands tugging your shirt and pulling you down so you’re lying next to him with your head on his chest. 

“You’re amazing, baby, so good for me,” Sunghoon whispers, eyes fluttering shut as you drag your nails over his torso, feeling the subtle heave of the slick, sculpted muscle over his stomach and chest. 

Pride heats your chest, satisfaction rolling over you like a wave. “Really?”

He hums in affirmation, nodding his head. 

“You were so quiet, I couldn’t really tell,” you add, hungry for more praise. 

“The walls are so thin in here, I just got used to being quiet,” Sunghoon says, frowning. Hand meeting your chin, he tips your head up towards him, pressing a soft kiss to your lips and mumbling, “I’m sorry. You were perfect, I swear.” 

It’s a sweet kiss. Until lips move harder and hands get lower, desperate as he thumbs the top of your leggings, palm unmoving but a dangerous heat blooms in your stomach anyway.

“Can I..” Sunghoon pinches you softly through the material, unsure eyes boring deep into yours. 

You nod. “You can.” 

Slipping under your waistband, his fingers skate across your skin dipping between your thighs. He grazes your slit, satisfaction clear in the groan he lets out as he feels the wetness there, pulling it over the length of your slit to cover your clit. Your breath hitches, a strangled gasp, pleasure and surprise meeting in your throat under the pressure of his thumb on your clit, the gentle sting of his finger pushing into you. 

What Sunghoon lacks in experience, he makes up for with the sheer length and thickness of his fingers. It’s almost jarring, it’s enough to force your eyes closed and bring a sigh rumbling out of you, ache and relief settling between your legs, where he curls a finger against your walls and drags slow circles over your clit. 

“Can you take these off, baby?” he asks, hand away to touch your leggings. 

You don’t waste a second, sitting up to pull them off, throwing them and your underwear across the room. Sunghoon licks his lips, tugging at the hem of your shirt. 

“And this? If you want..” 

You nod, pulling it off immediately to let it join the rest of your clothes in a heap on the floor. The way he gulps is a confidence boost, his dilated pupils taking in every inch of your body, though his gaze always pulls back to your bra—white and lacy, thin enough for your nipples to push through the fabric and Sunghoon can’t seem to get enough, though he waits until you’re lying down again to touch you. 

Sunghoon props himself up on his elbow, leaning over you. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers, dragging a finger over the lace at the top of your bra, toying with the material and the little bow sitting between your breasts. His eyes flick up to meet yours. “So beautiful,” he repeats. 

Hiding your face in his chest, you mumble, “Thank you,” into his skin while trying to ignore the heat spreading over your body wherever he touches you. His hand trails from your arm to your waist, resting on your hips to slip over your ass for a beat, where he grabs and squeezes the flesh there before coming back around to slot between your legs—you lift one of them, resting it over his body, and he’s smiling sweetly when you look up at him.

Sunghoon’s movements are unchanging, though the sensation is heightened by the unbridled desire in his lidded eyes that urges white heat to lick over every inch of your skin—this time he pushes two fingers into you.

It doesn’t get better than this, you think. But it does, quickly. 

Leaning over you, his eyes flick across your face, one feature at a time as he chews on his lip. Reaching up, you push some of his hair from his face, holding it back and saying, “Relax, baby.” 

“Don’t want to hurt you.”

Moving your hand, you blink when his hair flops back over his forehead, tickling your eyelashes. His eyes are focused now, staring straight down into yours, want and worry flashing behind them. 

“You won’t, I promise,” you say, locking your pinky with his, feeling relieved when he smiles.

Sunghoon pushes in slowly, his name slipping from your lips when he exhales shakily, head falling forward. The sting, the pleasure, make it hard to breathe, molten desire taking hold of your lungs as he carves out a place for himself as far as you’ll take him, all the way to the hilt as slow as he can manage. 

A moan tears out of him, lewd and whiny as his hair tickles your collarbone, head falling into the crook of your neck. His skin is hot and damp against yours, his breath burning your shoulder as he tries to calm down. It’s difficult to register much else, tethered only by the sound of his voice when he asks, “Am I hurting you?” 

“Hoon,” you whisper. 

“Can you look at me, baby?” He lifts his head, resting a hand on your cheek. You blink your eyes open, gaze locking with his, where concern pushes through his desire. “Am I hurting you?” he asks again. “Are you okay?” 

You nod. “I’m okay, just..” You sigh. “Full. Need a minute.” 

Sunghoon kisses you, lips moving gently with yours, passing breathy whines between your mouths until you feel yourself relaxing. Pulling his plush bottom lip between yours, you suck on it, nodding. “Want you to move, baby,” you mumble. 

He scans your face, eyes meeting yours as he pulls his hips back. He’s slow, so slow with his thrusts that your belly turns with want, your fingernails sink into the taut skin of his back, and jagged sobs fall out of you with each drag of his cock along your walls. 

Everywhere his skin touches yours is set ablaze with scorching heat, goosebumps pushing past the surface as his breath fans your neck and his sharp teeth graze your skin. He bites hard enough to sting, and you wince as his tongue flicks over your bitten flesh to soothe you.

You were so worked up earlier, writhing against the sheets and coming undone in his palm, so bliss quickly pushes through the ache between your legs. “Good, Hoon, feels so good,” you manage, struggling to convey how perfect it is.

“Just want to make you feel good.” His words melt into each other, vowels soft and elongated as they curl around each other. He’s working up a steady rhythm, his tip consistently nudging you where you need it—the spot that makes the room blur around you. “That’s all I want.” 

Before long, the knot in your stomach pulls you up from the mattress, arching your back towards the ceiling. Mouth to mouth, chest to chest—it’s the closest you’ve ever felt to someone else, the closest you’ve ever been. The thought alone knocks the wind out of you, and his persistent whining does nothing to help.

Your want and adoration for Sunghoon run bone-deep, inching up your spine and creeping over your shoulders, intertwined with an all-consuming pleasure that turns the heat in your stomach molten as a shudder zips through you. Even though you can’t find the words to let him know, he lifts your hips from the bed to fuck you deeper, harder, into the mattress until shaky orgasms pull both of you under. 

You let him fall into you, fingers curling around his hair, whispering I love you into the skin of his neck as he comes, most of his weight on top of you while you catch your breath, relishing in the fullness you feel as the last waves of your high pull back. You stay like this for as long as he needs, his head coming up from the crook of your neck to smile at you before pressing his lips to yours. A sleepy haze fills the room around you, tongue swiping tongue as you giggle happily into his mouth. 

After a while, he gets up, tying the condom to throw it away and comes back with his shirt. He uses it to clean up—gentle between your legs, pressing kisses to your calves while he does. Sunghoon’s tenderness wraps around your heart, and love clouds your vision, forming a blurry trail that follows all of his movements, glowing like something from a dream, ethereal, an apparition. 

The bed dips beside you, his arms around you, pulling you in so his chin rests on your head. You push your cheek into his chest, hoping the two of you will meld into one—the thought makes you warm all over, a fuzziness that reaches every part of your body while he presses kisses into your hair, rubbing your back. 

“I love you,” he says, voice as soft as the rest of him. “I’m glad I exist.”

mama park: Hi lovely 😍 missing you lots, wondering when you’ll be home for Xmas………..love ma

Sunghoon stirs, nose scrunching as he snores softly into the quiet of a winter morning. His chest rises and falls steadily under your head and he doesn’t move when you sit up. The lamp on his desk is still on — neither of you could be bothered getting up to turn it off last night — and under its dim glow, you admire him. Perfect lips gently curved—long lashes kissing the skin under his eyes. 

Love hits you from all angles, warmth all over from head to toe despite the chill in Sunghoon’s room. You can’t help but grin, leaning up to nose along the underside of his chin, his natural scent so soft yet dizzying as you nuzzle into him. He stirs again, turning his head this way and that before resting, you feel a bit bad, deciding to leave him be and text his mum back. 

you: hi mum !!! missing you sooooooo much :((( will be home asap

mama park: BTW Sunghoon told me everything. I raised such good actors LOL make sure he looks after you and keeps you happy!

you: i’m so sorry we lied to you..

you: but i’m really happy with him and he loves me a lot

you: i love him so much .. never been so sure of anyone in my life

© zreamy (2023), all rights reserved. do not repost, translate, or plagiarise my work. do let my know your thoughts !

permanent taglist: @asahicore

[tender-rosiey]

What would happen if gojo has 2 babies? And they both start crying at the same time and poor gojo has to find a solution in this situation 🥲 his younger baby that is only months old starts crying which makes the older sibling that's 2 years older wake up and starts crying 😭

little voice — gojo satoru x f!reader

you’re on a girls’ vacation. it’s okay. it’s cool.

but it isn’t.

throughout his entire life of fighting curses, emotional trauma, technique training, and unending migraines, he has never felt so much stress like he does right now.

his two kids are truly angels: full of kindness, compassion and—as expected of a child of gojo satoru—full of mischief.

they also share the same amount of love he has for you and, of course, even more. so separate two kids who adore their mother and you get chaos.

satoru just found out that the one who keeps the balance in the house is you, and thinking back about it, it should’ve been obvious because everyone in this house listens to you.

for example, one time when you were out on a simple visit to nanami to take some of the sweet bread he has, you had strictly told satoru to put the two kids to sleep at 8:30 exactly.

he thought it’s too early, but then you explained to him that s/n sleeping gave him time and freedom to look after your baby daughter who was, admittedly, a handful that would not sleep unless she was carried.

so satoru obediently listened, or at least he tried to.

a shameful failed trial at that.

in his defense, what was he supposed to do when s/n gave him puppy eyes asked for a mere 10 minutes more, say no? of course not!

so, like the great father he is, he gave him a couple more minutes, and nothing will make satoru regret his decision since to him his son’s smile is worth the world.

…except maybe the chandelier that is now on the floor and his precious baby daughter who just took one the biggest poops he has known of and his son who is panicking about how to clean this mess before you come home.

and come home you did and to all this mess.

swiftly, you picked up your daughter and changed her diaper, even making her giggle and squeal in between.

then you hugged your son and cleaned up the shattered glass together and disposed of the chandelier. lastly, you stood in front of your husband with a big frown after you’ve put the kids to sleep.

satoru could swear that he couldn’t fall more in love with you. hell, he could even twirl you around and kiss you breathless, but he feels like that would just lead him to the couch.

so he works to butter you up first before trying anything, “hey my sweet cute honeypie—“

you simply quirk an eyebrow.

and he falls to his knees, “I am sorry! I just couldn’t resist his puppy eyes! you should’ve seen them; he looked so cute!”

“I saw them a million times before he was even born, ‘toru.”

your husband gasps, “how!?”

“our son is an exact copy of you, sweetie.”

so yeah that was one of too many times, and if it isn’t apparent that you are the mediator then satoru wants to let the world know that even his students listen to you.

like that one time at school when the first years were caught up fighting with each other, the second years were trying to pull them apart, and satoru was too busy cackling at them while holding d/n that no one noticed panda’s little tail being—god knows why—on fire, not even panda himself.

that was until your precious son tugged at your husband’s shirt and pointed at panda, saying a simple sentence (phrase), “papa, panda fire.”

satoru’s eyes zero on panda then they widen, before he gapes, “oh shit, you’re right!”

“bad word!”

“sorry!”

however, despite satoru almost bolting to put out the fire, panda was finally able to smell it and hummed, “something’s being cooked.” then he looked at his tail, “oh it’s me.”

hit the panic button.

“I am being cooked!” he screams and starts running around, “panda meat doesn’t taste good; I promise!”

the rest start running after him with the intention to help, but panda could only translate it into one thing as he screamed, “don’t eat me!!”

“no one is gonna eat you, dumbass!!” maki yelled but to no avail as no one could get to the panicked panda.

your husband is running as well, half taking photos and videos and half ensuring that d/n does not fall from his hands—considering how she keeps giggling, squealing, and wriggling her entire body.

ijichi took matters into his own hands and called the only person he knows will be able to solve this.

“hello?”

“panda is on fire, the kids are running after him, and gojo is just recording!” he wails, eyes frantically following said people then straying to a particularly small person, “also s/n is trying to eat the grass.”

“what?!”

and like lightning, you’re on the field. you lightly scold s/n and tell him to cover his ears.

you turn to the walking fire hazard and scream, “everyone stop! and panda get over here!”

“yes ma’am!”

he stands still in front of you, almost ignoring his ‘fiery’ tail. you effectively put it out and ruffle his fur until he calms down. the others take turns in greeting you and getting their daily dose of motherly hugs.

your son sprints to you and holds onto your leg, refusing to let go.

and they all make way for the star of the show: the all-mighty gojo satoru.

he beams, “wifey, yet again you save the day!”

he easily picks up s/n and pulls the four of you into one big hug. he rubs his cheek against yours, “have I told you how much I love you?”

“I was gone for 3 minutes.”

“I haven’t?!” he gasps, completely ignoring you, “I am a terrible husband!”

he sobs and starts slowly melting to the ground where he believes a ‘disrespectful, good-for-nothing husband who doesn’t tell his wife just how much he loves her’.

anyway, back to the present. the kids have been miraculously put to sleep—a process that satoru does not have the time nor the energy to describe.

when he stops ‘reminiscing ‘, he starts paling at the fact that all of these were mere examples of things going wrong without you, and you were in the freaking area.

now, you’re not 10 steps away, and satoru is feeling very threatened.

he is sprawled out on the couch, eye bags ever so prominent. he sighs and lets his head fall back, grateful for the silence that fills the house, but he hates it at the same time.

satoru was never fond of silence—the type that feels so heavy on the heart—even when he was a teenager. it gives space and time to think about all the things he is desperate to avoid.

he did eventually come to love silence but only the silence that accompanies the times he spends with you, but that’s a story for another time though.

opening his eyes, he looks around and his gaze lands on your recent family photo. his smile is almost instantaneous.

if there’s anything he will rub in suguru’s face when they meet is that he managed to score himself such a lovely wife and an adoring family, a real family. he mentally writes a plus one on the score chart between him and suguru then relaxes.

he would like to scurry to the bed where your scent still lingers, but his fatigue has simply chained him to the couch—he is overreacting you’re only gone for three days.

so, he decides, it’s time to rest and hope for a dream where he gets to hold you and live with his longing until he can feel your lips against his skin again.

the great gojo satoru closes his eyes and welcomes his slumber.

that is until, his little sweetheart decides to breakout into a wail, effectively causing her dad’s eyes to snap open.

he jumps to his feet and sprints to her room, “d/n, what’s wrong, honey?”

he softly cradles her in his—gigantic—arms and starts rocking her slowly. “it’s okay; papa’s here,” he murmurs in hopes of calming down, but his daughter doesn’t register his voice yet.

she can, however, feel his all too familiar chest against her cheek, so she grips at it tightly and continues crying.

satoru’s expression is full of distress, and his heart contracts painfully at how his daughter’s cries. then it’s almost like the entire world is against him right now because he also starts to hear small little sniffles from the door of the room.

your husband looks back to find his son dragging his teddy bear with him in one hand and in another, trying to wipe his tears as much as possible.

your husband quickly shifts d/n into one arm and leads s/n into him with the other. your son nuzzles into his dad’s chest and murmurs, “I want mama.”

almost like she understands the mention of you, she calms down a tiny bit and her hands start reaching for the air—reaching for you.

satoru slides down to the ground and pulls them both into his chest, and he starts rubbing s/n’s shoulder and kisses the top of his head and sighs, “me too, s/n, but, hey, we are strong and capable, so we have to hold on until she comes home, right?”

a little sniffle escapes s/n as he nods before saying a soft, “yeah.”

satoru smiles and ruffles his hair, “that’s my champ.”

s/n lets out a little smile and snuggles into his dad’s embrace.

so satoru shifts his attention to the sniffling baby in his arm, he frowns, “now what are we going to do with you, little missy?”

your son purses his lips for a moment, before placing the teddy bear in his hands into his little sister’s tiny arms. curiosity takes over for a moment, and she starts exploring the new item.

then s/n presses on the teddy bear’s chest and it plays a little voice message from you:

“hey sweetie! mama loves you, so don’t worry about those nightmares! I am always here.”

your daughter’s eyes shine and she hugs the teddy as much as possible and utters a small, “ma!”

satoru blinks owlishly then looks at s/n with smile, “so you had that all along?”

s/n nods slowly and holds into his father tighter, obviously getting tired and getting ready to sleep. satoru would love to say the same about his other angel but—oh she fell asleep.

looks like all it took was a little listen to your voice.

he will probably make you record a thousand voice messages when you come back and make you get him his own special build-a-bear as well cause what the hell? what about your husband?

he shakes the thought away, realizing that he can finally fall asleep, albeit on the floor.

with no blanket.

no pillow.

not even his favorite cushion.

but he wasn’t raised to be ungrateful, so he will take what he can get. he will simply make up for lost sleep when you’re back. it will feel better that way in any case.

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do not copy or plagiarize or you will be reported

[noxcheshire]

Back at it again with my Danny is mom coded au’s, but this time it’s because of Clockwork that he suddenly has a whole ass teenage kid.

Clockwork had been bored or maybe he was playing a game against an opponent, or even lost a bet, whatever it was, he stepped in right as Jason was searching for his biological mother.

The DNA that would have registered itself as one Sheila Haywood, confirming Jason’s mother, glitched a terrible green across the screens of the batcomputer.

In those few moments of chaos Jason’s heart beat rapidly as he tried to figure out why the computer wasn’t working, wondering if his only chance to find his mom — his blood mom — would never find success.

Then as suddenly as things went wrong the DNA settled and pinged.

Jason watched, his chest tight, as one Danny C. Works, formerly Danny Fenton appeared onto the big screen.

Danny looked a lot like Jason, short cut black hair more straight than the subtle curls of Jason’s own; deep blue eyes, tired in a way that spoke of long days and nights, but with a warm happiness that made the familiar smile — the one Jason would see on himself every time he looked into the mirror — even more striking.

Jason didn’t linger too long on the male identifying gender, nor the fact his mom leaned more towards a masculine name or clothing.

There were plenty of male to female, and female to male leaning individuals that lived in Crime Alley. He had seen it enough to not even bat an eye at it, even now. After all, in Gotham you minded your business least you find yourself in business you can’t leave.

On a different monitor information of Danny C. Works piled for Jason to quickly browse through.

Danny was a senior engineer, no intimate relationships, and with no close connections to family outside of the tentative calls from Jasmine Fenton.

Danny was estranged from Jack and Madeline Fenton, a falling out that had occurred just a little before Danny’s high school graduation. If Jason calculated it correctly that would have been — around the season Jason himself would have been born.

Okay, so no grandparents then but I might have a maybe aunt. Jason scrolled further and stilled.

Twin toddlers: Dante and Danielle Works.

Jason had baby siblings.

He doesn’t let the sting of younger siblings consume him, doesn’t allow the whispering thoughts of why he had been given up when his younger siblings had been kept and so very obviously loved.

Jason took deep breathes, he didn’t have time to linger here. He had a family to get to, and a family he would get to.

It took almost all night to reach, the starlight night sky slowly and surely fading into cloudy wine as the sun rose, but Jason made it.

And when the door opened to his hesitant but firm knock, Jason was unable to speak. His mom — dad, maybe? Did they want to be mom or dad? — stood in the doorway, brows furrowed in confusion.

It was when Danny spoke his vigilante name did Jason only just realize that he was still dressed to the nine’s in his Robin costume.

[jaggedamethyst]

golden boy (part 3) | jayce talis x female reader

3.3k words

content: fawk it!! part three of jayce making reader a vibrator with hextech. everyone round of applause for golden boy!! (part one, part two)

notes/warnings: 18+ minors dni, angst, oral (female receiving), some sub!jayce, unprotected sex (dont be like them!), lmk if I missed anything as always

ps: while this is the end for now, I may consider adding some parts when inspiration strikes. its been fun writing for my best guy for a few weeks now...the arcane brain rot is real and I will never stop adding to the madness. thanks for reading in advance. - amethyst 💟

series masterlist

⭑·ﾟﾟ·*:༅。.。༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:༅。.。༅:*·ﾟﾟ·⭑

Being from the Undercity meant that from a young age you were particularly skilled at evasion. When Enforcers arrived, you were able to lie at the drop of a dime. At the mention of your now nonexistent family you could mask your emotions. Most importantly, you could get out of Piltover undetected. 

Slyly turning corners, you’d finally emerged on the outside. Regret filled you, then. 

You didn’t want to think of Jayce there—the fact that he would wake up alone. Truthfully you’d often reason that this was for the better, that you leaving would soften the blow of having to explain how fucked up you were. It was something you found yourself discussing often. 

“I have a particularly vested interest in this…seeing as though I also fell for a Piltie.” 

It was hard to be a Zaunite and not at least know of Vi. You’d actually met when you were younger. You swapped stories of lost families, hate for authority, and a penchant for being hardasses. 

“I didn’t fall for him, Vi. He was just there when I needed someone.” 

“Sure, but I was here, too. When that piece of shit lied to you…got married…I was here. You’re not all over me like you are with Jayce. So how do you explain that?” 

You knew it was more than just sex with him as much as you hated to admit it. But there’d been countless examples of the between-worlds love story simply not working. 

“Vi, you and the Kiramman girl didn’t even work. Again and again you two have tried and nothing…”

“Sometimes it’s just worth saying you tried. That despite everything, you opened up just that little bit.” 

You’d downed drink after drink that night—the sting barely masking the nagging at your mind to just go see him. But the sadness you’d feel was always overrun with hate. He proved you right. The cycle continued. A month had passed and he hadn’t even looked for you.

You and Vi proved similar, again. When she suggested you take up fighting to release your tension, you hadn’t even thought twice. It was yet another way to remind yourself that you deserved to feel this. Every stupid decision you’d made up until this point warranted the physical pain. 

It quickly got out of hand. 

Before Jayce became a member of the council, he didn’t make a habit of leaving Piltover. Now that he was in a position of power, he found himself in Zaun often. It was important to him that he didn’t see you, though. The twinge in the pit of his stomach had only subsided moderately at the thought of you. Until the embers in his body had completely burned out—he wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of giving in. Of being good. 

The opportunity to walk the Undercity afforded him time to observe things he’d later note in his proposition for a large-scale integration. He figured this was bigger than you somehow. If you ever did will yourself to feel even a modicum of what he felt for you, it’d be worth it to have made it safer for you. Regardless, he was still taken aback by how gritty Zaun was every time. He thought of his partner living here—hardly able to walk. 

You saw him, then. He was passing a corner, clearly in thought. Something that crossed his mind had upset him. You wondered if it was about you. What you would give to be able to smooth the creases in his face, to tell him that whatever it was would be okay, to make certain it was. 

But it wasn’t. You’d left. Again.

He should’ve expected to run into you. He’d never seen you look so disheveled; there was always an air of composure about you. But looking at you now, you’d been neglecting to take care of yourself. 

It happened so fast. As if you felt the magnetic pull of his eyes on you. In the second that you’d turned to examine him, a crack hit the side of your face. You wanted to swing back, finish the fight you started, but you figured you deserved this. You’d let the rage take over. So when the punches came down and you started to black out, you couldn’t help the smile on your face. 

_________

You jolted awake later, observing a man hobbling across the room. 

“Viktor?” 

He turned to you, “You know who I am?” 

You sat up a bit, “Of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you, although I wish it was under better circumstances.” 

“You must be the Zaunite girl.” 

You interrupted, offended by the remark. “Excuse me-“

Viktor held up a hand to stop your incoming rant, he knew the feeling too well. 

“My partner…is nothing if not consistent.” He sat down next to you, “Taking two helpless Undercity residents beneath his wing seems quite…fitting for Jayce.” 

“You’re…from Zaun?”

He nodded. “I’m sure you understand the feeling of being around someone like Jayce.” 

You nodded in response. The feeling of unease not needing further explanation. 

“Jayce mentioned to me this plan he has. To consolidate Piltover and Zaun into one entity. Again, my partner fails to recognize the intricacies of having such an ambitious plan.”

“I…didn’t know about that. Makes sense that he would be so set on creating a utopia.” 

You both laughed at that, knowing the man all too well. 

You continued, “With Jayce, I feel like I’m always seeking something out. Like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?” You shifted in your seat, trying to explain. “If I get ahead of the bad I know is coming, I can avoid getting hurt. But that feels so…pessimistic?” 

After a while, Viktor stood again. “I would be remiss to call a person such as yourself a pessimist.” 

He slowly made his way over to a cabinet, pulling out an umbrella. 

“Despite my life's work here, I truly have nothing else to offer you except this…and time.” He pushed the umbrella into your hands, “It should rain soon. If you want to get away before he comes back, you should go now.”

You slid off of the bench that you were seated on. “But why?” 

He motioned toward the door, following behind you. “Jayce Talis is the most brilliant man I have ever known, and yet he fails to see the world with the nuance it demands.” 

There was an understanding between you again. That reconciliation was a lot to face. That although there was an inexplicable care for the man, it was hard for him to understand you both sometimes.

“Thank you.” 

——————

The umbrella did little for protecting your body as you ran through the storm, yet you’d left a mental note to thank Viktor at some point. 

Fury had bubbled in you in a split second, “Shit!” You kicked one of your chairs in frustration. The thought of Jayce going out of his way to make sure you were safe and arriving to you gone again was painful. You wanted to feel numb. The desire for nothing about Jayce Talis to ever harm you again was debilitating. 

A banging on the door made you freeze. It couldn’t…

A knock again, and the voice you longed to hear from. 

“It’s me.” 

Jayce called your name, his voice breaking with every repetition. 

You swung the door open. He looked so defeated—out of breath and covered in water. He’d clearly not thought to grab anything to shield him from the rain. 

With your usual feigned annoyance you broke the silence. “I told you to never come here.” 

There was an agreement made between you two, that you would always come to him. You weren’t embarrassed of your home, far from it. But you did hate the feeling of relinquishing control. When with Jayce, you always reserved that right to leave at your own discretion—with him here you instantly felt the restraints. 

He huffed at that, his usual apprehension replaced with exasperation. 

“Shut up.” 

He pulled you in by your neck, kissing you as if to punctuate the command. He moved you back into your house, closing the door behind you both. Every fear had evaporated from your mind. It was always so good with him. You knew he would take care of you in every way. 

Everything between you remained unspoken for now, your rain-soaked clothes finding their way to your floor. 

Jayce’s physique is one that you loved, but became rather daunting the more he’d taken control. 

He pushed you again, this time leaving you on display for him on your bed. He looked you up and down slowly. It made you nervous—the lack of readable expression on his face. When you’d finally made eye contact, he broke it quickly, reaching toward his clothes on the floor. He returned to you quickly, his body fully enveloping yours. 

He kissed your neck sweetly, a way only he could. He made note to suck down on your telltale spots—where you’d been the most sensitive. Making his way to your chest, he looked up at you with a mix of desire and hurt in his eyes. In his left hand he’d massaged your nipple between his fingers, his mouth finding the other. Your chest heaved. Your eyes fluttered shut. You were distracted. He knew the trick very well, seeing as you’d fooled him more than he could count. 

A sudden pulse and sucking sensation jolted you to attention. Jayce had a coy look on his face—and his free hand was on what you had to assume was a new prototype. 

You instinctively circled your hips toward him, craving more. He pressed you down, stopping your movement. The way he continued rubbing on your clit made you fight the urge to writhe against him. 

Your face was suddenly met with his and a peck was left on your lips. When he broke contact, he simultaneously turned the vibration up to the max. You were completely inconsolable. He watched your coherence leave your mind with a menacing smile—still refusing to utter a word. 

You wanted to say something, anything. You fought to question what this sudden change was about, why he was so adamant about tearing you apart right now. But part of you could tell that this was his way of keeping you silent. A sensation this good always left you speechless—your jaw slack and eyebrows pinched together. 

The max setting was a continued pulse and grip on your clit that you couldn’t even process. You weren’t sure where the pain and pleasure met but it was too damn good to stop. 

He kept looking at you. He knew you’d be done soon. All of the signs were there. It was sort of torturous for you to try and form words in your mind and have nothing come to fruition. 

Having him stare at you with a look of disdain in his eyes was even worse. The once yellow color that would wrap you up like the warmth of the Sun now pierced into you. 

He still coaxed you along, needing to prove a point—for you to finish. Within a few more seconds you jolted and froze against him, your legs tightening around his waist. 

He quickly brushed off your grip on his torso, moving to stand. He turned his back to you, discarding his prototype, and steadying himself with his hands on his hips. 

“Is this what you wanted?” He didn’t look at you. He didn’t have to; he knew you were confused by this entire thing. “Is this all you ever need from me? To show up, make you feel better for a while, and then watch you leave?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What do you know? Because at this point I can’t tell.”

“Me either.”

Jayce finally turned to you, observing your head in your hands. “W-we can’t keep doing this. It’s not healthy.” 

“I know.” 

He moved a bit closer to you, surely angry now. 

“Are you going to say more than a few words to me or will this be the same as always?”

You spoke under your breath, barely audible over the sound of the rain. “What else do you want me to say, Jayce?” 

Words threatened to spill from you. The force with which you’d pushed them down had left you. A figurative steam had started to escape you, a bubbling on the verge of spilling over. Looking at Jayce was often the only catalyst you’d needed, that remained a constant today, it seemed. 

You peered over at him now, “What do you want me to say, hm? That I feel fucking stupid because I let myself feel something I swore I would never? That you’re the only person to make me feel something other than fear?” You dropped down from the bed, looking up at him. Tears that you’d held in finally met the brim of your eyes. “That,” you paused, “I care about you so much that the thought of it being more makes me want to die. That because I felt that before…with someone else…and was ruined entirely because of it that I can’t let myself be happy. Is that what you want?” You wiped your face swiftly, looking away, “Is it?” 

He surprised you when he carefully brought you into a hug. The grip of one hand on the back of your head, the other on your back was cathartic. You recounted every instance for which you’d felt safe with Jayce, there were too many to count. 

He inhaled slowly and let out an even deeper exhale. “What I want is for you to meet me where you can.” 

He pulled back a bit, his arms trailing your arms as he grasped both of your hands. He slowly sank to kneel in front of you, both knees planted to the carpet. Despite you both being completely bare, his grip around your body was far from sexual. He laid his head on you, his forehead relaxing into your lower abdomen. 

“For every night that you’re willing to stay, I promise to be with you the next day.” 

You stared ahead, the man’s head in your lower peripheral. The sheer magnitude of that kind of commitment already weighed on you. But you figured, who better to carry the load with than Jayce? You didn’t need to be strong enough to bear it alone; you knew the golden boy had enough fortitude to make the heaviest of burdens feel light. 

“Say something…please.”

You blinked, “Okay.” 

“Okay?” He leaned back, looking at your face. 

You nodded. 

The tough exterior the man had worn soon dissipated. A veil so uncomfortable for him that he didn’t recognize himself in the last few minutes. He nuzzled into you, grasping at your skin like you would disappear into thin air.

The whole ordeal had happened so quickly, you didn’t even get to comment on the way his appearance had changed. 

“I like the new hair. It really says tortured scientist to me.” 

He hadn’t actually noticed his lack of upkeep these last few weeks. He chuckled, knowing he’d pinpointed how you didn’t take care of yourself—and yet here he was. 

“Do you see what you’ve done to me? I didn’t even shave my face.” 

You brushed a piece of hair behind his ear. “I actually think the rough look is pretty sexy. Maybe we should stop talking for another month.” 

“Too soon.” 

“Is it?” You lifted a leg over his shoulder, “We shouldn’t talk about it then, right?”

He tilted his face, rubbing into the inner skin on your thigh. He nodded, but got distracted by the sight in front of him. You were already dripping, a mix of arousal from before and now. He looked up through his lashes, asking for your approval. 

“Go ahead.” 

You would think that Jayce was starving the way he started to devour you. His head between your thighs, his tongue pushing into you, and his hands kneading at your legs was a combination that always had you weak in front of him. If you somehow could stay this way forever, spread thin, you would. The added friction of the stubble on his face hurt so good. You were sure there’d be a burn on you later—but you would wear it with honor. 

In the way you admired his fingers you would give the utmost praise to Jayce’s mouth. You shivered, his tongue flattening over you, a long and final swipe collecting every drop of you. He tapped your leg on his shoulder twice before lowering it. He made a show of licking his lips while he laid back on the bed. 

“Come take what you need.” 

You’d been in this position before—the man beneath you dripping in precum. You straddled him, the muscle memory kicking in. You let your lips trail across his collarbone. You’d yet to let him in you, rubbing your wetness up and down him. You made certain he was rock hard as you slowly connected his shoulder blades in an assortment of bruises. Eventually you gripped him, circling your hole with the head of his dick. 

He rested his hands on your hips, pressing down a bit. “Please-“ 

You slowly sank onto him, letting out a puff of air at the stretch. 

Leaning toward his ear, you spoke again. “I think you’ve waited long enough.” 

Without missing a beat, you pushed up and down on him. He instinctively met you, slapping into you at a slow rhythm he knew you’d loved. You rolled your neck, the piercing in your stomach was worth the time apart. You’d wait for him, you thought. It was the least you could do after he’d been so understanding with you. A month…a year…any amount of time was worth seeing him splayed so pretty beneath you. 

The wet sounds of you two slowly working each other could have been considered lewd had it not been for Jayce’s whimpers. Suddenly, the sounds bouncing off your walls seemed rather sweet. 

“Mmm, f-fuck,” and he continued like that for a while. Resounding sounds of pleasure and pain vibrated in your ears—urging you to speed up. 

Your deliberate circlings into him had become less controlled bounces. You were close. It didn’t matter how much longer, Jayce always found a way to finish with you. 

“C-can I?” He looked between you, the way you molded together so well. He always asked before he came in you. You definitely should’ve cared more about the implications, but your fervent nods made him snap up into you even harder. 

He noticed your irregular movement, flipping you two over. He was above you now—a sight you were getting more familiar with these days. An inadvertent smile found your lips, then, as he scrambled beside you. He immediately started the vibration on your clit, pumping into you at the same time. You clawed at his back, your walls squeezing into him, coaxing the release out of him. 

“Need you to cum, baby. Let me feel you,” he uttered between moans. 

“Jayce, I-“ 

“Its okay…its all okay.” 

He always had a way with words. Even when the situation found you both entangled with one another—he found a way to reassure you that you were safe. The thought alone had your legs wrapped around his back, finally finishing with him. Your entire body pulsed as he worked you thoroughly. He slipped away from you with a groan, his hand swiping at you. Before you could protest, he sucked on a drenched finger, cleaning it completely. 

“Sweeter than I remember.” 

You both laid there, heaving for breath but not a word exchanged. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jayce fighting sleep. Without thinking, you reached to turn off the lights, draping yourself over his chest. He sighed and kissed your forehead—finally allowing himself rest. 

——————

Jayce woke in the morning, the Sun’s rays meeting his eyelids with a heat that forced him to relinquish sleep. He felt around for you but as he’d suspected…nothing. He craned his head to the side, eyebrows raising a bit. 

“Sorry, did I wake you?” 

You were there. 

You scrambled a bit, “I’m sorry, I stepped out and went to the Lanes really quick. Vander’s not the best cook but I figured you might be hungry…I’m starving-“

He let out a breath he’d been holding, “It’s good to see you.” 

You smiled, “You too.” 

[lostalioth]

𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧

→ premise: all of deans life pain has always ran parallel to love. he needs them both, he needs you to hurt him and take the pain away all at the same time, turns out you were more than willing to, you may even need it reciprocated.

→ pairing: dean winchester x fem!reader

→ warnings: 2.3k words, small bit of angst that turns quickly into smut | 18+, kinda switch!dean, pain kink [slapping, biting, pinching, scratching, etc], praise kink [both reader and dean], unprotected sex, small bit of choking, multiple mentions of blood & reader nearly dying

→ a/n: kinktober 08

Dean was accustomed to pain, he learned to tolerate and push through it from a young age as his father hammered into him that it was his job to always look after Sam and conditioned him to become a hunter. Love always came alongside pain in his life, losing everybody he ever cared deeply for; it happened so often that he began to associate one with the other. And so somewhere along the way he came to yearn for both pain and love as he felt they always came together. When Dean began having feelings for you, he was scared like he’s never been before. He avoided telling you for a couple of years simply because he thought if he voiced it out loud then he'd lose you like he did everyone else.

However when a demon came very close to killing you when you were being reckless, that scared Dean a hell of a lot more and in a screaming match about it he revealed his feelings on accident.

“You couldve fucking died, ya’ know that right? If me and Sam got there even a minute later you’d have been laying in my arms dead not just unconscious” when he mentions sam, he gestures towards the couch in the small motel room where the younger brother last sat. Though when he turns to look over hoping for backup he finds Sam gone, he groans out in annoyance. Sam had figured it was best to leave the two of you to your fighting alone, yes he was also upset with your careless decision but not as heated as his brother.

“Well I didn't okay? I can take care of myself. I had it under control!” you scream out, punching your words out to get your point across, flailing your arms in frustration though the fast movement aggravates your injuries making you wince slightly. Seeing you in pain makes Dean stop short for a second, a ping in his chest as his heart aches, it however only morphs into making his blood boil more when the memory of finding you beaten and bloody on the floor of that warehouse flashes in his head. “I'm sooo glad you can take care of yourself, but what about me HUH?!” He screams out, sarcasm dripping from his voice until the latter half with his question where it breaks off taking you back. Confusion crosses your face but before you can say anything back to him he continues.

“I dont know what I’d fuckin’ do without you, im so pathetically and utterly in love with you that the thought of you dying makes me wanna lie in the dirt just so i can be buried with you!” he had been stepping closer and closer as he yelled out in frustration, not realizing exactly what he just said. You can feel your heart pounding in your chest, the adrenaline from his confession and proximity coursing through your veins.

“You love me..?” Your voice comes out softer than Dean swears he's ever heard it before and it melts all the anger out of his body. He knew there was no turning back now that he blurted that out and even though he was worried more than ever, he couldn't stand not being with you anymore. “I think i fell in love the moment i met you sweetheart” he sighs and brings his rough hands up to cup your face and wipe away the tears you hadn’t noticed we're slowly falling from your eyes. After a long stretch of comfortable silence as the tension of the fight has dissipated you speak up.

“Would you just kiss me already ya’ idiot” you tease, smiling softly at him through your tears as you stare deep into those stupid green eyes that turn your brain to mush.

Using his hold on your face he pulls your lips against his in a desperate kiss, trying to drown out all the swarming negative voices in his head. Your soft lips mold against his perfectly and he thanks any and every god he can think of for letting him have something he knows he doesn’t deserve. Your eyes flutter shut as you kiss back, the fight over your thoughtless decision not forgotten but put on the back burner. You were deans the second you told him to kiss you and if you thought you were gonna be able to continue with your bad decisions boy were you in for a surprise, he just finally got you he wasn't ever letting go now. You grab at his chest, your hands balling up his shirt as you try pulling him impossibly closer deepening the kiss. In a tangled mess of limbs and mouths still latched to one another’s you and Dean tumble back and fall down onto the rundown motel bed. Dean landed on his back in the middle cushioning your fall with you landing on top of him between his legs.

“Baby..” he mumbles against your lips making your heart skip a bit at him calling you a name normally reserved for his impala. He even squeezes your hips lightly to break your focus from the make out.

“I need you to do something for me” he groans out as the kiss heats up and your tongue slips in his mouth during his statement, your hands running all over his chest and arms. Your body was pressed up to his, hips flush against each other making it impossible for you not to feel his hardening cock on your thigh. “Anything, what do you need, baby?” You question, desperate to please him and more than willing to do whatever he asks. Now Dean was well aware if he said jump you'd ask how high, he just hoped this request as odd as it was didn‘t make you run for the hills.

Reluctantly he pulls away from the kiss to catch his breath as well as watch your face when he tells you what he needs. You open your eyes and look at him with that same sparkle they always hold when your gaze is locked on him. His cock was getting painfully hard now from the mixture of the make out session and your body so close to him.

”I- shit okay im just gonna say it uh. I need you to hurt me. I just- I need you to get the image of you laying in a pool of your own blood barely breathing out of my head” he rambles, his voice sounding unfamiliar to his own ears with how pathetic it comes out. He silently prays you won't just get up and walk out of his life at his weird desire. He avoids eye contact when you are still silent after a minute. A fire ignites in your body and settles in your core as a million and one thoughts are running through your head at the speed of light. Every single last one however being the different things you wanna and finally get to do to Dean.

You grab ahold of Dean’s face squeezing it as you turn it so he is looking at you again. You now have a small taunting smile on your face, your nails are lightly digging into his cheeks making his cock twitch. “I can do that, but can you be a good boy?” You teasingly question as you lean up maneuvering your body so you're straddling his hips, peering down on him. The sight of you on his lap, thighs spread either side of his body and lust blown hooded eyes staring down at him knocks the breath from his lungs. It's an image pulled from his many dirty depraved dreams of you that riddled him with guilt but now it's a reality, his wonderful heaven like reality.

He frantically nods his head yes while your hand not pinching his face is working at undoing his belt.

“Gonna be such a good boy, can be s’good for you baby” he huffs out and lifts his hips to help you out as you pull his jeans down and off his legs. You let go of his face and dean has to fight back an actual whine when the small sting of pain leaves with it. Though he swallows his complaint as he watches you strip yourself of your dirty still blood soaked t-shirt, going at a teasingly slow pace when you undo your own belt pulling it through the loops and discarding it on the floor besides his pants. “Come on don't be a tease sweetheart please” he softly begs as he grabs your hips, thrusting his up to grind his bulge against your core. The rough fabric of your jeans sends a jolt of pleasure up his spine as it rubs over his aching boxer covered cock. You bite back a moan and slap his chest to stop him before lifting your body up to help you rid yourself of your remaining clothes. He is not fat behind you, nearly ripping off his shirt and tugging down his boxers making his leaking cock bounce free between your bodies.

Saliva practically pools in Dean's mouth at the sight of you stripped bare for his eyes scanning over every inch of you. Your thighs spread back over his hips leaving your pussy on display for him, your slick coating his cock as your hips take up his previous action of grinding. “Such a good boy” you praise and lean down digging your nails into his sides, the pain making his eyes screw shut in bliss. Lifting your hips once again this time however sinking your pussy down onto his throbbing cock. Your slick and his precum help to aid your cunt into taking every inch of Dean's cock to the base as you smash your lips against his in a passionate kiss. The mixture of stinging pain and sweet praise and pleasure drown out all bad thoughts, all images that were flashing in Dean's head of your limp body unmoving and bleeding fade from his head finally, his only thought being of how good you feel.

“Mhmm~” He whines out in pleasure and surprise, the sound muffled in your mouth. Your hips immediately set into a rhythm of grinding and softly bouncing, his cock dragging across your velvety walls and his tip hitting your cervix when you bounce down. “Ah- Ahh~ fuck sweetheart knew this fuckin’ pussy feel amazing” he grunts out, his fingers holding onto your hips in a bruising grip that has your head spining. You bite down on his plush bottom lip in retaliation making a small almost growl erupt from his chest. The sound vibrates through your body to your core making your hips flatter a bit and a whine escapes your lips.

Within the blink of an eye dean has your legs wrapped around his waist when he sits up and flips your position breaking the kiss. Laying you flat on your back with him nestled between your thighs his cock still buried deep inside you. “Dean~” your whimper morphs into a wanton moan when his hips start at a punishing pace, your slick already forming a creamy ring at the base of his cock as it pounds into you. His heavy balls smacking your ass creating an obscene noise that fills the room with your moans and his grunts. “As much as i love how you sound and wanna hear it for the rest of my life baby, you gotta be quiet sweetheart” he taunts as his hand slips up the side of your body to palm at your bouncing tits. you whine out and paw at his lower stomach and v-line almost pushing him away slightly to stop his tip from abusing that one spot deep inside you. “Mm~ I can’t, it s’good, feels too good, i needa cum” you whine out your words slurring together as the knot in your stomach tightens. “Aww well don't want the staff or other guests hearing you scream my name now do we?” He questions with a small smirk that morphs into an almost slack jawed look when your nails dig into his back and drag down. The stinging pain of you scratching at his back so hard he's almost certain you drew blood makes his hips speed up even more.

“Bite down on my shoulder to muffle yourself when you cum okay baby?” He softens a bit though his hips don't slow down, you nod desperately in understanding. “That’s my good girl” he beams at you praising you in a sweet tone making your pussy clench down on his cock.

You grab at his hand that rests on your breasts and pull it up to your neck hoping he gets the message. A smile forms on his lips as what you want registered in his head, you wanted pain the same as him. Dean didn't think he could love you anymore than he did and yet as his hand wraps around your throat his heart swells, you're the same as him, you needed pain with the love and pleasure, he was the luckiest fucking man alive in this moment. He smirks and softly kisses your lips as he leans down and his cock somehow reaches even deeper inside you.

The new angle causes the knot in your core to snap and your high to crash into you, making you pull away from his mouth and bury your face in his shoulder. Baring your teeth you bite down a bit hard onto his shoulder to muffle your loud moans and cries as you cream on his cock. “Oh fuck yeah, there we go sweetheart good girl baby” he praises, his head going foggy in pain and pleasure as his climax hits him head on, spilling his cum deep inside you not caring about the loud noises that leave his own mouth.

→ a/n: as always this wasnt proofread and its late, whos shocked? anyway i got a bit carried away well more like a lot. this is only my second time writing for dean and i got excited i really like writing for him. It is however my first time writing smut for him so sorry if hes out of character.

[dreamypinkfilms]

dating patrick hockstetter headcanons (MOVIE)

- this man is the LIGHTEST sleeper you will ever meet, like.. it’s kinda scary sometimes, you’ll accidentally knock something over and when you turn back around he’ll be sitting up and staring into your soul

- he def smells like some type of cologne that his mom bought for him and forces him to wear, burning stuff obvi and hairspray

- his mom is a christian(book reference) so expect to see him in church every sunday in his preppy dress shirt and tie

- he thought michael jackson was attractive when he was younger and whenever his mom brings it up he gets super pissed off

- he’s definitely not a mama’s boy or anything, he literally forgets her name sometimes but he favors her over his dad

- this mf has a hair pulling kink i CALL it, his hair is so pretty to not be pulled at

- his laugh is SO high pitched (as if his voice isn’t already but yk) i saw a behind the scenes and owen teague’s laugh is so silly in it

- okay so about his hair again it’s too pretty for him to not care about it so i fear he wraps it in a towel when he gets out of the shower and treats it like a baby(NOT like he would in the book guys..)

- he probably has gotten arrested like once or twice or at least told off by henry’s dad for setting things on fire around town with his “flamethrower”

- this mangy ass is weak as hell he can barely lift weights without falling like a damsel in distress to the ground

- ew he probably comes up behind you and goes ‘guess who!’ OR he wraps his arm around your neck like your a frat boy buddy

- he cannot dance so if he’s at a party or someplace with music he’ll just head-bang and jump

- he probably has insomnia so he gets up at like three in the morning and wanders around the house like this:

- he definitely enjoys graffiti and likes to spray paint random buildings in derry but he probably isn’t good at it so he’ll probably just write something like ‘penis’ or paints all over actual graffiti art

- i think he’s definitely more of a cat guy then dog because he has the personality and agility of one or if it came to any exotic animals he’d be a ferret

- will chase you around with dead bugs or mice if you’re afraid of either (HE DIDN’T KILL THEM) that’s book only guys

- he’s definitely more of a cigarette guy than a alcoholic but once in a while he’ll get shitfaced with the gang(you have to pick him up after)

- he LOVES sushi, most likely because his mom cooked it a lot during his child years, but will beg to grab some while belch is driving, usually they do get it but they stop somewhere else because henry will shit his pants if he eats it(he hates it)

- MANSPREADS

- allows you to do his makeup or paint his nails if you’re on the girlier side, but if not he likes when you do his skincare

- i feel like the song that plays when the bowers gang is first introduced on screen (love removal machine by the cult) is the type of music he enjoys or that is his favorite song. he likes grungy/metal teenage boy music yk

FIRST POST EVER COMPLETED??? OH YAYAYAYA

who was gonna tell me trying to add your own gifs was such a struggle.. “gif to big!” THATS WHAT SHE SAID like stfu and let me add the dang gif

[gurugirl]

guru, i have a requests bc I need something ✨fluffy✨ as im healing from closing my fingers in my front door!!

could you write any harry au finding out that the reader is in paramore and wrote the only exception for him?

Oh my gosh your fingers! Ahh I hope you didn’t break anything! 😬

Feel better soon hon ❤️‍🩹 Enjoy! (also I hope this is what you wanted )

A/N: I didn't mention Paramore specifically (except for some bits of the song) nor are there any physical descriptions of Y/n so it's inclusive! Imagine who you like! xoxo

Word Count: 1,174

Warning: FLUFFFFFFFFYYYY SWEET! (Harry has a quick moment of anxiety)

. .

Harry wasn’t sure what he was looking at when he saw it. Maybe you were just playing a joke on him—? He always thought your singing voice kind of reminded him of a band he'd heard on the radio a few times… but this?

There you were on video. Right in his phone... wearing a very short skirt hopping around on stage like that. You were usually more of a jeans and t-shirt or sweater gal. It was clearly you–but it was like watching a doppelganger of you.

He blinked his eyes at his screen. His apartment was quiet as he was just waking up and still sitting in his bed. It was a normal morning routine. Wake up and check social media, emails, his daily schedule…

He had no idea how this had come across his feed. You. Like that. He rubbed his eyes. Was he still dreaming?

You hadn't been dating all that long but you were both already head over heels. It'd happened so fast and there was still so much to learn about one another but he knew you were it just like he hoped you felt the same. He knew you had a band and he'd heard you sing. You had guitars at your place and you wrote poems and lyrics in your notebook all the time. You were talented.

A text popped up on his screen from you.

See you in five minutes!

Scooting himself out of bed so he could at least brush his teeth he clicked on the page that had posted the video and there were more! Of you! Of this band that he'd heard of in passing. He held the phone up and started watching the next video. You were singing for a semi-large crowd. He pressed the button on his electric toothbrush and felt his heart thrumming harder and harder as you started singing another song. A song he'd heard on the radio.

It was surreal to see you like that. Why hadn't you told him? Why was he finding out like this? Did you not want him to know? Did you not see a future with him at all?

The questions in his brain were buzzing as various puzzle pieces began to fall into place. It made so much sense now that he was thinking of everything but it also had him worried that you never told him. Maybe you didn't trust him.

When he was done brushing his teeth he splashed water on his face and pressed his palms over his sink counter. He was going to have to confront you.

He looked down at his phone and clicked on the next video. The most recently uploaded video.

"I'm Y/n! Thank you for being here with us tonight!" The crowd was loud and he could hear some whistles and cheering.

"This next song is about a guy that I'm falling for hard. It wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't think it ever would. I haven't told him yet but I have this song." You began to sway as the guitarist started to play. "This is for love. For anyone who's felt it. This is for Harry."

He blinked at the screen and you began to sing.

"When I was younger, I saw my daddy cry and curse at the wind..."

Harry was startled when he heard you knocking at his door. You were there and he was reeling from everything he'd just learned. Pausing the video he made his way to his door and opened it to see your pretty face. You immediately stepped in and wrapped your arms around his middle for a big hug.

He hesitantly placed his arms around you after he closed his door. But you noticed something was off. Harry was still holding his phone in his hand as you looked up at him.

"Everything okay?"

He looked like he was unable to put thoughts into words. Like he was stunned or hadn't expected to see you, even though you'd made plans to come over. Stepping back you clutched your hands over his wrists. "Harry?"

His throat bobbed when he swallowed and he blinked his eyes. "You're famous."

Your heart stopped. You knew he'd find out soon. You'd planned on telling him but it was always tricky telling people. You'd dated people in the past that were just looking for clout or trying to get there own name out there by using you. So it was a precaution. But you didn't need to hide it from Harry anymore.

"Yes. Well... kind of. I mean... a lot of people don't really know who I am. I'm not like at that level of fame but—"

"You don't trust me?"

"I do trust you, Harry. I promise." You slid your palms up his forearms and stepped in closer. "I was going to tell you. I just got a little scared because everything happened so fast between us. It just... I wanted to make sure first. I swear I've been planning to tell you because I... god... I just want to tell you everything."

"I don't understand why you never said anything." He shook his head but he didn't pull away from you.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to find out before I told you. I wanted to share something really special with you and tell you in this like... really romantic way."

He moved his arm and opened up his phone before you heard your song being playe. The song you wrote for him. His eyes flitted from you to his phone as the lyrics you sang poured out around you.

Because none of it was ever worth the risk... Well, you are the only exception...

Harry looked at you, a sheen of tears in his eyes as he let the song play out. You kept your hand on his forearm and let the lyrics do the talking. You just hoped he understood. You hoped that he could see why it took you a bit to work up to telling him.

Oh, and I'm on way to believing…

He tucked his phone into his sweatpants pocket and looked at you with soft eyes. Taking his hands into yours you smiled up at him.

"I have a lot to tell you."

He puffed out a low laugh. "I think that's an understatement."

"Are you mad at me?"

He shook his head. "Kind of hard to be mad after hearing that song you wrote for me. Is all that true, Y/n?" He pulled his hand out of yours and lifted his warm palm up to your cheek.

"Yes. Every word of it."

"Does that mean you love me?"

Your heartbeat tripped up on itself as you nodded. "I do. I love you."

His eyes were piercing and so deep with emotion, you'd drown in them happily. "I guess it's time for me to confess something to you then, too." He grinned and you felt his hand move back to cradle your nape. "I love you too."

. .

@yousunshineyoutempter @tenaciousperfectionunknown @swiftmendeshoran @tiaamberxx @closureesny

@angelbabyyy99 @malwtilda @love-letters-to-uranus @itjustkindahappenedreally @onlyangellucifer

@harryistheonlyoneforme @butdaddyilovehim-hs @lc-fics @hannahdressedasabanana @babegoalsreads

@harrrrystylesslut @elidoho @gotdrxnkonu @cathy-1997 @imgonnadreamaboutthewayyoutaaaa

@tiredinwinter @angeldavis777 @lillefroe @monicaalexandraaa @hsonlyangelxo

@brittanyzelazno @lemoncrushh @caynonmoondreams @mellamolayla @ladscarlett

@heartateasee @littlenatilda @finelinepie @michellekstyles @harrysredroom

@harrydeary @mrs-anna-styles211994 @devilsqueen722 @bananabk9756 @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite

@idkkkkkkk123lgb @freedomfireflies @fruity-harry @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @mema10

@gmikaelson

[heartsforjh]

I shall break my Quinn strike and ask for my favorite Hughes

Gimme Luke with “i thought you hated when people touch you?” he needs a black cat girlfriend for his golden retriever vibe😔🙏

this one was suspiciously easy for me to write so if it’s actually bad i’m VERY sorry… i knew something was up. 🙏

main masterlist | 100 follower celly masterlist

“Mom! Luke won’t stop making me upset!” your best friend, Jack, calls out.

“Luke, quit messing with your brother!” Ellen says, sorting through old family photos.

“I’m not messing with him! I’m messing with Y/n!” the younger boy whines.

“Your brother and his friend don’t want to play with you right now. You can play with Y/n when Jack has to go back to school,” Ellen explains.

“And he won’t stop touching her, Mom! He knows she doesn’t like it, but he keeps grabbing her hand and pulling her!” Jack continues to snitch.

“Alright, Jack. I’m handling it.”

“Okay, just making sure. Come on, Y/n. We don’t have to play with him,” Jack says, ushering you out of the living room. You feel bad, looking back at Luke as Jack pushes you out of the room without actually putting his hands on you. You give a little wave to Luke before disappearing from sight.

“Are you guys excited to start middle school?” Quinn, the oldest Hughes brother, asks as you and Luke sit at the dinner table.

“Well, I guess I am. I’m kind of nervous because I know it’ll be so different,” you admit before taking a bite of your food.

“It’s a good thing you have Luke! I’m glad the two of you get to start these milestones together!” the boys’ mom says.

“Yeah, Y/n! We have each other! It’s gonna be fun. We can sit next to each other at lunch and everything,” Luke says excitedly. He gets carried away while talking and starts messing with some strands of your hair, which Jack immediately notices.

Jack is quick to slap Luke’s hand away from your hair. “She doesn’t like you touching her! And she doesn’t need you. I already started middle school a year ago. I can tell her everything she needs to know.”

“Fine. I won’t touch her. It was an accident,” Luke says, feeling bad for forgetting again that people touching you makes you uncomfortable.

“How do you accidentally touch someone?! That doesn’t just happen! You—” Jack starts, only to be cut off by his dad stepping in with a stern, “Boys!”

It would be a lie to say that the rest of the dinner was ruined. This happens a lot, and everyone is used to it. Luke gets to talking, becomes excited, and, being a touchy person, accidentally does something to make Jack upset. It repeats like clockwork.

You got in. You really got in! The University of Michigan has accepted you as a student, and you couldn’t be happier. Of course, Luke is going too. You’re not mad about it at all. You expected it and, honestly, you’re glad. While you’re closest with Jack, having Luke complete all the same milestones with you has always been comforting.

You’re at the small party your family and the Hughes family put together to celebrate you and Luke. After finishing a conversation with one of their cousins, you head into the kitchen for a drink. Luke is already there at the counter, grabbing a drink for himself. When he turns around and sees you, he smiles.

“Hey!” he says, his eyes lighting up. You walk over to stand next to him and grab a cup.

“Hey. This is a cool party, right?” you ask, looking up at him and trying to make conversation.

He nods and grabs your favorite tea, pouring it into your cup for you. “Oh for sure. It’s great they did this for us. You ready to go to UMich?”

You smile a little nervously, looking at him. “I mean, I guess. I’m kind of nervous. You’re not?”

“No way! I’ve wanted to go to this school forever. So have you! You should be ecstatic. What’s the matter?” he asks, concerned.

“Well… y’know, it’s gonna be so different,” you confess, the nerves clear in your tone.

“It’s a good thing we’ll have each other, then. I’m not just gonna let you fall on your face, Y/n. I love you too much for that,” he says, his face full of emotion.

For the first time since the whole college mess, you feel relieved. “Really? Thanks, Lukey. I love you too.”

You close the space between the two of you and wrap your arms around his waist, laying your head on his chest. However, Luke freezes.

You frown a little and tilt your head to look up at him, your chin still resting on his chest. “Uh… Y/n? Is this, like… on purpose?” he asks, looking stressed.

You laugh, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought you hated when people touch you?” he says, his voice cracking slightly.

You think about it for a moment before responding. “I suppose I do. But not you.”

“Not me? I get yelled at every time I so much as look at you!” he says, surprised.

You pat his stomach and shake your head. “Lukey, that’s all Jack. Take it up with him. I like you… a lot. I always have.”

“You’ve liked me back this whole time and Jack’s ruined it?!” he asks, shocked.

You smile and nod. “Yeah! To be fair, I don’t think he knew. He just thought you were annoying me.”

“Whatever. He’s not here to ruin it now,” Luke says, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing you tight.

In the next room, Ellen turns to her oldest son, beaming. “It worked!”

Quinn smiles. “I told you they’d figure it out, and all it took was distracting Jack a little.”

tags: @beenucks @lukey-pookie-hughes43 @sweetestdesire @emsdevs @puckmedude @joesnumerouno @alex-wotton @r0wdymaize86

join the taglist here! :)

[sturniluvr]

Films and cuddles

Matt Sturniolo x Fem!reader

Nick sturniolo x bsf!reader

Word count: 900 (roughly)

Warning: none really, just fluff, possible spelling mistakes, maybe a bit cringe ngl😭

Summary: matts girlfriend can’t sleep, she and her bestfriend Nick watch a film on the couch.

❗️not proofread❗️

It was around 12:30am, the only time the sturniolo household was relatively quiet minus the soft hum of the tv coming from the living room as everyone was settling down for the night. The boys had just come back from filming the newest car video and everyone filtered around the house doing their own things. Y/N and Matt in their shared bedroom, Chris, for once in his own room, and Nick in the living room, presumably editing the YouTube video ready to be posted the next day. Matt was fast asleep behind Y/N, while she laid awake staring at the ceiling hoping sleep would overcome her eventually.

*hour later*

Y/N still couldn’t seem to fall asleep no matter how much she tried. She turned her body to face Matt who was still fast asleep, softly snoring with his beloved pug stuffed animal mr wrinkleton against his chest. Finally, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and threw on a pair of socks she found to avoid her feet getting cold and she quietly made her way over to Matt’s desk chair and grabbed his hoodie that hung on the back of the chair and she put it on, the hoodie drowning her small frame. She made her way over to the bedroom door and quietly opened it and made her way out and down the small corridor into the kitchen where she was met with the sight of Nick and Lauren, a friend of theirs they’ve known since high school and Chris’ girlfriend, sat on the couch together watching a film on the tv with a blanket thrown lazily across their legs Nick turned his gaze away from the tv as he heard her footsteps across the wooden floor.

‘Hey. I thought you were asleep. Everything okay?’ Nick asked the Y/H/C girl as he watched her open the fridge and grabbed the carton of milk. ‘hey, just couldn’t sleep that’s all. how come you’re both still awake?’ She replied quietly, not wanting to potentially wake Matt up ‘not long finished editing for tomorrow’s video. Probably gonna head to bed soon’ he replied. ‘Come watch this film with us Y/N/N, it’s Jaeden Martell’s new film and it’s only just started.’ lauren added on, knowing how much Y/N loves Jaeden and his films. Y/N nodded and trudged over to the couch after she finished her milk and put the empty glass in the dishwasher and sat next to Nick, who put the blanket over her legs and she sunk into the couch and made herself comfortable and they all continued to watch the movie, Nick occasionally on his phone answering Snapchat replies from fans.

*time skip*

Nick yawned as the credits rolled. Lauren had taken herself downstairs to Chris’ room halfway through the movie since she got too tired but Nick and Y/N decided to stay upstairs and finish the movie. The blue eyed boy felt a weight on his shoulder, he looked to his side and saw the younger girl asleep on his shoulder as soft snores escaped her lips. He chuckled softly at the sight of the girl who was like his sister. He gently tapped her, causing a mumble to escape her lips.

‘Hey sleepy head.’ Nick spoke softly as to not annoy her as he knew how easily annoyed she got if people spoke to loudly when she first wakes up. ‘Mmm hey.’ she murmured, and sent him a sleepy smile, and she made no effort to get up off the couch to go back to bed.

‘Want me to carry you kid?’ He said to the sleepy girl who was practically falling back asleep and she lazily nodded. Nick took the blanket off her legs and quickly folded it up and threw it onto the back of the couch. He put his phone in his pyjama pants pocket. He gently picked Y/N up, hooking his arms behind her back and behind her knees and carried her bridal style through the corridor and gently kicked open the door to Matt and Y/N’s bedroom which was open adjar to begin with.

Nick laid his best friend on her side of the bed, he removed her socks for her, aware of how much she hated sleeping with socks on as she shuffled slightly to get comfortable on the bed and he put the blanket over her body. As he was moving, the floorboards made a loud creaking noise which made Nick silently curse to himself as he watched his brother slowly wake up.

‘Nick, what are you doing?’ Matt mumbled with his voice full of sleep, slightly annoyed at being woken up ‘Sorry Matt, she fell asleep watching a movie on the couch so I brought her back to bed, you know, being the nice bestfriend I am’ Nick replied pointing at the half asleep girl next to Matt as if he was stating the obvious ‘Goodnight both of you’ Nick whispered as he made his way out the bedroom and made his way up to his own bedroom.

Almost as soon as Nick left his room, Matt looked over at Y/N, who, in her sleepy state, had reached out for mr wrinkleton and took the stuffed animal in her arms. He let out a soft chuckle at his girls antics and almost as if she’d sensed him shuffling around to get comfortable, she subconsciously moved so that her head rested on Matt’s chest and wrapped her arm around his torso, the stuffed animal getting squished between the couple as Matt wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

‘Goodnight sleepy girl, I love you’ Matt whispered to her, he felt her squeeze his torso gently in acknowledgment, she mumbled a quiet ‘I love you’ back to the brown haired boy as they both nodded off.

[yan-randomfandom]

First of all, I REALLY LOVE YOUR YANDERE WRITING (especially Yandere gravity falls),I would like to make a request (if I don't order from you), could you make a Stanley Yandere headcanon with more details? 🥹, I really love this old scammer

Stanley Pines x Wealthy!Reader

warnings: bizzare body thoughts at the end!!

a/n: I finally wrote a short story for Stan... Here's a quick one before I get ready for college (I'm already late) Enjoy!! supposed to be Mullet Stan, or js younger [Words: 1201]

💰

Somehow, Stanley Pines managed to get an extremely rich partner. The highest class of the higher class in the social system.

It only took him two dates. The fact that you agreed to a second date was disturbing, especially considering how disastrous the first one had been. He fully expected you to ditch him just for laughs. You didn't, and actually showed up.

Stan seriously wondered if there was something wrong with you. Were you that desperately lonely? Willing to date a broke, unemployed man? Pick up the first person you find?

Yet you showered him with gifts he has never had before in his entire life. You gave him unlimited food. You gave him money and a house.

Guess his flirting skills were just that good. He liked you too, to some extent, but he suspected it's mostly because you're rich.

But, strangely enough, after your two dates, you never really gave him attention again. You were almost never home.

Very rarely you gave him affection like a significant other is supposed to do.

That was fine with him; he didn’t really expect the relationship to last like any of his others. The whole situation was weird enough as it is. As long as he got a roof over his head, he really shouldn't be one to complain... Just make sure it's not a car roof.

It's honestly all just confusing, at most.

And so, he wholeheartedly enjoyed your money, trying to double it and invest as much as he could. Hey, it's free stuff! Not like it'd backfire or anything! If you ignore fumbling that one lottery win because he got disqualified...

Then, one day, Stanley got sick.

You stayed home that same day.

He felt his body shivering, wrapping himself around his blanket like his life depended on it. Head pounding, body shaking, skin sweating. Everything was so uncomfortable.

"You're really burning up, Stan," you murmured, clicking your tongue as you read his temperature. Higher than the usual fever.

Grabbing a cup of water, you tapped him over his layer of blanket. "Please sit up and drink this. I'll give you medicine."

It was too hard for him to move. You gently pulled the blanket from him. When it reached his nose, he made eye contact with you. His eyes were glazed and half-lidded from exhaustion.

"Why are you here?" he grunted, sitting up eventually. "Thought ya forgot about me."

You stared as he drank his water. "What?"

He wiped his mouth. "Eh, nothin'. Must be busy being rich."

"..." You quietly passed him his medicine.

After he took it, Stan ignored your silence and laid back on the bed. Once again, he buried himself under his comforter.

You frowned. "After our second date, I didn't expect my schedule to be so filled. I thought I'd make it up to you by giving you gifts."

A deep chuckle rumbled from the blanket. "It's alright, toots, I'm more curious on why you bothered anyway."

"Why?" you parroted, blinking. "...Oh, Stan."

Stan felt his comforter get pulled again, turning to see your expression. It was quite unreadable, to his dismay.

He almost stopped breathing when you put a gentle hand on his cheek.

"Believe it or not, I do like you," you rubbed a thumb across his hot skin, "I'm so sorry. We'll have more bonding time when you get better, okay? I dropped everything today to take care of you, and I promise I'll do it again."

Stan's vision blurred. He quickly blinked away the tears, trying to turn away from you.

"I don't deserve that. You do know I was after your money, right?"

You chuckled. "I knew that. Don't we all?"

He pursed his lips. "Wait, seriously? Then why'd you date me?"

"I don't know," you shrugged, pulling your hand away from him. He missed your touch already. "But I don't regret it."

"What do you even see in me? I sure as hell don't know. Unless..." his eyes widened, "You're trying to—"

Your face heated up immensely with furrowed eyebrows, shaking your head. "Of course not! I would never! Please don't ever mention that again??"

He laughed, yet it sounded throaty and scratchy. You smiled anyway at the fact he got to smile.

...

"...Permission to kiss you?" you asked.

...

You cringed internally. Terrible timing to ask that question.

But Stan had different thoughts... He didn't even know if he loved you like that. Your relationship moved too fast, and now you're here, taking care of him while he's sick. Sure, you're both in a relationship, but he knew this was wrong, because it felt wrong.

But... ah, he can't think straight.

"Yes," he breathed, desperately. Almost starved. Needy.

He reveled in the feeling of both your hands resting on his cheeks, only to feel slightly dejected when you kissed his forehead.

Guess even you're aware of your relationship right now. That's nice to know. Still, he liked the sentiment to the point that a smile is threatening to go out. "You're gonna, uh... steal my fever because of this."

A chuckle left your lips. "Then I'll trust you to take care of me next."

Trust.

Stan had never trusted anyone again after the incident, and no one else had any reason to trust him either.

He raised his hands and placed them over yours, which were still on his cheeks. You watched as he brushed his nose against your hand, giving you soft, ghostly kisses with his lips.

You smiled. "During our first date, I knew you were more than what you let on. Sure, you're charming and funny, but then I saw you staring at that family with kids, and I definitely noticed when you helped that old lady with the door."

Stan stared at you.

"And I really appreciated how hard you tried to make me comfortable," your smile widened. "I think that's the main reason that made me go on a second date with you."

He coughed, looking away. "Hey. I seem to be... in need of a warm body beside me. On the bed. Because I'm sick. And in need of emotional support."

"Sure," you chuckled. "Worth the risk."

He snuggled up to you as soon as you laid beside him, wrapping his arms around your waist. It was cold, yet so warm.

You played with his hair, combing your fingers through it.

The longer you stayed with him, his warm body pressed against yours, the more he became addicted to the feeling.

The feeling of having someone by his side. Someone who actually understands him.

His eyes closed, indulging himself with your presence and warmth, trying to press himself further into you.

The fever made him feel as if he would melt into you, his flesh becoming one with yours, and everything in his body merging beneath your skin.

If he didn't love you just a few minutes ago, then he certainly does now.

And he's never letting you go.

BONUS:

"Noooooo. Please come back. I need you," he sobbed, actual tears leaking from his eyes. Your lips twitched; at least now you knew he has intense mood swings when he's sick.

You twisted the towel you had just soaked in water. "This will be quick. It'll seep the fever out of you."

"Nooo."

[topluvr]

HIII I LOVE YOUR WRITING!!! can i request a jiyong enemies to lovers?? doesn’t matter if its headcannons or not!

Drunken Confessions

Kwon ji-yong x Reader

A/N: I feel like this is more frenimes to lovers so I'm sorry, but thank you for the request. Also reader is daesung's younger sister.

warnings: alcohol use

word count: 2.3k

Your eyes slowly shift open, the sunlight from the window shining through into your bedroom, the brightness caused you to squint your eyes shut. Once you adjusted to the light you got out of bed and started your daily routine.

You’ve been living in your new apartment for a couple months now, after finally moving out of your parents home you moved into a smallish apartment in seoul.

Your brother ‘Daesung’ made sure you had everything you needed. He helped you with unpacking, building your furniture and helping you decorate, his friends helped out sometimes too, well except for one. ‘jiyong’. For some reason he hated you.

You did grow up with his friends around, you were all close they always protected you, it was like having three extra older brothers. expect for jiyong, at first he was sweet to you always making sure you were okay and checking up with you occasionally.

However when you grew up and things changed, his mood and attitude towards you were replaced with more hateful ones, you had no idea why he was like this.

At first you thought he was just going through a lot but when it turned into years and his hatred towards you didn’t change, you started to feel the same way about him, Well kind of you've been crushing on him since the first time you met but pushed them aside for many reasons. The two main ones being your brother daesung would never let it happen and jiyong obviously didn’t feel the same way.

The two of you having at least one argument every time you go visit your brother, surprisingly you loved it, you loved when his eyes burn daggers at you when you tease him, you loved the way his voice slightly raised every time you annoy him. He treats you like shit but this only made you crave his attention more.

Once you were dressed, you headed towards your local coffee shop and ordered your daily coffee, you also got the guys their orders to surprise them with, before heading to YG.

When you arrived at the building the staff immediately recognised you and you were let straight in, you walked into the elevator and pressed the second floor button. The doors slid open and you stepped out into the long hallway heading towards the room your brother and his friends were usually in when they were working.

Your hand knocks against the door giving it two light taps. You hear a voice say come in so you twist the handle and walk in. The sight you were met with made your stomach flutter, it was jiyong he was sat in the middle of the couch legs spread, his black hair slicked back but a few strands falling in his face, you didn’t realise how long you’d been staring until you heard a throat being cleared.

“Enjoying the view?” He smirked looking at you. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You scoff placing the coffee on the table in front of you.

“I know you want me, don’t hide it baby.” He jokingly pouted, You gave him a glare.“Shut up jiyong, you’re so full of yourself it’s sad.”

He stood from the couch and walked over to you. “Poor me.” He faked sobbed wiping his eyes, You hated it, hated the way his voice made you feel, hated the way your cheeks would heat up when he looked at you, You hated how bad you wanted him.

You stood in silence glaring at him, him doing the same until he moved closer, you could feel his breath on your face, your heart beating faster, ‘what is he doing’ you thought remaining still.

His face was now even closer to yours he leans in. “Thank you for the coffee y/n.” He laughs grabbing one of the coffees you placed on the table before walking out.

After you stood there for a minute trying to calm yourself down over the interaction with jiyong. You hear the door open and your head turns. You were met with the smiling face of your brother.

“Hi little sister, i didn’t know you were coming.” He said walking over to hug you. “I know, it was a last minute decision, I got everyone coffee though.” You giggle pulling back from his hug.

“So how is everything going with your job”. Daesung asked. “Yeah it’s going fine actually i’m enjoying it so far, and i’ve met so many new friends.” You smiled.

-

After you spent almost the whole morning with your brother you headed back home and decided to relax for the evening.

*beep* *beep*

You pick up your phone to check the notification.

y/f/n: Hi y/n, me and the girls are going out tonight, to the new bar that just opened, do you want to come?

y/f/n: It will be fun ;)

y/n: I’d love to, what time?

y/f/n: Be ready for 7 we will come get you in a cab.

You put your phone back down and got up to go get ready for the night.

After your shower you went to your closet to find some clothes, a while after searching you decided to go with a black short dress, fishnet tights and your black heels.

Your makeup didn’t take you long and by the time you were fullly dressed your phone buzzzed.

y/f/n: We are outside :)

You switched you phone off placing it in the little black purse you chose to match your outfit with, you also grabbed a jacket before leaving your apartment.

You and the girls arrive at the club, after waiting in the line for a while you were finally let in. You and two of the girls headed to the leather booths near the back of the club, the other girls headed to the bar to get the drinks started.

You all chatted for a while, and after many drinks some of the girls decided to head to the dancefloor, you and (y/f/n) stayed behind on the seats relaxing into the feeling of the alcohol.

“so how’s it going with that guy your always gushing over, jiyong is it?.” She smirked before taking a sip of her drink, You gave her a glare. “I do not gush over him and he’s being a asshole like usual.” You say rolling your eyes.

“hmm sure y/n.” She laughed, you look at her. “why don’t i go get us some more shots.” You fake smile, standing up, she let out another drunken laugh as you left.

Once you got to the bar you ordered 5 shots, you quickly downed two and headed back to the table with the rest.

As the night went on and your body consumed more alcohol. He couldn’t leave your head, you just can’t stop thinking about how close he got to you earlier, how his lips were so close to yours.

Your thoughts consumed you, you imagined how his lips would feel on yours and how badly you needed them there, you softly bit your lip at the thought.

Meanwhile (y/f/n) thought it would be a good idea to call jiyong, she could tell you were drunk and not really interacting with the group.

She leaned over and grabbed your phone from the table before heading outside, She unlocked your phone and searched for his contact, once she found it she clicked on it and let it ring.

“Hi, this is jiyong right?” (y/f/n) asked once the call connected. “yes, who is this?” He replied confused looking at your name on his screen but not hearing your voice.

“This is y/n’s friend, can you come pick her up she’s had too much to drink and no one else is picking up.” (y/f/n) confessed into the line.

Ji-yong replied almost immediately “Yeah send me the address i’ll be there.” He said sternly through the phone, after he got the address he said bye to your friend and left his house.

His drive over to you was silent yet his head was thinking of all the ways he’ll scold you for drinking too much, his hands grip tight on the steering wheel his jew clenching at the thought of you in such a vulnerable state.

He pulled up to the address your friend sent him, He made his way through the doors and headed in towards the crowd of people, his eyes scanning every inch of the room. That’s when he looked to the back where all the leather booths were, he saw your face and the pout that was plastered on it.

He made his way over to you and your friends. “y/n”. He said loudly over the music, Your head shoots up at the sound of your name, that’s when your eyes meet his, you were completely shocked to see him, but your drunk state causes you to stand up.

“JIYONGGG.” You screeched flinging your arms around his neck, your legs loosing a bit of balance when you stood up causing his arm to wrap around your waist, before you could even ask him why he’s here.

“let’s go.” He said in your ear, pulling you away from your friends, you didn’t protest just kept a hold of the man that’s been on your mind all night.

Once you got into his car your both sat their for a moment in silence. “How stupid can you be, getting this drunk you can barely walk and that outfit,is that for all the men you’ve probably been throwing yourself at all night.” He scoffed into the silence.

Your anger boils at his words, who does he think he is, speaking to you like that. “Why are you such an asshole.” You spoke looking at him.

“why are you such a bitch?” He replied, his eyes burning into yours.

You let out a sigh at his words and your head turned to face the window,no words enter the air after that,the only sound you heard was his keys as he started up the car. The ride to your apartment was uncomfortably silent , your head was slightly spinning from the alcohol.

his car pulled up to your apartment building and his door opened, He got out and walked to the passenger side to help you out.

You held onto his arm and slowly stepped out of the car. “why do you hate me?” You asked, your drunken words went straight to his ears and his head shot up to look at you. “I don’t hate you y/n.” He sighed.

“Then why aren’t you ever nice to me, you used too be i don’t understand what i’ve done.” The words fell from your lips, you raised you eyebrows waiting for his reply, you wanted to know why he treats you like this was it something you did you thought.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, I just- it’s hard to explain.” He replied stroking his hands through his hair and sighing. “Just fucking tell me jiyong i’m sick and tired of you treating me like shit, and i know i say things back but i’m just giving you the same treatment i get.” You scoffed pointing your finger in his chest.

The alcohol was definitely making you confident, the words you spoke would have never come out your mouth sober.

“It would ruin things i can-“ Before he could speak your words cut him off. “JUST FUCKING TELL ME JIYONG!” you yell, you were getting even more angry why won’t he just tell you.

“FUCK, i like you okay since the first day we met, you’re all i can think about and i’m sorry for being a asshole but i couldn’t do that to dae he would kill me if he knew i was thinking about his little sister like that, so i wanted you to hate me that’s why i treat you the way i do” His words hit you with relief, your body was frozen though and your eyes still connected to his.

You both stood there staring at each other, he was waiting for you to speak to say anything about his confession and when you didn’t he sighed. “Just forget about this okay.” He said heading back over to the drivers side of his car.

“wait” You spoke out gripping his wrist, he stops in his tracks. “I like you too, i always have.” The words finally left your lips, your head was spinning not because of the alcohol but because of him.

His body turned facing yours once again, he took two long strides, his hands grabbing your face, pulling your lips to his immediately.

The kiss initially took you by surprise but after a couple seconds your lips relaxed into his, his hands gradually moved to your waist to rest there and yours went to his hair.

Your heart was beating so fast you thought it would explode, the amount of times you’ve thought about this and now it’s actually happening and it’s so much better then you could have ever imagined. His soft lips exploring yours.

You felt his tounge wanting to enter your mouth so you let him, You moaned when your felt his tounge swirl against yours.

“The things you do to me.” He smirked pulling away. “I’ve wanted that for so long.” You whisper eyes never leaving his.

“Fuck baby, me too.” He groaned pulling you into a messier kiss then before. After what felt like hours he finally pulled back stroking your face in the process.

“I’m sorry for everything y/n.” He genuinely apologised, you smirk at his words. “It’s okay, you admitted to being an asshole and i’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses.” You tease.

“You little brat.” He laughed, his hands pulled you in closer to him and his hands came down to give your ass a playful slap. You both burst out laughing at his action.

“How did you know where i was anyway?” You asked. “Your friend called said you had too much to drink and no one else was picking up.” He replied pulling you into his side as you both start walking to your apartment. “oh my god, i’m going to kill her.”

[bweeeb]

STORM

Theodore Nott x Reader

Summary: Theo didn't like the rain but the reader learned to appreciate it when she was younger. On a night when Theo is feeling alone in the middle of a storm, the reader takes Theo out of his thoughts with just words and smiles.

English is not my first language, so forgive me for mistakes~

Rainy days at Hogwarts weren't always the worst; in fact, they were far from it. The rain pattering against the castle's gravel, the windows of the common rooms, the library, and the Great Hall. Y/n had always been in love with the rain, the way mornings would be chilly after a storm, and how Herbology class would be canceled.

Theodore Nott, however, felt quite the opposite. He had never liked the rain, not since the day his mother died, when it felt like the world was falling apart along with his childhood tears at her funeral. Theo hated how the rain made him want to disappear from the castle, how it distracted him and failed to bring the calm it brought to the other students who enjoyed extra sleep or sat by the fireplace in their common rooms, their nerves soothed. It was almost midnight when Theo got out of bed, restless. The storm had started around nine o'clock, and as predicted by the Slytherin students, everyone had decided to have some fun and drink since the next morning's first class, Herbology, would be canceled. Theo hadn't thought about the aftermath before drinking the whiskey Mattheo had procured, and now he was drunk, scared, anguished, and alone with the voices in his head. Trying to clear his thoughts, Nott left the room he shared with Mattheo and went down to the common room. But once he got there, he realized it was a terrible idea: it was dark, cold, and though the sounds of the rain were muffled, they were still there. Sitting on a leather-upholstered sofa, Theodore sighed and buried his head in his hands, which rested on his knees.

— Fuck. He murmured, feeling ridiculous, and the feeling intensified when he realized he wasn't alone. — Are you okay? Y/n, the quietest Slytherin in the seventh year, and Theo knew her only because she was one of the prefects, along with Draco.

— Mm-hmm. Theo just murmured, straightening up on the sofa and avoiding Y/n's gaze as she stood behind it.

Theo had never been very open with people. He talked a lot with his friends, but outside of that, all you got were those dead blue eyes. — I didn't mean to bother you. I heard footsteps and sometimes, when it rains, some second-years cry here in the common room and... Draco isn’t very attentive to that, so... — Theodore thought she didn’t talk much until now, and so his surprised gaze lifted to her as she bit her lower lip, as if she knew she was talking too much and was trying to stay quiet not to bother.

— Sorry, I’m already bothering you, I’ll… I’ll go… since you’re fine.

She stammered, intimidated by Nott's stare, and afraid of being labeled weird by Theodore Nott, she started stepping back, intending to distance herself from one of the elite Slytherins.

— Draco can be pretty heartless sometimes. But you get used to it. Theo's voice responding to her surprised the girl, who turned to look at him again.

— Yeah, he sometimes says he wonders if I'm really a Slytherin. But what can I do if I don’t want to hear crying during the only time the common room is quiet. She shrugged and let out a nasal laugh.

— You hear them even when you’re sleeping?

— What? — The crying, the footsteps… — Oh, I’m usually not sleeping, so it’s easy to notice.

Y/n said, approaching the sofa and waiting for Theo's confirmation to sit down, from which it came quickly for an honest look. — Why? His voice came out softly, and Y/n was once again surprised that he was genuinely interested, his eyes not leaving hers for a second. All she could think was: how could Theodore Nott be interested in what she was saying instead of going to sleep? Wasn’t he supposed to be as insensitive as everyone at Hogwarts said? — When it’s raining, I like to listen to it. — The rain? He asked curiously, and Y/n nodded, vocalizing her agreement.

— I mean, close your eyes and listen to it. Y/n closed her eyes, and Theo felt stupid for never noticing her at the castle. She was probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his entire life.

— Don’t think about anything, just feel it.

— I don’t think I can. Theo admitted, and she opened her brown eyes, which contrasted with his blue ones. — I can’t find any peace in it, Y/n. Theo rolled his eyes and laughed without humor. — Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me. He murmured, and Y/n frowned at the sight of vulnerable Nott in front of her.

— I bet there isn’t, Theo. I think it’s normal not to feel comfortable with something that everyone else does. We’re not all the same. She said, and her voice felt like a soft, warm fabric to Theo. Her closeness made him feel comfortable, and he almost forgot the discomfort in his head. — I even understand how it’s bad to hear the rain when you’re alone. I think it just takes time to appreciate it. — Y/n gave a sympathetic, sly smile to Theo. — I actually hated it. It made me feel lonely. My parents always traveled a lot, so I was left alone. — She laughs a little — Merlin, i cried so much, afraid of being that way forever, and that one day I started to like the noise.

— How did you start to like it?

— My friends would sleep over occasionally, and when it rained, I began to notice that if I looked at it positively, it could be relaxing...

— She smiled softly once more and saw Theo's lips curve into a smile. She swore she was either seeing things or going crazy. — Your friends are passed out after drinking dragon whiskey, and you’re still a bit drunk. It’s okay not to like what you hear outside. Y/n nodded as she finished speaking. She got up from the sofa, grabbed Theodore’s cold hands, and he looked at her as if he’d never seen anyone like that before. Y/n pulled him up from the sofa, and their height difference made her laugh foolishly. —You’re taller than I remembered.

— And you’re shorter than I imagined. Theo looked at her, and Y/n swore she saw puppy eyes in those dead, very, very sexy eyes

— You should get some sleep, Theodore. It’s late… think about the bright side, or don’t think at all, it helps a lot. She murmured, heading towards the stairs with him following her. As she approached the girls' dormitory, Theo’s voice stopped Y/n in her tracks.

— Why did I never notice you?

— Because you’re Theodore Nott. — She smiled at the boy who was no longer thinking about the rain outside, only about her.

— Just, Theo, you can just call me Theo. Theo said, looking at every detail of her body, face, hair and especially her voice that would echo in his head all night.

— Your friends call you that? — Only those I want call me that, Bella. — Okay than, sleep well, Theo.

---

I hope you enjoyed this

Requests are open, message me if you have any ideas💞

[heartfullofleeches]

best friend yans partner making reader cry and yan realizes that it’s not their arms that reader runs to for comfort anymore🫢

You're happy for them.

In the beginning, it was just you and them. Growing up, they had always been a quiet kid. Clung to the hip of the first person who gave them the time of day. You didn't regret your decision then and you don't now. The years you had together were some of the best and you could only wish them happiness going forward. You were so proud of them for building the courage to broaden their friend group... You only wish they let new people in without shutting the old out.

You promised yourself you wouldn't cry when you found out you had to share them with someone else. You promised you wouldn't cry when they cancelled plans to focus on their new relationship. You promised you wouldn't cry when they finally replied to all your calls and texts just to put an end to your life long friendship.

You don't blame them for saying goodbye. It'd hurt less if they had done it in person, but you're adults now - friendships and silly promises are secondary when you've found true love. That's what they said this was in their final message to you- and so you believe them. Won't have much time for movie nights and hanging out like you used to while they're building a life with someone else, so you were bound to drift apart anyway. Everyone always said a bond like yours would stand the test of time, but clearly they were wrong. The best thing you can do for them and yourself is keep your chin high and swallow the tears. As much as it hurts, you won't cry. You won't cry.

"Ugh.. are you are stalker now? It's kind of pathetic for you to cling onto someone you never dated When will it get through your thick skull - they don't need you anymore."

You won't cry. It was pure coincidence that you ran into them again. It makes sense after all the time you've spent together the places you frequented would align. Your old best friend and their new lover had taken a trip to the mall on the day your new acquaintance had taken you to your old stomping grounds to cheer you up. Their partner was like a vulture - watching you from afar and awaiting the second you both were alone to strike. Honestly, it seemed like they didn't even notice you which only teared down another layer of your fragile defense. You want to go home, but you had to wait for your companion. Unlike others - you'd never leave anyone behind.

"They told me all about what it was like when you were younger. How you sucked up every minute of their time and made every thought they had all about you. You're honestly disgusting, you know that?"

Your throat tightens as you're backed into a metaphorical corner. That's not true. You tried to be there for them. They're the one that rejected everyone that wasn't you. Is that really how they viewed you? How they felt about you? Sharp intakes of air build up to the first exasperated wail that rips itself from you. It all crumbles from there. Tears pour from your tired eyes and spent heart. You try so hard to keep it in, wiping at your face and muffling your cries with quivering lips - but they only flood harder. Your aggressor attempts to flee from the scene of the crime as two pairs of footsteps quickly approach.

"Y/n?....."

"Y/n!...."

Sneakers squeak along the mall floor as one sprints to your side, going out of their way to jam their elbow in the ribs of your aggressor as they squeeze past them to get to you. The other stands stagnant as their lover nears - watching as you fall weightless into their arms. They draw back the foot pointed in your direction at first witness to your cries.

"Baby, what happened! Are you okay? This is why I told you to come into the store with me. Calm down, breathe. It's okay. I'm here."

Soft fingers brush away your tears. They dry quicker against someone else's skin. Your head falls to their chest, ears tuned to the gentle beat of their heart to calm the frantic beats in your own. Your companion takes their hand in yours, kissing the back of your knuckles as you follow their instruction and breathe in slowly.

"That's it.... I'm right here. I'll always be right here for you."

Their words are like a dagger to those unfortunate to listen. A blade dug deeper by your redden eyes and the small smile that forms as you gently squeeze your savior's hand. Once upon a time, it was their hand you held when at your worse - just as yours had pulled them out of the wreck their life was before they meet you. You used to be each other's shoulder to cry on. Safe houses from a world that never understood you or bothered to care. They long for that moment in time, but in that instance it all felt too perfect. If they hadn't let you go and found comfort elsewhere they'd only hurt you in the end - crush and buried beneath the weight of the ever-changing, conflicting tide of their feelings for you.

Laughter draws them back to the cruel reality they now face as punishment for their selfish decision.

"I'm fine now - I swear!"

"Nope! Since you won't tell me what's wrong, we ain't stopping until you're all smiles. We're going to hit up every store in this mall until it closes and you find something that completely takes your mind off whatever got you down. As your new best friend, it's my duty to make sure your heart is in good shape.... So I can steal it later on."

"You're such a dick...." Nudging their arm with your elbow, you giggle - then sigh. "Well, if you're paying, I guess I can't complain. Best be on our way then."

A passing glances comes not from you, but from the victor of this scenario. Your new best friend locks an arm around your waist, placing a kiss to your hair before mouthing a single word over your shoulder.

"mine."

A hand reaches out as you disappear into the crowd. It's falls not into the grasp of the one its heart truly desires, and instead into the iron grip of the person they chose as a cheap imitation.

"Can you believe those two?"

".... I'm going to fucking kill that bastard."

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || ch 22]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to not only protect his new family from Hell's Kitchen, but from the world.

chapter masterlist

Words: 4.3k

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It takes you a little over an hour to get Minnie to go down for bed. Tomorrow is her birthday party and to say she is excited is an understatement. She was practically jumping off the walls and it took three different books, a bottle, and two lullabies to finally get her to drift off. You are thankful when she doesn’t sit up again and call for you after five minutes, because you have a lot to do. 

You need to clean up the apartment and decorate, you need to prepare pancake batter for a princess style breakfast, you need to finish wrapping presents, and you need to set up the couch for Matt. He will be coming by after his Patrol so he can stay the night and Minnie can wake up to the surprise of him being there, which is the perfect way to start her celebratory weekend.

But before any of that, you need to go take a shower so you can have a proper breakdown. 

When you were younger, you believed crying was a sign of weakness. Your parents had treated it as such, always dismissive if you cried. The reason had never mattered - shedding tears was pointless and for children, so you had learned to bottle everything up and push it all down until the act of crying physically hurt you. Only very recently did you accept that crying is healthy. 

You still hate doing it, though, and the only way you have found to balance your shame and your need for that emotional release is to treat it like another task you need to accomplish. 

You triple check your daughter is truly asleep before you close the door to the bathroom and start the water. You keep yourself composed as you strip and only once you are under the spray do you let the tears start to fall. 

So much has happened in such a short time and your anxiety has been through the roof. 

The first bill for your hospital stay arrived today and you have been too scared to open it. You are terrified to go back into medical debt - giving birth in the United States had drained a lot of your savings and you have built it back up. You know there are all sorts of hidden fees, and you are going to need to do so much work contacting the various billing offices to try to get prices down. 

It isn’t even like you are fully recovered from being in the hospital in the first place. You only just finished your antibiotics last week and your ear still randomly throbs or rings. 

But honestly, you don’t know if that is from being sick or almost having your head bashed in. 

You thought you would be okay after the attack. You thought Minnie would be the one with problems - having nightmares and jumping at shadows - but after the first day of making sure you were okay, she’s been fine. You haven’t been. 

You’ve been plagued with nightmares about hands around your neck. You’ve been jumping at shadows when you leave the apartment. 

You keep constantly checking your locks and you debate ordering pepper spray. 

You don’t know what to do.

You aren’t okay. 

You don’t feel safe. 

The only time you have felt secure is when Matt was there to hold you and remembering such only signals your brain to send a new wave of tears. 

He confuses you in a way no one else ever has. 

You have never met anyone who cares so much before. It is overwhelming how much he loves Hell’s Kitchen - enough so to become a vigilante to protect it - and it is overwhelming how much he loves Minnie. You thought only you could love her that much.

Seeing them together does things to your heart you don’t understand. You just want to watch them play and bond until the end of time. They smile and laugh, and it is the only time you ever feel Whole. You feel like everything is perfect when the three of you are together. 

You don’t know what to make of that. You don’t trust yourself with it - you’ve never felt like that before and you are scared that if you think too hard about it, you’ll find a flaw and the feeling will be ruined. 

You just want Matt to hold you while the two of you watch Minnie play and that isn’t an okay fantasy for you to have. You don’t have that type of relationship with him. 

He is a naturally touchy person with a huge heart. You’ve seen him hug Karen and Foggy before and you know he has only ever wrapped his arms around you to comfort you. 

And he wants to comfort you because you are the mother of his child. He wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for Minnie and that is something you need to remind yourself of. 

Matt loves Minnie. Family is extremely important to him, and he has told you time and time again that he strives to be the best dad possible for her - so of course that means he needs to take care of you and make sure you have a positive relationship.

If you and Matt butt heads, that wouldn’t be what was best for Minnie.

You need to do what is best for Minnie.

Which means you need to stop crying and get to work. 

You wipe at your tears until they start to slow, then wash your face while still under the spray. It takes a minute or two for you to fully calm down, but once you do, it is like the tap is turned off. Crying time is over, so you stop your shower and quickly dry off so you can get dressed.

You feel better, but in a kind of dull way. It is like all the pressures in your life have been turned down to something more manageable and you know you will be able to focus on your tasks without slipping into a panic attack. 

The apartment is not nearly as dirty as you believed it to be. You have to straighten some things up and you take the time to wipe down all the flat surfaces, but after that, you start putting things up. There’s a pink and yellow Happy Birthday banner and you blow up a few inflatables you found shaped like flowers and stick them to the walls. You twirl streamers together to decorate the back of the couch and the dining chairs, and your favorite piece is the pink sparkle fringe to hang over the hallway entrance. It isn’t the most elaborate of set ups, but you know Minnie will love it and that is all that matters to you. 

Once your living space is Birthday themed, you turn to the kitchen. You went shopping today to make sure you had everything needed for a spectacular breakfast. You found a recipe for extra fluffy pancakes, and it seems easy enough - it calls for letting the batter rest overnight and you particularly like that as it is one less thing to do in the morning while trying to handle a rowdy toddler. 

It doesn’t take long to get everything prepped and before you know it, it has been close to two hours since you put Minnie down to sleep and you feel it is finally safe to bring her presents out of their hidey holes to be wrapped. 

She has grown a bit since you last bought her clothes, so you got her a nice little haul, including a new princess dress for her to wear to the zoo. It has sparkles and tulle and the dress comes with a matching crown you just know she won’t want to take off. You are extremely proud of the find. 

You didn’t just get her clothes, though. Minnie has been more and more interested in helping you cook, so you got her a little kitchen play set. It comes with pots and pans, knives, utensils, bowls, plates, and some fake food. You thought it would be fun to have her practice her skills - she’s a pro at helping you stir and mix, and she knows how to use a butter knife to cut up fruit. You hope she enjoys pretending to wash her dishes, so you lure you into helping into that part of cooking, but you don’t think anyone finds that chore fun. 

Before you can start wrapping, you need to go through everything and remove all the tags and stickers. It is a boring activity that takes far too long, so you decide you are going to multitask while doing so. You grab your laptop and notebook and settle down among your pile of bags.

Since your talk with Matt about Daredevil, you have been in research mode. The first few nights, you read every article you could find about the Devil. You started with the reputable sources - purely focusing on news reports - and once you had a timeline of events down, you switched to opinion pieces. You quickly ended up sorting those into three categories - positive outlooks, negative outlooks, and outlooks written by Karen Page. 

You took notes on everything - making pro and con lists on each major event and circling back to jot down questions you had. You felt insane - and frankly a little invasive - but it was how you processed things. You wanted it all laid out nicely in front of you so you could come to your own conclusions. 

But to get to that final conclusion, you still have a lot of internet sleuthing to do, so you open up a new internet tab.

One of the most important things you want to know about Daredevil is how real people feel about him. Published articles are always biased - it is in their nature to be based purely on who produces them - but social media lets the mass in on the conversation. You learned that well after the Attack on New York. 

You remember the majority of the news singing praise for the Avengers and how they saved the Earth - which you truly did appreciate - but no one came and spoke to the people whose lives had been ruined. Sure, they talked about how much destruction had happened and how much it would cost to rebuild, but no one had mentioned how Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea had been almost flattened. No one cared about the low-cost homes that had been destroyed or the poor people crushed in debris - not when they could talk about the Big Bank buildings the Hulk had run through. Why talk about those genuinely affected when you could bring in a mouthpiece who was halfway across the world?

Iron Man didn’t give two shits about the people whose lives he saved. If he did, he’d help them in the aftermath, and he didn’t. None of the Heroes did - they started going around the world while an uncaring government was left to clean up the mess. Repairs went to the lowest bidder and many things were deemed too expensive and just left to crumble.

But only internet forums and ten second social media videos talked about that.

Matt talks so passionately about helping people in Hell’s Kitchen, so you need to know if it is real, or just all a puff piece. 

You look first into the forums and to your surprise, there is a whole section for New York vigilantes. You resist the urge to dive into the threads about Spider-Man and the Hero of Harlem and you have to scroll to the bottom of the front page to find something about Daredevil. 

It is CCTV footage of Daredevil chasing off what looks to be some teenagers trying to rob a pawn shop and there are a few dozen comments under it. You smile as you start to read them - the majority of it is praise for Matt, with the few negative comments being about the quality of footage.

And each thread you find about Daredevil is like that. You expected to see issues with excessive force like you saw in the opinion pieces, but there is nothing. People who you can tell are locals all comment about how he doesn’t hurt kids, and his punishments reflect the severity of the crime. Muggers get a few good swats while those who commit domestic violence are given as good as they gave. It is gang members and real dangers who end up in the hospital. There are about a handful of posts giving firsthand accounts of how the Devil helped them - ranging from them being in serious danger to Matt helping a drunk woman safely get a cab.

From what you can see, the people who post in this forum like the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and genuinely feel safer with him around. The site is a little niche, though, so you switch to a more popular platform to see if you can find different opinions and different opinions you find.

Just not the ones you expected.

There is a new picture of the Devil that has gained traction in his tag that is rather good quality - Matt is squatting on a roof, seemingly observing a street, and is framed in such a way to show off his lower half. His thighs, which you know are all muscle, are highlighted wonderfully and the angle of the photo only emphasizes his backside. His upper back and shoulders are all in shadow, but you can tell just how broad they are. 

Twitter absolutely loves the image, and you think you have to agree with them. You can feel your cheeks heating up and you can’t seem to tear your eyes away from the screen.

Matt is beyond physically attractive, and it is no wonder the internet is lusting after him. There is a litany of lewd comments from multiple people and one made by a user with a cartoon frog as their profile picture has your core twitching and you quickly hide your face in your hands. 

“imagine him bending you over a rooftop and fucking you until all you can do is drool ♥”

You don’t want to think dirty thoughts about Matt. It makes you feel awkward and guilty but mostly they make you Want, and you desperately want to bat that away.

You very obviously have slept with him before and know what a good lover he is. You know what his skin feels like against yours and your mouth goes dry at the memory of how loudly he moaned while between your legs. His stamina is no joke, and you can only imagine it has improved since he’s started being a vigilante. 

You have no doubt he could easily fuck someone stupid.

You tell yourself you can’t think like this - you are supposed to be researching Daredevil to figure out how you feel about Matt being a vigilante - not ogling pictures of his ass and remembering your night together. 

You gently smack your cheeks a few times and tell yourself to focus. 

That only serves to make you more flush, so you make the executive decision that you have had enough screen time for the night and slam shut your laptop.

You have removed all the tags from the clothes, and you only have a few UPC stickers to pull off fake food, so you hurry through those so you can get to actually wrapping presents and not thinking about what you saw.

It is easy for you to get quickly lost in this new activity. Your perfectionist nature has you needing to make sure every crease is even and crisp and that each present looks picturesque, and you can't do that while distracted. Your thoughts shift from the way Matt’s breath felt against your skin to how many gifts Minnie has and how each one needs to look unique.

You know Minnie is going to tear through them like a wildfire, but it is important to you to make sure love is poured into everything. 

You never got that as a child. Your birthdays were practical affairs and more often than not your present was to go clothes shopping, so you didn’t get to unwrap things or have that grand surprise. You don’t want that for Minnie. You want her to feel like an absolute princess on her special day and if that means rewrapping the same present four times to make it perfect, then that is what you will do. 

You are finalizing bow placements on the gift bags you had to use for odd shaped items when your phone vibrates with an alert. 

For a split second you are confused - it is rather late, and you’ve muted most app notifications - but then you remember Matt is meant to be coming over. 

You don’t know how it could have slipped your mind and embarrassment burns through you. 

How are you going to face him after staring at a picture of his ass until your brain broke?

You hesitate to check your phone, but when you do, you obviously have a text from him saying he is on his way. You groan to yourself, wondering how you can save yourself from this awkward situation? 

Maybe you can go to bed early. You aren’t at all tired - you usually are up for another few hours - but you have a long weekend ahead of you. You will need rest.

In your bed.

Where Matt will not be. 

Because, for the first time in a while, he will be sleeping on the couch. 

Which you still need to prepare.

You finish fussing with Minnie’s bounty of presents and set about arranging them up the Happy Birthday banner like it is a Christmas tree. You have to resist your urge to nitpick and instead turn your focus to cleaning up your mess. You hurriedly shove the pile of trash you made into a bag so you can toss it and your wrapping supplies are tucked into the back of the closet, where they will live until you need them again. 

You do a quick once over to make sure everything is neat and birthday ready before you fetch your spare pillow and blanket. 

You try to not feel guilty as you start making up the couch. You know it isn’t the most comfortable and Matt will probably be sore after doing God knows what all night, but you can’t offer him your bed again. There is no reason for him to be in your bed. As frantic as you are, you don’t need any comforting. 

You just need to stop thinking. 

But not in that way. 

“Stop,” you hiss at yourself. “Stop being a slut. Pure thoughts. Have pure thoughts.”

Scolding yourself does not work as well as you mean it to and all you can do is pour your concentration into folding and refolding the blanket. You roll it up tight first like it is a sleeping bag, then you think that is stupid, so you fold it into a triangle. You realize that is trying way too hard, so into a square it goes. 

The knock at the door startles you and to your credit, you don’t scream. 

You do, however, bury your face into your hands again and take a deep breath. You are panicking over nothing. Everything is just fine. You are overthinking.

You mentally chant that mantra as you go to the door. You hesitate to open it, needing the extra moment to center yourself, and you are surprised you don’t automatically close it again at the sight of Matt. 

His normal daytime attire is a suit, and he wears them like a model, but you much prefer him dressed down as he is now. He’s in a t-shirt and joggers, with a five o’clock shadow and fluffed up hair, and he looks devastatingly handsome. He looks friendly and soft, but everything is just tight enough to show off how toned he is. 

Your body reacts exactly like it did to the picture, but this time you can’t hide. 

So, you run instead.

“Come on in,” you practically squeak out before hurrying to get out of his way. He’s got a gym bag with him - probably to carry his clothes for tomorrow - and your entryway isn’t the largest. It makes sense for you to go back to the living room. 

“Busy night?” He asks as he closes and locks the door, and you are completely thrown by the question. You must make a confused noise, because he follows up with, “You are out of breath, is everything okay?”

Your heart starts to beat hard in your chest and you can feel your entire body getting hot. Of course, he can tell what is going on with your body and you are nearly in full panic mode. 

You need to get to bed and away from him.

You fail at keeping your composure by gesturing around the living room, “Yeah - um - just been busy. Decorating and stuff - it’s a big day tomorrow.” 

“It is,” Matt agrees, a charming and boyish smile creeping onto his lips. You tell yourself he must be excited for Minnie’s birthday and that is why he is in such a nice mood.

“How was..how was your night?” 

He hums at the question, moving to set his bag down by the couch, “It was relatively quiet. With school starting up again and the heat, the younger crowd isn’t out. I made a few laps but didn’t find anything worth going after.” 

“So, there isn’t like…crime every night?” You ask, trying to wrap your head around it all. You haven’t actually asked what a Patrol consists of, so you don’t know what the average one is like.

“Despite what everyone thinks, no. There’s a good number of nights where I just keep things tidy, but being out helps to deter people as well. Not every night is drug busts and gang wars.”

“That is good to know.” And it is - it helps to ease your anxiety that he is out there constantly boxing people. People say New York is crime ridden, but it is not nearly as bad as it is made out to be. It is all scare tactics and sensational news - like the Satanic Panic.

Matt hums again, then tilts his head back towards where you hung the birthday banner, “That is a lot of presents.”

His smile is still bright, and you have to duck your head and bite your lip to keep your mind in check. Your mouth, as always, is quick to quip, “I’m not telling you what is in them. It’s a surprise.”

“A surprise, huh?” He teases, before kneeling down by his bag and unzipping it. You can see colorful wrapping paper peeking through, and you instantly wonder what sort of gift is inside.

“A surprise,” you repeat. “It isn’t any fun if everyone knows what is inside before it is opened.”

“I’ll concede to that, even if it is tempting to peek.” As he says this he stands up, holding three different sized packages in his hands. They aren’t as pristinely wrapped as yours, but you can tell great care went into it and you wonder if Matt did it himself. 

“Foggy said they will come over around noon,” he says like you aren’t on the verge of a crisis. “And Maggie was hoping we could stop by on the way to the park. I told her it would be up to you, but I know she has a few things for Minnie. We’re probably going to need to bring that wagon you got.”

The idea of so many people coming to your apartment for a party - especially a toddler’s birthday party - boggles your mind but your heart soars that so many people want to celebrate your daughter. You watch as he goes to add the gift pile and that confusing feeling swirls in your chest again, reminding you this is everything you ever wanted for Minnie. Matt being in your life means more people to love your daughter like she deserves.

“Okay,” you say because that is all your mind can produce. When Matt begins to stand again, you go into a panic thinking he might say something to start a conversation and blurt out, “I should get ready for bed.”

He turns to you, and you don’t know what to expect, but it is not for him to look bemused. He raises his eyebrows over his glasses and lets out a huff of a laugh, “It’s a big day tomorrow. You should get your rest.” He isn’t condescending or rude about it, but you can definitely hear the hint of teasing.

Your face burns as you nod and stupidly repeat, “It’s a big day.” You clear your throat to try and regain some composure and point towards the couch, “I, uh, left you out pillows and a blanket. The..uh..remote for the fan is on the coffee table. I readded the labels after Minnie tore them off.”

“Thank you,” he says with full sincerity, and you cannot take any more of his charm and muscular biceps. 

“I’m going to go to bed now,” you tell him as you start to back up towards the bedroom. You know you should tell him about the fringe covering the hallway, but you just want to flee and hide under your covers until your brain stops all of its nonsense.

“Okay.”

As you finally let yourself turn away from Matt, he says your name just loud enough for you to barely hear it. You freeze in place, but it is like your blood is boiling inside you. You breathe out his name in response.

“Good night.”

((“I love you.”))

--

a/n: orz please take this offering of a chapter - my brain is not working up to standard.

Also - Tomorrow is a Big Day

--

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[starkwlkr]

she’s the boss | sebastian vettel

ferrari team principal!reader

an: for fanfic purposes, sebastian won a championship with ferrari let me be delusional sorry lewis

2015

A new season of formula 1 had started and with it came the arrival of Sebastian to Ferrari. While Sebastian was dominating the track with Red Bull, you stayed with the red team and in 2014, you were declared the new team principal. Of course the news made headlines. A woman as team principal for one of the top teams in formula 1? Would Enzo Ferrari approve of this?

But you were determined to prove you belong with the team. That was something Sebastian admired about you.

Race after race, Kimi and Sebastian finished in the points. It was clear that the season was Ferrari’s season. After each race, you always made sure to watch Kimi and Sebastian on the podium. Each podium, Sebastian made sure to wink at you. Sometimes he would even mouth a few loving words towards you.

After Sebastian’s victory in Singapore, the German had asked you to meet him for a celebratory dinner. Thinking he had asked Kimi and others from the team, you didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until he knocked on your hotel door that you finally figured it out.

“So is this a date?” You asked.

“Only if you want it to be.” Sebastian replied.

“You are such a flirt, Sebastian Vettel.” You playfully rolled your eyes.

“I’ve been told that, but it sounds so much better coming from you.”

Soon, you and Sebastian were on your way to a restaurant that he thought you would love. It wasn’t too fancy, but it was perfect for you two.

Sebastian, being the gentleman he is, made sure you felt comfortable at all times. Instead of talking about work, he wanted to get to know you better. He learned that you always loved the color red, about your siblings and that when you were younger you had a massive crush on Patrick Swayze. When your food came to the table, Sebastian took the opportunity to ask something he’s been dying to know.

“Do you think we can go on another date soon?” Sebastian asked.

“I want to, but what if the FIA thinks what we’re doing is inappropriate?”

You enjoyed being around Sebastian. Not only was he a great driver, but he was an even greater person. He always made you laugh and comforted you when you needed it. It was hard not to fall in love with Sebastian Vettel.

“Sebastian, I don’t want either of us to get fired.” You told him.

“I guess we’ll have to sneak around. God, you make me feel like a teenager again.”

So that’s what you did. Before every race, you would sneak into his driver’s room and give him a good luck kiss. He insisted on getting one from you every race, you didn’t kind of course.

It was the last race of the 2015 season and Sebastian was fighting Lewis for the championship. You were nervous, but confident that Sebastian would bring home the title. It felt like a dream come true seeing Sebastian come in first while Lewis came in third.

“Sebastian Vettel, you’re the world champion! You did it, Seb!” Sebastian heard you on the radio.

“This one’s for you!” His message warmed your heart. If only you could truly celebrate as a couple without hiding.

At the podium, Sebastian was all smiles. Who wouldn’t? He had just one his first championship with Ferrari. It was a dream come true. While you stayed with the team, Sebastian celebrated on the podium with Kimi and Lewis.

“Y/n, you’ve been called to the stewards.” Sebastian’s race engineer, Riccardo, told you. “Have we been given a penalty just now? Do you know something?”

“No . . . If Sebastian asks, tell him I’ll see him later. We have no penalty, I’m sure of that. This is probably not serious.” You tried to play it off, but he wasn’t buying it.

“Okay, if you say so.” Riccardo gave you a hug before you left.

As you walk to the stewards, people around you called your name followed by congratulations or a hug. At the moment, you didn’t even feel like celebrating. All you felt was the nerves going through your body.

Finally, you made it to the stewards office ready to face what was coming. Would you be fired for being in a relationship with one of your drivers? You hoped not.

You entered the office and saw the FIA president, Jean Todt, looking over race footage. When he noticed you, he smiled. You weren’t told he would be attending the race.

“Y/n, congratulations to you and Ferrari. You have done a great job. I hope I didn’t interrupt any celebrations yet.” Jean told you.

“No, Sebastian was still celebrating on the podium when i was called here.” You tried your best to look fine, but deep down you were scared.

“Speaking of Sebastian, he’s a great driver, isn’t he?” Oh no, here it comes.

“Yes, Ferrari is honored to have him and Kimi as well. They’re both incredible drivers”

“But what do you think about Sebastian?”

Suddenly you couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jean, you know I respect you and Ferrari and Formula one so much. I don’t want to lose my job. I love this team to death. I understand what I did was inappropriate and it will never happen again, I swear by it. But if I’m no longer the team principal, I understand.” You blurted out.

All Jean did was chuckle. What?

“You think you’re fired? Y/n, Ferrari just won another championship and you think I’m going to fire you? The team would be crazy to let you go.” Jean spoke.

“Can I ask why I’m here then? Did Sebastian get a penalty?” You gasped. It would absolutely crush you if Sebastian got a penalty and he got his championship taken away.

“No, no! You’re here because I wanted to congratulate you and Sebastian on your engagement.”

What?

“I’m sorry?” You stood there more confused than ever.

“Marriage is a beautiful thing. I’m not yet married, but i know it is. I’m sure you and Sebastian will be very happy with each other.” Jean said. “I don’t want to hold you here for much longer. I don’t want Sebastian thinking you were kidnapped. Congratulations.” Jean gave you a hug.

Again, you were so confused. Did he know something? As you left the office, you saw Sebastian waiting outside with a concerned look on his face.

“What happened? Hey, talk to me.” Sebastian grabbed your hand. He was surprised you didn’t pinch or gave him a look for grabbing your hand in public.

“Did you say something to Jean about me?” You ask him.

“Like what? You know I always talk about you.” Sebastian replied. It was true. He took any opportunity to talk about you.

“Well he congratulated us on our engagement, which I didn’t know about. When were you going to tell me we were engaged?”

Oh shit, thought Sebastian.

“I might’ve told Jean that I loved you so much that I would marry you as soon as possible. To be fair, i was drunk! But that doesn’t mean it’s a lie!”

All you could do was laugh. At least he wasn’t the type of drunk to cause problems. You found it cute that he said that when he was drunk actually.

“You’re unbelievable, Seb.” You smiled at him.

“So you think we should do that? Get married?” He placed a kiss on your hand.

“When the time comes around. Come on, champ, let’s celebrate.” You finally kissed him not caring that others were around you. You were done hiding.