#like sorry. no teacher !! i will not be going to that side of the room because the noise that only myself and my girlfriend can hear is so

[nachrosas]

Stars, Planets and Hugs | s.reid x reader

summary: in which Olivia asks you and Spencer to help her with a science project. pairing: spencer reid x reader content warnings: fluff, just pure fluff word count: 844 a/n: another dad!spencer drabble! hope you guys like it!

The apartment's living room was soon filled with the sound of paper being torn up with a certain enthusiasm. Sitting on the floor was little Olivia, her brow furrowed as she analyzed the instructions for the school assignment her science teacher had given her.

“A model of the solar system… blah, blah, blah…” she muttered, her eyes jumping from line to line until they suddenly lit up. “I know!”

Spencer, sitting on the sofa with a book on his lap, looked up when he heard the excited tone in her voice.

“You know what, Chérie?”

Olivia jumped to her feet, clutching the page as if it were a lost treasure.

“We won't need to make a model! We'll be the solar system!”

Spencer blinked a few times, still trying to understand what his daughter had said, but showing sincere interest. Before he could reply, you, who was passing through the room with a cup of tea, stopped in mid-stride as soon as you heard her words.

“Wait… what do you mean 'being' the solar system, Baby?” you asked, taking a seat next to Spencer.

Your daughter smiled broadly.

“We're each going to be a planet! It's going to be an interactive presentation!”

Spencer raised an eyebrow, slowly closing the book.

“That's a great idea, Chérie.”

The little girl clapped her hands excitedly before pointing at him with conviction.

“You're going to be Mercury, Daddy, because you're the fastest and the smartest.”

“Technically, Mercury isn't the fastest in terms of rotation, but…” Spencer began his explanation but was soon interrupted.

“Daddy!” 

He raised his hands and laughed in surrender. “All right, all right. I'll be Mercury.”

Olivia turned to you with a determined look. “Mom is the Sun, because she's the center of my universe!”

Your heart warmed instantly. You smiled, bending down to kiss her forehead.

“I accept that title very warmly, baby.”

“And I'm Pluto!” she announced proudly.

Spencer opened his mouth to question, but the little girl raised a finger in the air, stopping any possible rebuttal.

“He still matters!”

You let out a hearty laugh and looked at Spencer, who sighed theatrically before fixing her daughter's hair.

“I can't argue with that.”

Olivia jumped up and down excitedly. “That means we're going to need costumes!”

And so the mission of the most special solar system in the galaxy began.

The living room had been transformed into a space stage. A poster decorated with the title Our Solar System was stuck to the wall, while cushions lined up on the floor marked out the orbits of the planets.

Olivia, wearing a blue-grey sweatshirt with little drawings of stars on it, held the television remote control as if it were a microphone.

“Welcome to our very own journey through space!�� she announced enthusiastically, looking at you and Spencer, her only but delicate spectators. “Let's start with the fastest planet: Mercury!”

Spencer, standing next to his daughter, wore a light gray shirt and held a bicycle helmet that she insisted he wears to “look more spacey”.

“Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and only takes 88 days to complete an orbit! It also has an extreme temperature difference between day and night, reaching 430 degrees Celsius during the day and -180 at night. And…”

“Daddy…” the little girl interrupted, pointing the controller at him. “Remember I'm the teacher today?”

You laughed softly as you saw Spencer make a zipper gesture with his mouth, containing his enthusiasm.

“Sorry.”

Olivia, satisfied with her father's performance, regained focus and called the next planet — which she cleverly explained was not a planet but a star! As you spun slowly in place, a smile crept up your sides. Finally, the part the little girl had been looking forward to arrived.

She turned dramatically towards you, placing a hand on her chest.

“And now… the most wronged planet of all! The one that was called 'not a planet' in 2006, but still matters: Pluto!”

Spencer opened his mouth to argue, but Olivia raised her hand, like a judge imposing order.

“Let's not discuss it, Dad. Pluto may be small, but it has a big heart! Literally! It has a heart-shaped ice formation on the surface! It's super cool! And it even has moons! So I think it should stay a planet because no one can convince me that a place with a giant heart isn't special.”

You clapped your hands enthusiastically, while Spencer, with a proud smile, also gave in and applauded.

“That was a very well-presented argument, Doctor Pluto.”

She made an exaggerated curtsy and then ran up to you, throwing her arms around both of you.

“I love you! My solar system wouldn't be the same without you two. You're the best parents and planets in the whole universe!”

You kissed the top of her head, feeling Spencer do the same soon after.

“And we'd be nothing without our little rebel planet.”

Olivia laughed, tightening her embrace.

At that moment, it didn't matter if Pluto was a planet or not. To you, it always would be.

[starfox017]

Life Series College AU

Hi guys! This is my first time ever writing fanfiction! (i'm fueled by the hyperfixation) and I wanted to share the very first bit of the Life Series College AU I wrote! ---

Alright New school You’ve done this before But this is different right? I mean college, that’s a BIG deal. Will you know anyone here? Well, of course you will. Pearl’s here, and so is Mumbo. Maybe I’ll find other friends too.

I feel a fist punch my shoulder and I flinch at the impact, only to see Pearl on my right side skipping along the sidewalk. “Hey! Stop being so much in your brain, brain is bad. It’s college, you have got nothing to worry about. No one knows you here, it’s a brand new experience, with brand new people!”

“Yeah but—” I can feel the binder pressing against my chest, all the air starts to leave my lungs. “No buts!” Pearl turns in front of me and grabs my shoulders. “Just breathe. Okay? If anyone messes with you, just call me, okay? Now get in there, and make a good first impression! What’s your first class?”

“I- I think it's the history of architecture?” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. I roll my shoulder back and stick my head up and fill myself with fake confidence. My words taste artificial, and my brain is filled with lies. Pearl and I stroll into class together, having the same class. She leaves me to sit across the room.

“This is for your own good. You need to be your own person, make your own friends.” I sit alone in an empty room, way too early for class. I fiddle with my fingers and start to pick at the dry skin around my nails. I wince at the slight pain of removing a hangnail, and see a drop of blood appear. Shit. I stick my finger in my mouth and try to remove the blood so no one notices. People begin to enter the room, sparcing themselves everywhere. I turn to stare at Pearl. From across the room she gives me a thumbs up with a warm smile. I quickly take the finger out of my mouth and give a thumbs up back, a fake smile plastered across my face.

“Why hello there!” “AAAH!” A voice startles me from behind, appearing at my left is a person propping up their cane against the chair next to them.

“Sorry, did I startle you?”

“Yes, sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing, for being scared? My name is Scar!”

“My name is- Grian” I say, the words not wanting to come out of my mouth. What do I tell people? The truth, or a lie? Is it even a lie anymore?

“Is that a question? I don’t know what your name is, sorry about that buddy.”

“NO! No. That’s- I’m sure. My name is Grian. That’s what my name is! Why would it be anything else?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never seen you in this class before. OH YOU’RE NEW! Welcome, welcome. Oh you’re going to love this class! Professor Andersson is the best!” Scar’s eyes flash to the professor standing at the front of the classroom. He’s dressed up in a blue crew neck shirt and some black pants, exactly what you would expect an engineering teacher to prepare. He adjusts his classes before introducing the class. I try to pay attention, but my mind keeps drifting to the man sitting next to me. He said he was a junior. He’s older than me, but acts so much younger. He has a goofy smile on his face always, and has such a way of speaking unlike anyone else I’ve ever heard. His hair is long and outgrown looking like a nest a bird would make, yet magnificent in a way you don’t normally see in a man. His green eyes gleamed like grass covered in mud but shone with sparkles of emeralds in the fluorescent light of the classroom. He had tan skin with a scar across his cheek— fitting with his name. When you stared at him enough, he was almost pretty. His face danced through my brain the rest of the class. If you want to hear more about what I have planned for this AU, feel free to ask me! I hope you guys like this, as I've never written fanfiction before.

[leatherface-headspace]

lassie can hear the high pitched frequency that lights and electronics make

[aq2003]

so john smith is a character that ten "made up" (ie. the tardis generated him to fit the time period it picked). a fundamentally empty person that he can't control will do. someone that is missing the inherent parts of what makes ten himself, like not just his two hearts but things that truly deeply matter to him. things like not hurting anyone or not abandoning a companion or not being someone that teaches children how to shoot a weapon and fight in a war. human ten might show echoes of normal ten here or there like the art or the intelligence but their differences are rly kinda the point of the arc. multiple times human ten is given the opportunity to give himself up and sacrifice himself for those around him and it's only until the very, very last minute that he makes the decision that normal ten would've done in an instant. this isn't your normal amnesia storyline; ten temporarily erased himself from existence to give the family of blood a chance of dying peacefully, and replaced himself with someone else who wouldn't do that same thing; who is so ordinary and complacent and cishet and probably even likes the texture of pears

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not��?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

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[saintobio]

daddy’s little devils.

when dealing with not only one, but two mini versions of your husband is a type of chaos you never saw coming. but with him by your side, there’s nothing else in life you could’ve ever wished for.

pairings. ryōmen sukuna, fem!reader genre. domestic fluff, slice of life, explicit smut cw. dilf!sukuna, profanity, explicit smut, mommy/daddy kink, breeding kink, fellatio, spitting, unprotected, creampie, 18+ notes. 4.5k. just bcos i had to write dilf!sukuna version of this fic. enjoy >:D i was smiling throughout writing this! reblogs are highly appreciated!

Sukuna as a husband was unexpectedly romantic. Despite his cold and indifferent demeanor towards others, sometimes bordering on snarky and arrogant, he displayed a surprisingly soft side when it came to you. A really, really soft and incredibly clingy side, one where he always wants you by his side and becomes grumpy the moment you leave him alone for even a few minutes, claiming and whining about how you no longer love him. That was a hidden facet of his personality that no one else knew, a side that made him appear submissive to his wife rather than the other way around. 

But to be honest, you loved that about him. You absolutely, with all your heart and soul, adored that about him. 

However, Sukuna as a father was quite the mischief-maker. And having to deal with three versions of him in your life certainly didn’t make things any easier. 

“Ryomen Sukuna… your sons,” you exclaimed, your voice tinged with exhaustion as you burst through the front door, “are a menace.”

Your husband was lounging on the sofa when you came home, an iPad in hand, watching as you kicked off your shoes and juggled with your bag and the twins’ belongings.

“Hey, baby,” he regarded you with a bemused expression. “What did they do this time?”

You didn’t even know where to begin. In all honesty, the question should have been: what did they not do?

“Ugh! My head hurts.” As soon as you released the bags onto the floor, you sank onto the couch, frustration evident in your visage as you ran a hand through your hair. “Raiden stabbed a classmate in the back with a crayon,” you recounted in disbelief, “And Ryuji drew your ‘tattoos’ all over himself with the teacher’s marker.”

Right on cue, the two little devils—his twin boys, his exact carbon copies—barreled into the house like the troublemakers they were.  

“Papaaa!” the twins chorused, leaping into their father’s lap the moment they saw him. 

Sukuna’s smirk blossomed into a grin, clearly amused and somewhat proud of his mini-me’s. “Aww, look at my little tattoo artist!” He applauded with amusement as he carried one twin on his lap. “That’s awesome, Ryuji!” Then, he turned to Raiden, who awaited his praise as well. “And Raiden, Mama said you stabbed someone? I bet your classmate was being a jerk, huh? Good job!”

The twins and their father bonded over the mischief, with Sukuna ridiculously acting as an instigator rather than reprimanding them. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse. Was he actually entertained with this whole ordeal?  Jesus. You shot Sukuna a glare, finding the situation far from amusing. And as soon as he caught sight of your serious expression, his face softened into an apologetic stance, silently mouthing the word, ‘sorry’.

“Ryo, stop monkeying around,” you stated firmly, crossing your arms. “They’re causing trouble, and you do realize I had to endure a lecture about their unacceptable behavior, right?”

Only when he noticed the genuine concern in your voice did he shift his tone slightly, though you could see a hint of playfulness remaining. With your husband clearing his throat and adjusting in his seat, it seemed like he was merely putting on a show of being a ‘strict dad’ in front of you, while secretly shooting winks at his sons as if to say he was just playing around.

“Alright, alright,” he began putting on an act, addressing his twins, “You two are grounded. Go to your rooms. Now.”

Instead of showing any fear, the twins giggled as they dashed out of the living room without a care in the world—their tiny footsteps echoing all over the house as they ran recklessly. They didn’t even listen when you shouted at them to be careful. And now you couldn’t help but cross your arms, clearly dissatisfied with how your husband handled the situation in jest.

“Baby, come on,” he coaxed, drawing you closer and enveloping you in his strong embrace. You could feel his chin resting on your shoulder as he placed a kiss on your cheek. “I understand your frustration. They’re naughty when they want to be. But you have to admit, they’re showing some… initiative.”

Raising an eyebrow, you watched as he struggled to suppress a laugh at his own words. “Initiative? They’re supposed to be learning how to share and play nice, not how to terrorize their classmates!”

“Right, right. Of course,” he murmured, attempting to ease the tension with a gentle massage on your shoulders. “I understand. I’ll have a talk with them, mommy. Let’s not get angry now.”

The dilemma here was your desire to maintain the facade of a strict mom, to avoid the embarrassment of picking up your kids from daycare for causing yet another trouble. You loathed the judgmental stares from other parents, the silent accusation that you and your husband weren’t disciplining your children properly. It was as if they viewed you as terrible parents. Like you didn’t raise your kids right. 

At first, their opinions didn’t bother you; after all, they knew nothing about your family beyond the PTA meetings you’ve had to attend. But time and time again, after having to offer countless apologies to the parents of your sons’ classmates and the teachers who had to deal with them, their scrutiny was starting to get into your head—that perhaps you weren’t as strict as you thought. Perhaps you were too lenient. Perhaps you needed to assert your authority over your children so they’d learn to listen to you.

Yet, despite your resolve, you couldn’t resist the charm of your twins. They were just too adorable for their own good. And, well, their dad wasn’t exactly lacking in the charm department either.

With a sigh, you leaned against his chest. “I just want them to grow up to be good, not little terrors.”

Sukuna tenderly lifted your chin, planting a soft, affectionate kiss on your lips. “I promise, they’ll turn out great. Let’s not be too hard on them.”

~~

You had to acknowledge Sukuna’s efforts and give credit where it’s due. After he had promised to ‘talk’ to the kids, you did notice a marked improvement in their behavior since then. You and your husband used to take turns picking up the twins from daycare, but recently, he had insisted on doing it more frequently than you, saying that as his latest project had been completed, he now had more available time to pick up the twins after work.

You suspected the real reason behind his request was to alleviate your stress from constantly dealing with your sons’ antics. Knowing him, Sukuna also wanted to gauge the current atmosphere at the school by having conversations with the teachers and other parents to ensure there were no issues like bullying or other serious matters. 

With that solution in place, Raiden and Ryuji became much less of a handful, and the main reason being the reward system that Sukuna had implemented for the kids, where he promised to buy them expensive toys if they earned stars for good behavior each week.

So that was how it went for the next two weeks. No calls from distressed teachers, no calls from concerned parents. In fact, the twins eagerly showed you their progress and proudly displayed the stars on their hands each time they received them. You couldn’t help but swell with pride at their accomplishments, because as small as they were to some people, they were huge achievements for you and your husband as their supportive parents. 

At least, you could relax for now. With the twins having toned down their mischievous shenanigans, your mind was more at ease. To be fair, they might seem like little devils wherever they went, but when they were peacefully sleeping like they were now on the couch, they appeared as absolute angels in your eyes. 

The living room was bathed in a dim light, with the glow of the TV screen illuminating their cute, little faces as they snuggled up together on the couch, in their peaceful slumber sandwiched between you and your husband. They had dozed off before the movie ended, and now, with the credits rolling, your family movie night concluded earlier than expected.

“My precious babies,” you cooed in a hushed voice, gently stroking Ryuji’s cheek and planting a kiss on Raiden’s nose. Their eyes, their brows, their nose, their lips—every detail was taken from their father, and nothing from you. But you didn’t mind, because you knew just how strikingly handsome they would be when they grow up. “Looks like our little troublemakers couldn’t make it to the end of the movie.” 

Sukuna chuckled softly and glanced down at his sleeping sons with a fond smile. In holding his family close, he could feel that blissful warmth flooding his heart at the sigh of his wife and his kids snuggled together. “They’re tired today. Didn’t even last an hour into watching Megamind.” 

You smiled, carefully rising from the couch so as not to disturb the sleeping twins. The moment you caught your husband’s eye, you gestured for him to lift Raiden into his arms. “Let’s get them to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded, scooping up Raiden, while you lifted Ryuji, and together you carried your kids to their room. 

After tucking each twin into bed and giving them a final kiss on the forehead, you motioned for your husband to quietly exit the room with you. He was still adjusting the AC for their comfort before following you out close behind. The lights in their room now completely switched off. 

“They’re out like a light,” Sukuna whispered as both of you made your way towards the master bedroom. 

You stifled a yawn, stretching your arms. “Finally, some peace and quiet.” 

“Nuh-uh,” countered your husband, who was now grinning mischievously as he stopped in his tracks and grabbed you by the waist. “Not so soon, wife.” 

Before you knew it, you were pressed against the wall, a mere few inches outside your bedroom’s door, caged between your husband’s toned arms as he looked down at you like a lion looking at its prey. His animalistic gaze never failed to send you into an orbit of weakness, like always. “H-Hey.” 

A teasing smirk then appeared on his handsome face. “You know, babe, now that the boys are asleep, we could really make good use of this time.” 

“Really, now?” You held back a chuckle, cheeks heating up from the wanton desire on your husband’s eyes. As you crossed your arms and leaned against the wall, you didn’t realize that such action only caused him to go even crazier than he already was. 

“Dammit.” His eyes danced in lust as he stared at your cleavage when you crossed your arms. He had good self-control, too. That was… until he couldn’t resist it anymore. He had to have his hand squeeze one breast gently, fondling the rounded mass like they were his personal stress balls. “Are you ovulating, honey? They look huge.” 

You weren’t sure as it had been while since you tracked it, but your breasts did feel heavier lately. And sore, too, because he was kneading them. “Hmm. I might be expecting my period soon.” 

Very playfully, Sukuna leaned forward to trail kisses along your neck, his warm breath tickling your skin as he spoke, “What do you say we add another one to the bunch?” was his whispered suggestion, “A little girl, maybe? I know a few positions.” 

“Are you serious?” You raised an eyebrow, trying to suppress a laugh. “With these two little devils wreaking havoc, you still want to add more chaos to the mix?” 

His finger was already looping around the strap of your nightgown, pulling it down with a salacious upward curve of his lips. “You know you love the chaos, babe.” You could feel his hands moving to grab a handful of your buttocks, squeezing your bum eagerly. “Plus, imagine all the mischief our little girl could get up to.” 

You couldn’t help it either—the desire, the tension. Not to mention, your husband was looking undeniably hot right now, with the muscles on his chest pressing against yours, making you want nothing but to see him shirtless again. Those toned abs, those muscular arms. God. His lips were also soft and sweet when he pulled you into an open-mouthed kiss 

“You are,” you mumbled in between kisses, breathing heavily against his mouth, “very naughty, mister.” 

You felt him smirking through your kiss before he grabbed your thighs, and lifted you up so you could wrap them around his waist. The kissing, the very intense kissing, with his tongue rolling against yours and you moaning against his mouth, was already as erotic as it could get. When was the last time you two had sex? Last week? You couldn’t remember which specific day it was, but you did recall it being only a quick one in the shower. This time, it definitely wouldn’t be a quickie as he seemed to have plans in giving you a sleepless night. 

Sukuna carefully placed you down in your king-sized bed, pulling his shirt off and once again crawling above you to hungrily meet your lips with his. And did you mention he was a good multitasker?  As he nibbled on your lower lip, breathing you in like you were an addicting drug he couldn’t get enough off, his fingers were also rubbing your clothed entrance, pulling your underwear to the side to touch your moist cunt. 

“Mhmm—!”

Two fingers entered you without warning, and he pulled away from the kiss to look at the face you were making as he used his digits to find your sweet spot. “You’re so fuckin’ hot, Y/N.” 

You arched your back, spreading your legs wide open to give him full access to your core. The moment he was able to reach your g-spot, you could feel your lower abdomen coiling from the intense wave of pleasure that was coursing through your body. “Nghh—yes, daddy. That’s it!” 

A few more pumps, hard and fast, had you gasping for air like a fish out of the ocean. He seemed to have loved the sight too, as he kept his dark, sultry eyes fixed on you while he fingered you like there was no tomorrow. “You’re one hot mama, aren’t you?” he asked, withdrawing his fingers and sucking on them to taste your slick. “Can I fuck your mouth, baby?”

“‘Mmkay,” you answered, pulling yourself up to help him rid himself of his pajamas. The sight of his bulge—his big, angry bulge—made you all the more excited. You had seen him many times before and knew just how huge his member could grow when aroused, but it still didn’t change the fact that seeing his fully erect cock surprised you every single time. Because it was thick, it was long, it was meaty, it was veiny. “Gosh, lovey. You’re huge.” 

He obviously liked hearing that. Not only did you inflate his ego, it also made him desire you even more as he positioned his shaft on your face, pulling your hair into a ponytail. “Open your mouth.” 

Like a good girl, you did as told. And your eyes went wide as he forced his cock inside, thrusting balls deep in and out of your mouth. He was doing it roughly to the point where your eyes pooled with tears because your gag reflex kept on fighting back. You couldn’t even taste him properly because your saliva was coating his entire length, but you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling in satisfaction as you watched your husband throw his head back from the utmost pleasure of being inside your mouth. 

“Ah, fuck. Fuck.” He cussed multiple times, jostling his hips before pulling his member out. “Your mouth’s so warm.” 

For a moment, you replaced your mouth with your hand, an elbow propped on the other as you stroked his girthy length. You jacked him off at the pace you knew he preferred, and placed your tongue flat on the swollen pink head like it was a lollipop. You were kissing the tip with your eyes staring back at him, ultimately driving him into insanity. “Like that, daddy?” 

“Fuck yes,” he grunted, his vulgar thoughts now consuming his actions as he grabbed your chin up, only to then spit in your mouth. “I’m gonna get you pregnant tonight,” he declared in a deep, raspy voice, “Gonna fill up that pretty little pussy with my cum.” 

Damn, he’s serious about it? 

As embarrassing as it may sound, you could feel your pussy clenching from his lewd words. “You want a baby girl for real?” 

Your husband lowered himself down to meet your level, undressing you impatiently like a rabid dog who was ready to bite its victim. And in your naked glory, he then spread your legs apart and rubbed his shaft in between your labia. “I do,” he said, puppy eyes hoping for you to say yes, “I want a baby girl, please. Please. Please.” 

Could you even resist this man? 

You gave him an answer by nodding, holding your smile by biting your lower lip as you watched your silly husband reach through the nightstand in search of the lube. Because he was too crazed with excitement, a couple packs of unused condoms fell out of the drawer as he grabbed the strawberry-colored tube. 

“Take it easy. Jeez,” you teased. 

“You’re driving me nuts here.” 

You decided to tease him even more by touching yourself, your fingers doing circular motions on your clit as your husband coated his entire length with the water-based lube. The smell of artificial strawberry permeated through the air, and with it being your favorite scent, you felt more stimulated than ever. “Mmm. I want you inside me now, lovey.” 

“What mommy wants, mommy gets,” he joked, manhandling both your legs into placing it above his shoulders and putting you into his favorite position. The classic missionary. “Ah, shit.” He buried his member agonizingly slow. “Why… are… you so damn tight tonight?” 

Maybe because you were clenching around his cock, squeezing his angry member with your velvet walls and giving him that extra good grip he always went absolutely wild for. “A-Aah! Y-You love it.” 

“Fuck, yeah.” He began thrusting now. Using his thumb to spread your slit apart, he delighted in seeing his cock go in and out of your entrance, watching the full length be swallowed by your cavern entirely. And he was going from slow and sensual, to rough and fast in less than a minute. 

He was just far too deep inside. Now, you were losing hold on your sanity as with every jostle of your body, your insides were also reacting more and more violently with your knees and thighs shaking. The skin slapping sounds were bouncing across the room, and you were hoping, praying, that your soundproof walls worked well enough not to wake your innocent twins. Because at this rate, you were going to squirt all over their father. It had been sometime since you felt the need to pee during intercourse, but that also speaks of just how intense Sukuna was plowing his hardened cock inside of you. 

“D-Daddy, I… I’m…” 

He attached his mouth on your right tit, playing his tongue around the nipple. “Mhm… You’re so sexy, mommy.” 

Two little boys. And your husband still won’t stop until he gets his little girl. 

Your mind was a whirlwind that night. The events that followed became such a blur because your pleasure overpowered your ability to think straight. All you could remember was Sukuna releasing his warm load into your womb after chasing his climax, and immediately after, he had your body twisted around and positioned into what he refers ‘the undefeated’ doggy style. 

Gosh, he was telling the truth when he said he was going to fuck you all night with no breaks in between. 

Because now, you were on all fours, being pounded from behind as you had your hands gripping the sheets each time he propelled his body forward. He was shoving his cock from behind like it was his day job, already familiar with the perfect angle and depth in which he had to rut you in. With his hands holding your hips in place, he raised one leg on the mattress, and the other knee still intact, to fuck you senseless. 

“Mmm—Aah! Haah!” 

The deeper he penetrated you, the lower your upper body went. You were now in a position with your chest down low, and your ass up high so that he could see your hole in a much, much better view. “You think you can take ‘nother round after this, babe?” he asked, breathless as he reached forward to squeeze your tit. “I don’t wanna push your limits.” 

“I-I don’t t-think I c-can…”

You could hear his deep chuckle despite your frenzied state, and soon enough, he was increasing the speed of his thrusts once more, cursing and moaning while doing so, before shooting thick ropes of seed inside your cunt. 

He collapsed next to you right after that, while you were completely limp in labored breaths as you lay beside him. The feeling of his semen dripping out of your pussy had you reaching for your husband’s arm, pointing towards the box of tissue with your half-lidded eyes. You were too sore to move. 

Sukuna immediately got the cue. “I got it,” he said, pecking your lips before doing the task of wiping the mess on your body. And as soon as he was able to clean you off, he quickly went back beside you, pulling you into a sweet, husbandly embrace. “Good night, beautiful.” 

You hummed in your drowsy state, his chest becoming the perfect pillow for your head to sleep on. “Night, night, handsome.” 

~~

Good lord was his body sore. 

But was that the greatest fucking sex he has ever had? Hell yes. It was so good that he even dreamed of it. 

As the morning sun streamed through the curtains, the aftermath of your passionate night was evident in the tousled sheets and sleepy smiles that you both had that morning. He still had you in his arms, your body secured around his as he pressed his lips into your temple. 

“Good morning, my love.” 

You stirred awake, blinking sleepily as you stretched beneath the warmth of the covers. He could tell you were still groggy from last night’s events, and he was a hundred percent certain that you were also too sore to walk. “Morning, lovey.” 

But before he could savor the domestic moment with you, the bedroom door burst open, and a fully awakened Raiden and Ryuji came in with their energy back at 100%. Oh, boy. Sukuna just had to forget locking the door last night. 

Raiden, in his polka pjs, was jumping up and down excitedly. “Mama! Papa! Wake up!” 

He was joined by his twin brother, Ryuji, who was in his striped pajamas, skipping around the room. “We want pancakes, pwease!” 

Sukuna could feel you stiffening next to him, and he saw the look of panic in your eyes upon realizing that you were very much naked under the sheets. So, hastily and frantically, your beloved husband pulled the duvet, covering your chest from being exposed and hoping to conceal any tell-tale marks. 

“Shh! Keep it down, boys,” he reprimanded the twins, “Mama and Papa are still sleeping.”

The stubborn Ryuji placed his hands on his hips. “But you’re awake, Papa!” 

On the other hand, Raiden, who climbed the king-sized bed, was pointing towards his mother. “Mama, what’s on your shoulder?” 

At the sight of the marks, Sukuna’s eyes widened in alarm and his cheeks were limned with a crimson hue. His mind raced for a plausible explanation because those exact bruises on your shoulder were, in fact, hickeys. So before you could speak, he took it upon himself to handle the matter. “That... It’s, uh, a battle wound.” He mentally kicked himself for such a ridiculous lie. “Mama’s very brave, you see. She fought off a giant mosquito last night.”

You stifled a laugh, burying your face into the pillow for a moment, and later deciding to play along. “That’s right,” you agreed, nodding seriously. “Mama’s a warrior.”

Raiden and Ryuji, however, were too smart for this as the twins exchanged skeptical glances, clearly not buying their parents' explanation. And with Raiden being the more vocal one, he pointed it out first. “But why does it look like a bunch of tiny kisses?”

Sukuna struggled now, and while he was still thinking of another excuse, you finally stepped in to try and save the day. 

And thank the heavens, you handled it a lot more casually than he did. “It’s a secret,” you said, smiling at your kids, “Mama and Papa have a secret game they play sometimes. Right, Papa?”

Your husband quickly joined in on your little antic. “That’s right, it’s a secret game! But it’s only for grown-ups,” he clarified to the curious twins, who were clearly intrigued by this mysterious ‘game’. “You two aren’t old enough to play yet.”

The twins exchanged curious glances, their skepticism giving way to fascination. “Okay,” Raiden said slowly, still pondering the explanation. Ryuji just shrugged, accepting it more readily. 

Only then did Sukuna breathe a silent sigh of relief as he was grateful for your quick thinking. But with children like these two, the interrogation was clearly far from over because Ryuji decided to make things even more complicated when he picked up an unused packet of condom on the floor, its bright red color attracting his interest. “Mama, is this candy?” asked your son, pointing to the strawberry logo, “Can I have it?” 

“No, sweetheart, that’s not candy,” you softly spoke. The composure in your voice was outstanding. Sukuna should definitely learn a thing or two from you. “Give it to Mama.” 

And while you dealt with the other twin, Raiden jumped out of bed and tugged at his father’s arm persistently. “Papa, pancakes!” he demanded, throwing a tantrum as he chanted. “Pancakes! Pancakes! We want pancakes!” 

“Okay, okay!” The father sighed inwardly, shooting you a look for help as if he was their slave for the day. All you could do was chuckle and mouth ‘you got this’ back to him. Well, he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? “Coming right up, you little monsters.” 

“Yayy!” 

“Woohoo!” 

You, barely handling the noise at six in the morning, groaned playfully next to your husband. “See? Having another kid isn’t as easy as you think,” you told him, “We can barely handle these two.” 

Sukuna displayed a grin, running a hand through his hair as he looked at his wife and your little ones. “Boys, do you want a baby sister? Yes or yes?” 

Raiden and Ryuji, in unison, answered giddily. “Yes! We want a baby sister!” 

A look of defeat clouded your eyes, while your husband laughed and kissed your forehead. “You heard them, love,” he reminded, softly, “I want my baby girl soon.” 

He knew that, despite your playful protest, having a daughter was a shared desire. “Fine.” 

So in swift movements, your husband slipped into his pants beneath the covers, then got out of bed to scoop up the twins in his arms. “Alright, breakfast time you two!” he announced, heading towards the door with his sons cheering together. And just before leaving, he cast one last tender smile in your direction. 

“I love you, Y/N. Chaos and all.” 

[nanaslutt]

New years kisses with the JJK men (nsfw & sfw)

Incl: Gojo, Geto, Toji, Nanami, Yuji, Megumi

contains: fem reader, crack, fluff, smut, semi-public sex, finger sucking, domesticness, rough sex, teasing, dirty talk

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ

Gojo: SFW

The clock was ticking, only two minutes to go. It seemed everyone had found their partner or friend they were going to kiss to enter the new year together. You on the other hand? You were busying yourself getting another drink from the kitchen, which was completely vacant, save for Megumi's demon dogs chasing each other at your feet.

Even a pair of shikigami wasn't going to be alone on New Year's Eve, ugh. Of course, you had someone you wanted to kiss, but it was too unrealistic. Gojo Satoru. The two of you had gotten fairly close over the past year since you transferred from the Kyoto school to work at Jujutsu High. Clearly not as close as you thought though, as Gojo was last seen mingling with some female teacher you didnt recognize by the TV.

You turned around to peel open the fridge door to get yourself another seltzer. After digging around and finding just what you needed as the reality of another year going by with n new Year's kiss, you slammed the door shut, and almost fell straight on your ass at the piercing blue eyes that came into view.

Gojo chased your body, his hands wrapping around your waist as he caught you from falling. "Sorry~ Didn't mean to scare you," Gojo said, giggling as he watched you catch your breath, your heart still racing from the scare. He was so close, so warm. His hands were gripping you so firmly, like he didn't want you to let you go, even though you were no longer at risk for falling.

Well, honestly, It's probably a good thing he didnt let go, because the proximity of his body to yours and his delicious cologne were both making you dizzy. You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. "Were you hiding from me?" He whispered, a faux pout covering his features as he tipped his head at you.

A blush spread over your cheeks as you tried to avert your gaze from his intimidating one. "The ball is about to drop, what are you doing in here?" You asked, avoiding his question. You quickly tried to look around the main room through the opening to the kitchen, looking for the girl you saw Satoru with.

"Ohh, so you know the ball is about to drop and you're hiding from me on purpose, huh?" You went to speak again, but the chant of dozens of people pouting down from ten swarmed your ears, stopping your train of thought. "You were looking for me?" "Nine! Eight!" "Why would I not be looking for you? His arms tightened around your waist, pulling your chest closer to his.

You hovered your hands over the sides of his waist, fearing if you touched him he might disappear. "Five! Four!" "Gojo stop playing, you're running out of time go find your new years kiss it's-"

"Two!, One!"

His lips were on yours before you could register what was happening. Your eyes shot open for a moment in shock before you reciprocated the kiss, slotting your lips against his. Your hand instinctually found their way to his chest, pressing against his sturdy from for leverage as the two of you kissed like you were the only two people in the worlds.

Cheers and music could be heard from the main room as the ball dropped and the time finally hit 12:00, signaling the new year. Satoru finally pulled away after what felt like forever. Both of your faces blushing, your lips buzzing with the skin of where his once was. "You're so dense sometimes." He giggled, making you jerk your head back in offense, your hand lightly batting his chest.

"What?" You said, your face scrunching in annoyance. "I've been trying to hint at you that I like you this entire year." He said, his eyes going wide as he explained himself. "Well, I don't know if it counts as 'hinting' if I tell you to your face that you're my soulmate, but I don't know. Maybe that wasn't obvious enough for your dense little head." Gojo said mockingly, releasing one of his hands around your waist to poke you in the forehead, making your eyebrows scrunch together.

"How am I supposed to take you seriously when you say stuff like that all the time? You're always joking around like that!" You exclaimed, getting in his face. His soft lips against yours made your frustration go away in an instant. "Never with you," Satoru said, his voice suddenly sounding too serious to belong to him. "I've never joked like that with you." A deeper blush was spreading itself over his face as he smiled, easing the sudden tension he caused.

You brought your eyes back to his, your mouth staying together in a pout. "So did you take that kiss as a joke too?" He asked, breaking the silence, his silly demeanor taking over once more. "How.. how could I after you just confessed." You said, your hands sliding down his chest. "THAT'S what did it? Would you have thought the kiss was a joke if I didn't follow it up with my amazing, beautiful confession?" Gojo asked, getting in your face.

You scoffed out a laugh before you pushed yourself out of his grip, turning away as you started walking to the main room with a smile on your face. "Hey! Hey, I'm talking to you! Do you like me back! Are we boyfriend, girlfriend now?! I wasn't done talkingg!" Gojo asked needily, hot on your heels as he chased you into the main room to interrogate you.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Geto: SFW

Ten years later, and the parties Gojo threw as an adult looked exactly the same. Even the people were the same. You couldn't lie that it was fairly comfortable, save for the music that was giving you a migraine, but Gojo always did like his music loud.

You and Geto had arrived together, and the two of you stayed conjoined at the hip for the entirety of the night, Gojo checked in on you occasionally as people were constantly dragging him away to converse, he was Gojo Satoru after all. Geto was the first one to get your attention after hours of catching up with everyone. His fingers tugged the bottom of your dress towards him, the feeling making you look down at his hand before your eyes found his darker ones.

He signaled to the couch with his thumb, silently asking you if you wanted to go sit down. You were thankful he said something, your feet were aching in your heels and you didn't know how much more small talk you had in you. You knew most of the people at the party, but some of your coworkers and work friends had brought their significant others--which had led to introduction after introduction, you don't think you've ever said your own name so many times in one night.

The alcohol you had been sipping on had started to make you feel dizzy too, your body feeling instant relief when your ass hit the soft cushions of the couch, your head leaning back against the large pillow behind you. You felt the cushion dip next to you when Geto joined you, his thigh pressing into yours from how close he was.

"You havin' fun?" He asked into the shell of your ear, making goosebumps cover your arms at the sound, his hot breath tickling your skin. You turned your head to face him, not realizing how close he really was. You were thankful for the color-changing LED lights in Geto's main room, or Geto might've noticed the blush on your face.

You nodded before speaking, "Yeah! I love seeing everyone loosen up in a setting like this, it's a nice change of pace from the usual seriousness of everyone's day-to-day at the school." You kept your eyes on his when you spoke, noticing how his eyes kept fluttering down to your lips, but you just brushed it off.

"Yeah? You're right, It is nice to see everyone like this." He said, his large hand coming to land on your knee, his thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin there. "You deserve it too, love seein' you so relaxed." Geto's looked so handsome like this. His hair fell freely around his face as he leaned his head back against the couch to match yours. The first few buttons of his shirt were undone, giving you a delicious view of his porcelain skin that change color under the lights.

"Thank you, baby." You said, your hand tucking his long hair behind his ears. "Boo, get a room," Shoko said, the other side of the couch dipping next to you as her feet slid over your thighs. You turned your head, your hands placing themselves on her legs as she leaned back, cupping her hand over her mouth as she lit a cigarette, the orange glow illuminating her face.

"You get tired of being social?" Geto asked, grabbing her legs and throwing them off of you, her heels hitting the ground with a dull click as her body was forced to sit upright to match the two of you. "I don't like these things in the first place. I'm only here because Utahime is here." She confessed, taking a drag from her cigarette.

"So why aren't you with her now?" You asked, tipping your head at her. "Lost her in Gojo's mansion. The ball is about to drop too, guess I'll be getting my kiss late." She said, jerking her head forward to the large flat screen that displayed a twenty-second count down on the screen.

"Oh shit, didn't realize it was so close, c'mere baby," Geto said, leaning over you. Effortlessly, he picked up your body and made your thighs straddle his own, your hands wrapping around his neck instinctually. Shoko groaned from the side of you, the cushion inflating back to normal as she was gone faster than she had arrived, not wanting to see you and Geto makeout.

The sound of the countdown got louder as Gojo turned up the volume from somewhere in the room. Briefly glancing around, you saw people scramble around the large space to find their significant other--looks like everyone lost track of time. Geto's hand on your face pulled you away from the distraction of everyone's commotion and led your attention back to him. "Focus on me baby, don't wanna miss this," Geto said, tucking your hair behind your ear.

Before you knew it, it was 8 seconds till midnight, and Geto was staring into your eyes like you were the only person in the room. His serious gaze made you giggle, your hands coming to cup his cheeks as his arms wrapped around your waist. You tilted your head to the side, slowly bringing your faces close together as the countdown got down to three.

"Happy New Year, baby," Geto whispered against your mouth before his lips were on yours. You hummed into the kiss, your eyes closing as you pressed your lips to his, the kiss full of love and promise to keep each other safe and loved going into the new year. He wrapped his arms around your body tightly before he stood up, spinning you around. You instinctively wrapped your legs around his hips, your ankles locking to keep yourself tight against him.

You giggled as his spinning came to a stop, the large man leaning down to place your feet on the ground before he broke the kiss, his hands cradling your face as you smiled from ear to ear. "I'm going to marry you someday." He whispered in all seriousness, smiling at you with the most sincere look of happiness he could muster.

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Toji: NSFW

"Ah-ah-ah-mmmph-" Your moans were muffled by Toji's large hand pressing over your mouth. "Shhh, gotta be fuckin' quiet pretty girl." He groaned into your ear, giving you deep but slow thrusts as he spoke. "Don't want someone catchin' us like this, right?" He asked, biting your ear lobe between his teeth, making your eyes roll back in your head.

You nodded against his hand, your eyebrows furrowed together as you looked at him through the mirror, his dark eyes raking over your body, his sharp eyes watching the way your tits bounced underneath your dress. "You not wearin' a bra?" Toji asked, the hand he was using to grip your hip sliding up to massage your tit in his hand over the material of your dress, his hips shallowly thrusting into you, his fat tip kissing your sweet spot with every thrust, making your legs shake.

You shook your head, your eyes fluttering when he found your nipple and tweaked it between his fingers, the material of the dress making the stimulation extra intense. "Naughty girl.." He whispered, keeping his eyes on yours in the mirror as he pressed his lips to your ear, sending shivers down your spine. His middle finger, slid against your lips before he pressed it against them, waiting for you to open up.

"You wanted me to fuck you in here like this huh? Planned it from the start." He said with a malicious grin, watching your lips part as you took his finger in your mouth. He didnt even give you a chance to reply before he was leaning back and fucking into you--hard. The fat of your ass rippling as his hips hit your ass, his fat cock being bullied into your walls.

Your jaw was slack as Toji pressed his finger to the back of your throat, drool sliding down his hand as he fucked pathetic whimpers from your mouth, keeping his hand on your tit as he massaged it harshly in his big hand. "Shhh-shhh what did I say?" Toji asked, his eyes squinting at yours in the mirror. He watched as they tried to stay put in their sockets, the usually simple feat proving hard every time Toji fucked his girth into you.

"What did I fucking. Say." Toji repeated, emphasizing his words with a mean thrust, making your jaw drop open more in a silent moan before you gapsed sharply. Both of your smaller hands shot up to grip his thick wrist for support, his finger hooking onto your bottom row of teeth as he pulled your jaw down, trying to challenge you. "B-be quiet, you said 't be q-quiet-" You whisper moaned, your words getting louder at the end each time his hips collided with yours.

"So you can listen, good girl." Toji looked down between where the two of you were connected, his hand abandoning your tit to pull up your dress so he could watch his cock force it's way into the tight ring of your cunt, your fluids making his dick shine under the fluorescent bathroom lights every time he pulled out, making him groan.

Toji pulled his finger from your mouth, grabbing both sides of your hips in his hands as he prepared to fuck into your harder, one of your hands sliding behind you to grab his arm for leverage as the other pressed firmly over your mouth to keep yourself quiet. Just before he started being meaner than he already was, he was stopped by chanting coming from outside the room. "Ten! Nine! Eight!"

Toji's hips paused completely, giving you time to catch your breath, your chest rising and falling dramatically with each gasp. "Oh shit, it's almost new years baby." Toji said, smirking at your fucked out face through the mirror. "Toji.. Kiss.." You whispered through your gasps, looking at him desperately, your hand behind you squeezing around his wrist in urgency.

"Yeah, yeah. Cmere, crybaby." Toji teased. He pressed his chest to your back, reaching his hand around you he grabbed your chin, turning your head to the side, his other wrapping around your waist. "Three! Two! One!" The voices of the people outside the bathroom came muffled through the door as Toji smirked, pressing your lips together in a kiss full of love, contrary to his mean hips bullying you just seconds ago.

Toji slowly ground his hips against your ass, his mushroom tip rubbing against your sweet spot, making you whine into his mouth. He kissed you long and hard, his eyes cracking open to watch your face in the mirror as he kissed you. Toji smiled against your lips when he felt your cunt squeeze around him when he slipped his tongue in your mouth, tangling it with yours. He pulled back after a couple seconds of teasing, your lips being connected by a string of saliva as you breathed heavily against the others lips.

Toji looked between your fucked out expression, and your swollen lips before he leaned back in to press a quick peck against your lips, licking his own as he pulled away for good. "Happy New Year pretty girl. Let me fuck my cum into you to make sure we start this year off right, yeah?" Oh, Toji, always the romanticist.

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Nanami: NSFW

Nanami reached his hand over the table, his eyes watching the way your lips wrapped around his fork as you took all of the chocolate cake into your mouth. He pulled his fork back to get himself a bite, smiling as he watched your eyes practically roll back in your head at the rich flavor. "Kento." You groaned, covering your mouth as you spoke.

He smiled, briefly looking down to scoop a forkful of the brown cake for himself. "Is it alright, my love?" He asked, holding his fork out in front of his mouth, the sweet cocoa smell flooding his nose as he waited for you to speak. "Kento, taste that right now." You said, swallowing the desert he made from scratch.

The blonde-haired man laughed at your dramatics--or what he thought were dramatics before the cake hit his tastebuds. His eyebrows raised in surprise, his eyes finding yours as he tipped his head at you, saying nothing as he chewed the cake, but his expression said it all. "Right? Riiiight? Kento, is there anything you can't do?" You asked, shaking your head in disbelief at your husband's talent.

He giggled, lifting the napkin on his lap to clean his mouth off. "I do agree this time... I think I outdid myself." He praised his own work, making you giggle. You used the table as leverage as you lifted yourself to sit on your shins on the chair, leaning forward you opened your mouth, looking up at Nanami. "Don't keep me waiting, Ken." You said teasingly, waiting for him to cut another piece for you to eat.

Nanami smiled fondly as he lifted his fork to your lips. Just before the cake made it into your mouth, it fell off the utensil, falling onto your chest, the chocolate frosting smearing on the skin of your clavicle. "Oh shoot." You said ashamed--not that the frosting had gotten on you, but because a perfectly good piece of the cake was now ruined.

"Shit, I'm sorry honey. Stay still." Nanami said, pushing himself back from his chair to wet a towel to clean you up with. A sudden idea popped into your head, your hand shooting out to grab his wrist to stop him before he got too far. "Wait." You said, sitting back down onto your chair properly, sightly pulling Nanami's body towards you.

Nanami raised his eyebrows, confused at why you had stopped him. "I have another way you can clean me up." You said teasingly, wiggling your eyebrows at Nanami. Immediately his expression softened, a small smile taking place on his face as he strode to your side of the table, standing in front of you. Nanami could already take a guess at how you wanted him to clean you up.

"Can you get on your knees for me Ken?" You asked sweetly, playing with his fingers in your hand. "Of course, my love." He answered softly, slowly getting on one knee before he followed it with the other. He looked up at you, waiting for your further instruction. Your hands came forward to hold his chiseled face in your soft hands, Nanami's eyes fluttering at the touch.

"You have such good skin, Ken." You praised, watching the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiled. "I have my lovely wife to thank for that." He answered. He was right though, every single night you pampered Nanami by laying him down and doing his skincare for him, it was his most treasured time with you.

"Yeah.. I guess you're right." You said, smiling. After raking your eyes over his handsome face once more, you bit your lip between your teeth, your eyes dropping to his lips. You looked down at your own chest where the frosting had fallen, Nanami's eyes following your own as he watched your movements carefully.

You retracted one of your hands from his face, gathering the frosting on the tip of your finger you brought it to his mouth, hovering it right over his lips. "Open please." You asked quietly, blushing at your own words. Nanami kept his eyes on yours as he did so, his tongue sliding out slightly to tease you.

He wrapped his lips around your finger, making your eyes flutter as you inhaled suddenly, feeling yourself start to throb between your legs. Nanami hummed around your finger, the deep sound only fueling the fire between your legs. Your eyebrows furrowed together as Nanami's tongue wrapped around the digit, licking off the rich frosting.

He pulled his head back, your finger popping out completely clean. Nanami licked his lips clean, making sure he got all of the frosting. "Delicious." He said quietly, his large hands sliding atop your thighs, his fingers slipping under the hem of your dress slightly as he teased you, dragging his fingers higher. "But you missed some..." Nanami whispered, raising himself on his knees.

"Yeah?" you asked teasingly, your hands sliding over Nanami's shoulders. "Yeah, right here," Nanami whispered against your skin. His hair tickled your neck as he leaned in, his tongue poking out between his lips as he licked the frosting directly off your chest. "Mmm." You moaned softly with your lips together, tangling your hands in Nanami's hair as his licking turned to sucking, his trail of kisses moving up your neck.

"Ken.." You moaned softly as he raised from his place on the floor, his hands sliding up your body, raising your dress slightly in the process as his knee made home on your chair, between your legs. Nanami kept his head on your neck, his hands feeling up your body as you tipped your head back, giving him unobstructed access to your neck.

He groaned against your skin, your legs pressing together around his thick thigh as his knee pressed against your cunt, stimulating your needy clit, making you whimper into the air. Your eyes fluttered open between his kisses, your eyes locking onto the clock, which currently read 12:05, you had missed the ball drop.

"Shit, Kento look at the time." You said, making him pull away from your neck, his head turning around to look at the clock. He looked back at you apologetically, his eyes taking in your adorable pout. "I'm sorry honey, got a little distracted." He smiled, making your pout subside slightly. "Now you have to make it up to me." You said, running your hands over Nanami's pecs and abs as he stood, his warm hand cradling your face.

"How so?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at your demands. You stood quickly, jumping into his arms, making him laugh at your sudden movements as he caught you, his hands cradling your ass. "First things first." You said before you pressed your lips to his, your hands wrapping around his neck, your nails raking over his undercut, making him groan into the kiss.

You pulled away, not wanting to waste the night any longer. Nanami looked disheveled already, just from a little pec. You cradled his cheeks in your hand before you leaned in, kissing the shell of his ear before you spoke. "Wanna see what you can do with your tongue somewhere else." Nanami let out a groan at your words, shaking his head as he felt his cock twitch.

"Who taught you to talk like that, huh?" He asked, walking you towards your shared bedroom as he spoke. " My husband." You giggled, pressing your lips to his once more as he navigated his way through the hallway.

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Yuji: SFW

Yuji had been sent on a mission with Nanami earlier in the morning. he told you when he left that Nanami said it wouldn't take very long, so you shouldn't worry--he would be back in time for your New Year's kiss. But it was 12:30 now, and you sat in Nobara's room, trying not to cry as she painted your nails, her playlist playing quietly in the backround as the new year count down played on her TV.

"I don't think he's going to make it back in time." You said, pouting as you watched her work in front of you. "I'm pretty sure he would part the Atlantic Ocean to get to you, stop worrying." She said, brushing off your concerns. Nobara had been very confident all night, throughout all your worrying, that Yuji was going to make it back before midnight.

"His mission was across town, and the roads are probably hell right now... I don't know. It's fine, there's always next year." You said unconvinced, ignoring Nobara's words completely. "Ugh, I didn't realize you were such a downer~ When have I ever been wrong about anything, ever?" She shouted, looking up at you offended, holding the nail polish bottle in one hand.

*ring ring* *ring ring*

Yuji's name popped up on your phone, the screen illuminating with a picture of the two of you on the beach. "Uh oh," Nobara said, only increasing the pit of despair you felt in your stomach. You glared at her before swallowing hard and answering the phone--you don't think your mouth has ever been so dry in your life. "Yuji? Everything okay?" You asked. The backround on Yuji's end sounded like he was in a car, giving you false hope before he spoke.

"I-I'm so sorry. I'm not going to make it back to the school in time. I'm really sorry." Yuji spoke into the receiver, sounding like he was about to cry. You squeezed your eyes shut, your hope shattering in your chest like glass. He sounded sad enough as it is, you didnt want to make him feel any worse than he already did, so you did your best to keep your disappointment out of your voice when you spoke.

"Its.. It's alright Yuji, I'll see you when you get here, I know you did your best." Nobara cringed hearing you talk, knowing that she had been wrong. The two of you exchanged a few more words, mostly "I'm sorry's" from Yuji, before you ended the call. You placed your phone back on the bed, face down, before you looked up at Nobara with an 'I told you so' look on your face.

She inhaled sharply, looking back down to your hand she took it in her own, dipping the brush in the nail polish and wiping it against the side as she got to work, "Shit.. uh.. I feel like I should say my bad for getting your hopes up. I'm literally never wrong." She said, brushing the paint over your nails. "It's not your fault Nobara, I told you It'll be fine." She wondered if you knew how horrible you were at concealing your disappointment. It had been painfully obvious when you tried to hide it over the phone with Yuji too.

Nobara had finished your nails at 11:40, and it was not 11:55. A part of you was still wishing Itadori would burst through Nobara's door, but you knew that was just false wishing. After all, he had called you himself and told you he wasn't going to make it. "We can smooch if you want, the ball is about to drop," Nobara said from her place on the bed. She was lying upside down, half of her body draped off the bed while she used her phone, her arms hanging out in front of her.

"You know I can't kiss you." You giggled, kicking her foot playfully. "Yeah, I know. Sorry about Itadori." She said honestly, making you feel choked up suddenly. He really wasn't going to make it, the realization finally hitting you when the clock hit 11:59, only 30 seconds before the ball dropped. Before you could open your mouth to say it was alright, you heard a loud bang outside Nobara's door, sounding like it had come from your room across the hall, making you and Nobara both jump.

"The fuck?" Nobara said, sliding off the bed completely, and sitting crisscross on the ground. You both sat in silence as you waited to hear something else. After a few seconds, loud and quick knocks were rapped on Nobara's door, followed by a very familiar voice. "KUGISAKI, IS MY GIRLFRIEND WITH YOU?????" Yuji yelled through the door. You could hear him pacing on the squeaky floor.

Before she even had a chance to answer you were on your feet, making a b-line for the door. You slid the door open as you came face to face with a red-faced, messy-haired, and sweating Itadori, right as the countdown to the new Year echoed "Three! Two! One!" In the backround. "Hey." He spoke, out of breath, a dopey smile on his face.

You wasted no time in wrapping your arms around his shoulders, pressing your lips to his. His hands wrapped around your waist, pressing your body snugly to yours as he kissed you back, his eyes squeezing together tightly. "YUCK, get a rooooom." Kugisaki groaned, covering her eyes as the two of you kissed in her doorway.

You pulled away, looking at him exasperatedly, your hands slapping over his face and squishing his cheeks, making sure he was real and not some figment of your imagination. Itadori laughed, keeping his arms snug around your waist as you toyed with his cheeks. "How are you here? I thought you weren't going to make it?" You asked, pressing kisses to his cheeks.

"I ran here. I could tell you were trying to hide it for my sake, but I couldn't stand how disappointed you sounded." He said, his cheeks turning red from your pampering. "You ran here?!" You asked, knowing how far away his mission was. That explained his disheveled appearance. "How far?" You followed up your question, your eyebrows raised in concern.

He laughed, rubbing his thumbs into your skin comfortingly. "Just a couple miles, nothing crazy." He said nonchalantly, your mouth hanging open in shock as he spoke. "I told you he would do anything for you!!" Nobara yelled, a big smile on her face as she pointed at Itadori, looking proud of herself. "She's right, I love you. Happy New Year." Itadori said, smiling at you fondly.

You leaned in to press another kiss to his lips briefly, pulling back to smile at his adorable face, "I love you Yuij Itadori."

Megumi: SFW

"C'mon man, you gotta do it," Yuji said to Megumi, standing behind him as he shook his shoulders in his hands, the two boys facing you as you mingled with Maki and Nobara in the corner. "I... I don't think I can." Megumi blushed, his eyes raking over your frame, taking in how beautiful you looked.

You had your hair all done up, and you were dressed to the heavens. How was Megumi supposed to kiss you if he could barely look at you? "I've never even kissed anyone before, what if I suck?" He asked Yuji insecurely, looking at the walls in the room like they were the most interesting thing in the world

"How hard can it be? You wanna practice with me?" Yuji asked in all seriousness. Megumi shook Yuji's hands off of his shoulders at that, "Be serious. I'm not losing my first kiss to you." He said, scowling at the pink-haired boy as he came to stand next to him. "Ouch... I was just trying to be nice." Yuji pouted dramatically, crossing his arms.

After a couple seconds of silence, as Yuji watched the dark-haired boy stare at you while blushing, he decided to give him a little push. "It's almost midnight Megumi, and uh... not trying to freak you out or anything, but I think you have a little competition," Yuij said, pursing his lips together. The speed at which Megumi turned his head to look at Yuji almost made him laugh, but he needed to keep his composure if his little fib was going to work.

"See blondie over there with Todo?" Yuji asked, tipping his head to the innocent-looking boy standing next to the mammoth that was Todo. "He's been eying up your girl allllll night," Yuji said. "She's not my..." Megumi trailed off, his eyes finding the boy Yuji was talking about. Coincidentally, the new kid from Kyoto happened to have a crush on Maki, which Yuji knew (thanks to Todo's big mouth) who was standing right next to you.

So when Megumi looked to see the boy staring at Maki, it really looked as if he was staring at you. Megumi didn't think he was a jealous person, but the way the boy was staring at 'you' made his blood boil. "Well... she certainly won't be your girl if you don't hurry and make a move before blondie does." Yuji teased, raising his eyebrows dramatically.

"Fuck.." Megumi cursed under his breath. His fists balled by his sides as he took a couple deep breaths, trying to prepare himself. "You got this!" Yuji cheered as Megumi took the first step forward, walking toward you. It was 5 minutes to 12, meaning Megumi had no time to lose.

"Oh, hey Megumi," Maki said, nodding at her bruting-looking cousin when he walked up. You blushed as your eyes focused on his face, he looked so handsome under the dim blue lighting of the main room. "Makiiiiii, Nobaraaaaa." Yuji mouthed, waving his arms dramatically to get their attention. The two girls looked over your shoulder to the pink haired boy making obnoxious movements with his arms.

Once he successfully got their attention, he pointed to you and Fushiguro, mouthing both of your names, before he turned around and pretended to make out with someone, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Nobara tried to hold back a laugh as she watched her classmate play charades across the room. When he turned back around, he waved them over, telling them to leave the two of you alone.

"Ah, bye Megumi!" Nobara said suddenly, not even trying to come up with some lame excuse as she dragged Maki by the hand away from the two of you, leaving you and Megumi alone under the light of the blue lamp in the corner of the room.

You can't believe your friends had just left you like that. You had just got done talking about how you wanted to kiss Megumi, and how nervous you were about talking to him tonight, and the second he walks up they abandon you? Some friends.

"What's up Megumi? You havin' fun?" You asked, trying to make small talk with your crush as the seconds ticked by faster and faster, midnight rapidly approaching. "Mm, it's not bad, parties aren't really my thing." He said, trying his best to not look at your lips while he spoke.

"Oh yeah? Me neither honestly. Why did you end up coming anyway?" You asked him, trying to keep the conversation going. "Why did you?" he retorted, catching you off guard. His dark eyes staring into yours were making you nervous, he was looking at you like he could see right through you.

"I uh.. well it's New Year's, I couldn't just stay cooped up in my room. Plus Nobara wanted me to hype her up for her kiss with Maki. She's been wanting to make a move for a while now." You said, pulling a half-truth from your brain. Truthfully, Nobara would've been fine without you, you just wanted to kiss Megumi.

"That's nice of you," Megumi responded, taking note of the way you fidgeted with your fingers. Before you could respond, someone yelled from the other side of the room "30 seconds till midnight!! Kiss it up!!" Their choice of words made you cringe, but it also made you hyperaware of how alone you and Fushiguro were right now. And now that the mention of kissing had been brought up, you were sweating.

"I came here because of you." Megumi blurted out suddenly, making your mouth open in a small O shape. The blue light did little to hide the dusting of blush on his cheeks. You quickly felt your own cheeks heat up at his confession, struggling to find the words to say. "How.. how so?" You asked, fearing to ask the direct question 'do you want to kiss me?' even as the time ticked quickly to midnight.

"I... Isn't it obvious?" He asked, clearly not wanting to say it himself. The sudden ten-second countdown made your heart beat out of your chest, you could feel every drop of blood racing through your veins the way your adrenaline spiked. "I want to hear you say it.. p-please." You asked, somehow still doubting yourself.

"Five! Four!" "I want to kiss you. Is that okay? Can I kiss you?" He asked, his words coming out rushed as his face scrunched in embarrassment at his own words. When you heard the others start to cheer, followed by "Happy New Year!" You decided to answer his question with an action. Standing on your tip toes you wrapped your arms around his neck, pressing your lips to his.

Megumi made a noise of surprise against your lips, his eyes going wide before they shut, following your lead as he reciprocated the kiss, pressing his lips to yours. Megumi felt his face heat up when he heard Itadori cheer a loud "GO MEGUMIU!!! THATS MY BOY!!" as he wrapped his arms around your waist. You pulled back from the kiss, the both of you breathing quietly against the other's lips. "Was that Itadori..." you whispered, trying to hold back your smile.

Megumi plopped his forehead down on your shoulder, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. "Yup..." he whispered, his voice vibrating your skin, making you giggle. "Thats kinda cute." You said, running your hands through his soft hair. Megumi groaned into your neck, clearly disagreeing with your words before he pulled back, staring at your plush lips he just kissed with a pout.

"What?" You asked, smiling as you watched him oggle them. "I want to kiss you again." He said cutely. You placed your hands on his cheeks, bringing your lips together once more before you pulled away and whispered against his lips, "Kiss me all you want."

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[eroticnekoisa]

Beginner Yoga Class

M!Reader x Aespa Karina

Around 2,750 words

tags: sex, blowjob, titfuck, cumshot, reader has big dick, little bit of fluff, my first smut so don't judge me too harshly please

Recently, you decided to commit to a healthier lifestyle and to try new things. So you thought "Why not do both at once?" and began pondering what kind of activities you could do.

After pondering and searching for a few days, you ultimately decided to sign up for a yoga class. You haven't tried yoga before, plus, it would bring both the healthier lifestyle and new experience you desired. So why not?

When looking at the class options, you found a 1:1 class. Considering you have never done yoga before, you find it more appealing to be alone with the teacher. More focus on you and fewer people around to notice your mistakes, also leading to much less embarrassment from your cluelessness on the subject.

Just you and the teacher. No one else around.

You happily sign up and wait for the days to pass.

Entering the building, you instantly notice the atmosphere change. You proceed as you normally would, the receptionist greeting you before guiding you to your destination, it seems her nametag displays the name "Minjeong". As you enter the room, the receptionist let's you know that you can take one of the candies on her counter when you leave, as she returns to her place. How nice of her!

The kind receptionist shuts the door for you. You notice a dark haired woman standing next to a chair on the opposite side of the room, she appears to be fixing her hair in one of the mirrors on the wall. She doesn't seem to notice you. You approach her and greet her.

"Hello?"

startled by your voice, she quickly turns. "Oh! You're here for the class? You're early." Until now, you didn't notice that you are actually about 10 minutes early. I guess you didn't check the time.

"Sorry, I guess I didn't check the time."

"No, no. It's fine!" she says, "We can start early, just give me a minute. You can sit if you'd like" she offers with a kind smile on her face as she does something in the corner. You can't quite see what she's doing since her back is turned towards you.

You sat on the chair just as she suggested you do. You let her do what she's doing in peace, so you don't talk to her until she's ready. Your eyes wander around the room, eventually focusing on your yoga teacher. You admire her healthy looking hair, her pale skin…You begin to look at her clothing, wearing a fitted tank top, mildly baggy sweatpants, though not baggy enough to hide the curves of her hips and shape of her round ass.

You aren't looking at her with lust, just learning her features. Right? Your eyes seemed to have stopped caring about the room once you saw her ass. She turns around and smiles at you, raising one finger to tell you that she will only be one more minute! You quickly look at her face, hoping she didn't notice you staring at her ass.

She didn't notice anything when looking back at you. However, you did notice something. You noticed her large breasts held by her tank top. You couldn't help it, your thoughts were beginning to go exactly where they shouldn't. You began to think about what her body looks like underneath her clothes, how soft her skin would be, you even wondered what her pussy looks like for a few brief seconds. How dirty of you.

Your thoughts turned you on so much you could practically feel the blood rushing downward, you feel your cock getting harder, bigger, thicker. It's such a bad time to be turned on. You remain sitting in the chair (almost) successfully hiding the bulge in your pants.

"Okay. Can you move the chair now?" Karina says, with her back still turned toward you.

"Fuck." you thought. Just as you stand up, Karina turns around and drops a pen and her phone.

She gasps from seeing her phone separate from its case, she instantly bends over to pick up the items she dropped.

You can now see directly down her top, getting an almost complete view of her large, soft, breasts. Moving slightly as she moves her arms to gather the items she dropped.

Now standing up, you feel your cock firmly pressing against your pants. You can't possibly hide it now, especially considering your size. You hear Karina talking, but you don't seem to be listening. You just continue staring at her big tits, with endless sexual thoughts racing through your mind.

Smiling, Karina quickly stands up to finally get started with the class. She was excited to teach someone new.

"I'm sorry, I'm clumsy!" she says with a laugh, while looking at your face.

Just as you try to gain composure and act natural, she looks down at the chair beside you, but something else caught her attention.

"I really think I-I-" her jaw drops for a few seconds as she stares at the large bulge in your pants before realizing what she was doing, looking up to speak to you. "U-um-heh. Um. I'm sorry, I didn't-"

You turn your back to her, apologizing out of embarrassment. Though her directly looking at it turned you on even more.

"No, I'm sorry. Give me a minute, it's just-"

She interrupts you, saying "It's fine! It's totally fine!" trying to silence her awkward giggle. Now her thoughts were racing.

Awkward silence fills the room for what feels like forever. Karina looking at the floor, trying not to make you feel embarrassed. You don't notice, but she occasionally glances at you in the mirror, trying to get another look at your big cock print.

You hear her walking towards you, you feel a hand on your back and another hand on the side of your arm. She breaks the silence with her pretty voice and says,

"Can…….Can I see it..again?"

You feel so shocked to hear these words come from her mouth, you instantly turn around to look at her. Accidentally giving her exactly what she asked for. "What?!" you exclaim.

The second you face her, she looks directly at the bulge in your pants and covers her mouth in awe. Her eyes focusing on your cock made it twitch, bringing a very sexy looking smile to her face as she bites her lip.

She gets very close, putting one hand on your chest and the fingers of her other hand on the band of your sweatpants. Her face inches away from your own, her tits touching your chest as she leans in. She whispers,

"I want to see more. I….want..I want to touch it…"

You are completely lost and overwhelmed by the situation, you didn't believe it was actually happening. Karina was shy, but she was also very, very horny in this moment. She looked into your eyes, biting her lip even harder as she started gently tugging your pants downward.

You nod to give her permission. She smiles and puts both of her hands on your pants, pulling them down along with your underwear.

Your cock finally released, springing upwards. You feel your heart beating hard, just like your cock that Karina is staring at. She stares with a look of yearning on her face.

She slowly and gently grips the center of your cock with her small, soft, hand. The sight and feel of your cock turned her on so much, she couldn't stop there. She needed to stroke it, suck it, feel it deep inside her.

"Oh my god…it's so….big.." she said slowly, feeling how hard you are, she playfully asks "What got you so excited? Huh?" still holding your cock.

You smile and chuckle, not knowing what to say. She seems to have an idea, but she still wanted to tease you.

She begins stroking your cock, slowly pulling your foreskin back and forward, back and forward. The expression displayed on her gorgeous face clearly shows how aroused she is. It feels so good, you start to breath heavier. She likes the sound of that.

She lets go of your cock and with a devious look on her face, asks "Do you want to sit in the chair now?" hoping you understood what she was hinting at. You understood, but were in disbelief. You sat down in the chair, bringing her much joy.

She gets on her knees in front of you, putting her hands on each of your thighs. You don't believe what's happening, but that's okay. She doesn't mind.

You see Karina staring at your big, hard cock sticking straight up towards the ceiling. Now only inches away from her small, delicate face.

She grabs your cock, pressing it against her face and feeling how hard she made you. You both love the fact that your cock looks huge on her face, making both of you even hornier.

You feel her breath on your cock as she exhales with a soft moan, "Ahhh~"

She holds your cock still as she gives the tip a deep kiss, wetting her lips with your precum before she begins to open her mouth wide to take your sensitive tip in her mouth. You feel her wet, glossy lips sliding down your cock as it glides across her tongue.

You moan as she sucks and licks your cock, feeling her fingers start caressing and massaging your balls. She takes your cock deeper and deeper into her warm, wet mouth, sucking harder and harder. Feeling her saliva mixing with your precum, running down your cock from her lips. She tries to take it deep into her throat, but she can only handle the head entering her throat before she needs to stop.

She lifts her head up, looking at you while breathing heavily. Her lips and chin wet with your fluids. You feel frustrated, since you were right at the edge before she stopped all stimulation. But that's only because you didn't know what else she was planning in that pretty little head of hers.

Still on her knees, she smiles and slides her hands up your shirt, feeling your chest and stomach, brushing your nipples with her soft fingers. "How did my mouth feel?"

"Amazing…I can't believe this. We shouldn't-" you respond as she denies your logic.

"Shhh~ Babyy~" she says, "We have plenty of time, relax~" as she briefly stands up to give you a kiss before returning to her knees.

"I know what you want…" she teases as she removes her top, exposing her black bra. "Right?"

You respond with a "Yes…." and hear a cute yet sexy chuckle. She removes her bra, fully displaying her big, gorgeous tits you were peeping at earlier. Her nipples hard with excitement, as she caresses and softly squeezes her tits for you. Biting her lip at the pleasure and the sight of you.

She moans softly as she pinches her nipples, "And what about this?~"

She moves closer to you again, this time positioning your cock between her tits, pushing them together. She loves the feeling of her large tits surrounding your big cock, sliding up and down, making her swear.

"Fuck….is this what you wanted?" she asks, as if she wasn't the one to take your pants off.

"God…you're so pretty. It feels so good" you couldn't get any harder, the contrast of your hard cock and her soft tits turned you on even more.

Again, as you begin to feel like you'll cum any second, she stops touching you and stands up. Your cock begging for more as she ignores it, moving her body closer to your face. She puts her arms around your head, putting her beautiful tits in your face.

You begin to feel her breasts with your hands, squeezing, kneading, rubbing. She breathes in and out softly, yet heavily. She feels you begin to lick and suck on her sensitive nipples, bringing an involuntary moan out of her.

She continues to make lovely sounds as you play with her perfect tits, before putting her hand on your head and saying the following words

"St-stop….okay.."

You stop, thinking she has had enough and your luck ran out. She takes a moment before speaking again, as if her shyness returned.

"I need….I need more.."

She removes her pants completely, revealing her black panties.

"Please…….stand up.."

She couldn't take it anymore, she needed you to fuck her. She needed to feel your cock inside her pussy. She's been thinking about it since she first saw you.

You stand up as she removes her panties, you can't help but stare when you finally see her shaved pussy. It was a beautiful sight, even more beautiful than you imagined. You take a look at her panties that now lie on the floor, noticing the inside completely soaked with her fluids.

"Come on…" shyly encouraging you as she gets on the chair, her knees on the seat and her arms resting on the back. Bending over, giving you a complete view of her ass and pussy. She was so turned on, even her inner thighs were wet. It was a heavenly sight. The chair was positioned in a way that you can both see each other's faces in the mirrors on the wall.

You rest your cock on her ass and lower back, caressing her upper back with your hands, moving down to her waist as she watches in the mirror. Moving her hips back, pressing her ass onto you, she says "Please.."

Now that she was the desperately horny one, you decide to tease her. "Please what? What do you want?"

"I want it…"

"You want what? I want you to say it"

She looks at you from behind her shoulder, saying exactly what was on her mind "I want you to fuck me with your big, sexy cock. I need to feel your cock deep in my pussy. Please, please, fuck.."

You feel a wave of extreme desire flow through your body, hearing her speak those words. You have no choice but to give her exactly what she wants, after all, it's exactly what you want too.

As you prepare to penetrate her, you see her fingers already rubbing her clit, making her breath shaky. She couldn't resist, and now you can't resist either.

You slowly penetrate her warm, tight, wet pussy, it feels heavenly. Karina moans loudly as your cock travels deeper inside her, stretching her pussy. Her tits moving as you speed up, hitting her hips with your own, her ass jiggling subtly.

"It feels…fuck…so good.." she says between her moans and whimpers, rubbing her clit faster, causing her to arch her back.

"Harder….please!"

You give in and fuck her tight pussy even harder. You feel it squeezing your cock, she's in complete ecstasy. She physically cannot stop making noises.

"I'm so close…fuck. I'm-I'm gonna-ah!" she says loudly, before her legs begin to shake. Hearing those words brought you close once again. However, you were in control this time. You start fucking her faster, preparing to cum, just as you hear Karina loudly exclaim..

"I'M CUMMING"

She breathes heavily, moaning and shaking. You her pussy tightening and contracting around your cock, with her juices flowing out of her. You feel your orgasm approaching, it feels unbelievable.

As Karina watches in the mirror, you almost fail pull out of her perfect pussy as you cum, shooting large, thick ropes of cum on her ass and lower back. She softly moans, as she feels your hot cum covering her.

You both take a moment of silence to catch your breath, before you speak.

"That was…..insane."

Her shyness returns, she answers in a nod, hiding her face "Mmhmm.."

You grab towels to clean her up, and gather your clothes. Wondering about the actual yoga class, you ask her "Can I….still come again for yoga?"

Getting dressed, she answers with a giggle "Yes, next week."

"This was the weirdest class I've ever done, but…."

"…Yeah?" you ask, curious about what she was going to say.

"Um…nothing. It's time for you to leave, class is over!"

She awkwardly chases you back into the lobby, shutting the door. The receptionist glances at you as you walk by, her face very red. She asks,

"Is…uh….everything okay?", with a weird expression on her face.

A little embarrassed, you respond "Yeah, it went great!"

You don't stop walking to save yourself from the awkward and confusing situation that remained in the building. You proceed to travel home, realizing that you did not take the free candy offered by the kind, blonde receptionist.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far~

[spencerreidenjoyer]

please, please, please | spencer reid x reader

wc: 2.8k, rating: explicit/18+

tags/warnings: office sex, professor!spencer/student!fem!reader, age gap (20 years?), rough sex, blowjobs, unprotected sex, vaginal sex, title kink (being called sir), questionable relationship, dubious consent (they both want it but again it’s teacher/student so…)

a/n: read too many professor!spencer fics and decided i had to throw my hat in the ring. i feel crazy and i need him desperately. pls go crazy with me too. (ao3 link here!)

It doesn’t take an FBI profiler to notice how Dr. Spencer Reid fails to hide the way he stares at you in his lectures, his eyes always lingering on you even when he’s addressing the entire classroom. 

Maybe you’re just sensitive to his gaze, because he’s an extremely intelligent man whose attention you’re more than happy to have on you, given the fact that he is insanely attractive.

Maybe you’re just as attracted to him as he seems to be with you, because you absolutely preen at the attention Dr. Reid gives you in class, words of praise over your ideas often free-flowing from his lips.

Maybe because you know how hot you are, you shouldn’t have come into Dr. Reid’s office in a low-cut top and a short plaid skirt asking to discuss your final essay in his Criminal Psychology class. 

Both you and Dr. Reid know you’re more than capable of acing this paper, your in-class ideas clearly brilliant enough to impress Dr. Reid himself. And yet, you’re in his office, seemingly worried about how to get your thoughts across on paper. 

It doesn’t take an FBI profiler to notice how you’re positively bluffing, a little too eloquent to sound truly uncertain of yourself in your work for Dr. Reid’s class.

It doesn’t take an FBI profiler to notice the way Dr. Reid is staring at your tits in your top, eyes only flicking back up to your face when he realises he should be looking at you while you speak instead of at your… assets.

“Sir, did you catch what I just said?” You prod, very aware he most definitely did not hear you. You note how his eyes widen when you call him sir. 

“Um– Well, I–” Dr. Reid starts, but it’s no use. 

You stand up, putting your hands on the desk as you sigh, “Dr. Reid, I’m sorry if I’m boring you with my thought process.”

Your arms frame your tits just right, and you catch the way Dr. Reid’s eyes inevitably flit down to your cleavage. It’s so obvious when he looks back up at you, and you see his face redden. You quirk an eyebrow at him as a challenge of sorts, and he looks somewhat apologetic. 

Dr. Reid clears his throat. He avoids your eyes for a moment, as he moves to take off his blazer. “I apologise. I’m just… distracted at the moment.”

“I wonder why that is,” you hum, twirling a piece of your hair with your index finger, like you’re deep in thought. Then, like the already-obvious answer just hits you, you add, with a pout: “Oh! Do I distract you, sir?” 

“What are you doing?” Dr. Reid asks, and you can hear the way he’s trying to keep his voice steady, calm.

“I don’t know, sir,” you shrug. “Maybe you should share your thoughts with me.”

Dr. Reid blinks at you, takes the sight of you in. “Well, you’re giving me a hard time right about now.”

“Why?” You cock your head to the side. He closes his eyes and breathes in deep, just for a moment. 

Your professor’s tone biting, he answers candidly, “Your revealing clothing choice makes it difficult for me to focus. I didn’t expect you to dress like a slut when you were coming into my office for a simple consultation.”

Your sharp inhale is audible in the pindrop-silent room. Dr. Reid meets your eyes. He pauses for a moment, and you watch his tongue dart out to wet his lips. His eyes are dark. With a flick of his finger, he says, “Come here.”

You think of leaning over the desk just to fuck with him even more, but Dr. Reid looks so serious you think you might be in actual trouble. You scurry over to his side of the desk, standing next to him. He turns his chair towards you, and you can see the bulge in your professor’s pants. He’s big.

“You want this?” Dr. Reid says gently. It’s a loaded question. 

Pulling your lower lip between your teeth, you nod. “Yes, sir. I want you.”

“Good. Then get on your knees.” It’s a command, in a deep voice you’ve never heard from Dr. Reid in the past three months in his lectures. You hope your knees won’t bruise from the way you fall to them in a heartbeat.

“I didn’t think you would be such a slut.” Dr. Reid smirks, and it makes a shiver run down your spine. His hand reaches towards you, cups your cheek. He slaps your cheek gently, but the suddenness makes you gasp. “Fuck, you drive me crazy in class, but now I have you like this? I must have done something amazing in a past life to have you on your knees for me now.”

“Sir,” you exhale shakily. His touch is soft, his thumb stroking your cheek with a surprising sweetness. 

“Let’s put that mouth to good use, hmm?” Dr. Reid says, his tone warm, syrupy sweet. He reaches for his belt, the metal clink as he undoes it making heat quickly pool between your legs. The belt gets tossed aside and he unzips his fly, pulling his half-hard cock out. You watch as his large hand wraps around himself, as he strokes his cock absentmindedly. His eyes are only on you. Your body flushes hot with arousal.

Dr. Reid beckons you closer with a finger. You look up at him, and you take his cock in your hand. His eyes tell you everything you need to know. You lean forward to take him into your mouth. You wrap your lips around the head of his cock softly, the warmth of your mouth probably feeling like heaven as Dr. Reid moans quietly as you do. You swirl your tongue over his tip, tasting the saltiness of his precome.

His hand comes up to the back of your head as he watches you suck his cock. You’re kitten-licking at his tip, which doesn’t seem like enough for him. Dr. Reid pushes your head down on his cock, forcing you to take more of him into your mouth. He’s big, so the sudden fullness of your mouth coupled with the way he hits the back of your throat makes you choke slightly. You glance up at him. He’s smirking. 

“I’m sure you know how to suck cock, don’t you? Like this, sweetheart.” His tone is close to condescending, as the fist in your hair drags your head up and down on his cock. While it’s not like you don’t know how to please a man, Dr. Reid treating you this way makes you swoon – his teacherly mannerisms turning you on impossibly. 

You gag as Dr. Reid fucks your face down onto his cock, his groans mixing with your wet, choked noises. He clearly seems to enjoy this, using you how he pleases, uncaring of your own arousal. It’s so hot you feel like you might explode. You hope you’ll get more out of this than just sucking your professor off, because if he doesn’t reciprocate you might have half a mind to report him for unprofessional conduct.

But Dr. Reid is moaning into his fist, eyebrows furrowed as you blow him, and you’ve always wanted to please your professor; be it in class or right in this moment.

You reach up to grab Dr. Reid by his wrist, tapping his arm to get his attention. His eyelids flutter open, revealing his gorgeously deep brown eyes. He looks at you, slightly concerned. “What’s the matter?”

You swallow hard. “Sir, I– Will you fuck me? Please? I want- I want to feel you inside.”

Dr. Reid closes his eyes for a moment, breathes through his nose. “Holy fucking shit,” He murmurs to himself, before he says, louder, “Okay. Yes. Fuck, you’re so sexy.”

You don’t get up from your knees, not just yet. You look up at him, hands in your lap, waiting for him to tell you what to do. You smirk up at him. Dr. Reid sighs, rubbing his face with his hand, and says, “You little minx. Get up on my desk.”

He extends a hand to help you up, your legs shaky from being on your knees. You look behind you to figure out how to get yourself onto the desk, but Dr. Reid is also on his feet now, and he hoists you up onto the desk, easily getting between your spread legs. You steady yourself by placing your hands out behind you, and shudder when Dr. Reid’s big, warm hands grab at your thighs. He squeezes at the flesh, before one hand comes down to your clothed pussy. He swipes his thumb over your clit, over your hole, and he tuts. “You’re so wet already. You must be desperate.”

You shudder. Dr. Reid’s touch is not enough to feel good, as he barely teases you over your panties. “You should do something about it, Professor.”

“I will,” he says. Dr. Reid exhales, looking down between where your bodies are pressed close, his hard cock pressed against your cunt. “Look at what you’ve done to me. You’ve ruined me.”

“Sir,” you say sultrily. “You should fuck me now.”

“I will,” he repeats, his hand on your hip. He looks you up and down, and then Dr. Reid’s hand is sliding across your thigh, his fingers slipping up the hem of your skirt. You feel calloused thumbs teasing at the waistband of your panties, feel them dip past the elastic to pull them down. 

Cool air hits your cunt, as Dr. Reid slides your panties off your legs. He’s looking down at you, between your legs, clearly enjoying the view. You clear your throat, and he looks up at you, almost sheepish. He says, his voice cracking slightly, “You’re gorgeous.”

You smile. “You’re not so bad yourself, Dr. Reid.”

“Yeah?” He laughs. “I’m glad you think so.”

As you talk, Dr. Reid has mindlessly started to rut his cock along your leaking cunt, your steadily-flowing slick making the slide easy. It’s so good, even just the friction of your professor frotting against you. You hold back a moan, looking up into Dr. Reid’s eyes.

“Sir– Oh, fuck,” you moan, as his cock slips inside of you with the way he grinds against you, your hole letting him in too easily. You’re so wet that he’d just slipped in. The feeling stuns you both, wet heat around Dr. Reid’s cock. He’s still rocking his hips back and forth, which pulls him out of you and pushes him back in. The head of his cock pushes back into you, and you both moan. You cry, “More, Dr. Reid.”

Dr. Reid steadies himself as he starts to fuck you, the movement of his hips shifting as he thrusts into you proper. There’s a practised ease in his thrusts, confident as he takes you on his desk. Your head falls forward, hair in your face, as your body takes in the feeling of your professor’s cock buried inside of you.

“You feel so good,” Dr. Reid grunts, his cock fucking in and out of you. He’s filling you up just the way you need it, his thickness stretching you out so deliciously. You clench around him at the praise, and his hips stutter. “So tight for me, sweetheart.”

And then, you can’t explain what you do next. You can’t help yourself, as you wrap your arms around him and bury your face into his neck, smelling his musky perfume and sweat. You whimper. You feel so good you don’t know what else to do with your body, but Dr. Reid doesn’t push you away. One of his arms wraps around your waist, his hand on the small of your back feeling so warm through your thin top, even though you’re feeling so hot you could explode. 

You feel yourself being pushed onto your back onto the heavy wooden desk, Dr. Reid’s weight pressing down on you. Like this, you feel his cock press inside of you impossibly deeper, and it’s so good you feel like screaming – you don’t, obviously you can’t, but you muffle a moan into his shoulder instead.

“Such a good girl,” Dr. Reid murmurs softly, his cock punching deep inside of you. Each of his thrusts sends electric pleasure up your spine, through your nerves, and you’re tearing up from how good this feels. “Fuck, I wish I could hear you scream for me.”

You whimper, a broken cry pressed against his neck. “Dr. Reid–”

“Oh, I know, sweetheart,” Dr. Reid coos softly. “You’re doing so good, keeping it down for me. So good for me.”

You don’t like feeling so pathetic, but Dr. Reid makes you feel safe even while you’re vulnerable, while he’s fucking you on his office desk. You sob, “Dr. Reid, it’s too good– I’m gonna cum, I– please–”

“Come on,” he grunts, his voice laboured as he pants. “Cum for me, my darling.”

Your gasp is louder than you’d like it to be, in a professor’s office of all places, but you feel too good to remember to keep it down. You shudder through your orgasm, unable to control the way your body reacts to all the pleasure given to you. 

“Fuck,” Dr. Reid blurts, his cock sliding out of you faster than you expect. You whine, but Dr. Reid is cumming all over your cunt, thick, hot spurts all over already-slick skin. “Oh, shit. Fuck.”

You’re thankful Dr. Reid didn’t cum inside, only because he didn’t have a condom on. You feel like a mess, but Dr. Reid’s looking at you like you’re a goddess. You feel his softening cock resting on your thigh. You want to go again, to feel him inside of you again, but perhaps that’s too desperate. 

When his head is clear, Dr. Reid is quick to step back, reaching into the desk drawer. 

“Sorry, let me just–” The commandeering, dominant Dr. Reid you just met is now gone, back to his slightly silly, bumbling self. He takes two wipes out from the packet of wet wipes he had pulled out from the drawer in his haste, but his hands are gentle when he wipes you clean. His touch is soft, sweet, and you feel so special in his hands. “I’m sorry I made a mess of you.”

You chuckle. “Dr. Reid, I’m more than okay with it. I think it comes with the territory.”

He smiles, albeit a little awkwardly. “Yeah, you’re right. I just don’t do this often, I suppose.”

“Oh, please. As if you don’t have other students throwing themselves at you too, Dr. Reid,” you laugh, waving him off.

“I do, but I’ve never done anything with them. Even if they try to proposition me, I tell them to leave my office. I’ve only… It’s just you.”

You’re stunned for a moment, blinking up at him. “You… Seriously?”

He frowns slightly. “Does it seem like I sleep around with my students often?”

“No! No, I just– I didn’t expect that. I thought you would be more… experienced? Considering how readily you let me… seduce you. I guess.”

“You’re definitely convincing,” Dr. Reid smiles. “Besides, I think you’re really special. I’ve never had a student like you.”

“Oh,” you say, because what else can you say in this scenario? Should you say anything else? It’s starting to hit you now, the implications of what you’ve just done walking into your professor’s office like this. “That’s… flattering.”

He tilts his head, brows furrowing. “Your pause seems to imply you don’t really mean that.”

“Oh, no, Dr. Reid, not at all, I–” You shake your head. “I’m really flattered that you think I’m special, I just– I’m not sure how I can navigate this. We’ve had sex, and it’s really hitting me now that I should not have seduced my professor because that’s definitely a violation of conduct, and–”

“Hey, relax,” Dr. Reid says, putting his hand on your shoulder. You breathe in deep. Dr. Reid looks at you warmly, and says, “I know we probably shouldn’t have done this, but I couldn’t resist you. And besides, it’s already done. We’re close to the end of the semester anyways. If you– I– If you want to continue this… outside of campus, I’d be more than happy to.”

“Dr. Reid,” you gasp, shocked that your professor would even be interested enough in you to suggest something like that. A relationship, outside of class? Or whatever it is he was thinking of. Frankly, even if Dr. Reid wants to meet once a month just to fuck, you’d take whatever you could get, especially with a man as gorgeous as him.

“Call me Spencer. Please,” he smiles. “Outside of class, at least.”

You grin. “Okay, Spencer.”

[boyfhee]

﹙𝓲ssue﹚ㅤ:ㅤclingy boyfriendsㅤ...ㅤ( 엔하이픈 )

ㅤㅤ﹙2189﹚ ㅤ장르 fluff fluff fluff, est. relㅤㅤwarnings a few kisses and pecksㅤㅤᐢᗜᐢ had sm fun writing this bc i love cuddles. happy reading ^^ please rb and give feedback, it helps a lot ^_^ iNDEX requested

HEESEUNG

“hee, i need to go,” you whine, trying to get out of his arms but his grip only gets tighter around you as he keeps holding you against him, laying on top of you. he has always been clingy, but he’s especially clingier today— been holding you for the past thirty minutes and refusing to let go. 

you like this— on contrary to your words. it’s nice when he’s being this cute and clingy. you feel him press a few tender kisses on the base of your neck, something that always makes your heartbeat faster.

“i see,” is all he says, propping his chin up on your chest, pretending to think as he looks up at you. you mouth a quiet ‘please’ and he chuckles, burying his face in your chest again. “no,” 

and you groan again while he continues to hold onto you stubbornly. he holds you even closer when you try to resist, a sigh falling off your lips as you seem to give up. “lunch is not going to make itself,”

“lunch can wait,” the words are muffled against your chest but you can hear him smiling. it’s only a few seconds until he looks up at you, stealing a quick peck before shooting you a grin. “let me hold you for a little longer, darling,”

JONGSEONG

he said it would be just a few kisses but it has been quite a while since you’ve been on jay’s lap, and his arms only seem to wrap tighter around you. you lift your head up from his shoulder, looking at him with a slight pout. “how long are you going to keep this up?”

“dunno, sweetheart,” he whispers against your lips, tilting his head to the other side to go in for a few feathery kisses on your cheeks and lips before looking at you longingly. “can’t seem to get enough of your lips today,”

and the club room is not the most ideal place to kiss since a student— or worse, a teacher— could walk in anytime. usually he’s the responsible one, making sure you two don’t get caught during your sneaky kisses and meetups between classes. however today, his mind is far away from thinking about anyone else but you.

“your new chapstick—” he speaks between the kisses, fingers drawing soft circles on your back as he pulls you closer. “is it cherry?”

you nod, one hand on his chest while the other on the back of his neck. “yep, i got it yesterday,”

“forgive me for taking up a little more of your time,” he chuckles, leaning in and capturing your lips in another kiss. he kisses you for longer this time, a bit slower, savouring the taste of your chapstick and the feeling of your lips moving against his. he pulls away reluctantly and lowly chuckles under his breath. “gosh, i can never get enough of you.”

JAEYUN

“sorry for being too clingy, angel,” he whispers, nuzzling his face deeper into the crook of your neck as his arms tighten around your waist, pulling you closer. “you’re so warm, it’s nice,”

“you’re always like this,” you giggle, reaching out to brush his hair with your fingers. it’s always nice to have him spooning you as if no worries exist and it’s just you, him and your bed in this entire world.

you feel his lips trailing over the back of your neck down to your shoulders, planting soft and tender kisses in their wake. it doesn’t take you much to melt in his embrace— just a few kisses with his arms around you usually do the job.

“i hope you don’t mind it,” he says with a quiet laugh, turning you slightly towards him to look at your face. “you’re my sweetheart, the love of my life. i can barely spend an hour without you,”

and all you do is laugh at his words, a sound so melodious that it makes his smile grow wider. jake shifts a little, propping himself on his elbow before leaning in and smothering your face in kisses and whispering sweet nothings in between, his heart fluttering at the sound of your giggles. 

“watching you being clingy is my favourite thing in the world,” you manage to speak between his endless kisses and pecks, cupping his cheeks tenderly. 

the smile never leaves his lips, only growing wider as he presses his lips against your cheeks and gives you a few pecks before his lips are back onto yours. “you are my favourite thing in this world,”

SUNGHOON

“don’t you dare move,” you freeze at his words, surprise evident on your face. he doesn’t give you a chance to speak, pulling you closer with your back pressing up against his chest. “you’re not going anywhere,”

it’s new, almost rare for sunghoon to be this clingy. usually, he prefers you sitting next to him, arms linked or fingers intertwined, your head on his chest with his head on yours, kissing it every few seconds. but this— his arms basically engulfing you from behind and making it hard for you to focus on the movie with the way his chin rests on your shoulder, breath tickling against your neck— is usual, and you like it. 

“let me go get more popcorn,” you stifle your laugh, gazing at him from the corner of your eyes. you try your best to sound convincing, even though his arms only wrap tighter around you. “i’ll be back in a minute,”

“i said, no,” he tries to sound firm, although you chuckle at how cute he sounds and looks, his lips pressed together, brows furrowed. he catches you looking at him and narrows his eyes at you before shaking his head, kissing your forehead. “you’re not going anywhere until i say so, princess,”

you end up laughing, giving up on your request and relax in his arms, leaning back completely against his chest. “you’re so cute when you’re clingy,”

sunghoon only hums with his face against the crook of your neck. you can feel him leaving a few kisses there before he looks up, kissing the top of your head, whispering softly. “you feel too good in my arms for me to let you go,”

SUNOO

the silence and dim lights in your room almost lull you into sleep, the warm comforter only making the process easier before you hear sunoo whisper in the dead of the night, although not long after you’ve come to bed to sleep. “come closer,”

your stay quiet in your position for a few seconds before shifting closer to your boyfriend, arms slithering around his waist. “you okay?” 

and it’s not really rare for sunoo to ask you to sit or lay close to him. in fact, he would trade anything to cuddle with you and have you all nice and snug against him. although, the fact that he likes his own personal space while sleeping stands false for now, because he pulls you even closer, your body basically pressed up against him completely. 

he nods, burying his face in your hair while his hands trace up and down on your back, his soothing touch making you smile at the sensation. “i just want to hold you,”

your smile only grows wider at his words and you swear your can feel the thumping of your heart that paces as he starts leaving fluttering kisses on your cheeks. “you can hold me as much as you want,”

it only takes him a few seconds before he pulls you even closer, positioning you on top of him and enjoying the way your head rests on his chest. his hand continues to caress your back while the other fixes the comforter over you two. “this is better,”

JUNGWON

“baby,” you hear his voice as soon as he enters through the door, quickly shuffling out of his shoes and making his way to you before wrapping you in his arms. “gosh, i’ve missed you, my love,” 

it’s cute, especially the way he’s almost lifting you off your feet while hugging, having you on your tippy toes. a few seconds in and he’s swaying you left and right, mumbling something against your shoulder that you can’t quite catch. “you’re squeezing me, wonie,”

“can’t help it,” he gives a quick response, lifting his head up slightly to look at you. it’s quiet for a few moments, just him admiring you as if taking in your face and remembering every little detail about it. you smile simply at the lack of words, finding his expression utterly sweet before he continues. “i missed you so so much. so damn much, you have no idea.”

you giggle at his words, poking his nose gently with your index finger, his arms holding you by your waist. “i think i do. those voice messages everyday give me a slight idea,”

he can’t help but laugh sheepishly, looking away briefly. it’s true he spammed you with texts and voice notes, and they were about everything— the weather, what they had for breakfast, the poor joke some member made or the way a cloud looked like you— everything.

“i’m never going on tours again,” he whispers between the quick kisses he plants all over your face, your eyes squinting at the act, something that, according to him, makes you look even more adorable. “too much for my heart,”

NI-KI

riki positions himself on top of you, basically burying you under himself on the couch and engulfing you in his embrace. it’s warm and nice— you can barely breath, trying to wriggle your way out before he mumbles against your shoulders. “stop moving,”

“i can’t breathe, ‘ki,” you manage to muffle out, your arms encircling around his much larger frame. he knows you are going to slip out from under him if he moves, probably laying on top of him— which he loves just as much as this, but laying on top of you is way more fun.

“so spoiled,” he grunts from your neck, although not moving for another few seconds before he shifts slightly and switches to a position where you can breathe properly. “better?”

you huff when he calls you spoiled as if reminding him of the postion you two were in. riki had practically begged for cuddles while you were working on a project, saying he’ll help you with it later. although, you two are more likely to end up sleeping in each other’s arms than getting up to work on the project.

if laying on top of you was not enough, he nuzzles his face even further in your neck as if he isn’t already close enough. you squint your eyes at him, poking his cheeks with your finger. “you are spoiled,” 

“well push me off yourself if you have a problem,” he says with a scoff, raising an eyebrow up at your silence. he wonders if you’re contemplating in silence, but when your arms wrap around him a bit more tightly, making him chuckle as he leans down to press his cheeks against yours. “thought so,”

[bytemee]

toxic till the end — yu jimin.

synopsis. karina is the kind of girl everyone knows—confident, popular, and always the best-dressed. when you get paired with her for a school project, you're shocked, but things only get worse when she starts showing her toxic side.

pairing. toxic & rich!meangirl!jimin x loser(?)! skater!reader

warnings. toxic relationship (manipulation, physical violence, aggressive language, jealousy) sexual content, and let me know if there’s more. time skips/rushed so i didn’t turn this into a full fic

words. 5.8k

authors note. i’m always making reader a loser because im projecting sorry. this is also HEAVILY based on the music video

navigation. main masterlist.

you know karina. everyone does. she's the kind of girl who owns every room she walks into. her flawless skin, the designer clothes, and the air of absolute certainty that follows her everywhere—she's untouchable. it doesn't matter whether it's school, the mall, or some exclusive party in the city. karina is always the best-dressed, the most confident, the one everyone wants to be around. she has everything—the best grades, the richest friends, and a mansion that could probably fit your entire apartment.

but you've never been part of her world. not by a long shot.

so when the teacher announces the project pairings, you half-expect to be stuck with someone you barely know. but the name you hear makes your stomach twist for a second—karina. you blink and glance around the room, but sure enough, she's looking at her phone like it's the only thing that matters. her eyes don't even leave the screen as the teacher explains the assignment, and when she does glance up, it's just long enough to give a faint nod.

yunjin, your best friend, glances at you with a sympathetic look, but all you can do is shrug in response.

the first time you try talking to her about the project, she's half-listening. you're sitting at the library table, and karina's doodling on the edge of her notebook, looking at her phone again. you make a suggestion about the research, but she just shrugs.

"sure, whatever. i'm good with whatever you want to do." she mutters, glancing back down at her phone. you bite your lip, trying to think of another way to get her attention. you push a little harder, trying to make this work, "you sure? it's a group project, we both have to decide."

karina just gives you that look—one that says, i don't care what you say, because the outcome is the same.

you pause, trying to gauge her reaction, but karina's already back to scrolling through her feed, the sound of her phone clicking lightly in the background. you're not sure if you should push any further. it's clear she's not invested in this—in you—and that stings more than you want to admit.

"okay, then..." you say, forcing a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. "we'll just go with whatever you think is best."

karina doesn't even look up when she replies. "yeah, exactly."

the rain catches you off guard the next day. you didn't bring an umbrella, and now you're standing near the campus entrance, your skateboard tucked under your arm, waiting for the rain to let up. you're not in a rush to get home—mostly because you know it'll be a long, dull evening. your roommates will probably be out partying or something. and without yunjin, you feel like the odd one out.

so you stand there, letting the rain soak through your jacket as you watch everyone else scramble for shelter.

then, out of nowhere, you hear the hum of an engine. karina's sleek car pulls up, its tinted windows glinting in the rain. for a moment, you think she's going to ignore you, like she does every other time. but instead, she rolls down the window, her face leaning out slightly.

"get in," karina commands, her voice cool and smooth, like she doesn't really care one way or another.

you blink, a little thrown off by the offer. "what?"

it takes you a moment to process her words, and she looks a little impatient when she repeats herself. "get in the car. it's raining."

"um, thanks. but i'm fine, really," you stammer, trying to smile and hoping she doesn't notice the nervousness in your voice.

but karina just raises an eyebrow, like you've said the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"don't be stupid," she says, a little too loudly, her tone a little too harsh. you glance down, and your cheeks burn in embarrassment. karina doesn't strike you as the type to offer rides to just anyone. but then again, you're not anyone, are you? you're her partner for the project. you're technically part of her world for the moment, no matter how temporary that might be.

with a reluctant sigh, you climb into the car. the door shuts with a soft thud, and you find yourself in the passenger seat, a little too close to her than you expected.

the inside of her car smells faintly of vanilla. she's wearing a floral perfume that reminds you of the spring, the kind of scent that leaves you a little breathless, a little giddy, and a little too happy.

she's not even looking at you, and that's probably a good thing.

you clear your throat, trying to ignore the heat in your face.

"uh...where are we going?" you ask, not sure if you should say something else. the air feels awkward between you two, still heavy from the silence of your earlier encounters.

karina glances at you for a moment before turning back to the road, her eyes fixed on the street ahead. "to my place. we still need to finish the project, right?"

karina's house is nothing short of a mansion. it stands in the middle of a large estate, with a pristine garden and a driveway that looks longer than your entire block. you can't help but feel small as you step out of the car, your skateboard tucked under your arm like a prop rather than something you actually use.

"you can leave your skateboard in the garage," karina says as she leads you into her house. "we'll be in my office."

the room is much like the rest of her house—everything pristine, clean, and far more impressive than anything you've ever had. she's already seated at a desk, pulling up the files for your project, while you stand awkwardly by the door, unsure of where to sit.

"you're... sure this is fine?" you ask, glancing at the luxurious surroundings. "i don't want to get in the way."

karina barely looks up from her computer. "you're not in the way," she says dismissively, clicking through some documents. "just sit down."

you do as she says, taking a seat next to her. as she leans forward, you catch a glimpse of her profile, the line of her neck and jaw, the way her lips curve into a frown when she's deep in thought. she's beautiful, you realize. she's more than beautiful. she's almost...

...perfect.

"you're staring," karina says, looking up at you, her dark eyes fixed on yours. you feel a flicker of panic, not sure what to say. "i...sorry," you stammer, not sure why the word comes out like that. you didn't mean to stare. but karina doesn't look bothered, her face expressionless.

the project progresses in silence for a while. karina occasionally makes a comment or offers a suggestion, but it's clear she's not too invested. you do most of the work, but there's a strange satisfaction in seeing her just there, even if she's not really participating. it's enough to be with her, you think. to spend a few hours in her company, even if she's not paying attention.

by the time the sun begins to set, you're both sprawled out on the floor with the project almost done, the laptop and a few papers strewn around you. you didn't expect to get this much done, and you didn't expect karina to actually stay with you the entire time, even if she was working on her own stuff.

but it's karina who breaks the silence, "do you want to take a break?"

you blink, a little surprised. you've been so focused on the project that you hadn't even thought about taking a break. but now that karina's mentioned it, you realize how much your shoulders ache and how stiff your back is from sitting on the floor for hours.

"uh, sure," you say, trying to sound casual. you sit up, stretching your arms above your head, wincing a little as your muscles protest.

suddenly, you're outside laughing as you both run around karina's expansive yard. you don't even know what it was that started the game of running around her massive yard, laughing as you dodged between trees and jumped over flower beds. the estate was almost overwhelming, the grass so perfectly green and the gardens so lush and well-maintained, but somehow, it was comforting, too.

you're not sure how long you play for, but it feels like a lifetime. karina is faster than you, and her legs carry her across the yard effortlessly. she's light on her feet, almost catlike in the way she moves, and the sunlight catches her dark hair and turns it golden.

when you finally stop, both of you panting and laughing, she sits on the edge of a large ornamental fountain, and you follow, dropping down next to her. it's quiet for a moment—only the sound of your laughter dying down and the trickle of the fountain.

karina looks at you, her eyes meeting yours. there's something about the way she's looking at you, something that makes your heart race and your stomach do flip-flops.

"you're pretty when you smile," she says.

then, in a blink, before you can react, she shoves you into the fountain. cold water splashes up in all directions, drenching you from head to toe. you let out an indignant gasp, but it quickly dissolves into uncontrollable laughter as you sputter, trying to catch your breath between fits of giggles.

"oops," karina says, looking far too pleased with herself, her hand covering her mouth. "my bad."

you wipe water from your eyes, trying to make it look like you're annoyed, but your smile betrays you. "yeah, sure. 'oops.'"

karina bursts into more laughter, the sound high and sweet. it's the most beautiful sound you've ever heard, and for a moment, you forget that you're soaked. you forget about the project and the fact that you'll have to go home later. all you can focus on is the way karina's blonde hair falls over her shoulders, and the way her smile reaches her eyes, making them shine like stars.

you can't help but stare, transfixed.

she's perfect, you think. perfect and untouchable.

karina stands up, "come on, before you freeze to death." she holds out her hand. you hesitate for a moment, but eventually, your fingers close around hers, and you pull yourself up. she doesn't let go. not even when the two of you are standing side by side, her hand still in yours.

you're not really sure what room you're in now, only that it's not the office anymore. you don't care enough to figure it out, either. the lights are dim, the fireplace crackles softly in the corner, and karina is sitting in your lap. she's holding a towel, gently brushing it over your damp hair to help dry it. her hands move slowly, the motion almost hypnotic. you don't even bother resisting the urge to lean into her touch, her body pressed against yours.

"you should come here more often," she says, her voice low. "it's fun."

she's so close, you can smell her vanilla perfume again. it's intoxicating.

"it is," you murmur, and her eyes flicker up to yours, a smirk on her face.

"i'm glad you agree."

"we should probably finish the project," you say, though it sounds half-hearted even to you.

"maybe later," she says softly, leaning closer. her face is so close to yours now that you can feel the warmth of her breath. she hesitates for just a moment before her lips brush lightly against yours.

your breath catches, and for a second, you're frozen.

you weren't sure what to expect, but the simple touch of her lips leaves you wanting more. her eyes flicker up to yours briefly, searching your face, almost like she's asking if it's okay to keep going. without thinking, you lean forward just enough to close the gap again.

she sighs into your mouth, her hands coming up to cup your face, her fingertips brushing along your jaw. the towel falls away, forgotten, and her arms wrap around your shoulders, pulling you closer. your hands find her waist, tracing up the curve of her spine and the back of her neck.

you're not sure how long the kiss lasts, only that by the time you pull away, your lungs are burning and your head is spinning.

she's smiling, a real smile this time, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.

"you're blushing," she whispers, tracing her thumb along the line of your jaw.

"i am not," you protest weakly.

"mhm." karina leans in again, her nose brushing against yours.

"are you going to eat that?"

yunjin's voice snaps you out of your thoughts. you blink and realize you're sitting at the table now, a cookie sitting on the plate in front of you.

"hm?"

she points at the cookie. "that. are you gonna eat it?"

"oh," you mutter, realizing you must've been staring at it while lost in thought. "oh, no you can have it jen."

she grabs it, takes a bite, and gives you a weird look. "hey, are you okay? you're kinda spacing out."

"i'm fine, really," you say, taking a sip of tea, though your thoughts are miles away. karina lingers in your mind, no matter how hard you try to shake her. it's been days since your first kiss—though there have been others since. it felt like you were finally starting to get somewhere with karina. and maybe, just maybe, you were actually a little important to her, too.

yunjin eyes you suspiciously, clearly unconvinced, but she lets it slide. she takes another bite of the cookie and changes the subject, just as chaewon slides into the seat next to you.

"ugh, what are you doing with these?" chaewon huffs, leaning in and inspecting your eyebrows like she's some kind of aesthetician. she licks her finger then starts brushing them with her thumb.

"chaewon," you groan, swatting her away. "stop. you're embarrassing me."

"embarrassing you?" she scoffs, rubbing at some invisible flaw on your face. "i'm fixing you, trust me. if anyone's embarrassing you, it's yourself."

yunjin snickers as chaewon wipes a crumb off the corner of your mouth, ignoring your exaggerated protests. "see? better already," chaewon says, looking pleased with herself.

you roll your eyes dramatically but can't help the tiny grin tugging at your lips. she's annoying, sure, but she's like the older sister you never had. it's hard to stay mad when she means well.

before you can shoot back a sarcastic comment, movement across the room catches your eye. karina walks by with her group of friends, laughing about something you can't hear. you straighten in your seat, your heart racing without permission.

"karina!" you call out, raising a hand to get her attention. "hey! come meet my friends!"

your voice echoes just enough to make a few people glance your way, but karina doesn't even spare you a look. she keeps walking, her laughter ringing out as if she didn't hear you—or worse, as if she didn't care.

the table goes quiet. you can feel yunjin and chaewon watching you, but you refuse to meet their eyes, staring instead at the empty space where karina just was. you feel your face heat up, and suddenly, you wish the ground would swallow you whole.

"ouch," yunjin mutters under her breath, giving a low whistle. "harsh."

you swallow thickly, the sinking feeling in your stomach growing stronger by the second.

"it's fine," you say, forcing a smile.

"uh, i still wanted to show you that trick i was talking about earlier." you try to shift the focus away from the embarrassment still burning in your chest, but your voice wavers slightly. yunjin and chaewon exchange a quick glance, their concern evident despite their best attempts to hide it.

"trick?" chaewon perks up, "what trick?"

you hesitate, glancing at her and then down at your lap. "just something i've been practicing on my board."

"why didn't you mention this sooner?" chaewon leans forward, resting her elbows on the table, "c'mon, show us! i've been dying to see you pull off something cool."

"but uh, yeah, about that..." you scratch the back of your neck. "i don't have my board with me. so, i can't."

yunjin, who had been quietly finishing her cookie, perks up. "you can use mine!" she says brightly, already digging into her bag. "i brought it with me."

"are you sure?" you ask, a little surprised by the offer. you know she doesn't like anyone touching her skateboard. "i don't want to—"

"it's fine," she assures, waving a hand dismissively. "just show us."

the three of you head outside, and yunjin pulls out her skateboard, handing it to you. it's a little smaller than yours, but it feels sturdy enough. after testing the balance and grip, you roll it forward, nodding with approval. a few minutes later, you nail the trick with ease, a grin spreading across your face as you hold out the board.

"that was awesome!" chaewon squeals, practically bouncing with excitement.

"told you it was cool," yunjin says with a satisfied grin.

"yeah, it was," you reply, grinning wider. "thanks, guys."

you spend the next hour hanging out with them, laughing and joking about nothing in particular. by the time the bell rings, you feel lighter, ready to head home and unwind for the day. as you're saying your goodbyes, a familiar luxury car pulls into the schools parking lot.

the window rolls down, and karina peers out, her gaze locking onto you. "get in," she calls, and it doesn't sound like a question.

"i'm good," you say, shifting your bag onto your shoulder. "i'll walk."

"get in the fucking car," she repeats, louder this time, and there's something in her tone that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. she glances at your friends before turning back to you, her eyes dark and intense. "or are you too cool to hang out with me now?"

you freeze. yunjin and chaewon exchange a quick look, and suddenly, you're painfully aware that they're witnessing this. karina's gaze never wavers, her lips pressed into a thin line and her brow furrowed. for a moment, you think she might just drive off and leave you standing there.

"okay, fine," you relent, opening the door and climbing into the car. as soon as you're inside, karina speeds off, the tires screeching slightly as she takes a sharp turn. the ride is silent. neither of you speaks. then you notice the car heading in the opposite direction of your house.

"where are we going?" you ask, breaking the silence.

karina doesn't answer, her knuckles white as she grips the steering wheel. her jaw is set, and you can feel the tension radiating from her. you try again, "seriously, where are we—"

"just shut up," she snaps, "please."

"karina—"

"god," she mutters, running a hand through her hair. "you're so annoying."

the words hit you harder than expected, and you flinch, your eyes widening. she's never spoken to you like this before. not ever. "i'm annoying?"

she glances over at you briefly, her eyes narrowed. "yes. you are."

"why?" you ask, genuinely confused. "because i didn't get in your car right away?"

"yes!" karina exclaims, her voice rising in frustration. "exactly!"

you stare at her, taken aback by her reaction along with her response. a million questions race through your head, and you're not sure which one to ask first. karina turns back to the road, and you can tell she's holding back, biting her lip to stop herself from saying something she might regret.

"why do you even care? i was having fun with my friends. why can't you just leave me alone?"

"i don't care," karina spits out, her words sharp and venomous.

"bullshit," you scoff.

"oh, really?" karina raises an eyebrow. the car suddenly stopping in the middle of the road. "fine, then. go be with your friends. see if i care."

your body jerks at the sudden stop, and you grip the seatbelt tightly, your heart hammering in your chest. there's no way she can be serious.

"you're not serious," you mutter, "you're the one who ignored me in the middle of the dining hall. in front of everyone."

karina remains silent, her gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead. the car moves forward again, a little slower this time, and the silence hangs heavily between you. you can't believe she's acting like this.

"just turn around and take me home," you demand.

"no."

"why not?"

"your board's at my place," she says, cutting you off before you can protest. "don't you want it back?"

"i don't need it."

"yeah, you do," she responds, her tone matter-of-fact. "you can't do your stupid little tricks without it."

the word stings. "it's not stupid."

"sure," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. "it's not stupid. but it is pointless. and a waste of time."

you swallow hard, your throat dry. you don't know what to say, so you just stare out the window, trying to blink back the tears forming in your eyes. this is a new low, even for karina.

when she parks in front of her house, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step out, waiting by the door while she heads inside. a few moments later, she returns, handing you your board. you take it, inspecting it absentmindedly as karina leans against the doorframe, watching you.

"you never showed me that trick," she says suddenly, her voice softer now.

"yeah, well," you mutter, turning away. "there's a reason for that."

"show me now," she insists, nodding toward the driveway.

you sigh, glancing down at the skateboard. "karina—"

"c'mon, please."

you shake your head, still not meeting her gaze. "forget it."

"it won't take long," she presses, her eyes pleading. "i just wanna see it once."

"why? so you can make fun of me?"

"no," she insists, stepping closer. "i won't. i promise."

without really knowing why, you give in. you roll the board forward and step onto it carefully. as soon as you shift your weight, the board wobbles unnaturally, and before you can react, the screws give way, sending you sprawling onto the ground. pain shoots through your palms and knees as you catch yourself, the board clattering a few feet away.

karina is by your side in an instant, crouching down and reaching for you. "are you okay?" she asks, her voice laced with concern.

you sit up slowly, grimacing as pain radiates from your arm. your other hand instinctively cradles it, and you notice the sharp throb in your wrist, which is already starting to swell.

"shit," you hiss through clenched teeth, trying to move your fingers but finding it difficult.

"let me see," karina says, her voice soft yet urgent. she reaches for your arm, but you flinch, pulling it back.

"i'm fine," you snap, more out of frustration than anger. the pain and embarrassment are making it hard to think clearly.

"you're not fine," karina counters, her eyes darting between your face and your arm. "we need to get you to a hospital."

"i said i'm fine," you repeat stubbornly, though you know she's right. the pain is getting worse by the second, and you're starting to feel a little lightheaded.

karina sighs, standing up and brushing off her hands. "get in the car," she says firmly, leaving no room for argument.

you don't have the energy to fight her this time. carefully, you push yourself to your feet, wincing as the movement jostles your injured arm. karina is at your side instantly, steadying you with a hand on your back. you want to tell her you don't need her help, but the words die on your tongue.

the ride to the hospital is silent, the tension between you thick and suffocating. karina's grip on the steering wheel is tight, her knuckles white again, but this time her jaw isn't set in anger. instead, she looks... worried. the sight of her like this makes your chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with your arm.

when you arrive at the emergency room, karina parks hastily and helps you inside. the next hour passes in a blur of x-rays, ice packs, and medical jargon. the doctor confirms it's a bad sprain, not a break, and your arm is wrapped in a snug bandage to immobilize it. you're given a sling to wear for the next few weeks and a prescription for pain medication.

it's not until the two of you are cuddled up in bed, her body pressed against yours, her head resting on your shoulder, that she finally breaks the silence. "i'm sorry," she whispers, her voice barely audible. "i didn't mean to hurt you."

"i know," you murmur, reaching up with your good hand to stroke her hair gently. it's the first time she's apologized for anything.

"you're really good," she says softly, "on your board, i mean."

"oh."

"and the tricks you were talking about are cool," she adds, her eyes searching yours.

"thanks."

"i shouldn't have called them stupid."

"no," you agree, your heart aching again, but not as badly this time. "you shouldn't have."

karina nods, her gaze dropping to the sling holding your arm in place. she reaches out, running her fingers over the fabric. "does it hurt?"

"not right now," you reassure her, the painkillers kicking in.

"that's good," she sighs, her head drooping slightly.

you smile faintly, feeling exhaustion wash over you. "you should get some sleep," you suggest, knowing how little sleep she normally gets.

"you first," she mumbles, her eyes closing.

with a soft chuckle, you pull her closer and let yourself drift off.

karina has been acting strange since the accident—but not in a bad way. there's a new quietness to her, a thoughtful edge that wasn't there before. sometimes, you catch her staring at you with an unreadable expression, her lips pressed together like she wants to say something but can't. every time you ask, though, she just shrugs and says, "nothing."

the two of you are back in her office, putting the finishing touches on your project. the hours stretch on, and the golden hues of the setting sun spill through the window, painting the room in soft orange and pink. the light catches on her face, highlighting her features in a way that almost makes her look angelic.

"are you sure?" you ask, tilting your head to study her.

"mhm," karina hums distractedly, turning back to her computer as though the question didn't faze her.

your phone buzzes on the table, drawing both your attention. glancing down, you see a message from yunjin:

"are you busy tonight? we're going to the skate park."

as you start to type out a reply, you notice karina's gaze flick toward your phone. this time, she doesn't bother hiding it, her eyes lingering for a moment too long. you shift uncomfortably, moving your arm in its sling to shield your screen. her eyes narrow slightly, and you see her jaw tighten.

karina studies you for a moment, her expression unreadable. then, out of nowhere, she jumps up from her seat, snatching your phone from the table.

"hey! what the hell?" you shoot up from your seat, scrambling to follow her as she storms out of the room.

"what's so important on your phone?" she snaps, holding it just out of your reach.

you frown, struggling to keep up with her as she strides down the hallway. you reach out, grasping for the device, but she dodges your attempts, easily keeping it out of your grasp. "give it back, karina," you say, exasperated.

"why? so you can text yunjin and ditch me?" she retorts, spinning on her heel to face you. "are you really that desperate to hang out with her?"

"what are you even talking about?"

karina ignores your question, turning on her heel and continuing down the hallway. she doesn't look back, and you can feel the frustration bubbling up inside you, mixing with confusion. karina's eyes flash. "don't play dumb. i see the way she looks at you."

"oh, come on. yunjin is just a friend."

"sure she is," karina scoffs, her grip on your phone tightening.

"and what about you lee jae wook? should i pretend i haven't noticed how close you two have gotten?" you suddenly mention. karina freezes, her face going pale. for a moment, she looks almost scared, but it's quickly replaced by anger, her brows knitting together.

her eyes narrow, and she takes a step closer, her voice low and dangerous. "what's that supposed to mean?"

you hold your ground, your own anger rising to meet hers. "it means i see how he looks at you, and how you look at him."

"we're just friends."

"yeah? just like you and i are friends?"

karina opens her mouth to respond, but the words die on her tongue. she hesitates, her eyes flicking away. karina looks away, her knuckles white as she grips your phone. then, as if the tension becomes too much, she turns and heads for the front door.

"where are you going?" you call after her, following her down the hallway.

"out," she says curtly, throwing open the door.

"karina, wait!" you step outside just as she rushes to her car. she fumbles with her keys, but when she tries to start the engine, the car sputters and lets out a puff of smoke.

you cross your arms, standing in the doorway. "looks like your car has other plans. just come back inside before you make things worse."

karina slams her hand against the steering wheel in frustration, her head dropping for a moment as she lets out an audible sigh. she stays there for a few seconds before grabbing your phone and storming back toward the house, her heels clicking sharply against the driveway.

"you're impossible," she mutters under her breath as she brushes past you, her shoulder lightly bumping yours.

"what is your problem, huh? you're the one who started this, stealing my phone like some kid."

she whirls around at that, her eyes blazing. "maybe if you weren't so secretive, i wouldn't have to!"

"secretive?" you laugh bitterly, stepping closer. "says the girl who's been cozying up to lee jae wook every chance she gets!"

karina's jaw clenches, her expression darkening. "i told you, there's nothing between us. why won't you believe me?"

"because," you say, the words spilling out before you can stop them. "it's clear there's something between you two. and it's not just friendship."

that's the final straw. before you can react, karina shoves you back, her hands pushing against your shoulders. you stumble, colliding with the edge of a decorative marble statue near the staircase. the wind is knocked out of you as your back hits the solid stone, the force sending a jolt of pain through your injured arm. you grit your teeth, trying not to wince, but the action is futile.

karina freezes as you collide with the marble statue, her eyes widening in shock. but the guilt that flickers across her face is gone in an instant, replaced by frustration.

"what is wrong with you?" she snaps, throwing her hands up. "why do you have to be such a bitch all the time? can't you just admit when you're wrong for once?"

your chest tightens, your heart hammering against your ribcage. the anger in her words stings, and the pain from your fall only adds fuel to the fire. you grit your teeth, pushing yourself off the statue despite the sharp ache radiating from your back. "me? you're the one pushing me into shit because your car won't start."

"because you did something to it!" she yells, pointing an accusatory finger at you.

you shrug, a smirk tugging at your lips. "can you prove that?"

karina lets out a bitter laugh, pacing a few steps before spinning to face you again. "of course it was you. i saw you on the security camera you fucking idiot, don't try and deny it. why would i hurt you when i've never done anything but take care of you?"

"take care of me?" you echo incredulously, "you think i owe you something because you let me crash at your place? is that what this is about?"

karina's eyes flash, her frustration boiling over as she throws her hands up in disbelief. "owe me something? you've got to be kidding me. this isn't about owing me—it's about the fact that i've bent over backwards for you, and this is how you repay me? by sabotaging my car and lying to my face?"

"yeah?" you fire back, stepping closer as your voice rises. "you bend over backwards? don't make me laugh, karina. i know you messed with my board. you think i wouldn't notice? the loosened trucks, the scratches that weren't there before? what, was that your idea of 'taking care of me' too?"

karina blinks repeatedly, her eyebrows furrowing together. "are you serious right now? you think i'd stoop that low? god, you're so paranoid it's pathetic."

you scoff, crossing your arms. "paranoid? you're the one who stole my phone and shoved me into a damn statue because i wouldn't let you snoop. spare me the innocent act, karina. if you wanted to screw me over, you could've at least been subtle about it."

her jaw tightens, and she takes a sharp step toward you, closing the gap. her eyes are burning, and you can feel the heat radiating off her skin as she leans closer.

"fuck you," she growls, her voice low and dangerous. "fuck you, and fuck your stupid project. i don't need you, and i don't need this."

her words hit hard, and for a second, you almost waver. then the anger returns, and you square your shoulders, meeting her gaze with just as much fury. "funny, because you sure act like you do. all this—" you gesture between the two of you, "—feels a hell of a lot like need, karina."

she recoils, her face contorting with disgust. "god, do you ever shut up?"

"why don't you make me?"

the words slip out without thinking. the air hangs heavy between the two of you, and for a moment, everything is still. then, before you can react, her hand is fisted in the front of your shirt, and she's kissing you hard. the kiss is messy and rough, a clash of teeth and tongues. karina pushes forward, shoving you back until your body collides with the wall. the impact sends a jolt of pain through your arm, but you barely notice. her mouth is hot and demanding against yours, her teeth grazing your lower lip.

your hand tangles in her hair, tugging hard enough to elicit a low groan from her. the sound spurs you on, and you grip her tighter, pulling her closer until there's no space left between the two of you.

"that's better," karina mutters against your lips, her breath warm against your skin. her hands find the hem of your shirt, slipping under the fabric. her touch is like fire, sending a wave of heat through your entire body.

"shut up," you breathe, tugging at her shirt, "and take this off."

karina smirks against your lips, pulling back just enough to look at you, her eyes dark and heavy-lidded. "bossy, aren't you?" she teases, but her hands are already moving, tugging her shirt over her head and tossing it carelessly to the floor.

[cherryblossom-heart]

I hate you (9.5/?)

modern!Sukuna x Reader

Things get clearer for Sukuna

Content Warning: Fluff, Enemies to lovers, Sukuna being nice? (if you can call it that) Sukuna is his own warning, mention of sexual content, slut shaming (both sides). Sukuna battling his feelings. This is a +18 series so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. If I catch any minor or ageless blog interacting with this series I will block you.

W.C. 2.6.K

A/N: Hi besties! I am so sorry for the delay on this chapter, memi messed up my convos for other series and this one too so I was just busy re doing everything again. Hope you guys like it! Oh btw I listened Mitskis' My Love Mine All Mine on repeat while writing this in case you want to give it a try haha

<Previous Chapter. Next Chapter>

7:17 P.M.

“Finally.” Sukuna rolled his eyes as you walked to him. “Taking forever, for what?”

“Oh, shut up. Like you don’t like what you see.” You winked at him.

A faint wave of heat rushed to his face and he wanted to ride away. Even if he had gotten used to this unexpected reaction, they didn’t make them any less annoying. He wasn’t about to admit he knew that even if you were wearing a garbage bag as a dress, his heart would still race any time you came through that door.

He remembered his cousin laughing once he told him he would take you to that stupid bands concert and asked him if he would cover your shift.

“So you’re telling me you’re taking her to a concert, of a band you don’t even like, just because?” Choso’s words were strained as he fought to get air back to his lungs.

Sukunas patience was running thin, not that it was hard to get it to that level to begin with, but the more Choso’s words bounced around his head, the more he questioned what the point of this was.

Why was he even taking you? He couldn’t even stand their music.

“You’re covering her shift or not?” Sukuna barked, which typically was enough to make people around him quiet. Unluckily for him, Choso didn’t hold the same fear for him as others, it didn’t help him, and Sukuna knew each other since they were in diapers.

“Oh, I’ll definitely take it. But you just have to answer one question.” His voice was full of amusement as he hung an arm around Sukuna. “How long has she had you this whipped?”

“Fuck you.” He shook off his arm of his shoulders.

Whatever, taking you wasn’t worth this hassle.

Or any hassle at all.

Maybe he could talk to Toji. Cash in a favor.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong. If anyone was going to be able to tame you, it definitely would be her.” Choso laughed.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, you’ve seen her right? Girls got a little crazy in her. Remember that time she beat up that Yorozu chick for saying all that fucked up shit about Uraume?”

Sukuna raised an eyebrow “What?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you were too busy to go to school. I’m surprised you even graduated.” Choso rolled his eyes, pulling out a cigarette from the carton he kept in his pocket, a habit he displayed whenever he talked for too long with his cousin. “After their mom died, Yorozu began the rumor Uraume fucked people to get money to pay the rent, that’s why they were never in school.”

That cunt.

Sukunas memories traveled back to his teenage years, he remembered a day where he had found you in the living room, your messy hair and a busted lip catching his attention. He had made the mistake of leaving you alone, thinking he didn’t care enough to ask.

And you didn’t like him enough to answer.

“Then one day your girl comes in, walks to Yorozu and sucker punches her right in the jaw. No warning, nothing. By the time the teachers were able to pull her off Yorozu, she already had a broken nose and her whole face was turning purple. I’ve never seen anything like that, I really thought she was going to kill her.” Choso shook his head. “Maybe you finally found your match”

His cousins’ words tormented his thoughts ever since.

God, he was right, wasn’t he? He was completely and utterly whipped. He didn’t remember the last time he had fucked someone else without you popping in his head every five seconds. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last day he had gone through without thinking of you at least once.

“What’s that?” You asked as you reached him, looking back to the hand he has behind his back.

Fuck.

“Here.” Sukuna pulled out a bouquet of deep red roses, almost slamming them against you. “Jin said I should bring this.” He scoffed, as if he wasn’t the one that decided to buy them.

“Aww.” You coo at them as you smell them. Sukuna’s eyes diverted from you, not wanting that brewing warm sensation you brought him to pop up, this was already hard enough as it was. “I love them. Maybe I should’ve gone out with Jin instead.” You teased him with that cocky little smirk that made his blood boil.

“I’m taking you out on a stupid date and you can’t stop being a slut for five minutes?” Sukuna rolled his eyes.

He expected to get a snarky remark, perhaps a slap in the arm or head but you had the annoying tendency to surprise him. You leaned over to him, placing a tender kiss on his cheek before walking backwards to your house.

His heart began racing. The drumming of his pulse echoed on his ears so loudly he thought you might’ve heard it.

“Don’t be an ass, you know I have more fun with you.” You winked at him before turning around.

“Where you going?” Were the only words he managed to say.

“To put them in a vase. Don’t want them dying on me, this might be the only proof of you ever being nice.”

Darkened eyes followed your every step, each one giving Sukuna a clear answer.

He was losing his mind, and it was all your fault.

8:21 P.M.

“Are you going to kill me?” You asked as you hopped of his bike, pulling down on the now inconvenient black skirt you had decided to wear.

“Piss me off enough and I might.”

“Whatever.” You glared at him, kicking a rock in the ground. “If you’re not going to kill me then what are we doing in the middle of the woods?”

“What? You scared, brat?”

You laughed. “As if. I’m more scared of an animal eating us. If a bear attacks us, I’m leaving your ass.”

Sukuna made his way through the path he had grown accustomed to, the sound of your heels scraping against the unstable ground the woods offered following close behind. He could hear you cursing under your breath, your annoyance growing the more you kept tripping.

“You could’ve told me we were going to the fucking woods.”

“Not my fault you dress like a cheap prostitute whenever you’re going out.”

“First of all, fuck you.” You caught up to him, slapping him in the back of the head. “Second, if I was a prostitute, you could never afford me.”

Sukuna held you by the arm, spinning you in front of him. His chest pressed against your back; his grip tight on your hips. He leaned over you, lips almost brushing against your ear.

“Why would I pay you when I already have you for free.”

“For now.” You turned around. “Piss me off enough and I might just change boytoys.”

You placed a kiss on his cheek before moving along and Sukuna never wished more to fuck you and strangle you at the same time.

8:29 P.M.

“Over here.”

“I swear if you brought me all the way over here for nothing I will cut your balls– “

“Hey.”

Jin’s voice cut through the emptiness of the forest making you jump. You turned to the direction of his voice, racing to Sukunas twin brother. It never ceased to amaze you how similar they were physically, but as soon as your eyes connected with Jin’s the softness in them almost made you chuckle.

“Jin!” You raced to him, engulfing him in a suffocating hug. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been busy with Yuji.”

Jin’s eyes met his brothers as he debated where to settle his hands. Sukunas burning gaze gave him the answer he needed.

“What are you doing here? Please tell me you’re my date instead of your idiot of a brother.” You teased him, causing a slight blush on his face. “You’re already much better than him. The flowers were a nice touch.”

“Flowers? I didn’t… oh. Oh! Yeah, no problem.”

Sukuna was about to turn Yuji into an orphan.

“I was just helping him set this up.” Jin pointed behind himself,

Your eyes grew wide as you took in what your date would be. In the middle of the field laid a lightweight red blanket, a couple of lanterns on each side made it visible. Laid out in the middle there were a few containers with what you assumed were food, steam covering the inside.

You smiled at Sukuna, and he could’ve sworn his world stopped for a second.

“It was his idea.” He grunted, hoping his brother would take the hint.

“Yeah, I thought you would like it.”

You stared back at Sukuna for a second longer, a playful glint on your eyes, before you turned around and hugged Jin again.

“You’re so sweet, thank you.” You placed a small kiss on his cheek, your lipstick tainting his skin. “Maybe you should stay, and we’ll ditch your brother.”

“I– “

“He’s leaving. Now.”

“Bye, Jin!”

Sukuna dragged his brother, pulling him to the main road that led back to the parking lot. He took out his keys, throwing them to Jin before snatching away his brother’s car keys.

“If there’s a scratch on her I’ll fucking kill you, you understand?” Sukuna warned his brother.

“Yeah.” His brother cleared his throat, making sure they were at a safe distance from you. “You know, it’s not the worst thing in the world if you do like her. She’s always been nice.”

Nice wouldn’t be the word that Sukuna would use to describe you.

“Whatever, just don’t crash my fucking bike.”

“I won’t.” Before turning away Jin called for your attention, his arm waving in the air. “You’re coming to Yuji’s birthday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

After one last menacing look from his older brother, Jin finally left. Sukuna had made a mental note of reminding Jin who the older brother was, even if it was just for a few minutes of difference.

“So, a picnic huh?” You teased and Sukuna wanted the earth to collapse right there and then.

“Jin’s idea.” He shrugged, grabbing a can of beer from the ground.

You sat down, crossing your legs in front of you as you settled down. “Oh yeah, it was his idea? Just like the flowers you got me?”

“Shut up.”

Why did he agree to this in the first place?

9:23 P.M

“... then all of the sudden Uraume bolts in the room and grabs me from the back of the neck, tossing me to the floor and I’m thinking ‘this is it, my life is about to end at thirteen all because I wanted to use a stupid pair of boots that stink and aren’t even that great’. Before they could even put a hand on me, I hooked my feet in the back of their leg and Uraume just straight up just collapses.”

“No fucking way you got them like that.” Sukuna half scoffed, half laughed, shaking his head at the thought of you overpowering Uraume.

As if.

You shoved him playfully. “I swear on my life, I don’t know why but that’s their Achilles point. Well, more like knee but you know what I mean.”

“So, you’re telling me you did the same thing to get them to back off my dick?”

“Pretty much.” You shrug. “I got on top of them, coughed up some phlegm and threatened them to get it on their face if they didn’t stop.”

“You’re fucking disgusting.” Sukuna laughed, his stomach hurting from the laughter the mental image of Uraume being defenseless brought to him. “No wonder they didn’t fucking told me what you did.”

“Let’s keep it a secret between us, pretty boy.”

“Fuck off, I told you not to call me that.”

You turned to him, eyelids half open as the alcohol relaxed your body. “But you are my pretty boy.”

That damn smirk made him want to choke you.

And kiss you.

“Tell me something.” You took another sip of your beer, a small drop falling from the corner of your lips. “Why are you doing all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

The question of the year. Why do all this? Why put any effort behind this? Why did the thought of another man touching brought an anger in him he couldn’t explain? Why did he care about you? Why did the thought of spending time with you made his heart race? Why did your touch bring a tenderness in him he wasn’t aware of its existence before?

He had no idea, yet he craved you with everything in him.

“I don’t know. Just trying to see what happens.” He grunted, his nonchalance being his refuge when he couldn’t even explain it to himself.

“Uh huh.” Unconvinced by his words, you moved closer to him, your arm almost touching his. “Wanna know what I think.”

“Not really.”

“I think you like me. A lot.”

Sukuna scoffed

“You wish.”

“And I think you want to date me.”

“Shut the fuck off.”

“And you want to know the worst part about it?”

You laid down on the floor, your eyes focused on the starts above you.

“What?”

You sighed. “I think I might want to date you too.”

Sukunas head snapped to you.

“I know, crazy.” You let out a small laugh, as if you were just now coming to that realization. “You’re violent, obnoxious, immature, selfish, a sociopath at times, a bigger slut than I am, you have a terrible way of dealing with things, at times I really wish I could strangle you so I would never have to see you again. And yet… I still like you. Enough to try at least.”

I still like you.

The words bounced around his brain as he tried to make sense of them. He knew what he was supposed to do, he should push back. Deny every crazy allegation, go deeper into the reasons why he would never like you, tell you about every logical point on why he could never date you. Your fear of relationship, your extensive list of sexual partners, the fact that you drove him insane and the fact that only you could enact so much rage off him with just a couple of looks.

He hated you.

He hated the way you made him feel.

He hated the space you had taken over in his thoughts.

He hated the space you had carved in his heart.

He hated everything about you but lately he couldn’t remember why he had started to hate you in the first place.

“God, I fucking hate you.” He said as he laid down with you, the toughness of the ground aligning his back.

You chuckled. “Ditto.”

Your hand found his, fingers entwining with his.

Sukunas eyes stayed on you, watching you admire the night sky. He could see every movement you made, the way your eyes focused on following the chain of stars, trying to find sense in the constellations up in the sky.

And right there and then, with the moonlight hitting your skin, Sukuna thought he never saw anything more beautiful.

His hands moved faster than he could control them, pulling your face to look at him. Your eyes widened in surprise, and he wondered if you could feel the same warmth he felt whenever he touched you. Judging the way your eyes softened, he thought you did.

His hand traveled to your neck, his fingertips barely connecting with your skin. Your eyes darkened, traveling back and forth from his lips back to his irises and Sukuna knew he was screwed.

He truly did like you.

Fuck, he might even…

No, he could only deal with one catastrophic realization a day. That could wait.

At least until tomorrow, when his mind and soul were stronger to fight of the truth.

<Previous Chapter. Next Chapter>

Taglist:

@beautifulwitchcandy @divineascensionz @yunho-leeknow @jun1p3rlol @starriesworlds @orikiix @vladsgirlxx @paradisestarfishh @animereaderinsertwriter @lastsubstance @moonchhu @vorfreudevortex @that-willowtree @v1x3n @gojoscumsluttt @wrldtups @frootloopscos @aldebrana @kidd3ath @saltedcoffeescotch @meggletoomanyfandoms @b0nez9 @storiesbyparadise @fairygardenprincesss @dimplesxx @comeonatmebruh @imoutofpot @meowpopsicle @csolya @sukubusss @chosolovrrr @naammiii @dollchub @iluvrinnie @magalimachete @pimento-mori @boogiemansbitch @seellove @emochosoluvr @kittyyyyykats @tojisrealwifey @deegausserr @namjooningera @booklova0-0 @gojodickbig @rinkomei @ts-carlerrr

[ellxio]

Damned Gorgeous..

Contains: male!student!readerxprofessor!oc, dilfxfemboy, semi-public, age gap, kissing, hardcore fucking, choking, degrading, brief mention of cheating, rimming(r!receiving), blowjob(oc!receiving)

☆2.15k

Waking up alone inside the classroom wasn't anything new, seeing empty seats with their bags hanging beside the table or on the chair indicated that everyone probably have started eating at the cafeteria, feeling disappointed that your friends left you without as so much of any notice or waking you up.

Wiping the sides of your eyes n mouth just incase there was any sign's of slumber, fixing your hair, wiping your glasses and tidying up your clothes as you planned on heading out.

Your head perked up by the sound of the classroom's sliding door opening, greeted with the face of your classmate; Alex.

"Oh! just in time, i was just about to fetch you!" your classmate smiled, as he waited for you at the door, staring up at him, thinking why he came back, questions flooded your head, and it just seemed like the male indeed read your thoughts!

"ohhh, you must be confused no? sorry for that but uh yeah, you were sleeping soundly cutely earlier so i, nor the others bothered to wake you up, break just started a few minutes ago tho so yeah, hope i didn't wake you up or anything" Alex reassured you, rubbing the back of his neck while smiling bashfully, it somewhat made your warm that someone would remember you, better yet, someone being considerate of you! so you grabbed your personal belongings and wordlessly pulling him out of the room. The male didn't mind as he let you drag him across the hallways, no words exchanged as alex got the hint of why you were uncharacteristically quiet. Unaware of the piercing gaze that hardly glared at the tall ginger.

As you both entered the cafeteria, Alexei brought you to an empty table, pushing you down and answered your upcoming question

"Please sit down, i'll go get you food as compensation for waking you up late" He smiled down at you, leaving no room for arguments, he left you there as he went to the food court, this confused you greatly, you were still feeling lightheaded but this does seem like an unusual happening. While you were deep in you thoughts, said male came back with the tray almost full! as he sat down beside you

"W-what?? i can't eat all of that!" you pointed at the tray, it shocked you because you indeed can't eat all of that! Alex just chuckled and brought out another set of cutlery

"Of course you won't, you didn't think i'd stuff you full with these, right??" The male chuckled as he pointed at the food, unintentionally making a suggestive comment.

It made you sigh in relief, tho your appearance betrayed you as you were slightly red from the pampering and the comment! the male took notice and brought a spoonful infront of your mouth to bring change the comment, this made you flush even more! but you shakily accepted, closing your eyes in embarrassment. Swallowing the food and in return you shakily fed the male, and now have the tables turned, he was the one blushing now! it was honestly cute.. but you shrugged this off.

This went on for a bit as you both fed each other, flushed faces and chuckles were exchanged, until the bell rang. Finishing up and putting back the tray to its proper placement, you both head out.

Your next class were different so Alex went ahead but first, you both exchanged a few words, saying how both of you should do it again and so on. You both bid your goodbye's as alex entered his class.

As you were headed to your class, somebody pulled you inside the teacher's office! your breath was taken because of the strong force of being pushed back at the wall, vision still blurry from the fast move

"h-hey..-" your words were cut off as the person captured your lips roughly, the male's tongue tried entering your cavern but you didn't budge, tears prickled your eyes because you were scared and wanted to indentify the guy, slightly pushing him off but you were unsuccessful.

"please-..s..stop it!" you pushed him with all of you strength, and shockingly the man stopped, your glasses that almost fell, were removed from you, but your vision cleared in a second as it was returned clean and the male's appearance shocked you as it was..-

"Professor?.. " You muttered shockingly, his gaze greeted yours and dang what a sight. You were caged between his muscled arms, his dark blue dress shirt was unbuttoned, sweat slightly dripping his neck and his hair was slicked back! the dim lit room made him look more scrumptious handsome!

"Out of all students, why were you with him? you didn't cheat on me, did you?" the male glowered down at you, he looked like he could eat you at any given moment! and just when you were about to answer, the male continued his actions! it honestly caught you off guard

"Keep talking" He commanded as he started kissing down your neck, kissing it with delicacy and yet biting and sucking it with monstrosity! it made you moan and whimper! he continued by unbuttoning your uniform, kissing down your collarbone to teasing your nubs and gently kissing and sucking it. And lastly your pants...and the very sight of those soaked white boxers.. It sure did make the professor hard, but of course, he wouldn't tell you that.

The professor abruptly stood up and carried you with him, his arms supported and carried you like you were just only a sack of meat! dropping you roughly on top of his table that papers and pens fell off the table! you winced from the harsh treatment but the gaze sure did make you shiver in anticipation! pushing you down and just straight up rimmed you, the warm tongue circling your puckered hole made your toes curl and cry out in ecstasy! it was already too much! you lightly crawled away but the professor just gripped onto your ass tightly and eased his tongue inside your warm gummy walls, the tongue circled itself inside and out, sometimes circling your pucker! this went on for a few more minutes and you felt like your climax was coming, the unbearable pleasure made you more sensitive to the touch!

"H-hey..! slow d-own s..ir!" You cried out, but the man didn't reply and continued his actions but more roughly this time! he gripped your thighs tightly, burying himself down your ass and roughly eating you out, and within just a few minutes, your orgasm hit you like a truck! your ears were ringing and you felt like you were floating! The man just chuckled from your blissed out expression, it made him incredibly hard and it was just getting started!

Still in a trance, the man pushed you under the table and lightly tapped your face

"w..what..?" you asked out, still feeling out of it, you just can't help it tho, it was too good!

"hey..it's my turn, pleasure me please? hurry" The man tried to politely ask you but failed to do so, the man hurriedly pulled down his boxers, and damn was he HUGE! the sight was too good as it was lengthy and girthy as heck! it also smelt wonderful, musk, sweat and a hint of his cologne

"Don't stare at it, get to work boy." The man said in a demanding tone. Ushering you to get those lips to sucking, you being an obedient pup, of course obeyed and got on with the sucking.

You started off with kissing and teasing the tip, the heat and smell radiating off of it was so strong that it was making you hypnotized! just the taste, it was already addicting! as you were worshiping the man's cock, it was certainly amusing to him but it was making him feel bored because of the constant licking and kissing so he pushed his cock between your lips, forcing its way to the back of your throat! the sudden force made you choke around the monstrous cock! and boy was it music to ivan's ears

"that's right..k-keep on going boy..feels good, y..your doing good.." The male grunted from the soft warm cavern accommodating his shaft, placing his hand on top of your head to encourage you to continue doing what you were doing, the praise making your eyes roll to the back of your head! it honestly sounds so so nice! it unintentionally made you really hard! the grunting and moaning was also so damn hot, you wanted more of it too so you suck that thang like you were thirsty asf for his load. A choked grunt was what awarded you! Ivan was grunting and fervently thrusted his hips up, each time you go down his base! this didn't last for a bit as the man grabbed your head and shoved you deep down his base and flooded your cavern with his warm delicious cum!

After a few minutes, the ejaculation stopped, cleaning it off and drinking every last drop! you pulled off with a pop

"Dang boy..that was probably the best orgasm i've had in ages" The man praised, panting lightly, regaining his breath. And picked you up from the ground, placing you on top of his lap and initiated a soft kiss

"You didn't think actually thought that, that would be the end right?" He gazed up at you, smirking teasingly

"Of course not, don't think that would satisfy me, that was just warm up for me so please do better, Old man" You smiled down at the man, said man was now hard as a rock

Whilst you were smiling at your comeback, the man underneath you wordlessly plunged you down his hard shaft, this action elicited a strangled cry and a loud grunt from the both of you! Your sphincter burned! tears immediately welled in you eyes as you were having trouble accommodating to the monstrous size of Ivan! it felt like you were being cut in half, you tried moving away from the brunette but he just grabbed unto your waist tightly! and slowly but surely thrusted up you, said male turned your head towards him and pushed his tongue into your mouth, distracting you with a sloppy kiss. The soft caress and kiss made you relax lightly and was now being thrusted with a massive dick.

You were positioned on the brunette's table, legs placed up the shoulder's of the professor, moaning like a cheap whore as the man pounded and stuffed you full with just his cock. Scratch marks were already littered across the brunette's back as he pounded into you with all his might, each thrust made the table creak.

The professor gazed at you lovingly, his thrusts never ceasing as he observed you, the way your eyes roll back each time he hits that spot inside you, the way you moan, whine and cry- oh it was such music to his ears, the way you clinged unto him when you felt like your orgasm was coming, the way your eyes avoided him as he gazed down at you, it was all just so damned gorgeous

"So pretty for me, y/n." The man whispered, leaning down to brush against your lips "Just for me right? not for alexei or anyone right?" The man softly asked; in contrast of his harsh movements, you barely heard the man's statement but damned did it make you feel all mushy and warm inside, embracing unto the man tightly "H-hold m-e..prof-" "Ivan.." the man interupted, smiling down at you "Hold..m.me ivan..- please embrace me.." You begged and tried your best to finish a coherent sentence as it was difficult to form one because of the harsh relentless thrusts. The man above you connected you both with a kiss and fervently thrusted into you, the knot slowly built up inside you as you clung and cried.

"i-i love..you- ivan!" you cried out as you came, legs were shaking as your eyes rolled back to your head, clenching around ivan as you came down your high. Without a second the man continued, gripping your thighs tightly as he chased his high, chanting your name like it was a prayer, moans and grunts echoed inside the empty office as the man came with a strong deep thrust.

The two of you stayed like that for awhile, basking each other's comfort before Ivan pulled himself out. Feeling the cum leaking down your arse made you flush as everything dawned upon you, it made you smile gently as the man infront of you wiped the excess sweat and cum all over you. Feeling the stare, his eyes met yours in a gentle stare, pulling you ontop of his lap and holding you gently, he whispered almost inaudibly.

"I love you too..y/n"

End

☆greetings everyone! sorry for being inactive lately, school js gets busier everytime AHHHHH sorry if this ain't up to your liking, kinda rush honestly heheuhuhue, but yeah i'll try and upload fics or drabbles once a week or twice a week as it is indeed difficult to do during school days smh, the plot is all over the place too AHHH, anw happy advance christmas everyone! remember to take care of yourself and have an awesome day!!

☆Taglist

@darlingminjin @kikizhly @agel646 @mailmango

[ukiyoriki]

۶ৎ ──── FOCUS 【 𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑒 】

𝐴LTERNATIVELY ⦂ ℎ𝑜𝑤 en- would react to their crush asking to borrow a pencil ㅤ｡ ｡ ｡

【 あかり 】 ⟡ 𝑓luff , 𝑓em!reader , 𝑠chool 𝑎u, 𝑙oser 𝑒n-, 1.22k, 𝑓irst 𝑝ost— hope you enjoy it!!

HEESEUNG ⟡

rummaging through your backpack, you sigh as you turn back around to face the board. you forgot your pencil case. “get out your notebooks and pens, we’re annotating today.” the teacher says blankly, making you groan in frustration. you would ask hanni next to you, but she’s absent.

looking around, you see heeseung, but it looked like he was already staring at you before you two made eye contact. when you caught him, you could see him visibly blush and get slightly nervous. you lean over and ask, “sorry to bother you, but may i borrow a pencil?” heeseung just sits there, gazing at you with those deer / doe eyes of his before snapping back into reality, nodding.

he hands you a pencil, his hands shaking with slight tremor. when you grab it, his hand stays on yours for a little too long before he pulls away. you smile softly and say, “thanks, hee.” which made him blush even more.

𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 ⟡

as you walk into class, you find yourself through the messy backpack you had packed mere minutes ago. god, of course you forgot your pencil case out of all things. “class, take out a piece of paper and pencils.” the teacher announced, making you annoyed and bite your lip.

you look over to your right side and see your deskmate, beomgyu, taking a nap. you sigh before looking to your left, seeing jay stare at you. you look down at his desk and see his pencil case practically overflowing with school supplies.

“jay, do you think i could borrow a pencil?” you ask, glancing down at his pouch before returning your gaze back to him. you could see his cheeks turn a light shade of pink before he smiles softly and nods.

“yeah, of course.” jay says, sitting up straight and taking out a pencil. as he hands it to you, you could see his eyes lingering on your lips before back to your eyes. “thank you.” you mutter before turning back to do your work.

JAEYUN ⟡

you were already as tired from running after the bus as it is, why did your day have to get worse? you forgot your pencil case for christ’s sake. the teacher then said something along the lines of, “you’ll need a pencil and highlighters for this assignment.” you were too busy staring at jake’s collection of fresh pencils and pastel highlighters.

leaning over slightly, you whisper, “hey, think i could borrow some of those? i forgot my pencil case at home..” jake blushes at the sight of you merely asking him for few supplies, but acts chill about it as he runs his hands through his hair— something you noticed he did often.

“yeah, go ahead, take anything you need.” he says, giving a friendly smile. you smile back and nod as you take some of his supplies.

as the lesson starts, you could feel his loving gaze on you. he feels some type of warmness in his stomach knowing that you came to him first to ask for a favor. even though it was such a small thing, that interaction definitely made his day.

𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍 ⟡

he noticed you slamming your head on your desk quietly after groaning. you forgot your pencil case for the fourth time this week. your teacher then wrote on the board in bold letters, “supplies: pencil and pen— required,” almost as if it was targeted directly to you.

you were too shy to ask anyone for a pencil right now, probably cause the whole class saw you walk in late with an americano in your hands. looking around, everyone has pencil and pens out. you’d ask natty, but she’s already locked in.

you sighed, giving up right before sunghoon gets up and passed by your desk, dropping a pencil, eraser, highlighters , and even some pens by your hand before going to the bookshelf in the corner of the room, pretending to grab a napkin before heading back to his desk. on his way back, you see his ears and cheeks red as if he was a tomato.

as he sits down, you turn to him and word out, “thank you.” he smiles before waving it off, silently telling you that it was no big deal. but it was a big deal for him. just the thought of being next to you was overwhelming to him, so this was a huge thing for him.

SUNOO ⟡

you have your airpods in, covering it with your hair as you look in your backpack for your beloved pencil case. you pause, the music still playing softly in your ear. oh no. you forgot your pencil case.

you sigh softly, taking out your headphones and putting them away. turning back around to face your desk, someone taps your shoulder. you shift to look over your shoulder and see sunoo’s cute fox eyes staring at you innocently.

your eyes drop down to his hands which were holding a pencil and eraser, along with two highlighters. “it looks like you forgot your pencil case, so you could borrow mine.” he says, smiling with blush spreading on his cheeks.

“oh, really? thank you so much..” you reply, taking them, bowing your head slightly. he’s so adorable, you think to yourself, turning away once again. throughout the lecture you could feel his eyes watching you, admiring you from behind as you wrote and drew.

𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍 ⟡

you already knew from the moment you stepped outside your house that you forgot something you need. that “something” being your one and only pencil case. zipping your backpack, you let out a heavy sigh.

your deskmate, jungwon, then speaks up, his voice soft yet firm, “y/n? did you forget your pencil case? you could borrow mine if you’d like.”

turning your head to him, you smile, seeing the redness on his cheekbones and the obvious nervousness in his behavior. “thank you, i appreciate it.. mr. choi would’ve definitely yelled at me.”

taking some pencils, you can’t help but think about how cute jungwon was when he was blushing so hard. even now, you could still somehow tell how fast his heart was beating. small favors go a long way, they say. maybe that’s what’s happening right now.

RIKI ⟡

being the hot mess you are, of course you had to forget your pencil case. as you helplessly rummaged in your bag, it practically looked like you were digging for gold. after a few seconds of confirming that it truly wasn’t there, you groan, turning back in your seat. a rather deep voice near you then questioned, “need some of these?” you turn your head towards the voice since it seemed like the person was talking to you. riki. he was holding pencils, pens, and highlighters.

you didn’t expect for someone like him to be so organized and neat. you nod, smiling softly as you take the supplies. riki tried so hard to act nochalant as you came closer to him, even touching his hand, but failed as he blushed from your mere presence of being close to him.

the only person who made him lose his cool was you, period. “thanks, i really needed it.” you thank him, returning back to your seat.

you could feel him stealing glances at you the whole entire lesson, making you question if he was really doing the work. the only person to blame for this matter was really yourself, though. you’re the one who’s distracting the normally composed riki.

© ukiyoriki — 2025

[dilemmaontwolegs]

F.I.N.E || MV1

Pairing: Max Verstappen x teacher!reader Summary: When your student gets injured and you can’t get hold of her parents you try call an old contact number hoping he can help. Warnings: slight angst, fluff WC: 3.4K

Max frowned at the unfamiliar number calling him. If it wasn’t for the fact it was a local number he would have ignored it but since few people had his personal number he decided to answer it. Immediately he was hit with the sound of high pitch cries and a soothing voice softly singing a lullaby that eased the knot of anxiety that had formed in an instant. 

“Hello, is this Max?” you asked when you realised the dual tone had stopped and the call had been answered. You shifted the child carefully on your lap and grabbed the old enrolment form to see the name again. “Max Verstappen?”

“Maxy?” the girl in your arms echoed with confusion.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Miss Y/L/N, I’m one of Penelope’s teachers. There’s been an incident and I found your number under her emergency contact list.”

“Oh no, sorry, there must be a mistake. You should call her mother or father. I’m not, we’re not, um, I shouldn’t be on that list anymore.”

You cringed as another piercing cry deafened your ear and you rubbed the little girl's back. “It hurts,” she whimpered.

“I know, sweetheart, someone will be here to get you shortly,” you replied softly and you hoped it was the truth. “Look, Max, I’ve tried every other contact number and no one is answering. Is there any way you could come down here? At least until I can get in touch with someone else.”

Max pinched the bridge of his nose but when he heard P’s shuddering cry he knew he had to go. “Okay, I’ll be there shortly.”

Max didn’t care if he got a parking ticket, he took the loading space right outside the preschool building. He likely would have gotten a speeding ticket too in his rush to cross the city but thankfully there weren’t any police in his path. 

“Maxy!” 

Penelope wriggled in your arms as she spotted the stranger walking into the classroom. His eyes immediately found her and he crossed the space to where you sat holding her.

“Hey, P,” he greeted with a smile and knelt down at your height. “What’s happened, bug?”

Her little eyes welled up again as she lifted her bandaged wrist. “I fell off the playground.”

“I don’t think anything is broken but I would suggest having her doctor check to be sure.”

“I don’t know who her doctor is. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

“You’re contact details were-”

“Those must have been from when she started. Her mother and I haven’t been together for a while.”

“Oh, I see. I’m sorry to put this on you. I swear I tried every other phone number we have.”

Max nodded and his sigh sounded exhausted as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I just need to make a call. I’ll be back in a minute, bug.”

Max walked along the room, looking over the children’s artwork as he pressed his phone to his ear and waited. Eventually the call went to voicemail and his spine straightened tensely. “Kel, I’ve picked up P from daycare and I’m taking her to the hospital. Call me when you get this.”

You could see the man was stressed when he returned and his short hair pointed in all directions from the hand he kept nervously running through it. It was cute.

“Daniil is in Italy this week for work,” Max said as he returned to your side and picked up Penelope’s Prada backpack before opening his arms. “I’ll keep trying to get a hold of Kelly. Come on, bug.”

Lunchtime was coming to an end and children were starting to file back into the room, a few of the older ones stopping at staring wide eyed at Max. He was tall but not that tall or formidable to draw such a reaction but your question was answered when one of the boys ran to his picture on the wall. Timothée unpinned the drawing of a race car and ran up to Max, holding it out with a pencil.

“Sir, can you please sign this?”

Max looked used to the attention and took the pen with a polite, “Sure.” He stared at the picture for the moment after signing it and chuckled. “Is the RB20?”

Timothée nodded eagerly. “It’s my favourite.”

“Mine too,” he said as handed the picture back and smiled as it was crushed happily to the boy's chest. Max then carefully picked up Penelope, slowly so she wasn’t jostled, and his arms brushed yours. 

“If you need anything you have my number,” you reminded as the weight was lifted from your lap. “Children can be a little overwhelming if you’re not used to it.”

Max smiled fondly at Penelope and shook his head. “This isn’t new. I still have her room set up.”

“You do?” Penelope asked hopefully and Max turned his head as he cursed to himself. “Are we going to live with you again?”

“No, no, sorry, P,” he said softly. “I just haven’t had time to redecorate.”

“Oh.” You both winced at the defeated tone and you knew the fresh tears had nothing to do with her arm this time but you were saved by the bell as it spurred Max to toss the bag over his shoulder and look to the door.

“I hope you feel better soon, Penelope.”

“Thank you, Miss Y/L/N.”

“Thank you,” Max echoed with a nod before departing.

All afternoon you were distracted with thoughts of the two of them until the final bell rang and you grabbed your phone. You had sporadically tried to contact Daniil and Kelly again but the calls went straight to voicemail every time and you found no returned calls.

Y/N: How is Penelope? Max: She is happy watching The Little Mermaid. She has a sprained wrist and the nurse complemented the bandaging so you should be proud. Y/N: And how are you? Max: I’m fine.

Max swore as the pot of water boiled over and he hissed as he grabbed the handle to find it was just as hot. He dropped his phone reaching for the teatowel and then P started calling out from the living room complaining that the movie was boring - the same movie she watched a thousand times and she had specifically asked for.

Y/N: My mentor used to tell me that stood for: freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional. Are you sure you are fine?

After turning the stove down to a simmer and wiping up the mess of water that had splashed across his floor he went and changed the movie to what would hopefully last longer than ten minutes before she changed her mind. Taking another attempt at making dinner, he grabbed a bag of pasta from his pantry and poured its entirety into the pot.

Max: I’m thinking I am definitely neurotic and possibly starting to freak out. Y/N: I couldn’t have that on my conscience. My offer still stands if you need some help. Max: You don’t have anyone you need to get home to? Y/N: My cat prefers his own company unless he’s hungry and he’s already been fed today so no. Max: I don’t want you to go out of your way. Y/N: I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t willing to follow through. Let me help. Please?

Max smiled at his phone before sending his address and looking around to see how tidy the place was. His jacket was tossed on the table instead of being hung up and Penelope’s bag was spilled across the entryway floor, not the first impression he wanted to make.

You entered the port address into your phone and locked the classroom behind you, feeling a little unsteady at the thought of seeing Max again. Penelope was a sweet child and she seemed comfortable with Max but you hadn’t really ever heard her talk about him before. You told yourself the only reason you were going there was to check on your student's wellbeing, but a small part of you wanted to see Max again.

You wondered if maybe he hadn’t heard your knock on the door or that you had the wrong apartment and you rapped your knuckles on it again before he called out. There was a crash and then a groan close to the door before it swung open and Max balanced on one leg.

“Uh, is everything okay?” you asked as he clutched his foot.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he rushed before he caught the teasing curl of your brow and he froze before a smile grew on his lips. “Right, freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.”

“You’re a quick learner.” You stepped inside at his invitation and he closed the door behind you while you rushed towards the burning smell in the kitchen. “Oh, wow.”

“Fucksake,” Max grumbled as he grabbed a wet tea towel before reaching for the tray of garlic bread in the oven. “Ouch, shit!”

“You said a naughty word,” Penelope called out from the next room like it was something that she regularly commented on. “That's another 20.”

Max sighed heavily as he looked at a jar on the bench that was already filled with cash. “Shit.”

“I heard that.”

“Shouldn’t you be watching your movie?”

You giggled at the amusing conversation before turning the tap to cold and taking Max’s hand. “Wet towels and hot trays make steam.”

He watched you guide his hand under the water and flinched as it hit the burn mark on his palm. “I don’t usually cook, if you couldn’t tell.”

“The life of a bachelor. Keep your hand there.” You moved with ease around his kitchen trying to save what was left of dinner but paused at a huge pot of pasta that had swelled up and pushed the lid half off. “Are you expecting a dozen other people?”

Max shrugged innocently. “I didn’t know how much to put in.”

“Well the good news is the top half is edible,” you stated after finding a colander and draining the pasta until only a thick layer remained stuck to the bottom of the pot. “Do you have any sauce?”

“Sauce?”

“What were you going to have with it?”

“Garlic bread.” You both looked at the charred sticks still smoking on the baking tray.

“Do you mind?” you asked as you pointed to his fridge and the cupboards around the kitchen.

“No, please. Go ahead.”

You checked the fridge first and you were pleasantly surprised to find it well stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables. “Do you live off salads or does all this go to waste?”

“Neither, my nutritionist comes by twice a week and he prepares the meals.”

For a moment you had forgotten his profession. You had googled his name after Timothée couldn’t stop talking about meeting the ‘Max Verstappen’. “That must be intense, and restricting. Does your social life suffer?”

“It’s not so bad. I still get to go out for dinner and have a few drinks when I want.” He started to pull his hand out from under the water but you tutted and caught his wrist, holding it back beneath the cold stream.

“Keep still,” you warned with a voice you saved for children who weren’t listening. “It needs 20 minutes under there.”

“You want me to stand here for twenty minutes?”

“No, science wants you to stay there for twenty minutes.”

“Are you a teacher or a nurse?” he asked with a playful roll of his eyes.

“Depends if it's halloween.”

His loud laugh made you smile and you eased your grip on his hand one finger at a time to see if he would stay where he was. He did. “I’ll behave, Miss Y/L/N.”

“You can call me Y//N.”

“I kind of like calling you Miss Y/L/N.”

You checked to see if he was serious but thankfully there was a teasing smile on his face before you returned to the fridge to gather some ingredients.

By some small miracle dinner can’t have been too bad since everyone cleaned their plates of the pasta, though you thought they were likely being polite since you could still taste the hint of smoke from the bottom of the pan. Penelope had spent most of the meal asking Max if he remembered what they used to do when she lived there, how they used to go travelling and shopping. You got to see first hand how much patience the man had as he answered each question despite how it made him uncomfortable.

“You miss her,” you commented after she had gone back to the tv. Max started to collect the dishes with you and sighed as he placed them in the sink. 

“It was a big change when they moved out,” he spoke quietly and you stepped closer so you could hear better. “She kept asking if she did something wrong.”

“That must have been hard for you.” His eyes widened and you wondered what shocked him, but you had a feeling it was the fact someone showed concern for him. Even though you didn’t know the details of the break up, it was clear he had and still did care for Penelope and you felt sorry for him. “Can I hug you? I’m a hugger and I feel like you could really do with one.”

“You want to hug me?”

You tried to shrug it off casually. “If you want to. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Everyone needs a hug sometime.”

“I do,” he said quickly, very quickly, before he cleared his throat. “I mean, I-I wouldn’t mind a hug.”

You smiled at his tentativeness and stepped into his personal space, slipping your hands into the narrow openings between his limp arms and his body to curl around his waist. It took a moment for him to respond before his own arms embraced the comfort and curled around your back too.

“You smell really good, Max,” you complimented as you rested your head on his chest and caught the scent of his cologne.

“Thank you,” he chuckled, the amusement relaxing him even more until his entire body curved into yours. “I think you have playdough in your hair.”

You hummed in agreement. “Highly likely. You wouldn’t believe the places I find that stuff at the end of the day, glitter too.”

His bold laugh made you smile and you didn’t care it was at your own expense, you were just happy to know it was because of you. Unfortunately you didn’t have the chance to hear it again as his phone rang from the countertop and you saw Kelly’s name light up the screen.

“I should let you get that,” you said as you stepped back, instantly missing the warmth and his scent. “I’ll go keep Penelope company.”

Max waited for you to leave the kitchen before he accepted the call, his calm state evaporating in an instant. “What the hell, Kelly? Where have you been?”

“My phone was on flight mode, I was on a plane. Is P okay?”

“Her wrist is sprained but she’s alright now.” Max pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself to breathe. “Why would you leave her alone?”

“She wasn’t alone. Maria was meant to pick her up after school and I should have been home in time for dinner but my flight was delayed.”

“Who is Maria?”

“Her nanny.”

Max had to suppress the groan at the news. He knew Daniil hated the idea of a nanny and he had offered to have more custody so that P would be raised by her parents and not a stranger, but Kelly had vetoed that idea.

“Do you want to go out for dinner? I owe you.”

“No, we’ve already eaten.”

“Some other time then.”

Max made a non-committal sound, his eyes darting to the living room where he watched Penelope explain the movie to you. You were so attentive and patient, asking questions that had Penelope thinking deeper and using such a simple interaction as a learning opportunity. He could see why you suited being a teacher.

“Maybe,” he lied, “just let me know when you’re almost here and I’ll bring P out to you, I don’t want to confuse her any more.”

“Right, of course,” Kelly sighed. “I’ll see you soon, Max.”

Max made the most of the time he had left with P, abandoning the dishes so he could sit on the other side of her and watch the movie about a chef rat. She had cozied into his side with a yawn and nudged his arm until he eventually draped it over her shoulder. It was completely innocent but you couldn’t help noticing the heat of his hand touching your arm, the warmth spreading like wildfire.

The fire was doused when his phone vibrated and the moment to leave had come.

While he grabbed Penelope’s backpack, you grabbed your handbag and prepared your own goodbyes. It was silly to feel sad the evening had come to an end but you knew that you would likely never see Max again. You weren’t famous and he didn’t have children, your paths weren’t meant to cross.

“Have a good weekend, Penelope,” you said as you knelt down and gave her a hug. “I’ll see you bright and early on Monday.”

“Bye, Miss Y/L/N.”

You rose to your feet wondering where you stood with Max until he opened his arms. “Anytime you need a hug, you have my number,” you offered as you stepped into his embrace, no matter how unlikely that prospect was.

“Or if I’m feeling fine?”

You giggled and nodded against his chest. “Especially if you’re feeling fine.”

The walk to the elevator was slow, as if no one wanted the strange evening to end, but there was no stopping time as it began making its way down from the penthouse to the ground floor. The doors opened and you instantly spotted Kelly in the reception area, her elegant and effortless beauty reminding you that you still had playdough in your hair.

With one last look at the man beside you, you gave him a small smile and stepped away. “Goodbye, Max.”

He didn’t respond as you headed to the valet area but he pulled his phone out of his pocket and yours vibrated a moment later.

Max: Are you okay?

Y/N: I’m fine.

Max: Me too. Emotional, you?

Y/N: Insecure.

Max: Want a hug?

You stopped and turned to see Max hand Penelope’s bag over before struggling to separate the girl from where she clung to his leg. She didn’t know, couldn’t see how it was hurting Max, but you could. So you waited, and when the mother and daughter had departed you stepped into the elevator with the subdued man, slipping your hand into his.

The elevator rose quickly and you watched Max’s throat bounce with the deep swallow he made before he choked out a broken, “Fuck.”

“I feel like I should remind you about the swear jar,” you teased as you bumped your shoulder gently against his arm. “But I’ll let you off this once because I have a soft spot for you.”

He looked down at you from the corner of his eye and you saw some of the sadness fading from them. “Does that make me the teacher's pet?”

You gasped dramatically and clutched your chest with your free hand. “I could never bestow such high praise after just one day.”

“What are your plans tomorrow then?” he asked with a smirk as the doors opened and he pulled his house key out of his pocket.

“I don’t have any.”

“Lovely, now are you going to answer my question?” He stepped inside the apartment and opened his arms. “Did you want a hug?”

Your smile chased away more of the shadows in his eyes and the last of it was erased when you stepped into his arms with an eager nod. “I will never say no to a hug.”

His chest bounced with a laugh and you felt him rest his cheek on your head with a contented sigh. “That is very good to know.”

[greenwriterplaidbow]

Human Connection

Part I

Logan Howlett x reader with injury related memory loss

Word count: 4.7k

A/N: Inspired by @pandapetals’ memory loss fic (it's taken over all by thoughts since I read it) as well as the song We’ll Never Have Sex by Leith Ross. Sorry in advance, this is probably going to be a series, I was going to make it all one story but it’s already this long and I haven’t gotten to what I wanted to get to.

Warnings: a combination of angst and fluff, suggested feminine reader (called Logan’s wife, she/her used once) but no true descriptions, if you’re an English teacher you’ll hate this because I mix past and present tense verbs. Sorry if it bothers you, it’s my primary grammatical weakness.

The doctor’s words felt monotonous and cold. Logan looked to you. Your eyes trained on the doctor, your blanketed knees pulled up to your chest, your arms loosely held around them. You had been conscious for around 24 hours and he’d hardly seen you. Admittedly at your specific request, ‘your hovering around is making me kinda anxious’ were the exact words. The sting of the words stuck in his mind. The doctor told the two of you the state of your condition, monitoring and treatment outline, and the information needed to fill out the discharge papers. You would walk away mostly fine. You survived the accident, lucky you!

But you didn’t feel lucky. You felt frustrated and unsettled. Maybe even a little scared. You had woken up to a man you’d never seen whispering to you in your sleep, seemingly close to tears. When he noticed you awake he asked you questions you didn’t know the answers to and claimed to be your husband. You had never been married and given the fact that he looked as though he hadn’t showered or slept in days, this was obviously a psych patient who had wandered into your room. But it wasn’t. The doctors could confirm, according to the paperwork and pictures, you were this man’s wife. He’d continued to be around you, he clearly wanted to help in any way he could but you couldn’t handle the way he wouldn’t take his eyes off you.

You had few memories, almost none of them were recent. Not even memories of your own identity were intact. Dissociative amnesia they called it. The staff stressed, to both you and this Logan guy, that your memories needed to come back on their own, he shouldn’t just tell you memories. He was allowed to help fill in details or answer small questions but that’s it. They said the best thing you could do right now would be to go back to your routine. They told him to act normal towards you as much as possible. You didn’t even know what that would look like. It was weird being addressed as a unit. Talked to like he was ‘your other half’ or whatever people say.

“Here is the form. Either of you can fill it out, I’ll just need both of your signatures at the bottom.” The nurse’s words snap you back to reality. You nod and take the form. She checks your levels one last time before leaving you and the man alone in the room. You concentrate on the papers in front of you. You first take the pen off the clip board with your left hand then look at it confused. You stare a moment before shifting it to your right hand, then back to your left before just setting it down again and leaning over the small table as you breathe out slowly.

“You’re right handed.” The man said quietly.

You look over at him. He sits on your left side. His knees are wide apart as he leans his body forward resting his forearms on his thighs with his fingers interlaced. He was watching you struggle with the pen. You nod slowly and pick up the pen with your right hand this time. You adjust your hand to hold it properly. It feels no more comfortable than in your left but you had to start somewhere. Okay first blank, patient name. Easy enough. You write your first name, middle initial, and-

You stop in your tracks. If you’re married, you wouldn’t necessarily have the same last name that you remember. You sit and think for a moment, determined to figure it out but you keep drawing a blank. An owl was the only thing that came to your mind when you thought of your last name. You bit the inside of your cheek before you sighed frustratedly. You put the pen back on the clipboard and slid the small table towards the man.

“Can you do this?” He perked up at your words.

“Yes- of course”

A small smile showed on his face as he took the clipboard, apparently happy to help. He filled in the blanks quickly as if he didn’t even have to think about the answers. Jealousy and shame flowed into your chest. Jealous that this random man knows you better than you know yourself. Shameful because of the pressure you’re already putting on yourself. You’ve always been independent. You like it that way. You like being known as the girl who has a man because she wants one not because she needs something from one. But now, you have no choice but to put your entire trust in someone you don’t know. Trust that he was going to tell you the truth about yourself. Trust he was going to remember what meds you needed and when to take them. Trust he was going to keep you safe both from yourself and someone who might want to take advantage of your current situation. The vulnerability it took to ask for help was already wearing away at your self esteem.

“Think that’s it. I’ll go bring this to the-”

“Wait, can I look at it first” Your hesitation was evident by the little shake in your voice.

“Sure but I promise, I know most of this by heart. And the stuff I didn’t know I got a refresher for when I filled out your admission forms.” He said it, clearly trying to make conversation but it only made you feel worse. You scanned over the form. Your birthday was the only thing you remembered, aside from your name but you didn’t even remember all of that so it didn’t quite feel the same.

“Howlett” You read the name off the sheet. It felt strange to say, even more so to think it now belonged to you.

“Yeah, that’s our last name.” You nodded and handed the form back and buried your head in your knees.

“What’s wrong? Are you starting to feel worse again?” You took a pause before answering him. When you raised your head, his eyes met yours and he could see tears welling up in them.

“I don’t even know my own stupid name- or my dominant hand. I feel so useless.” Logan set the form back on the table and knelt at your bedside.

“Hey, you are not useless. You’re sick right now, don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m here and I’ll help you with anything you need. I promise. I can help fill in what you don’t know”

“Thanks.. I know you’re trying to make me feel better but knowing that you know all this and I don’t, really only makes me feel worse. This guy I don’t even know knows more about me than I do.” You could immediately see the pain on his face from your statement. Another reminder that he was included in the gaps that still needed to be filled in.

“It- It’ll come back to you. You’ll be back to yourself in no time.” He said as he stood up. It sounded like the statement was just as much to comfort him as it was to comfort you.

“I’ll be right back.” You nodded and he left the room with the clipboard.

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You changed into the clothes Logan brought you. When you were all set to leave, you were told about your follow up appointment and picked up your meds. The two of you left the hospital and walked to Logan’s truck in the parking lot. He opened the door for you and held out his arm behind you as you climbed in to ensure you wouldn’t fall. You took note of the sweet gesture. Once he got into the drivers side, he slung the backpack that had held your clothes and now held your collection of meds onto the backseat. The drive was silent for a while before you broke the ice.

“I can not believe I married a man who drives a truck.” You half-joked as your fingers played with the wedding ring you still wore.

He smiled a little sadly, both amused at your distaste for truck owners and saddened at the reminder that you didn’t remember the man you married. He swallowed down his sadness to joke with you.

“Yeah? And what kind of man would you marry?” His unexpected response made you blush.

“Well, I don’t know.. Honestly I haven’t given it much thought. I guess I’m just not the marriage type.” Logan laughed quietly.

“Yeah- I guess you’d know that already.”

“No, no. It’s not that. It’s just funny that you think you’re the one who wasn’t marriage material. Normally people think that about me, not you.”

“Don’t be close minded- maybe neither of us are marriage material! Maybe those are the kinds that marry each other. I doubt most of those relationships last long though..” You regretted the words as soon as you realized what you had said.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure we’re very happy.” You bit your lip and kept your eyes glued to your hands twiddling in your lap.

Logan didn’t know what to say so he opted to say nothing. The sound of the running engine and the wind outside the vehicle were the only sounds between you. Your thoughts were swarming in your mind. You turned your eyes to the window, trying to turn off your brain and just observe the unfamiliar scenery. Trees consumed the road on either side. You saw on the form that you lived in New York in some town you hadn’t heard of.

“So how far into the woods do we live?” You turn back towards him as you said it.

“Close enough to walk into town but far enough that we don’t see our neighbors unless we’re trying to.”

You nodded and made a sound of acknowledgement.

“That’s why you smell like pine?”

“Uh, I guess. Didn’t realize I did. I guess I’m just used to it.”

“That would make sense.” You lost interest in the conversation when you realized you had turned onto a side road. From the side road you went up a driveway.

He wasn’t kidding, if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t know there was anyone even remotely close. Trees seemed to swallow you whole as you approached the house.

“Look familiar?” He asked tentatively. You studied the outside of the house then the inside as you pulled into the garage. You wanted to say yes but in reality it looked entirely foreign.

“No, sorry.” You answered softly.

“That’s alright, I was just curious.” He tried to keep the longing sadness from his voice. He was not successful. He grabbed the backpack and left the truck. You followed him but your eyes couldn’t help traveling over the room. You stepped inside the house and mirrored Logan as he took off his boots and placed them behind the door.

He watched your movements as you hesitantly followed him. He smiled at the realization that you were almost acting like a puppy dog, eager to take in information and follow instructions but still tentative about both him and the surroundings.

“I should probably show you around,”

“Yes, please.”

It was a split level house. He showed you the basement first. The guest room, storage room, furnace room, a mostly unused living room. He explained small things about each room when necessary. As you headed back up the stairs you felt brave enough to ask more questions.

“So we live alone? Just the two of us?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No pets? No family? No transient friends that feel comfortable enough to invite themselves over when they need a place to stay? Nothing?” Your question made Logan visibly nervous. He now stood across from you as you stood at the top of the steps.

“Uh, no. Not really. Why?” His confusion was mixing with anxiety.

“No reason.”

“..Are you uncomfortable staying alone with me?” His expression looked sad but understanding.

“Oh no, not that. Well a little. But no, that’s not why I asked.” He was silent waiting for you to explain, which you did when the silence became too uncomfortable. You forced your eyes to stay on his when you finally spoke.

“I’m just worried about you. You’re dealing with a lot, you should be with other people. People who care about you and know how to take your mind off everything. I just don’t want you to burn yourself out trying to do all this alone.” Your words hit him like a train. You were the one who was sick and you still worried about him, even when he was a complete stranger to you. He looked like he could cry. He took a half step towards you before stopping himself,

“Can I hug you?”

You nodded as you took a step closer to him, embracing him. His large arms engulfed your shoulders. He held you close like you might spontaneously vanish if he didn’t anchor you to himself. Your arms came around to his upper back where you rubbed his back lightly, trying to comfort him. When your nails softly scratched against his shirt, his face nuzzled deeper into your neck. You couldn’t tell if he was crying or not. Not that you cared either way, you understood. You couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling. This large, strange, kind man had completely bent himself over backwards just to take care of you. The least you could do is try and comfort him. The two of you stood there for longer than either of you thought you would. He gave you one final squeeze before parting. He kept his hands on your shoulders for a second as he looked at you. He sniffed as he looked away and took a few steps back.

“Sorry.” His breathing was unsteady.

“Don’t be.” You shrugged. “You’re allowed to be sad. You’re kind of grieving, in a way.” Your words were meant to be comforting as much as forcing him to face the reality of the situation.

“Don’t say that, you’re going to remember. It just takes time.” There was a desperation in his voice. Like he was trying to convince you both.

“I know. I’m not saying I won’t. But right now, you’re living with someone who doesn’t know you.. The woman you know, the woman you love, is as good as dead. As of right now anyways.” He studied your face as you said it and nodded after you’d finished speaking. He bridged the gap between the two of you once more to press a kiss onto your forehead. He sighed but didn’t pull away from you when he spoke.

“Let me finish showing you around.” He whispered the words warmly against your skin.

“Okay.” You whispered in return.

As promised, he showed you the living room, kitchen, and dining area; all close together at the top of the steps. Down the hall there was a bathroom, an office, and finally your shared bedroom. He lets you walk into the room, he crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. You cautiously walked around the room, taking everything in. The walls were a calm green that paired well with the browns and yellows of most other things in the room. On the nightstand closest to the door there was an assortment of crystals, papers, wire wrapped shells, chapstick, handwritten notes, bracelets sitting inside a teacup, a clock, and a pair of glasses. You turned back to Logan.

“This is my side of the bed?” He nodded. You opened the drawers of your nightstand. Books, sleeping meds, pen and paper, nothing of interest upon first glance. You walked over to the other side, glancing back at Logan, searching his face for permission to poke around. You couldn’t read his expression.

“Mind if I snoop?”

“Go ahead. It’s all stuff you’ve seen before.”

You tried to turn your full attention to his nightstand but you could see him move out of the corner of your eye. He entered what you assumed was the closet, which was currently behind you. Back to trying to learn about Logan through how he kept his things. His nightstand was less cluttered than yours. There was a notepad and pen, reading glasses, a clock matching yours, and three pictures of you. One was in a frame, one was a polaroid, and the last one was printed out, you’d guess from a digital camera. All pictures were in places you didn’t remember with people you didn’t recognize. You looked happy. The picture in a frame was from your wedding. Logan and you were all dressed up, looking at each other. Although it was clear the two of you were posing, your smiles seemed genuine. The other two were candids, laughing with friends in one while in the other your face held a look of recognition like someone took the photo right as you saw the camera. You were happy or relieved to see whoever was holding the camera. You guessed Logan himself based on your relationship and where you found the photo.

“Sorry,” He moved past you and set his phone on his nightstand.

“I’m going to go shower. You’re welcome to as well, I’ll shower downstairs so if you want to, the option is there. Or wait until later, I just don’t want to smell like the hospital anymore”

“Yeah I will probably take you up on that, where do I keep my clothes?”

He directed you to where you keep your pajamas as well as showing you to your half of the closet, pointing out where you keep underwear and socks.

“Let me know if you need anything.” You nodded and thanked him. He went downstairs. You felt like looking around some more. A bin of stuffed animals under your side of the bed. Saw the books on the shelves in the office. Check out the cupboards, familiarize yourself with where things belong. Out the kitchen window, the woods catch your eye. You feel a sudden urge to go walking in the wet grass. You look towards the lower level then back at the back door. You’d surely be back before he was out of the shower. You just needed to indulge this feeling. Then you’d come right back. It’s midday, it’s not like it is dangerous at this hour.

You step out onto the patio. You walked in the directions you felt pulled in. Following some imaginary trail, bare feet sinking into the puddles in the grass. It had been an especially wet April and the heavy clouds overhead suggested tonight would follow the trend. You found a hammock in a small clearing not far from the house. You sat upright on it, like a swing. You crossed your ankles and leaned forward, palms placed beside your knees, pressing onto the fabric beneath you. The silence felt comfortable. You relaxed more than you had been in recent days. The silence allowed your mind to wander through your thoughts just as you had through the trees. The calm around you soon contrasted with the spiraling thoughts that took over your mind. It didn't feel like you had forgotten anything but logically, you knew years had passed since the last things you remember. Logically you knew Logan had to know you intimately and clearly cared deeply for you but, you didn't know how to make yourself return his feelings. There was guilt in not being who you were apparently supposed to be. You hated the pained look in his eyes he when stared at you. The hot tears that rolled down your face contrasted with the cool air around you. Your face hung down and your eyes traced the ground through blurred vision. You felt like you had been sitting here for hours. Your thoughts drowned out the once comfortable silence and along with it, Logan's panicked voice in the distance. He stumbled into the clearing.

"Jesus-” He huffed, catching his breath. “Don't run off like that. What the hell are you doing out here? How did you know where this was? Did you remember something?"

His rapid fire questions and loud voice were overwhelming.

"N-no, I don't know. I just felt like this is where I should go. I didn't mean to worry you- please don't yell at me" your plea took him by surprise as he realized his worry made him louder than he intended. He took a quick step towards you and you unconsciously flinched. He took care to make the last steps toward you slower before he crouched down so he was looking up at you. There was a gentleness that now replaced the panic in his voice.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.. I didn't know where you were or what happened. I just- you're not yourself right now, even if you had your memories, you still have a brain injury. I just don't want you to get lost. At least if you're going to go exploring, leave a note?"

You nodded and wiped away tears from your face.

"Do you want me to leave you alone out here for a while?"

"No, I'll come in with you.. I really don't know why I came out here, it just felt like I should. I don't know why." You still tried to explain yourself as you got up from your spot. Logan stood up and started leading towards the house.

"Maybe subconsciously you remember coming out here."

"Maybe.. I don't know why I would. It's not exactly nice out."

"You didn't just go when it was nice, you like being out there when you feel upset. Sometimes if we have a fight you'll go sit out there for a while. Sometimes you're upset with someone else and you drag me out there with you and tell me about it. You just don't like bringing that stuff home."

"Oh. Am I out there a lot?"

"No, not really. Sometimes you have a bad week and you'll be out a few days in a row but that's not very common. Just once in a blue moon, as you'd say." He smiles at the memory as he opens the door for you. You step in and dry your feet on the mat. He takes off his shoes and carries them to the front door. As he walked off you noticed his hair was wet and a t-shirt and plaid pajama pants had replaced his flannel and jeans from the hospital. You could really see how muscular he was through his shirt that hugged him tighter than the flannel did.

“You look better than you did at the hospital.”

“Hm? Oh, thanks.”

“Don't get me wrong you pull off the disheveled look but now you look better, like people wouldn't worry about you if they saw you like this.”

“Not sure that's the compliment you think it is.” He smiled as he said it.

“I'm aware. Still felt like you should hear it.”

“Whatever you say. Do you still want to shower now or do you want to wait until later tonight?”

“No, I'll just get in now.”

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You leaned your face towards the bottle of the more feminine looking soap, assuming it was yours, trying to use it as an olfactory trigger. It didn’t work. You got out of the shower and dried your hair in front of the mirror and something caught your eye. Your skin carried stories in the form of deep scars that decorated your body. Old bullet wounds and healed cuts lied among the new gashes and scratches from your accident. You ran your hands over some of the small lines of scar tissue, unsure if you wanted to know the stories they had to tell. You rewrapped your bandages. The bandages and cuts from your accident made you glad to have such baggy pajamas.

You left the bathroom after getting dressed and found Logan laying on your side of the bed, staring at the ceiling. He sat up when you came into the room, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Oh, hey- Sorry I know this is your side, I just-” He stumbled over his words while trying to justify his actions but you cut him off.

“You don’t need to explain, it’s alright.” You gave him a small, tight-lipped smile. The kind you’d give a stranger who held a door for you.

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You spend the rest of the evening on the couch, doodling next to Logan as he reads some papers. Neither of you spoke. Eventually it came time for you to go to bed, forcing the two of you into conversation.

“I can sleep in the guest room, if you’d be more comfortable that way.” He offered as he walked you to the bedroom.

“That’s all the way downstairs, right?” You looked up at him as you sat on the bed.

“Yes.”

“Then no..” You paused after saying it.

“I can stay up here on the couch if you want me to be closer. Whatever you want.”

You shook your head adamantly. “Not whatever I want, I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed.”

“Baby, I would be happy as a clam at high tide just sleeping on the floor at the foot of our bed.” The way the pet name so easily left his lips made you blush.

“W-well- you can be just as happy sleeping in your own bed.” He sighed in defeat before nodding.

“Alright. I can do that.” He shut the door behind him as he walked into the room.

“Given your apprehension to stay in the same bed, I assume it goes without saying but, I still don’t know you.. For you, you’re sleeping next to your wife but for me, I’m sleeping next to this man I met yesterday.. I just..” You trailed off.

“I’ll stay on my side of the bed, no problem.” He finished your thought casually.

“Thanks..”

“Of course, I just want you to feel comfortable and safe in your own home.”

“That.. means a lot. Thank you Logan.” He nodded before shutting off the lamp on his side of the bed.

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It wasn’t a particularly cold night but you still felt a chill creep over your skin under the blankets. To your memory, you had slept alone most nights so this was what you were used to. So why did you feel more alone than ever with Logan less than a foot away? You could feel the heat ghosting off his skin even from where you laid. The loneliness sank into your chest making you feel colder than you actually were. You mentally fought yourself, it was only a few hours ago that you were telling him not to touch you and now you were considering asking him to put his arm around you? Talk about mixed messages. What if he was the type of guy to take approval to cross one boundary as approval to do whatever he wanted? What if he thought this meant you had your memories again? What if-

Your thoughts were cut off by the sound of Logan sighing quietly as he rolled over and shifted to get comfortable. He was awake. If you were going to ask, now would be the best time, right? You gathered your courage before you spoke.

“Logan?” You asked barely at a whisper.

“Hm?” His sleepy reply made you feel guilty for bothering him.

“Could you- .. I mean if you wanted to you could- you don’t have to but.. Um. Would you put your arm around me?”

“You want me to hold you?”

“I mean.. Only if you want to. I just- It’s cold over here and I can feel the heat coming off of you and I- .. I just feel so lonely for some reason.” Your voice dropped even quieter as you ended your statement.

“Yes, of course I will. Tell me if I do anything you don’t like; you’re allowed to push me back over to my side, alright?” You nodded as he pulled you into his broad chest. He felt warm and comforting. He kept his hand innocently at your abdomen. The two of you both slept the best you had all week. Tangled together like lovers.

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Author's second note! Thank you for reading my first true fanfiction that's been put on Beyoncé's public internet for anyone to judge. Speaking of judging I'm very open to feedback if you have any.

I want to have the next part up soon but tragically, I have two big projects coming up not to mention finals week. College is eating me alive so we'll see when I string enough coherent sentences together the next part.

PS I'm still trying to figure out pictures so that's why these three at at the bottom. If I figure it out, I'll add them at the top but uhhh we'll see

I FIGURED IT OUT LETS GOO