#like thanks for the friendship but if you want to go on a different path then go ahead i wish you the best

[bluebellthesponge]

how it feels when you try and put effort into someone and they don’t reciprocate the same effort back

[theostrophywife]

HEART ON MY SLEEVE

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🤍 pairing: mattheo riddle x reader.

🤍 song inspiration: friends by chase atlantic.

🤍 author's note: the duality of man. this fic serves both cute, fluffy matty and jealous, possessive mattheo.

For his upcoming birthday, Mattheo Riddle had one simple wish: for his best friends to get along. 

It shouldn’t have been such an ordeal except for the fact that you and Theo absolutely hated each other. If it weren’t for Mattheo, the two of you would have no reason to cross paths. Theo was an arrogant, pompous, quidditch playing prick with a terrible nicotine addiction while the closest you’d come to physical exertion is carrying your weekly stack of books from the library to your dorm. 

Needless to say, you were not a fan of Theodore Nott. You thought he was a bad influence on Matty, while Theo labeled you as the buzzkill, often talking your best friend out of doing things that would either land him in detention or the infirmary. You got the feeling that Theo hated the fact that he had to share Mattheo’s attention with you. Never mind the fact that you were friends with him first. 

The origin of your friendship started long before your days at Hogwarts. The first time you met Mattheo, his father invited you and your parents over at Riddle Manor to celebrate a successful business deal between your families. Even at a young age, you remembered recognizing the coldness and distance in the Riddle household. The elder riddle, Tom Sr., was a stern and unforgiving man who kept his family under his thumb. Tom Jr. played the perfect heir; cool, calm, and collected as he stood by his father’s side. Mrs. Riddle had a severe and somber air about her that sent shivers down your spine as she flashed an empty smile at you. 

Mattheo was different from the rest. There was a warmth to him that radiated outwards, pulling you in with his cheeky dimpled smile and soft bouncing curls. He marched right up to you, bowing at the waist like he was taught to, except he nearly tripped over his feet and gave you a crooked little grin before correcting himself. 

“Hi, Y/N. I’m Mattheo, but you can call me Matt.” There was a mischievous glint in his brown eyes that you didn’t recognize as trouble until much later. “Do you want to play with me?” 

As it turns out, his definition of playing meant chasing each other through the hedge maze out on the manor grounds and absolutely dirtying up your pretty pink dress as you rolled around in the grass. You laid side by side on your backs, giggling as you tucked a flower into Mattheo’s curls. 

“You’re going to get me in trouble, you know,” you stated matter-of-factly as you rolled over on your elbows. “My dress is all dirty.” 

“Don’t worry, we can ask Tom to help us. He knows lots of spells and hexes.” He leaned in conspiratorially, holding his pinky finger out. “But you have to keep it a secret, okay? Can I trust you, Y/N?” 

You hooked your finger through his, not knowing that such a simple secret would forever solidify your friendship. “You can trust me, Matty.” 

In the years that followed, the two of you were as thick as thieves. Most days were spent at either the Riddle manor or your estate, which Mattheo tended to prefer since it provided him reprieve from his father. As of late, his parents had made it perfectly clear that he was expected to follow in his brother's footsteps. Despite it being Tom's first year at Hogwarts, he was already proving to be a gifted and talented wizard. When his father wasn't outright ignoring him, Mattheo was forced to practice hexes and spells that were beyond the knowledge of an eleven year old. Without his older brother to protect him, Mattheo felt the walls closing in in his grand yet inhospitable home.

You were the only silver lining in his otherwise dreary days. Mattheo thanked Merlin that his father allowed visits to your estate. Unlike Riddle Manor, your family home was warm, lovely, and full of life. During the summers, the two of you would venture out to the edge of your property and set up camp at the creek. The sunny days were spent swimming, climbing, and picking flowers from sunrise to sunset. On one particular day, you sat cross-legged on the picnic blanket, absentmindedly picking at the sandwich in your lap. 

Beside you, Mattheo nudged you with his knee. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

You blinked, trying to savor the sunshine for as long as you could. “I don’t want summer to end.” 

“We’ll only be apart for a year,” Mattheo said softly, correctly guessing the cause of your apprehension. You weren’t surprised. He always seemed to know what was on your mind. “You’ll be joining me at Hogwarts before you know it. By then, I’ll be an expert so I can show you the ropes.” 

“A lot can happen in a year,” you stated. “What if you make other friends and forget about me?” 

“I might make other friends, but I’d never forget about you. You were my first friend ever. That makes you the most important.” 

You looked up and found yourself face to face with Mattheo’s earnest expression. The corners of his lips tugged upwards as he nudged you again. “Besides, you know I’m going to write to you every week. Now that I’m in the same castle as Malfoy, I can finally crack the great mystery of whether or not he bleaches his hair.” 

“There’s no way that’s natural, right? Maybe Lucius has a special shampoo or something.”

Mattheo grinned and draped an arm over your shoulder. “I don’t know, but I promise to find out for you.” 

“You’ll really write to me every week?” 

“Of course I will,” Mattheo declared, holding his pinky finger out. “You trust me, right?” 

You smiled and hooked your pinkies together. “I trust you, Matty.” 

When the next year finally rolled around, you were so excited that you convinced your parents to take you to King’s Cross at least an hour before your departure. You hadn’t seen Mattheo since the previous summer because his family had been away on holiday in Spain, but he stayed true to his word and wrote to you every chance he got. You loved reading about the friends he’d made, the antics he got up to, and most importantly, the fascinating classes that awaited you at Hogwarts. 

As you passed through Platform 9 ¾, you were nearly knocked off your feet as Mattheo ran full force into you. He had grown much taller since you last saw him, so much so that he now towered over you as he pulled you into a bear hug. 

“Hi, Matty,” you giggled against his chest. 

“Hi, Y/N.” 

Mattheo pulled away, grinning as he tugged at your hand. “Come on, I want you to meet my friends.” 

You looked back at your parents who merely smiled at Mattheo’s excitement. To his chagrin, your best friend remembered to properly greet them and asked if you could board the train early. After much fussing, they eventually said their goodbyes and allowed you to go with Mattheo. 

The first friend that you met was Enzo. He was sweet, if not a little cheeky as he hinted that Mattheo couldn’t stop talking about you all year. Draco and Blaise needed no introduction given that your families were all fairly acquainted ever since you could remember. To your delight, Pansy was amongst the group as well. The two of you used to take ballet together, so it was a relief to have another girl to bond with. The older boys, Tom and Regulus, briefly greeted you before returning to their own cabin. 

Last, but not least, was Theodore. 

Whereas the others welcomed you with open arms, Nott was not as warm in his reception of you. The two of you clashed right off the bat. You weren’t quite sure what the root of your disagreement was. Perhaps it was his snarky comment insinuating that girls couldn’t be proper quidditch fans in reference to your Chudley Cannons scarf, perhaps it was your biting retort that he could stick his misogyny up his arse. Either way, the interaction set the tone for your strained relationship. 

Being sorted into Gryffindor only contributed to the animosity between you as well. Given the longstanding rivalry of Slytherins and Gryffindors, Theo was determined to view you as his enemy. The harder you fought, the harder Mattheo tried to repair the rift. You were the two most important people in his life and he couldn’t stand to see you two tear each other apart. 

For the most part, you tried to grin and bear it. While you couldn’t for the life of you understand how or why he was even friends with someone as unbearable as Theodore Nott, you tried to be civil for Mattheo’s sake. Tried being the key word. With Theo’s snark and your temper, the two of you became known for your infamous fights. Still, it didn’t stop your best friend from trying. 

Over the years, Mattheo concocted countless plots and schemes to get the two of you to bond. If his favorite band was playing in town, he would magically have two extra tickets to bring both you and Theo along. If there was a book release you were dying to attend, Mattheo would invite Theo along to check out the record store next door. If the castle was dead during the weekend, Mattheo would suggest a trio trip to Hogsmeade. 

As much as you cared for Mattheo, your patience only stretched so thin. Without fail, every outing that the three of you went on almost always ended in an argument between you and Theo. 

“I don’t know how you’re friends with both of us, Mattheo,” Theo joked as he gulped down his burger. “I’m fun and Y/N is —”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll stick my fork right through your hand, Nott,” you threatened with a sickly sweet smile. 

The hostility wasn’t anything new, but you supposed that after dealing with it for years and years on end, Mattheo had finally reached his breaking point. 

Your best friend pushed his plate away and sighed. “Let’s just go.” 

You nodded in agreement, gathering your things and following Mattheo’s lead. Theo trailed after, obnoxiously squeezing his way through the door of the Three Broomsticks and letting it close behind him. You yanked it open, nearly pulling the bloody thing off its hinges. 

“How very mature of you. Though I’m not surprised that you don’t know how to hold a door open for a lady.”

Theo looked back, craning his neck behind you. “As far as I’m concerned, there aren’t any ladies around. Just an infuriating little Gryffindor who can’t handle not having the last word.” 

“I’m infuriating?” You huffed, crossing your arms. “Clearly you’ve never suffered through the pleasure of your own company. Spoiler alert, the snarky arsehole bit stopped being funny in third year.” 

“Well, the uptight and bossy bitch bit wasn’t ever funny to begin with.” 

“Enough already,” Mattheo yelled. You reeled back in surprise. Usually, your best friend just let you and Theo fight it out until you both got tired of it, but he wasn’t having it tonight. “You two are the most important people in my life, but you’re acting like bloody toddlers. I’m tired of feeling like I have to choose a side, so either you two find a way to get along or risk losing me as a friend.” 

For the first time since you met him, you and Theo were both stunned into silence. Mattheo took one last look at his closest friends and marched off into the castle without a word. 

The next day, you woke up feeling weary. You hardly slept last night given Mattheo’s ultimatum. Your best friend wasn’t the type to make declarations like that lightly, so you knew he meant it. Especially since he went straight to his dorm without coming over to watch a movie or talk late into the night like the two of you often did. 

The suspicion was all but confirmed when you sat through a particularly awkward and tense breakfast. Mattheo briefly acknowledged you with a nod, not bothering to speak as he cranked up the music on his headphones. As the Smiths crooned, you looked up at Theo who shook his head at your inquisitive glance. You knew that Mattheo had most likely given him the silent treatment last night as well. 

Despite the fact that you and Mattheo had very similar schedules, he managed to avoid you throughout the entire day. By the time the last class rolled around, you knew that he was serious about you and Theo making up. It was a hard pill to swallow. Truly, you’d rather ingest a pill the size of a hippogriff than make amends with Nott, but it wasn’t like you had a choice. You didn’t want to lose Mattheo. 

Deciding to be the bigger person, you went to the one place that you knew Theo frequented. You found him sitting alone in the Astronomy Tower, long legs dangling below him as he smoked a cigarette. Biting back a comment about the death trap pursed between his lips, you cleared your throat. 

“Mind if I sit?” 

Theo tensed as he looked up at you. He wore the sneer that he solely reserved for you, but his eyes were dull and dim. The argument with Mattheo obviously left him feeling lost as well. 

“Do I have a choice?” You glared in response, but took a deep breath to calm yourself. Theo winced. “Sorry. Force of habit. Sit, I guess.” 

Gingerly, you settled in the spot next to him. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” 

“He wouldn’t talk to me last night,” Theo confirmed as he ashed his cigarette. “Just put on his headphones and went to sleep facing the wall.” 

“He’s been avoiding me all day.” 

Theo sighed. “What are we going to do?” 

“Look,” you started, trying to muster up the strength to propose your next statement. “Obviously, we hate each other, but Mattheo’s important to me and I know he’s important to you, too. So for his sake, can’t we just put all this animosity behind us and try to get along?” 

“What exactly does getting along mean?” 

You shrugged. To be honest, you had no idea how to approach the situation, but you figured you had to start somewhere. “I don’t know. Maybe we can grab a bite to eat. Make polite small talk. Try not to strangle each other in the process.” 

“I guess I can do that,” Theo conceded. “Why don’t we go to the new pub in the village? I heard they have fried pickles.” 

You perked up. “You like pickles? I thought I was the only one.” 

“I don’t just like pickles. I love them,” Theo stated. 

“Me too,” you grinned. “Mattheo always gives me his cause he says —”

“They taste like feet,” he finished with a chuckle. 

You nodded, laughing along. “Well, what are we waiting for, then?” 

Theo watched as you stood, smoothing the front of your skirt. You offered a hand out to him, both literally and figuratively. To your surprise, Theo took the peace offering and let you pull him to his feet. 

An hour later, the two of you were squeezed into a tiny booth by the makeshift stage. The pub was lively tonight and nearly packed to the brim, thanks to the happy hour deal on their drinks and appetizers in honor of their grand opening. 

The pickles didn’t disappoint. You ate a good amount, but Theo scarfed the whole thing down like he hadn’t eaten in months. As he finished a sandwich and gulped the meal down with his second butterbeer, you gaped in surprise. 

“Honestly, where do you put it all?” 

Theo patted his stomach, which was unfairly flat and probably housed perfectly sculpted abs despite his eating habits. “I’m a growing boy. I need to eat a lot to offset the energy I expend. Especially when I’m sparring with you.” 

“Oddly enough, I’m flattered by that.” 

“You should be,” Theo quipped. “I’ve never had to put so much thought into insulting someone until I met you.” 

“I bet you were pissed when I took your crown as the sassiest and bitchiest person in our friend group.” 

“I’ve never experienced such heartbreak,” Theo said sarcastically as he placed a hand over his heart. “I mean, to be dethroned by someone who can’t even reach the top shelf in the cupboard was truly the most humbling moment of my life.” 

“Well, you shouldn’t have assumed that I knew nothing about quidditch just because I’m a girl.” 

“I was a dick for that,” Theo admitted. “But I was also twelve. I didn’t even know what misogyny meant. I thought you were describing a disease.” 

You snorted. “Well, the past is in the past. Even though I clearly won that argument, we should put it behind us.” 

Theo rolled his eyes, but clinked his butterbeer against yours. “Cheers to that, Y/N.” 

Surprisingly, you found that you and Theo had a lot more in common than you initially thought. When he wasn’t being a prick, he was actually quite nice to talk to. In a single conversation, you learned more about Theo than you had in years. The two of you possessed a knack for potions, preferred foreign literature, and shared a love for horror movies. 

As the live band went on, Theo mumbled an obscure reference to an eighties muggle band that your mum used to blast when you were younger. 

“I can’t believe they’re covering this song,” you shouted over the music. “I haven’t heard it in years.” 

Theo’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know this song?” 

“Of course I do,” you retorted. “Mattheo says I have the music taste of a divorced country club trophy wife.” 

“You and me both.” 

By the end of the night, you found plenty of common ground with the boy you once thought of as your enemy. It was quite alarming to realize that you hadn’t argued once all night and even more so when you found yourself actually enjoying Theo’s company. Maybe Mattheo was right after all. When you stopped viewing Theo as competition, he was actually not that bad. You now understood what Mattheo meant when he said that you and Theo were more alike than you cared to admit.

On the walk back to the castle, Theo pulled out a spliff but glanced at you before lighting it. “Do you mind if I smoke?” 

“Knock yourself out.” 

The moon was silver and bright against the cloudless sky as the two of you sauntered through the beaten path. You listened to Theo recount Tom’s disastrous attempts at asking Chloe out, all the while giggling to yourself because he was a bigger gossip than you and Pansy put together. 

“Don’t let Tom hear you talking about his love life,” you teased. “He’d probably feed you to his basilisk.” 

Theo grimaced. “Half of Hogwarts would weep at the loss of such a handsome face.” 

“However will we survive without your wit and charm, Nott?” 

He chuckled as he blew a ring of smoke up into the sky. You watched it float before holding your hand out. “Care to share?” 

“I didn’t know you smoked.” 

“Who do you think taught Mattheo how to roll his first blunt?” 

Theo stared in disbelief as you took the spliff, inhaling deeply. You held the smoke in your lungs effortlessly before blowing rings of smoke in quick succession. 

“Damn,” the brown haired boy exclaimed. “Who the hell are you, Y/N?”

You smirked as you tapped the joint. “Someone much cooler than you, Theo.” 

After that night, you and Theo got on more and more. The banter and bickering was still there, but it was more playful now. Mattheo was glad to see his two best friends getting along so well. Since first year, it was all he had ever wanted. 

The days of forcing you two to hang out together was long gone. Now, you were practically as attached to the hip with Theo as you were with Mattheo. 

When Mattheo went up to the Astronomy Tower for a smoke break, he would find you sitting cross-legged across from Theo as he filled you in on the catfight between Lavender and Cho. When Mattheo visited you at the library during his free period, Theo was already there working on his History of Magic homework beside you. When Mattheo arrived at the Great Hall for assembly, he slid into the seat next to Theo as his friend craned his neck to peer at the crowd. 

“Looking for someone, mate?” 

“Yeah, Y/N said she was running late,” Theo answered distractedly. “I saved a seat for her.” 

At first, Mattheo loved the fact that you put your differences behind you and became such great friends like he always knew you would, but as time went along, your best friend noticed that you and Theo were becoming a little too close. 

On one occasion, Mattheo briefly excused himself from the common room party for a smoke only to come back to find you and Theo annihilating Draco and Blaise at butterbeer pong. He walked in right as you made the winning shot, witnessing Theo picking you up and twirling you around as Malfoy stomped off, grumbling something about an unfair play. A cheat of sorts. 

Mattheo couldn’t help but agree. Seeing you in Theo’s arms felt like cheating. The whole thing made him feel strange. It didn’t help that every time the three of you hung out, Mattheo noticed that you and Theo now had little inside jokes and references that he didn’t understand. Being jealous of his best mate was ridiculous, but yet he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that only grew stronger with each passing day. 

As you grew closer, Mattheo felt stranger. One morning, he nearly smashed his muffin to pieces when he saw you wearing Theo’s hoodie. 

“Why are you wearing that?” he asked through clenched teeth. 

You looked down in surprise as though you’d forgotten that you were wearing another man’s clothes. “Oh, I was cold so Theo let me borrow his hoodie.”

Mattheo frowned before pulling his sweater over his head. “Here, wear mine instead. It’s warmer.” 

The gesture was confusing, but you merely shrugged and exchanged Theo’s hoodie for Mattheo’s sweater. “Thanks, Matty.” 

Later that week, Mattheo found you in the stands in your usual spot before the game. He smiled when he saw his number painted on your right cheek. The brief moment of happiness was shattered when you turned and revealed that you had also painted Theo’s number on your left cheek. Mattheo nearly fell off of his broom. He was used to seeing his and only his number on you. First the hoodie, now this? 

The green monster reared its ugly head during the game itself, motivating him to play as brutally as possible. The Hufflepuffs weren’t safe from his rage and neither were his teammates. As he soared around the goalpost, he hurled the quaffle as hard as he could, fully knowing that Theo was within the ball’s radius. Thankfully for him, Theo ducked at the last second before shooting a baffled glance at his friend. Mattheo simply ignored it and kept playing. 

Despite their sweeping win, the bad mood failed to lift. Mattheo frowned as he slipped into the booth next to you, glaring at Theo’s head as the two of them sandwiched you on both sides. Across the table, the rest of the team sipped their celebratory milkshakes. 

The waitress set down a vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate milkshake in front of the three of you. Mattheo watched as you and Theo tasted your drinks before promptly taking out the straw and switching flavors. 

“Told you that you’d like strawberry more,” Theo said with a fond eye roll. 

“But vanilla sounded good.” 

“Everything sounds good at the moment, but you always go back to your favorite.” 

Mattheo clenched his jaw as you stuck your tongue out at Theo before turning towards him. “Aren’t you going to drink your milkshake, Matty?” 

“I don’t really have much of an appetite.” 

“Maybe it’s just the chocolate. Do you wanna try mine?” 

He shook his head, crossing his arms. “No, that’s Theo’s milkshake.” 

“Oh, well if you want the vanilla one instead, I can switch back.” 

Mattheo wrinkled his nose. “No thanks, Theo’s mouth has already been on it.” 

“Consider it a privilege,” Theo butted in. “Most girls and boys at this school would kill to swap spit with me.” 

“I’ll pass.” 

You cocked your head at your best friend, looking concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay, Matty?” 

He nodded rather unconvincingly. “I’m fine.”

As weeks passed, Mattheo only grew more jealous. 

Granted, he was fully aware that he had no right to feel this way given the fact that he had practically pushed you and Theo together, but he just couldn’t help himself. The closer you grew, the more he regretted giving the two of you an ultimatum in the first place. 

Before you became friends with Theo, Mattheo never had to share you with anyone. He realized now how much he had taken it for granted. Your best friend missed the times that the two of you spent alone. He missed having you all to himself. Mattheo was determined to get it back one way or another. 

When Saturday night rolled around, Mattheo made his way up to Gryffindor Tower, glaring at anyone who balked at the sight of him on this side of the castle. After shoving McLaggen out of the way, Mattheo made his way up to the highest turret and let himself into your dorm. 

You were perched in front of the vanity table, swiping your signature cherry lip gloss on in the mirror. Mattheo made himself at home, sprawling out on your bed. He knew you had plans tonight, but he was hoping to convince you to hang out with him instead. Mattheo eyed your dress, his gaze sweeping along the red fabric like a lover’s embrace. You flushed at the intensity of his stare as his brown eyes flickered back up to your face. 

“Why can’t you hang out tonight?” Mattheo asked with a pout. “Are you going on a date? Is that why you’re leaving your best friend alone to perish?” 

You shook your head in amusement before leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t be so dramatic, Matty. I’m not going on a date. Theo and I are just checking out this new band.” 

Mattheo stiffened as you sprayed perfume on your wrists. “Why didn’t you invite me?” 

“Theo did. He said you weren’t interested in listening to country club wife music.” 

While that may be true, Mattheo would’ve gone if he knew you were coming too. “He didn’t tell me he was going with you.” 

“Probably because he knew you’d feel obligated to go,” you responded. “But it’s alright, we won’t make you suffer through it. Theo will keep the creeps away.” 

Mattheo did not like the sound of that. It was his job to watch over you, not Theo’s. Besides, he never thought of it as an obligation. Even if he wasn’t a fan of the music, he loved watching you jump around and have the time of your life. Spending time with you was the only reason why he insisted on coming to every concert. Keeping the creeps away was just an added bonus. 

Now, Theo was taking away both. The realization put him in a foul mood, but he couldn’t let it show. He wanted you to have a good time, even if it wasn’t with him. 

“Okay, but can we at least watch a movie and cuddle when you get back?” 

“We’re going to be out pretty late. I don’t want you to lose sleep because of me. I know you have a Charms exam tomorrow morning, but I promise we can have a movie night tomorrow.” 

Mattheo only nodded as you patted his curls and kissed his cheek again. He watched as you left your dorm, frowning into the mirror as he touched the two cherry gloss marks on his face. 

The kiss prints were already fading, serving as some sort of sick metaphor. 

To your credit, you did make good on your promise on movie night. It had been a while since the two of you hung out alone, which is definitely the only reason why Mattheo felt needier and clingier than usual. While his touchiness wasn’t anything new, he seemed determined to make it obvious to those around you. Especially with Theo. 

During breakfast, Mattheo silently laid his head on your shoulder and placed your hand atop his curls. Across the table, Theo continued gnawing away at his croissant while you told him about the new horror movie that had apparently been banned in twenty countries. 

“I wanna watch it,” Mattheo mumbled as you scratched his head. 

“But you hate horror,” Theo responded. 

“So? I still want to see it.” 

“I’ll ask my mum if she can send me a copy this weekend,” you said as you playfully tugged at his curls. “We can watch it in your dorm, okay?” 

He leaned in, nuzzling against your neck. “Just the two of us?”

“Of course, Matty.” 

Mattheo brightened at that, happy with your response. Perhaps it was petty of him, but he didn’t care. He wanted to send a message. You and Theo could be friends, but he’d always be the most important person in your life. Mattheo was your person, just like you were his. 

The others were beginning to pick up on things, despite his constant denial. It was sort of a moot point anyways, given the fact that he was single handedly proving them right with his actions. Nowadays, your friends would find Mattheo lounging on your lap, wedging himself in the small space on the common room couch just so that he was next to you instead of Theo. 

Every time you went out to Hogsmeade, he’d make a point of holding your hand and carrying your bags. Mattheo would stop mid-conversation and rub your cold hands in his, blowing on your fingers because he knows how cold you get even in the heated pub. 

“Your hands are cold. Let me heat them up, princess.” 

As you blushed, Enzo would shoot Mattheo a knowing look, which he deflected by focusing all his attention on you. Even Tom made a passing comment at all the sickening nicknames Mattheo had taken to calling you lately. 

“Hi, sweetheart. Is this seat taken?” 

“Morning, love. Do you want to go for a walk with me?” 

“Here, give me your bag. I’ll carry it for you, darling.” 

Though his older brother might disagree with his methods, Mattheo was quite convinced that it was working. Until it wasn’t. 

During the last week of December, you and Theo began acting strangely. Every time he walked into a room, the two of you would fall uncharacteristically silent. When he tried to bring it up, you evaded his questions and changed the subject instead. The secrecy didn’t sit well with him. 

After the last class of the day, Mattheo usually walked with you to the library, but every time he tried to find you that week, you had all but disappeared.

“Berkshire, have you seen Y/N?” 

“Oh yeah, she left with Theo a few minutes ago. Seemed urgent.” 

“Did they say where they were going?” 

Enzo shrugged nonchalantly. “No clue, mate.” 

Frustrated, Mattheo walked away before succumbing to the urge to throttle his friend. It wasn’t Enzo’s fault that you and Theo were acting so weird. Throughout the week, Theo would be out of their dorm for hours and hours. Sometimes he wouldn’t even come back until the wee hours of the night. 

When Mattheo checked your dorm, you were also nowhere to be found. He was trying his best not to spiral, but the nagging suspicion that the two of you were hiding something from him was too big to ignore. It was all but confirmed when he caught you sneaking out of the dungeons one night. 

You poked your head out from behind a marble column, watching students pass. Clearly, you didn’t want anyone to know that you were down here. Unfortunately for you, Mattheo had already seen you. 

“What are you doing here, Y/N?” 

His voice startled you, making you jump a step back as you glanced up at him with a nervous expression. “Oh! Hi, Matty. I was just — I was just, um, walking back to my dorm.” 

“I can see that, but what were you doing in the dungeons?’ 

“Just…hanging out…”

Mattheo could feel his blood boiling. “With Theo?” 

You gulped, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, he had my book.” 

“So where is it?” 

“Where’s what?” 

“Your book.” 

“Oh,” you said softly, avoiding his gaze. It was a tell-tale sign that you weren’t being honest. You always looked away when you were lying. “I guess I forgot.” 

“You forgot the thing that you came down here for?” 

“Hm? Did you hear that?” You mumbled, despite the fact that the corridor was silent. “I think Pansy’s calling me. I gotta go, Matty. See you later!” 

Your best friend watched as you sauntered off to Salazar knows where with a frown. Confused, Mattheo walked back to his dorm and found the answer to his dreaded question. As soon as he opened the door, the familiar scent of strawberry and vanilla filled the air. Mattheo felt downright murderous. That was your perfume. He’d recognize it anywhere. 

Mattheo glared at his best friend, who was laying in bed with a book perched on his chest. He eyed the rumpled sheets and Theo’s disheveled hair while trying not to assume the worst. 

“Is that the book Y/N lent you?” 

“Huh? What book?” 

Though he wanted very much to punch his mate’s teeth in, Mattheo restrained himself. “The book she came down here to get.” 

“She wasn’t here for —” Theo closed his mouth before nodding reluctantly. “Oh, right. Yeah. This is Y/N’s book. I should — I should return it.” 

“You’re acting weird, Nott. Both of you are.” Mattheo narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What the bloody hell is going on?” 

“Blase? Yeah, be right there, mate! I’d love to stay and chat, but duty calls. See you later, man.” 

Theo hightailed it out of the dorm, responding to an imaginary summon. Y/N and Theo. Theo and Y/N. His two closest friends. Sneaking around. Lying to him. Fooling around in his dorm. Mattheo didn’t know how to feel. He was angry, he was sad, but most of all, he was hurt. His girl and his best friend? It was the ultimate betrayal. 

Never mind that Mattheo had spent the past decade denying his feelings for you. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that he’d been in love with you since you were children. It was clear as fucking day. 

When Friday rolled around, Mattheo decided that enough was enough. He was going to confront the two of you. After quidditch practice, he followed Theo through the castle. The git buggered off to some dark, secluded area of the school that Mattheo had never stepped foot in. He kept a safe distance, peering around the corner when he heard whispered voices. 

“I’m telling you, he’s getting suspicious,” Theo whispered frantically. “He asked why our dorm smelled like you. I didn’t know what to say, so I bolted!” 

His heart dropped when he heard you sigh in frustration. “For Merlin’s sake, Theo! You couldn’t make up an excuse?” 

“Me? You were the one who got caught sneaking out of the dungeons. It’s not like you’re an expert on stealth, either.” 

“You know I can’t lie to him,” you exclaimed. “I’ve never been able to, ever since we were little. He knows all my tells. But, Theo, he absolutely cannot find out about this!” 

Mattheo didn’t need to hear the rest. His heart had already been crushed into a thousand pieces. He couldn't believe it. The two of you were supposed to be his best friends, yet here you were keeping this terrible secret from him. 

For the rest of the night, he sulked in his room. He was in the middle of brooding while listening to the Smiths when he heard a knock. 

“Piss off!” 

“It’s me.” 

Part of him wanted to send you away, but a bigger part — the stupid, idiotic, part of him couldn’t. With a sigh, Mattheo peeled himself off the carpet and opened the door. Since the secret rendezvous with Theo, you had apparently found time to get dolled up and changed into a pretty party dress. 

Mattheo frowned and crossed his arms. “Theo’s not here.” 

You frowned, cocking your head in confusion. “I’m not here for Theo.” 

He scoffed in response. “You don’t have to lie to me anymore. I know.” 

“You know what, Matty?” 

“I know that you and Theo are…sneaking around. Lying to me. Hooking up behind my back.” 

“What on Godric’s green earth are you talking about?” 

“Don’t try to deny it. I heard you in the corridor upstairs. I’ve had my suspicions all week. The two of you have been acting weird and avoiding me. More than that, you have your own stupid little inside jokes and you take him to concerts and you share milkshakes! Those are things we used to do together, but now you’ve gone and replaced me.” 

“The only reason Theo and I became friends is because you asked us to., Mattheo.” 

“I know that!” Mattheo exclaimed, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I regret it so much. I wanted you to get along, but not like this. Now Theo’s making you laugh and walking you to class and doing god knows what else with you in our dorm!” 

Your features softened as you tried to reach for Mattheo, but he took a step back. “Don’t try to deny it! I know you were in here the night I caught you sneaking out of the dungeons. I could smell your perfume.” 

Realization flooded you all at once. “Are you…are you jealous, Matty?” 

Your best friend crossed his arms and huffed. “Of course I’m jealous! I don’t want you doing any of those things with Theo. You’re my best friend. Mine, not his. I had you first. I loved you first.” 

The confession stunned you into silence. You blinked, processing the information before holding your hand out. “Come.” 

Mattheo looked like he was about to argue, but you just stared at him with determination. “Just come with me, Matty. I promise it’ll all make sense in a minute.” 

The logical side of him wanted to refuse, but he knew it would be futile. Mattheo would’ve ripped his heart out of his chest if you asked him to. You were his weak spot. 

Following you out into the corridor, Mattheo staggered a few steps back as you slipped into the dark and empty common room. With a snap of your fingers, the lights came on and voices echoed in unison. 

“Happy birthday, Mattheo!” 

Startled, Mattheo blinked at the sight before him. The common room was decorated with streamers and confetti, complete with a bright birthday banner that covered nearly half the room. There were tables filled with food and drinks, all of which were his favorites. All of his friends were present, including Tom, who stood to the side with his arms crossed. The pretty blonde beside him — Chloe, the girl Theo swore his brother was in love with — elbowed Tom, who sighed and flashed Mattheo a rare smile. Now that was something he needed to revisit at a later time.

For now, one shocking revelation was enough to deal with.

“Surprise!” You exclaimed beside him as you pulled him into a hug. 

At first, he was too stunned to return the gesture, but eventually he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you in for a bear hug. With everything going on, Mattheo nearly forgot his own birthday, but he knew that you wouldn't. You did all of this. For him. 

When you broke apart, Theo clapped him on the back. “Happy birthday, mate.” Relief washed over his friend’s face as he spoke the words. “Thank fucking Salazar that Y/N pulled this off. Hiding this from you for a week has been absolute hell.”

“So…this is what you two have been up to?” 

You nodded in confirmation. “Mhm, Theo and I spent all week planning it. We wanted everything to be perfect.” 

“But it was hard because you were being such a nosy little git,” said Theo.  

The pieces started to click together. All that secrecy between his two best friends hadn’t meant what he thought it did. “So you two aren’t…you haven’t…you’re not hooking up behind my back?”

You and Theo stared at each other in horror. 

“Ew!” Theo dramatically exclaimed. “Y/N is like my sister. You don’t hook up with your sister. That’s gross.” 

“But I thought…you were hanging out together so much and you had all these jokes and it seemed like…”

“Please,” Theo scoffed. “Anyone with half a brain cell can see that you two are clearly in love with each other.” 

“Surprised you figured it out then, Theo,” you quipped.

The brunette rolled his eyes at you before breaking out into a shit-eating grin. "Wait. Is that why you've been acting like such a twat lately? You thought I was making a move on your girl?" Theo's eyes widened as Mattheo shifted uncomfortably. "I'm right, aren't I? First of all, I'm flattered that you felt threatened by me."

"Threatened is a strong word," Mattheo countered.

"Please, you nearly took my head off with a quaffle." Theo wiggled his eyebrows. "Second of all, I'm quite frankly offended that you'd think I'd ever go for Y/N. I would never break your trust like that."

"I know, I know." Mattheo said with a sigh. "I was being stupid, but for a second I was truly convinced that something was going on between you two. I mean, you've been hanging out so much lately..."

“Matty, do you even know what we talk about when we hang out? You. It’s always about you. You were right that we both have a lot in common. We were just too stubborn to see it, but the main thing that brought us together is that we care about you so much.” 

“Well, Y/N cares for you a lot more,” Theo teased with a smirk. “She’d like to care for you all night long.”

You flushed as deep and red as your party dress. “Oh my gods. Shut up, Theo!” 

“My work here is done. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to hit on that Ravenclaw who looks like she wants absolutely nothing to do with me.” 

“Sorry about him,” you said as you turned back to Mattheo. “And sorry that we’ve been acting so shady all week. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t suspect anything.”

Mattheo chuckled. “Well, consider me surprised.” 

You wrinkled your nose in disgust. “I can’t believe you thought I was hooking up with Theo.” 

With a boyish grin, Mattheo pulled you to his side and kissed your temple. “I’m sorry, princess. Jealousy just got the best of me.” 

“There’s no need to be jealous. If it wasn’t already obvious, I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.” 

“I’m a bloody idiot.” 

“Yeah, but you’re my idiot.” 

Mattheo beamed and kissed the tip of your nose. “Thank you for doing all of this for me.” 

You smiled softly, cheeks heating as he stared at you with bright, brown eyes. “Course, Matty, I just want you to have the best birthday.” 

With a smile, Mattheo leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against your lips. There was something familiar about the gesture, like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Kissing Mattheo was as natural as breathing. It felt like coming home. 

“Wish granted, princess.” 

Later that night when he blew out his candles, Mattheo didn’t bother wishing for anything. You leaned into him as he hooked his pinkie through yours, making a silent promise. Even if it took a little jealousy for him to realize it, Mattheo embraced the truth wholeheartedly. You were his person and he was yours. As the flames died out, he smiled.

Mattheo Riddle had no use for wishes now that he had you. 

[brokenmenswhore]

Hiiii!! I love your writing and I have a request for Best Friend x Reader where Reader has had a crush on James for years and thought he never noticed because he was way to focused on Lily. But in reality he had been in love with her from the second they met on the train but every time je was almost caught he’d look to the closest person by you, which was usually Lily. Maybe smut too if possible. Thank you!!!!

i love this request!! james is just so 🥺🫶🏻❤️‍🩹

the closest thing | james potter

pairing: james potter x fem!reader

warnings: smut (MDNI 18+)

────── ☾ ──────

“Hey, can I sit here?”

You were eleven. The boys in the train compartment all turned their heads toward you. One boy in particular, with brown curly hair and glasses, stood and approached the door.

“Hi, I’m James,” he said, sticking his hand out for you to shake and giving you a warm smile.

You told him your name and sat down across from him.

That’s when the crush started.

Through your first few years at Hogwarts, you and James grew extremely close, and became borderline inseparable. He was your best friend in the world, and you were his. Your infatuation grew with time, watching as he grew up and came into his own, his features morphing and sharpening with age.

When you were thirteen, you met Lily. She had been sorted into Gryffindor the same year as you and James, but you never spoke until your third year. She was charming, pretty, and loved a good laugh. You and her became fast friends, and you introduced her to James.

Whenever you sat in a group for breakfast, you would steal glances at James, who would be looking at Lily next to you. During classes, when you sat between them, you could feel James’s head turn toward you, but if you looked back at him, he was staring straight across you, fixated on Lily as she tucked a piece of fiery red hair behind her ear.

For years, you watched him gawk at her, and it caused you to hold your tongue about your developing feelings for him. Your friendship was so pure, it wasn’t worth ruining with a confession, especially if it would lead nowhere. Why tell him you liked him, just for him to tell you he liked Lily?

By the time you were sixteen, James was on top of the world as captain and seeker of Gryffindor Quidditch. He, along with Sirius and Remus, knew everyone and everything happening at Hogwarts. James in particular was the top of the class, and often had to help you with assignments. He still maintained your friendship, working to make time for you, but his popularity meant one thing you hated: attention from girls.

Girls often threw themselves at him, as they did Sirius, but he mostly turned them away. Waiting on Lily, you thought.

You and James had fun, and you made a habit of jumping on his back and making him carry you around. You weren’t much different in size, but you he liked showing off how strong he was, and you liked wrapping your body around him.

Girls would often approach him, and when he entertained their attention, you would complain, “James, I’m getting loopy.”

James would bend over slightly, continuing to talk to the girl in front of him as you jumped on his back. He would hook his arms underneath your legs, your arms wrapping around his neck.

“Gotta go,” James would say, dismissing himself as he stood tall, walking completely unobstructed with your weight on his back.

“You’re a child,” he laughed.

“Can’t help when I’m tired,” you would say, resting your head on his shoulder.

One afternoon, you were taking a walk on the grounds to find a quiet place in nature to study, and you saw James and Lily alone together. It would seem innocent to anyone else; they were side by side and just talking and laughing, but to you, it was so much more. James looked enamored, like he was the happiest he’d ever been, as they strolled along the path together. You desperately wanted to know what they were talking about, but you didn’t want to expose yourself for liking James, so you simply turned around and retreated back to the castle.

You were upset, but you knew you had no right to be. James wasn’t yours, and you had never told Lily of your feelings. If they liked each other, there was nothing you could do. Nothing, except, of course, pushing it down and asking Remus out.

“You’re kidding,” Remus said, shocked by your request.

“It’s just a trip to Hogsmeade, Remus, it’s really not that big of a deal.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’m saying yes.”

“Well that’s pretty rude,” you scoffed.

“No! Not like that, I just mean-“ Remus’s voice trailed off as you listened intently, “you’re James’s best friend.”

“Technically so are you,” you responded.

“But he, like— whatever. Not a date?”

“Not a date, sure,” you clarified, honestly just happy to accept the company, “just two friends hanging out. That’s a thing girls and boys can do, right?”

Remus looked at you strangely. “Yeah?”

You smiled at him, telling him you’d see him later that night before walking away. Sirius slapped his arm. “James is gonna kill you, you know,” he said.

Remus just shrugged. Of course he knew that James liked you, and always had, but this wasn’t a date, so what did it matter? He was also allowed to be friends with you.

You and Remus enjoyed the evening walking through the streets of Hogsmeade and sharing a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, and you fought with every cell in your being to avoid bringing up James. Every time Remus tried to, you shut him down and changed the subject. You wanted to vent about him, but admitting your feelings to someone else made them all the more real, and you weren’t ready to face true rejection quite yet.

When you returned, you entered the common room together, and saw James and Sirius draped over the couch.

“Hey,” James said, sitting up as you both approached the couch, “where were you guys?”

“Just hanging out,” you shrugged nonchalantly, dropping down onto the couch next to him.

“I didn’t know you guys hung out, like, alone,” he said, forcing a small laugh on the last words to make them seem lighthearted.

“I didn’t know you and Lily hung out alone either,” you responded, catching his gaze for a full thirty seconds before you joked, “you just upset I finally have a friend that isn’t you or her?”

James forced a chuckle in response, but there was a slight bit of tension in the air between you both.

Things stayed the same as always as time passed. You hoped your time with Remus would spark some jealousy within James, but he didn’t seem to care. Every time you looked at him, his eyes were next to you and on Lily.

The one thing that did change, however, is James started throwing around a pet name for you.

You were excused from Potions one day to grieve the loss of your grandfather, who was an extremely important part of your life. You adored him, and you had a close relationship.

James found you alone in the west tower, crying at the bottom of the curved staircase.

“I figured something was up when you didn’t show,” he spoke, sitting down next to you, “what’s wrong?”

“My grandfather passed away this morning,” you explained, “I received word from my mother just before Potions. I just couldn’t bring myself to go.”

You wiped your nose with the back of your robe sleeve, taking a deep breath to calm your crying.

“Oh, angel, I’m so sorry.”

Your heart skipped a beat. James had never called you angel before. It felt so intimate, so endearing, and so personal. He threw around terms like “doll” and “baby” to other girls, but never angel.

You rested your head against his chest and calmed your breathing.

The next day, James missed you in the common room in the morning, first seeing you for the day in Defense Against the Dark Arts. “You doing okay, angel?” he asked.

You blushed at his words, and he caught it, but assumed it was because you were upset and fighting back tears. “I’m okay,” you smiled.

A few weeks later, James was shitfaced drunk at a Ravenclaw party, sat in a large group with you and your friends. You stood to get another bottle, and James called out to you, “Hey, angel, can you get me one too?”

That was the first time he ever used the term in front of Lily, or in front of anyone, and it slightly confused you, but also thrilled you. You handed him the bottle, and he watched you sink back down to the floor, sitting cross-legged next to Lily. When you met his gaze again, he diverted his attention to Lily, and you sighed.

He then started casually calling you angel.

It was nearing the end of your term, and therefore your time at Hogwarts, and your patience was gone. You had nothing to lose. If James was weird about it, or rejected you, you could just ice him out, and without Hogwarts, you could avoid ever seeing him again. That’s not what you wanted, but it was a possible worst case scenario.

After finals were over, you asked to speak to James alone.

You pulled him into a now-empty classroom, shutting the door behind you for privacy and taking a deep breath.

“Everything ok?” he asked, leaning back against one of the desks.

“I need to talk to you,” you replied.

“Yeah, I get that,” James giggled, “what’s up?”

Both of your hearts were pounding, and both of you assumed the feeling was solitary.

“I need to tell you something,” you said, your voice small and shaky.

“Okay, you’re kinda starting to scare me, angel.”

You took a deep breath, slowly exhaling as you tried to steady yourself. “You genuinely have no idea what I’m gonna say?”

James was slightly taken aback by your question. “I don’t remember doing anything bad.”

“No, James-“ you rubbed your hands over your eyes, desperate for him to understand you without you having to be clear or coherent at all. You didn’t want to say it out loud, you just wanted him to know already.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” he said.

You sighed. You closed your eyes and bowed your head, hoping you would be able to speak the words while simultaneously pretending he wasn’t there. “I like you.”

“Aweh, thanks, I like you too,” he said.

“No, oh my god-“ you spun around and paced for a moment, sighing loudly before stopping in front of him again. “No, like, I like you.”

“Oh.”

You looked up at him. That’s it? That’s all he had to say? Oh?

“Yeah.”

“I thought you liked Remus?” James spoke, confused by your confession.

“What would make you think I like Remus?”

“I don’t know, probably the dates you keep going on with him?” James threw his hands up, as if it was obvious.

“We’re just friends, I haven’t been-“ your voice trailed off for a moment. “James?”

He looked down at you expectantly. “Yeah?”

“I know we’ve been friends forever,” you started, “and I really don’t want you to hate me or this to be ruined, but term is ending, and you should probably know that I’ve had feelings for you since we first met.”

You exhaled, letting out a heavy breath that you weren’t aware you were holding in.

“I-“

You cut him off before he could respond, “and I know you like Lily, so I’m sorry I’m telling you this, I’m just kinda tired of holding it in.”

James furrowed his brows in confusion. “What?”

“I don’t want to fuck up whatever it is you two have going on,” you said, and it was genuine, “I know you really like her.”

James tilted his head to the side. “Based on what?”

You returned his confused gaze. “What do you mean?”

“Why would you think I’m into Lily?”

“Be-because you are?”

“No I’m not,” he defended.

“James, it’s okay, you don’t have to lie to me, every single time we’re with her I can see you staring at her.”

James instantly knew what you were talking about.

“No, no, that’s not it,” he stopped you, “she’s just always the closest thing to shift my attention to when you catch me.”

You paused for a moment. “Catch you what?” you asked.

“Staring at you.”

You were so taken aback that you physically stepped backwards. “What?”

“Mhm,” he said, confident.

“But- but I’ve seen you alone with her, walking the grounds-“

“Lily is the only person on this planet I talk to about you.”

“About me?”

James reached a hand out and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, and sighed of relief. “Angel, I’ve been in love with you since you first asked to sit with me on the train.”

You opened your mouth to speak several times, but only small noises came out. You were speechless as James wrapped an arm your waist and pulled you flush against him.

“But-“

“Get out of your own head and listen to me,” James said.

“But I-“

“Shut up,” James sighed, pressing his lips onto yours to keep you from refusing to believe him any longer. Your muscles relaxed as you melted into his touch, your hand caressing the side of his face as you kissed him back. Your lips moved in sync with his. Molded with him, you were home.

James’s hand moved down from your waist to grab the flesh of your ass, pushing your hips harder against his, causing you to whine into the kiss. James moved his hands lower and lower until they were behind your thighs, prompting you to jump. He caught your legs as they wrapped around his waist, and he spun you around, seating you on the desk, his lips never breaking from yours.

Once you were seated, his hands held the sides of your face, desperate to deepen the kiss even more. You had both waited forever for this moment, and you both wanted to savor it as much as you possibly could.

You whimpered when he pulled your hips against his again, grinding his clothed cock against your clothed core.

He pulled away and smiled at you.

“What?” you blushed.

James nearly growled, “you sound even prettier than I dreamed you would.”

You looked deep into his eyes, and could tell he was being genuine. “You’ve been dreaming about me?”

“Feels like every night,” he said, his voice low as he slowly pulled your shirt above your head, and then ran a hand up and down your side, sending shivers down your body, “I’ve dreamed about simple little things, like holding your hand, kissing you, holding you…”

A hand moved to your skirt, pushing it up to your waist and beginning to move your underwear to the side as he continued, “and I’ve dreamed about fucking you, and watching you come around my cock.”

His words sent chills down your spine, his lips connecting to your neck as you sighed in pleasure.

He ran a finger between your folds, sucking the side of your neck as you shuddered. He collected your wetness before slowly inserting a finger into you.

You threw your head back, holding onto James’s shoulders to keep yourself upright.

“This all for me?” James asked.

“Mhm,” you moaned, unable to speak.

He slowly pulled out and pushed in his finger, watching your mouth fall open.

Your fingers ran through the curls on the back of his head, holding him against you.

“J-James,” you moaned, his palm applying pressure to your clit and doubling the stimulation.

James dipped his head for a moment and released a low, guttural moan from his throat.

“You okay?” you breathed out.

James giggled, his hand never stopping. “Did you just ask me if I’m okay?”

You nodded your head yes.

“I’m literally fingering you right now,” James said.

The reality of the situation dawned on you, and you realized what you asked, and you couldn’t help but laugh. James laughed with you, continuing to with you with his fingers as he swallowed your noises with a kiss. You were so, so happy.

The joy and laughter of the situation brought you close to the edge, your walls squeezing around James’s finger. He felt it, and immediately pulled his finger out of you.

You gasped at the loss of contact, the cool air hitting your wet core. You looked up at James, your eyes confused and desperate.

James smirked at you. “I wanna fuck you, angel, it’s no fun if you come already.”

“Yeah, but, but I-“

“There’s more where that came from,” James said, placing a kiss onto your forehead, assuring you this was not a solitary event. “For right now, though, please just let me fuck you.”

You nodded your head up and down rapidly, as eager as ever to feel James inside of you.

James pushed his pants down and freed himself, giving his cock a few strokes as he looked down at your body. He lined himself up with your entrance, looking to you for permission.

“I’ve wanted you for so long, James, please,” you spoke.

James immediately pushed his tip inside of you, and you inhaled a sharp breath. James slowly pushed the rest of his length into you, stopping once he was fully inside of you, allowing you to adjust to his size.

“Shit, you’re big,” you moaned.

James moaned back in response, your words making him harder as he slowly pulled partially out of you.

“Can I?” he asked.

“Please, James, move,” you answered.

James pushed back into you, your wetness lubricating his cock as you laid your back down onto the desk, no longer having the strength to hold yourself up anymore.

James took the opportunity to grab your breast, watching as your body moved up and down in sync with his thrusts. Your head was almost entirely off the desk, your neck tilting slightly backward, causing each moan to come out strangled.

Laying down meant James could see your entire body as he fucked you, and he was losing control at the sight of your breasts bouncing with each hit of his hips.

He picked up his pace, harshly grabbing both of your hips in order to push you into him with each thrust.

“Fuck,” you cried out, the entire classroom echoing as the legs of the desk shifted slightly across the floor.

“You feel so fucking good,” James praised.

You whined and whimpered and moaned beneath him, unbearably turned on by the feeling of his cock finally inside of you.

James moved one of his hands to your core, rubbing circles against your clit as he fucked you.

Your body jolted upward and you grabbed at James’s shoulders, pulling yourself up and hanging off of his neck. You were eager to come around him, and you kissed him hard.

“Please, James, make me come,” you begged, hoping your pleas would help him reach his climax as well. Though the sex wasn’t too long, you were so aroused by finally having him, and you knew you couldn’t last much longer.

James began to piston his hips into you even harder, determined to bring you to your climax. He wanted to savor the sex, but it would be so fucking hot to see you come in a matter of minutes. It stroked his ego, knowing that you were so hot for him that you were going to come from just a few minutes of stimulation.

“James, I-“

“Come for me, angel.”

The use of the pet name in your current position was enough to push you over the edge. You squeezed James’s cock, your legs shaking around James’s waist as you came.

“Shit, where can I come?” James asked through shaky breaths, his thrusts becoming sloppy as he chased his own high after feeling you squeeze him.

“In me.”

“You sure?”

“I’m on b-birth control, I w-want your come in me, please, Jamie, please-“

The nickname and the pleading had James coming inside of you with a final few sharp thrusts of his hips. He groaned as he came, settling inside of you for a few moments while he caught his breath.

He slowly pulled out of you, watching his seed spill out of your hole when he was out. He couldn’t help but lean down and lick the juices up, savoring the taste. You shuddered when his tongue touched you, you were so overstimulated.

James helped you stand, your body aching from the uncomfortableness of the wood beneath you.

“You alright?” James checked in.

“I’m alright,” you confirmed, leaning upward to place a kiss on his lips.

“You able to walk back out there?”

Your legs were shaky. You tried to take a few steps, but you nearly collapsed, and James caught a hold of you.

He smiled at you, turning his back to you and bending down.

“You serious?” you asked.

“‘F course.”

“James, I’m still wet. Won’t it get-“

“You jumping up or not?” James asked.

You hopped onto his back, holding onto him for dear life as he stood tall and swung the classroom door open.

At that very moment, of course, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Lily walked past the room.

“Oh hey you two,” Sirius said, noticing how unkempt your hair was and how flushed James looked, “had some fun, did we?”

You reached a hand out to hit his arm as James stepped in front of him, joining the group with you wrapped around him.

“Child,” he whispered to you, referencing you being carried on his back.

“At least this time I have valid reasoning.”

[mononijikayu]

ikaw lang— fushiguro megumi.

"Thanks. he muttered, his voice softer this time, almost shy. He still wasn’t used to letting people in, but for some reason, with you, it didn’t feel so bad. You smiled again, that same warm smile that made something inside him flutter. "Anytime." you replied, and Megumi knew you meant it. “Let me take care of you again, okay? When this happens.” “......You didn’t need to—” You shake your head, smile even wider.  “But I want to, okay?”

GENRE: Alternate Universe - Canon Convergence;

WARNING/s: Fluff, Romance, First Love, First Meeting, Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light-Hearted, Slice of Life, Friendship, Confessions, Humor, Mutual Affection, Love, Pining, Hugging, Mention of Injury, Mention of Fighting, Mention of Blood, Depiction of Medical Aid, Fushiguro Megumi is In Love, Sorcerer! Megumi, Non-Sorcerer!Reader, Megumi and Reader Are A Bit Older;

WORDS: 6.5k words.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this song is really cute. i should rest after this because ive been writing all the other poll related works and my eyes hurts. i might open commissions some time so i can get new glasses 🤔 but anyway, i hope you like this as much as i do. i love you so much 🫶

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if you want to, tip! <3

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HE WONDERS WHAT HE DID TO BE THIS HAPPY. Fushiguro Megumi often finds himself lost in thought, trying to piece together how he ended up with someone like you as his lover. It’s a mystery to him, one that he turns over and over in his mind, especially in the quiet moments when he watches you from across the room.

The two of you couldn’t be more different. Megumi has always been reserved, the kind of person who prefers the solace of a quiet corner, away from the spotlight. He’s never been one to seek attention, content to blend into the background, observing rather than participating. 

And then there’s you, today. The person he loves the most.

You, who are the complete opposite of everything he thought he needed. You walk into a room and light it up effortlessly, drawing people to you like a lighthouse in a rough storm. Your presence is magnetic, radiant—wherever you go, you leave a trail of warmth and joy, like the sun casting light on everything in its path. If the sun existed in Megumi’s universe, it would undoubtedly be you, the brightest star in his sky, illuminating even the darkest parts of his world.

Sometimes, Fushiguro Megumi wonders how someone like you could ever be drawn to someone like him. He’s not flashy, not outgoing or overly expressive. But then, you’ve never needed him to be. From the moment you met, you saw something in him that no one else did. You didn’t mind his quiet nature; in fact, you seemed to appreciate it, to cherish the way he found comfort in the shadows while you thrived in the light.

Every time Megumi sees you, his heart races uncontrollably. It’s a feeling he can’t quite describe, this mixture of awe and disbelief that he’s lucky enough to have you by his side. You have a way of making him feel things he never thought possible—emotions that run deep and wild, far beyond the calm exterior he usually shows the world.

And whenever you flash him that smile, the one he loves so much, he feels his composure slip. His face turns scarlet, his heart stumbles over itself, and he panics slightly, wondering how he’ll ever survive the intensity of his feelings for you.

But what truly leaves Megumi breathless are your eyes.

He’s always been captivated by them, even before he realized he loved you. There’s something in the way your eyes shine that draws him in, that makes him feel like he’s seeing something otherworldly. When you look at him, it’s like the rest of the world fades away, leaving only the two of you in a moment of pure, unfiltered connection.

Your eyes are windows to your soul, reflecting every emotion, every thought, every ounce of love you hold for him. And Megumi, who is often so unsure of himself, finds a sense of peace and belonging in those eyes. They are his sanctuary, his guiding light, the proof that he’s not alone in this world.

Sometimes, when you catch him staring, you’ll tilt your head and ask him what he’s thinking. And every time, Megumi struggles to find the right words, because how can he possibly explain the way you make him feel? How can he put into words the overwhelming mixture of gratitude, love, and fear that courses through him whenever he’s with you? All he knows is that, in those moments, he’s reminded of just how extraordinary you are, and how incredibly lucky he is to have you.

You are the sun in his universe, the brightest star in his sky, and with every passing day, Megumi falls deeper in love with you. And even though he’s not always able to express it, he hopes that when you look into his eyes, you can see just how much you mean to him—how much he adores every part of you, and how grateful he is to share his life with someone as wonderful as you.

Each time you raise your head and let Megumi gaze into your eyes, he’s struck by how they seem to shimmer with an otherworldly light. It’s not just the way they sparkle, but the depth and complexity they hold within them, as if your eyes contain entire galaxies, full of stars, planets, and endless mysteries.

To Megumi, your eyes are like a universe unto themselves—vast, beautiful, and impossible to fully comprehend. He can never quite find the words to describe the wonder they bring him, because, in truth, they’re unlike anything he’s ever known. They’re out of this world, something magical and extraordinary that he’s lucky enough to witness every day.

And every day, Megumi is reminded of just how fortunate he is to have you by his side. There are moments when he’s caught off guard by the simple yet profound realization that someone as remarkable as you chose him.

He’ll be lost in thought, or caught up in the routine of daily life, and then you’ll look at him, your eyes meeting his, and all those thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind. In those moments, nothing else matters—just the connection between you, the unspoken bond that ties your hearts together.

Megumi finds that the most beautiful part of his day is when you look back at him. Your eyes, shining with a brilliance that words can’t quite capture, speak volumes in a language only the two of you understand. They tell him of the abundant love you hold for him, a love that fills his heart with warmth and light.

He’s always been shy, a little reserved, and sometimes he struggles to put his feelings into words. But when you look at him with those sparkling eyes, he wishes he could find the courage to tell you just how much it feels like heaven on Earth when you let him see the hearts hidden behind the bright beam of your gaze.

Megumi knows that you’re patient with him, that you understand his quiet nature, but sometimes he worries that he doesn’t show you enough how deeply he loves you. He wishes he could be more expressive, that he could find the words to tell you everything he feels.

But when words fail him, he hopes that you can see it in the way he looks at you—in the way his breath catches, in the way his heart races, in the way he’s completely and utterly captivated by you.

To Megumi, your eyes are not just beautiful—they are a reflection of the love you have for him, a love that he treasures more than anything in the world. Every glance you share, every moment your eyes meet his, is a reminder of how lucky he is to have found someone like you. And even though he may never fully grasp the magic you bring into his life, he knows that he will spend every day trying to show you just how much you mean to him.

To Megumi, it feels like stars might actually be falling from the sky, captured in the light of your gaze. Every moment he gets to see those eyes, he feels like he's witnessing something otherworldly, something that makes all the differences between you melt away, leaving only the overwhelming love he has for you.

Even though Megumi isn’t always good with words, he sometimes wishes that you could simply look into his eyes and just know that he loves you more than anything in the world. He hopes that you no longer feel the need to ask over and over, like you used to, because the truth is, you’re the only one he has ever truly loved—and the only one he ever will.

But sometimes, a nagging doubt creeps into his mind. He worries that his quietness might not be enough to convince you of how much you mean to him. He fears that he’s not doing enough to show you just how deeply he cares, because he struggles to express his feelings out loud. Yet, despite those fears, Megumi is determined to try harder, to find ways to show you his love so that you never have to doubt it.

If there were a way, Megumi wishes you could look into his heart and believe without a shadow of a doubt that you are the only one his heart has ever loved. And as he gazes at you now, he silently hopes that you can feel the depth of his affection in the way he looks at you, even if the words aren’t always there.

Fushiguro Megumi vividly remembers the first time he saw you for the first time. That was that day, during middle school. It was an ordinary day, and he wasn’t expecting anything to change. And for that change to be for the best.

He was known for being a bit of a loner, someone who kept to himself and occasionally got into trouble for his rebellious streak. He wasn’t exactly a model student, and most people gave him a wide berth, not wanting to get involved with someone who had a reputation for being a delinquent.

But then there was you, when you were younger.

He had just been reprimanded by one of the homeroom teachers for getting into another fight—something that had become more common as he struggled to navigate the challenges of his teenage years.

Or rather, just the annoyance he had for people he considered to be cruel, horrible people. But he supposed he was also angry, frustrated with the world, and on the verge of lashing out again when you approached him.

You were new, just transferred to the school, and Megumi was sure that you, like everyone else, would steer clear of him. But instead, you walked right up to him, your eyes full of concern rather than fear or judgment. You were like the sun blocking his eyes when he met you. You changed his whole world that day, he likes to think. 

"Hey! Are you okay?" you had said softly, your voice calm and soothing. "Oh no, you got some dirt on your shirt—is that a cut on your side?"

Fushiguro Megumi had been taken aback for a long time. The last time must have been when Gojo said he’s taking him and Megumi in. There were very few things that had Megumi fazed, stuck in his tracks, and at a loss for words.

Perhaps the act of kindness being shown to him was one of those points. But he doesn’t think you’ve blamed him. He wasn’t used to anyone talking to him like that—without the underlying wariness or caution. He didn’t know how to respond, so he just shrugged, trying to brush you off. 

“I’m fine.” he muttered, his tone gruff, hoping you would just drop it and leave him alone. "Don't worry about me. Move on."

But you didn’t leave. Instead, you stood your ground, your eyes filled with a concern that he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was as if you could see right through his tough exterior, straight to the part of him that was hurting, and you weren’t about to let it go unnoticed. You shook your head, your hands reaching out to gently tug at his sleeves, drawing his attention back to you.

When he finally looked at you, he was surprised to find that you seemed more distressed about his well-being than he was. There was a softness in your gaze, mixed with a quiet determination that caught him off guard.

"It doesn’t look like it! See? It hasn’t stopped bleeding. you replied gently, your voice free of any reproach, but filled with genuine worry. 

Megumi followed your gaze to the cut on his arm, a wound he hadn’t given much thought to in the heat of the moment. But seeing the concern etched on your face made him pause.

You hesitated for a moment, as if unsure of how to proceed, before speaking again. "But if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. I just… I just wanted to make sure you’re alright." 

“Don’t worry about me—”

Your voice wavered slightly, betraying the depth of your concern, and it made something inside Megumi’s chest tighten. "At least maybe let me help you clean that nasty cut."

Megumi blinked, taken aback by your persistence. He was used to people either ignoring him or chastising him for getting into trouble, but you were different. You weren’t trying to fix him or tell him what to do—you were simply offering to help, to be there for him in a way that no one else had been. It was a kindness he wasn’t used to, and he didn’t quite know how to respond.

For a moment, he considered brushing you off, telling you he didn’t need any help, that he could handle it on his own. But something in your eyes stopped him. There was a sincerity there, a genuine desire to take care of him, and it made him realize how rare it was for someone to care like that.

"Fine." he finally grumbled, though his voice had lost its earlier edge. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet your gaze, instead focusing on the ground as he added, "But it’s really not that bad."

You didn’t seem convinced, but you didn’t push him further. Instead, you smiled—a small, relieved smile that made his chest feel warm in a way he wasn’t used to. "Let’s just get it cleaned up, okay?" you said softly, leading him to a nearby bench.

As you carefully tended to his wound, Megumi found himself stealing glances at you, wondering why you cared so much. You were new to the school, new to his world, and yet here you were, going out of your way to make sure he was alright. It was strange, but also… comforting.

"Why do you care?" he asked quietly, surprising even himself with the question. It wasn’t something he’d meant to say out loud, but now that the words were out there, he couldn’t take them back.

You paused, looking up at him with those kind, worried eyes. "Because you deserve it." you replied simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Everyone deserves to be cared for, you know?"

Your words hung in the air between you, and for a moment, Megumi didn’t know what to say. He’d never thought of himself as someone who deserved kindness, especially not from someone like you. But hearing you say it so matter-of-factly made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, you were right.

You took Megumi to the nurse’s office, your concern evident in every step you took. He had tried to brush off the cut on his arm as no big deal, but you weren’t having any of it. As you entered the office, you headed straight for the supply cabinet, rummaging through it to find the emergency kit.

Megumi watched you with a mixture of apprehension and admiration. His face was tense, a mixture of discomfort and embarrassment clearly visible. He had never been one to draw attention to himself, especially not for something he considered minor. Yet here you were, focused and determined to make sure he was taken care of.

You pulled out the first aid kit and set it on the counter, your hands moving quickly and efficiently. “Alright, let’s get this cleaned up,” you said, your voice steady and reassuring.

Megumi shifted uncomfortably, clearly aware of the fuss you were making. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. It’s just a scratch,” he muttered, trying to downplay the situation.

You gave him a stern look as you began to clean the cut. “It’s not just a scratch if it’s bleeding. Besides, it’s my job to make sure you’re okay. You’ve been taking care of everyone else, so let me take care of you for once.”

He sighed, though he couldn’t help but feel a little comforted by your persistence. As you carefully applied the antiseptic and bandaged his arm, Megumi stole glances at you, noticing the focused expression on your face. Despite his initial resistance, he was grateful for your concern.

“You really don’t have to do this,” he said again, though his voice lacked conviction this time.

You glanced up at him with a small, reassuring smile. “I know, but I want to. You’ve always been there for me, and it’s only fair that I return the favor. Besides, you look like you’re in no condition to argue right now.”

Megumi managed a small, appreciative smile despite his discomfort. “Thanks. I guess I’m just not used to this… kind of attention.”

You finished wrapping the bandage and patted his shoulder gently. “Well, get used to it. Because I’m not going to let you get away with not taking care of yourself. And don’t think I won’t be checking on you if you ever get hurt again.”

He looked at you, the tension in his face easing as he met your gaze. “I’ll try not to get hurt then. Or at least try to let you know before it gets this bad.”

You laughed softly, your eyes crinkling with warmth. “Good. And remember, if you ever need anything—whether it’s help with a cut or just someone to talk to—I’m always here for you.”

Megumi’s heart swelled with a mix of gratitude and affection. Even though he had tried to downplay the situation, your unwavering concern made him feel valued in a way he hadn’t felt before. He knew that no matter what happened, he could always count on you to be by his side.

As you finished bandaging his cut, Megumi felt a strange sense of calm settle over him. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel so alone. Maybe it was because of the way you looked at him, or the way you didn’t push him to talk about things he wasn’t ready to share. Or maybe it was just because you were there, offering your help without expecting anything in return.

"Thanks....I guess." he muttered, his voice softer this time, almost shy. He still wasn’t used to letting people in, but for some reason, with you, it didn’t feel so bad.

You smiled again, that same warm smile that made something inside him flutter. "Anytime." you replied, and Megumi knew you meant it. “Let me take care of you again, okay? When this happens.”

“......You didn’t need to—”

You shake your head, smile even wider.  “But I want to, okay?”

He didn’t know how to reply. He rubs the back of his neck. “You’re a weird one.”

“EH!? But I’m not!”

As the two of you sat there, the world seemed to quiet down around him, leaving only the gentle presence of the person who had somehow managed to slip past his defenses and show him a kindness he hadn’t realized he was missing.

Megumi didn’t know what to say. He was used to people either avoiding him or giving him grief for his behavior, but you were different. You weren’t trying to lecture him or push him away. You were just… there, offering your kindness without expecting anything in return.

From that day on, you always treated him with the same patience and understanding, even when he continued to get into trouble. You never judged him, never scolded him. Instead, you listened, offering support when he needed it and giving him space when he didn’t. You seemed to see past the rough exterior, recognizing that there was more to him than just the delinquent reputation he had built.

At first, Megumi didn’t understand why you were so kind to him. He didn’t think he deserved it, and part of him expected you to give up on him eventually. But you never did. No matter how many times he got into trouble, you were always there, offering him a smile or a word of encouragement.

Slowly, he began to soften around you. He started to look forward to the moments when you would seek him out, your presence becoming a source of comfort in his otherwise turbulent life. You became his anchor, the person who made him believe that maybe he wasn’t as bad as he thought.

It wasn’t long before Megumi realized that his feelings for you had grown into something deeper. At first, he had tried to convince himself that what he felt was simply gratitude, an appreciation for the way you treated him with such genuine care and respect. But as time passed, he found himself thinking about you more and more, his thoughts lingering on the little moments you shared.

Like that time in the library, when you had insisted on helping him with his homework. Megumi had been struggling with a particularly difficult problem, his frustration mounting with each failed attempt to solve it. You had noticed his struggle and quietly slid your chair closer to his, gently guiding him through the problem with a patience that both surprised and comforted him.

“There, see? You’re getting it!” you had said, a bright smile lighting up your face as you watched him work through the problem.

Megumi had looked at you then, really looked at you, and something inside him had shifted. It was the way you had been so kind, so encouraging, without a hint of judgment or condescension. The way you had treated him like he mattered, like you genuinely wanted to see him succeed. It was a feeling that was foreign to him, yet it warmed him from the inside out.

Another moment had come when the two of you were walking home from school. It had started to rain unexpectedly, and Megumi had cursed himself for not bringing an umbrella. But before he could worry too much, you had pulled out your own and held it over both of you, smiling up at him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Come on, let’s share. Can’t have you getting soaked.” you had said, your voice cheerful despite the downpour.

As the two of you walked side by side, your shoulders brushing occasionally, Megumi had felt his heart do a strange little flip. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from glancing at you out of the corner of his eye, noticing the way the raindrops clung to your hair, how your smile remained unwavering despite the weather.

In that moment, something had clicked for him. It wasn’t just your kindness that drew him to you—it was the way you made him feel safe, understood, and… cared for.

The realization had hit him one afternoon when you both were at the park. You had been talking animatedly about something, your hands gesturing as you spoke, your eyes sparkling with excitement.

Fushiguro Megumi had been content to just listen, watching the way your expressions changed with every word. And then, without warning, you had turned to him, catching him completely off guard with a look of such warmth and affection that it nearly knocked the breath out of him.

“What?” you had asked, laughing lightly when you noticed the way he was staring.

Megumi had opened his mouth to respond, but no words had come out. Instead, he had felt a strange mix of emotions bubbling up inside him—nervousness, excitement, something that felt suspiciously like hope. It was then that he realized: this wasn’t just friendship or simple admiration. It was something deeper, something more.

He liked you. A lot.

The thought had sent a rush of warmth through his chest, leaving him both exhilarated and terrified. Megumi wasn’t used to these kinds of feelings, and he wasn’t sure what to do with them. But as he looked at you, standing there with that bright smile on your face, he knew one thing for certain—he wanted to be around you, to make you smile like that as often as he could.

“Nothing.” he had finally managed to say, a small, shy smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I was just… thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” you had asked, tilting your head curiously.

Megumi had hesitated for a moment, but then he had decided to be honest, even if he couldn’t say everything that was on his mind. “About how… I like spending time with you.”

Your smile had grown even brighter at his words, and you had reached out to lightly punch his arm in that playful way you always did. “Well, I like spending time with you too, Megumi.”

And just like that, Megumi had known that he was done for. He liked you—really liked you. And even though the thought scared him, it also filled him with a strange sense of happiness, one that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. From that moment on, Megumi couldn’t deny it anymore. He liked you, and he wanted to see where these feelings would take him.

Looking back, Megumi often finds himself reflecting on how profoundly different his life might have been if you hadn’t approached him that day. It was a pivotal moment, one that he now sees as the turning point in his journey.

Before you, he had felt like a perpetual outsider—misunderstood, labeled as a troublemaker, and largely ignored by those around him. He had been resigned to his role, to the way people saw him, without much hope for change or growth.

But then you came into his life, a beacon of kindness and patience in a world that had been mostly indifferent. You saw something in him that no one else had—a potential for change, a person worth caring for. Your approach had been gentle but resolute, offering him a friendship and understanding that he hadn’t known he needed.

You didn’t judge him for his mistakes or his quiet demeanor; instead, you reached out to him with a genuine concern for his well-being. It was this unassuming kindness that started to crack open the hardened shell he had built around himself.

Now, years later, Megumi often wonders if he would have ever found the strength to change if it hadn’t been for you. He thinks about the way you had treated him back then, how your unwavering support had slowly begun to reshape his view of himself.

It was as if you had quietly whispered to him that he was worth something, that he had the potential to be better, and that there was more to him than just the surface-level troubles. And in doing so, you had planted a seed of hope and self-worth that gradually grew into something stronger and more resilient.

As the two of you sit together now, the evening sun casting a warm, golden glow through the window, Megumi can’t help but be reminded of how far he’s come. The comfort and familiarity of your presence have become a cherished part of his life.

He often steals glances at you, unable to fully comprehend just how lucky he is to have someone like you by his side. The way you’re sitting there, so effortlessly at ease, makes his heart swell with a deep affection that words can hardly capture.

You’ve caught him staring more than once, and each time, you respond with that soft, knowing smile that makes his heart skip a beat. It’s a smile that reassures him, that reminds him of the love that started on that day in junior high, when you saw him not as a problem or a troublemaker, but as someone worthy of care and respect. That smile, simple yet profound, continues to be a source of comfort and joy for him, a daily reminder of how much you mean to him.

In those moments, as he looks at you and sees the warmth in your eyes and the gentle curve of your lips, Megumi is filled with a deep sense of gratitude. He thinks about how his life might have been different without your influence, and he realizes just how much you’ve changed him. The love he feels for you is rooted in that initial connection, and it has only grown deeper and stronger with time.

Megumi knows now that the love he has for you began with that first act of kindness you showed him, and it has only been enriched by the years you’ve spent together. As he sits there beside you, basking in the glow of the setting sun and the warmth of your presence, he can’t help but feel that he has found something truly extraordinary—something that started with a simple gesture of care and has blossomed into a love that he never thought possible.

You lean in slightly, noticing how quiet he’s been. "Megumi. Oiiiiiii, Megu–Megu~ Gumiiiiii!”

He sighed, looking at you. You have energy again, after resting. “What is it?”

“You truly okay?" you ask, your voice gentle and inviting.

He hesitates, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink. "It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.��� he mumbles, looking down at his hands, fidgeting slightly. "Just thinking about the past. Nostalgia."

You tilt your head, your eyes sparkling with curiosity and affection. You smiled. "You’re always so cute, Megumi.” You sighed, as you reached out gently to touch his hand. ”You’ve been staring at me all evening. If you have something to say, you can tell me, okay?”

Megumi swallows, gathering his courage. "It’s just… your eyes…" he finally says, his voice barely above a whisper. "They’re… really beautiful. And just…..you. I think how lucky I am to be with you.”

You blink in surprise, not expecting such a heartfelt compliment from him. "Oh, my beloved Megumi." you murmur, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. "Thank you."

Megumi slowly looks up at you then, his own eyes filled with a tender sincerity that makes your heart flutter. He took a breath before letting his eyes wander at the sight of you, his beloved marvel. His wonder in life. He gives you a faint smile. 

"When you look at me like that… it feels like I’m seeing stars." he continues, his voice growing softer, more vulnerable. "Like… every time I see your eyes, it’s the most beautiful part of my day. And… I don’t know how to say this right, but… it’s like there’s love shining behind them, so much that it feels like heaven."

Your heart swells with emotion, and you squeeze his hand gently. You lifted his hand to your lips and looked at him tenderly as you pressed your lips against the top of his hand. He doesn’t know when his heart will calm down. But when it’s you, he doubts if it will ever happen. 

"Megumi, that’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me." you reply, your voice filled with warmth. "And just so you know, when I look at you, I feel the same way. You make every day feel like the brightest one I’ve ever had. Because when I look at you, I ask, ‘how did I deserve this boy?’ Because, you’re too good to me.”

He smiles shyly, his blush deepening as he takes in your words. "I’m glad….that you feel like I do too." he murmurs, his fingers intertwined with yours.

"I always will." You reassured him, grinning at him lovingly.

"I… I’m not good with words, but I want you to know how much you mean to me. Every time you look at me, it’s like… it’s like I’m the luckiest person in the world."

You lean in closer, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. "You don’t have to say much, Megumi. I can see it in your eyes too." you whisper, your breath warm against his skin. “That’s more than enough for me, know that. Okay?”

Megumi’s heart swells, and for a moment, he forgets about his usual shyness. "I love you." he says softly, the words slipping out before he can stop them. “More than you’ll ever know.”

Your smile widens, your eyes shining even brighter. "I love you too, Megumi." you reply, your voice filled with the same sincerity and warmth that he sees in your gaze every day.

And in that moment, with your hands intertwined and your eyes locked, Fushiguro Megumi knows that there’s nothing more beautiful than the love you both share. And he truly believes that. He thinks that you’re the love of his life. And he has no intention of letting you go.

Megumi's heart races as the words hang in the air between you. He's never been the best at expressing his feelings, but something about being with you makes it easier—like the words come naturally when you're around. You pull back slightly, just enough to look into his eyes again, your own filled with the same warmth and love that makes his heart flutter. 

"You know, Megumi." you start, your voice soft and affectionate, "I always feel like I’m the luckiest person too. Because even when you're quiet or shy, I can feel everything you don’t say in the way you look at me. It’s like you’re telling me a million things with just a glance."

He bites his lip, trying to find the right words to respond. "It’s hard for me to… say things out loud sometimes. And it’s hard to be honest at times." he admits, his gaze lowering for a moment before meeting yours again. "But when I’m with you, it feels different. Because when I’m with you, I’m just….me.”

You smile at him, a soft, understanding smile that makes him feel even more at ease. "You don’t have to say everything, Megumi." you reassure him. "I can see it in your actions, in the way you care for me, and in those beautiful eyes of yours. You’re always telling me how you feel, even when you think you’re not. I love that about you, don’t worry.”

Megumi blushes, the compliment making him feel a mix of embarrassment and joy. "You… you think my eyes are beautiful?" he asks, his voice small, almost disbelieving.

"Of course I do." you reply, leaning in to rest your forehead against his. "They’re one of my favorite things about you. They’re so expressive, even when you’re being quiet. I can always tell what you’re feeling just by looking into them. Your eyelashes too. They’re always pretty!”

His breath hitches at the closeness, your words making his heart swell with emotion. "I… I’m glad you think that." he murmurs, his eyes locked onto yours. "Because… When I look at you, I see everything I could ever want.”

Your heart skips a beat at his confession, and you close the small distance between you, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. It’s soft, sweet, and full of the love that you both share, a love that needs no words to be understood.

When you pull back, you see that Megumi’s face is a deep shade of red, but there’s a small, content smile on his lips that makes your heart soar. "You really know how to say the perfect thing, don’t you?" you tease lightly, brushing a stray strand of hair away from his face.

He chuckles softly, his shyness momentarily forgotten as he looks at you with nothing but affection. "Only because it’s you." he replies, his voice steady and full of sincerity. "You make it easy."

You both sit there for a moment, just enjoying the comfort of each other’s presence. Megumi’s hand is still entwined with yours, and he gives it a gentle squeeze, as if to remind himself that this is real—that you’re real, and that you’re his.

"I never thought I’d be this happy, you know?" he admits quietly, almost as if he’s afraid that saying it out loud might break the spell. "But with you… it’s like every day is a dream."

You smile, your heart swelling with love for the boy who, despite his quiet demeanor, has given you more happiness than you ever imagined. "Then let’s keep dreaming together, Megumi." you whisper, leaning in for another kiss. "Because I never want this to end."

The warmth of the setting sun bathed the room in a golden hue, casting a gentle glow that seemed to amplify the intimacy of the moment. Megumi and you were nestled comfortably together, sharing a quiet sense of peace that had settled between you. This was paradise, Megumi thinks. This was heaven on earth. You and you alone, in his arms — he could not ask for anything more.

Megumi glanced at you again, his eyes reflecting the soft light. “What good did I do to be with you?”

You tilted your head, smiling at him with a mixture of curiosity and affection. “Why do you say that? What makes you feel that way? You did everything good. You do deserve me."

He hesitated, his gaze falling to the floor as he tried to find the right words. “It’s just… you’ve always been there for me, even when I didn’t really know what I needed. I was so closed off and messed up back then. But you saw something in me, something I didn’t even see in myself.”

You reached out, gently placing your hand on his cheek to lift his gaze to meet yours. “I saw a person who needed kindness and understanding, and I’m really glad I could be there for you. But you did the hard part, Megumi. You changed and grew, and that’s all you.”

He shook his head slightly, his eyes never leaving yours. “I couldn’t have done it without you. And now, every day with you feels like a gift. I keep thinking about how different things could have been if you hadn’t come into my life. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

You chuckled softly, your fingers brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Well, I’m glad I did. And I’m glad you’re here with me now. It’s like we were meant to find each other, don’t you think?”

Megumi nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “Yeah, it does feel like that. I keep thinking about how we met and how everything just seemed to fall into place after that. It’s like you were the missing piece I didn’t know I needed.”

Your eyes sparkled with affection as you leaned closer. “And you were the person who showed me what it means to be patient and understanding. We’ve both learned so much from each other.”

He smiled, a rare, genuine smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “You’ve made me a better person. I feel like I’ve become more open, more willing to trust and care. It’s all because of you.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and you wrapped your arms around him in a gentle hug. “I’m just glad I could be a part of your journey. And I’m excited for everything that’s still to come for us.”

Megumi returned the hug, holding you close as if he never wanted to let go. “Me too. I want to make sure I’m always there for you, supporting you just like you’ve supported me. I don’t want you to ever doubt how much you mean to me.”

You pulled back slightly to look into his eyes, a soft smile playing on your lips. “You don’t have to worry about that. I know exactly how much I mean to you. And I’ll always be here for you, just like you’ve always been there for me.”

As the two of you sat together, the warmth of the setting sun casting a gentle glow over the room, Megumi felt an overwhelming sense of contentment. He knew that with you by his side, every day would be brighter, every challenge more bearable.

And as he looked into your eyes, he realized that the love he felt was a constant, reassuring presence—one that made everything feel right in the world.

[verstappen-cult]

HOW YOU GET THE GIRL | CL16

— 01. THE BEGINNING

NEXT PART — [ SERIES MASTERLIST ]

summary: in which charles has an embarrassing crush on alex's childhood best friend and everyone meddles. content warnings: faceclaim is taylor hill but you can picture her as you’d like! some cursing. note: hiii i love being a little delulu, so i had to do this. it is also my first time doing a smau for the f1 fandom, so be kind with me! if you see some mistakes please know that english is not my first language and i noticed them once everything was finished, lol. ♡

INSTAGRAM POST

📍MIAMI, FL

Liked by lilycollins, alex_albon and 365,751 others

yourusername unexpected trip. 🧃

view all 4,655 comments

user1 Alex x Y/N content incoming????

user2 they haven't been seen together in a while user3 i don't think they're friends anymore user4 he left a comment lol

alex_albon brownie's the real star in this pic

yourusername forget about pic credits.

user5 she was in greece a couple of days ago, oh to be rich

user6 and pretty user7 and have famous friends user8 and BE famous

williamsracing Thanks for accepting our invitation, we can't wait to have you with us this weekend!

alex_albon YOUR invitation???

user9 we're sleeping in the fact that she's gonna be in the paddock this weekend for the first time

user10 she's living the dream

TWITTER

Y/N’s IMESSAGE

INSTAGRAM POST

Liked by haileybieber, tomholland2013, landonorris and 972,431 others

yourusername i only came here to drink and watch guys in very fast cars.

📸: @alex_albon who i had to physically drag out of his hotel room after free practice was over.

view all 3,865 comments

user11 caption is so real

user12 she's just like us fr

tchalamet call me next time you're in nyc

user13 ARIANA WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE user14 timmy is doing what all of us want to do

haileybieber pretty girl

user15 idk abt u guys but i see lando in the likes 👀

user16 don't read too much into it user17 they’re probable friends user18 i wanna be her

alex_albon i'm so good at taking pics i should dedicate my life to photography

yourusername please stick to driving

user19 i want their friendship :(

ALEX’S IMESSAGE

INSTAGRAM STORIES

Seen by zendaya, charles_leclerc and 287,386 others

there is no cause in calling or messaging alex, you know he will not answer. not when qualy is just an hour away and he needs to be prepared.

you don’t know where you are. you see the main entrance a couple of meters away, but you can’t remember where to go from there. but you also can’t stand all day in a place you don’t know, surrounded by fans and people too eager to notice how lost you look. the best you can do is walk around and find your way back; if you have any luck you’ll find alex’s garage before he has to go out. to wish him luck and punch him in the face.

you send him one last message, promising to make his life a living hell, and put your phone away.

you’re trying to follow the path you remember in your head, when someone comes barreling into you.

“hey!” the person says a little out of breath. “i was just looking for you.”

you take off your sunglasses to get a better look and it dawns on you that you definitely know this person. or at least you’ve seen him countless of times in your tv, sometimes in alex’s instagram stories too.

“charles!” you really don’t know him, this is definitely the first time you are speaking to him, but you’ve never been so happy to see someone you barely know before. “oh my god, you won’t believe what alex did to me.”

“i know,” he says immediately and you furrow your eyebrows. he shows you his phone, as if that will tell you what you need to know, but when you don’t speak, he smiles hesitantly. you don’t know if the blush on his cheeks is because he was running to get to you or if it’s for a whole different reason. “i saw your story and thought maybe i could help you?”

you process his words for a few seconds, until you realize who really is in front of you. “oh my god, charles!” you exclaim a little louder, drawing attention, and you witness how people begin to notice charles’ presence because of that. he looks at you with confusion on his face, race suit hanging low around his waist. “you’re not supposed to be here, you should be in your car.”

charles’ blush deepens. “yeah,” he says, scratching his neck and avoiding your gaze. “but i couldn’t leave a pretty girl here all alone.”

now it’s your turn to blush, cheeks heating up so much that you’re sure everyone around you can see it.

“let’s go, please. i don’t want to be the reason why you’re gonna be scolded for.”

you walk beside him, trying to give him space as he takes selfies with a few fans that have the courage to approach him. however, charles apologizes with a smile when he sees you a couple of meters away and, as you walk side by side, you can’t help but notice heads turning in your direction and whispers of your name and his.

you fall into an easy conversation that ends up sooner than you’d have liked. but you don’t part ways until his number is on your phone and the promise to text him on your lips.

TWITTER

Y/N’s IMESSAGE

INSTAGRAM POST

Liked by charles_leclerc, romeestrijd and 676,823 others

yourusername what an incredible weekend! i got to attend my first GP thanks to @/williamsracing (and alex too, he gets mad if i don’t say he had to do with it) and meet new and amazing people. let’s hope this is not the last. 🏎️🤞🏼

view all 7,665 comments

user20 SHE LOOKED SO BEAUTIFUL

user21 mother is mothering

williamsracing Oh no, thank YOU for accepting our invitation and enjoying with us, even if you got lost for a minute. 💙

yourusername it was all alex’s fault alex_albon NO DON'T LISTEN TO HER, THEY ARE FRAMING ME !!!!

user22 everybody calm down… CHARLES IS IN HER LIKES

user23 so it’s true what everyone’s been saying? they were together on saturday??? user24 idk but there are pics of them walking together user25 not my boyfriend trying to steal my girlfriend

romeestrijd you need to take me w you next time. ❤️‍🔥

yourusername we'll have so much fun! user26 does this mean you're going to the next race?

user27 why do people always assume a driver's dating someone when they like a pic??? u’re acting crazy

user28 like friendships between a man and a woman exists, HELLO !?!?

charles_leclerc thanks for stopping by.

user29 CHARLES WHAT user30 Stopping by where? user31 what do you mean?? i mean what do you- what do you mean??

user32 not Y/N replying to all her friends comments and not charles' 🤣🤣

user33 she's too much for him user34 HE'S too much for her x

note: ups, hello to you again… if you make it here, thank u sm! let me give you a lil kiss on the forehead. btw i’m planning on making this a series, so if you liked it please let me know. and if you want to request something, feel free! comments & reblogs are greatly appreciated. 🫶🏼

[megxplryxb]

Dance with me Forever

Pairings - Steve Harrington x Fem!HopperReader

Warnings: None. Absolute fluff, Idiots in love, Mutual Pining, Friends to lovers, Jopper Wedding

The hot summer sun had finally set on a beautiful Saturday evening in the middle of July. The sound of champagne glasses clinking echoed throughout the romantic lake house ballroom, lit up in pinks and purples as guests celebrated the marriage of Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers. The couple had finally decided to tie the knot and unite their families once Vecna had been defeated, ending the nightmare of the Upside Down once and for all. It had been a long four years, continuously battling monsters from another dimension, always wondering when evil would rear it’s ugly head again but this time felt different, like there was finally peace in the mystical little town of Hawkins, Indiana.

The last few years had changed no one more than Steve Harrington. Long gone was the arrogant, rich boy you’d known in High School, having been cut off by his parents and left heartbroken by Nancy Wheeler, he had become somewhat of an outcast. Never in a million years did he imagine his life turning out quite like it had. Steve always thought he’d end up like his Father, marrying some girl for convenience instead of love, being nothing more than a suit for some company and have a mistress in every city he traveled to. Steve was more than grateful he hadn’t gone down the same path and he knew he had you, Robin and the kids to thank for that.

He was sat at a table with Robin, Vickie, Eddie, Chrissy and Nancy, all of whom were engrossed in conversation about how sweet Hopper’s speech had been and how emotional it was when the Chief of Police shed a few tears while gushing about his new Wife, your new Stepmom. Steve couldn’t exactly say he had heard much of Jim’s speech himself, too busy gazing at you sitting at the top table with your family, holding back your own tears, laughing with your siblings, El, Will and Jonathan. He hadn’t seen you all day as you were too busy doing bridesmaid duties, making sure everything was perfect for the ceremony but when you walked down the aisle, holding your bouquet of flowers, smelling like lavender, he swore his heart stopped when you looked his way and smiled at him. You were breathtaking, literally and figuratively, the girl of his dreams. Eddie had teased his friend for how red his cheeks had gotten, knowing that the former King of Hawkins was head over heels for you and that you felt the same about Steve. Chrissy had intervened, telling her boyfriend to lay off with the teasing but she too secretly wondered why Steve didn’t just tell you how he felt. It was obvious to everyone that you loved each other.

It’s not that Steve didn’t want to tell you, he’d almost told you twice before on the brink of death. The first time being when you were stuck in the Russian base under the Starcourt mall, the second time being when you were all preparing to battle Vecna for the final time. But he’d made a promise to your Dad two years prior, after that night in the Junkyard when you first became friends that friendship was all it was ever going to be between you. Steve didn’t blame Hopper for wanting better for his daughter, didn’t blame Jim for thinking he was exactly like his Dad back then. But he wished the Chief of Hawkins could see him for who he was now and not the asshole he was four years ago.

After dinner was done and all the pictures had been taken, you took yourself out to the garden with a glass of champagne in hand, glancing at Steve before you made your escape outside. He looked so handsome in his tux, the tux you’d helped him pick out several weeks ago when he asked you to go shopping with him. You hadn’t spoken to him all day, having been avoiding him like the plague for the better part of a week when he mentioned that he was planning to bring a date to the wedding. You had tried your best to not let it bother you, the thought of Steve with some pretty girl on his arm while you were all alone and you’d be lying if you said you weren't just a tiny bit relieved when he'd shown up all by himself.

You knew your Father had spoken to Steve about you, warned him against asking you out on several occasions and even though you were angry that Steve obeyed him, it kind of made you love him even more, because the Steve you'd known in High School wouldn't have been so respectful. Sometimes though, late at night when you couldn’t sleep, you wished he’d climb through your bedroom window so you both could give in to your feelings just one time.

As Joyce danced with her new Husband, she couldn't help but frown at Steve who was standing talking to Murray at the bar. He'd left his table to get another drink after the meal, not wanting to be surrounded by all the happy couples while he not so secretly pinned for you. Joyce had always liked Steve, saw the goodness in him that her Husband couldn't and she knew how the both of you felt about each other.

"Hop, are you ever going to give that poor kid a break?" She asks as Hopper let out a heavy sigh, knowing exactly who she was referring to.

"Joyce, please not tonight, it's our wedding for Christ sake." He begs as his new wife nodded in agreement. It wasn't the first time they'd discussed this matter.

"Exactly! It's a day full of love and happiness and your daughter is out there miserable and alone because she's terrified to talk to the boy she's crazy about in case she upsets you!" She huffs, frustrated at the Chief's stubbornness.

"Oh come on, I'm not that bad!" He defends as Joyce rolls her eyes. "What about the crap you pulled on Mike when he and El got together? The kid thought you were going to murder him Jim.”

"But I didn't! See, he's alive and well, having a great time!" Jim points to his younger daughter and her boyfriend dancing with their friends.

"And what about Steve, huh? When are you going to admit that you were wrong about him?" The bride asks, raising her brows.

"Joyce...."

"Jim Hopper, that boy has helped save our children's lives more times than I care to count. He would do anything for OUR daughter, he’s shown it time and time again. You know he’s nothing like his Father. They love each other, Jim. So quit being a god damn pain in everyone's ass and go talk to him, please?" Joyce begs, giving her new Husband a small, hopeful smile as he closes his eyes and sighs defeatedly.

"Fine, alright. I'm going."

Steve is nursing a glass of champagne, trying to look somewhat interested in Murray's ramblings when he see's Hopper approaching him at the bar. Jim lets out a small cough, before giving Murray a nod to give them a minute alone and Steve nervously waits for Jim to speak.

"Oh shit, what'd you do?" Murray mutters to Steve before downing his glass of whiskey, giving him a hopeful pat on the back before going to talk to the new Mrs. Hopper.

Jim leans back against the bar, fixing his suit jacket as he tries to think about what to say the boy beside him. He knows he should apologise for being an asshole to him but it's his wedding day and he wasn't apologising to anyone. Not today at least.

"Harrington, why is my daughter out there by herself?" He asks, pointing to you, still strolling through the garden alone.

"I uh, I don't know Sir, I haven't talked to her all day." Steve replies, wondering if this was some kind of trick.

"Well, maybe you should be a gentleman and go keep her company, huh?" The Chief suggests and Steve is really suspicious now.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell if you're being serious or not?" Steve questions honestly, not trying to offend your Dad in any way.

"When am I ever not serious about anything that has to do with my daughters?" He asks, looking straight at Steve. "Never, sir." He answers back.

There's silence for a moment as the two most important men in your life pause to look at you. You stare back at them, astounded that they seem to be having a conversation without your father looking like he was going to kill Steve.

"Do you love my daughter, Steve?" Jim asks, both of them still watching you in the distance. Hopper already knows the answer, he’s known it for quite sometime. He saw how Steve protected you during the battle in Starcourt, heard about how he looked after you and El when everyone thought he was dead. He’d have to thank him for that one day but not now. This was hard enough.

Steve didn’t have to think twice before answering the question, even if it meant getting choked out or knocked on conscious by Jim Hopper.

"More than anything in this world." Steve admits, smiling brightly as his heart swells with adoration for you. Hopper nods then, placing an approving hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Then go make her happy." He says, giving the boy the smallest of smiles as Steve begins to cross the ballroom floor.

"Hey, Harrington!" Jim yells, as Steve looks back at him, hoping it wasn't really a trick all this time. "You're a good kid." He admits, as the boy nods an appreciative thank you, finally making his way to the garden to find you.

Joyce smiles at Steve as she walks towards her Husband, wrapping her arms around him tightly, before kissing him. "You're a good man, Jim Hopper."

He sighs heavily before he begins to laugh. "Happy wife, happy life."

Steve can hear his heart beating out of his chest as he slowly approaches you, watching you in awe as the moonlit sky makes your skin glow. You haven't noticed him yet, too busy gazing at the stars above, wishing for your own fairytale ending. Your hair which had been in an up-style all day was now hanging below your shoulders and Steve thought you had never looked more beautiful than right now.

"You could catch a cold out here you know?" Steve whispers from behind you, already removing his suit jacket to cover your shoulders before you even turn to face him.

"Hey stranger, I feel like I haven't talked to you all day." You smile, turning to greet him, embracing him in a warm hug as you both stay that way for what seems like several minutes.

"Yeah, I know. I missed you, Hopper." He admits, as you blush. "I missed you too, Harrington."

The song inside changes to Take My Breath Away by Berlin and Steve knows it's one of your favourites, he bought you the album for your birthday and it's still the most played tape in your car. You both watch as everyone begins to fill the dance floor back inside the lake house and Steve swallows hard before extending his hand to you.

"Will you dance with me, out here?" He asks as you nod your head, happily reaching for his hand as he pulls you in closer to him. You nervously wrap an arm around Steve's neck, inhaling his cologne and shampoo all at once. He always smelled so good. He places his other hand gently on the small of your back, intertwining your fingers together as you begin to dance slowly to the music playing inside. There was silence for a few moments before Steve cleared his throat to speak again.

"You know, I really could’ve used you at our table earlier. Nancy ditched us to sit with Jonathan the minute the speeches were over, so I got stuck with all the loved up couples, it was totally awful.” He jokes, referring to Eddie, Chrissy, Robin and Vickie.

"I thought you were going to bring a date?" You question, trying to hide the jealousy in your voice when you ask.

"Oh yeah, I was thinking about asking someone but I didn't in the end." He frowns and you bite your lip, wanting to know more.

"Why not?"

"Cause her Dad would've kicked my ass." He replies, as you let out a small giggle. Stomach filling with butterflies as he gazes at you.

“That’s too bad, I have a feeling she would’ve said yes anyway.” You whisper in his ear, leaning your head on his shoulder as he mumbles “Oh really? Well in that case, the ass kicking would’ve been worth it.”

"I saw him talking to you, thought you were a goner for sure." You tease as Steve shakes his head.

"I knew I'd be ok, too many witnesses around." He jokes, as you both laugh.

"I'd have come to your rescue eventually, if i thought it looked like you were in trouble, you know?" You admit and he nods his head gratefully.

"I know, honey." Honey. Was he trying to kill you?

"Seriously though, he didn't upset you, did he?" You ask as you continue to dance to the music.

"No actually, the total opposite." Steve smirks as you scrunch your nose.

"What do you mean?"

"He asked me why you were out here alone, told me to come and keep you company." He reveals as your eyes widened in surprise.

“Really?”

"I know, I was shocked too but I think Joyce said something to him because she was giving him the death stare the whole time he was talking to me." Steve chuckles and you remind yourself to thank your Stepmom later.

"He asked me something else too." Steve states, swinging you around.

"Oh god, what was it?" You ask, still spinning.

"He wanted to know if I was in love with his daughter." He says, as you fall back in to him in shock, placing your hands on his chest as he wraps his arms around your waist. You feel sick with excitement, like a kid at Christmas about to unwrap her presents under the tree.

“And…what did you tell him?”

"That he had nothing to worry about, El is way too young for me." He jokes as you smack him playfully on the chest.

"Steve! I'm being serious, what did you really say to him?"

“I told him that I do, more than I’ve ever loved anybody.” Steve admits as your eyes begin to water.

“I love you too, Steve.” You reveal, trying to hold back your tears as Steve cups your face gently, placing his forehead lightly against yours.

“You looked so beautiful today honey. When I saw you walk down that aisle, I thought, Christ, I could just marry her right now.” He smirks as you bump your nose with his.

“Careful Harrington, a few more compliments like that and I might just have to kiss you.” You whisper, wrapping your arms around his neck as he hovers his lips over yours.

“Yeah, I’m sort of counting on it.” Steve says, finally crashing his lips with yours, not giving a damn who sees. You were finally all his.

[simp-ly-writes]

Recap, Rewind, Fast-Forward

─────── · · The Comment Section (pt.3.5)

Pairing: Spencer Agnew x gn!Reader

─ · · SUMMARY: A recap of everything; the people and moments in your life recently. A rewind to reminice on how many years you and spencer have known one another. And a fast-forward on what is to come in your life in becoming a movie-star.

─ · · TAGS: gender-neutral pronouns, jealous!Spencer, angst, social media au, attempt at comedy, slowburn, light swearing, fluff, mutual pinning, irl celebrities, friends that act like lovers, friends/lovers.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | PART TWO | PATH THREE | PART FOUR

─ · · A/N: thank you so much for this ask, anon! post number 200 for me yippee!

─────── · ·

RECAP: 🔔 (name)s_username just posted for the first time in awhile.

Liked by co_mill, spennser, sydney_sweeney, and others

(name)s_username how things have been going...

View all 7,342 comments

spennser i demand a rematch.

↳ (name)s_username accept the truth and let me be better at something than you ↳ spennser you are better than me in many ways ↳ (name)s_username okay then, name some. ↳ spennser you are smarter, funnier, prettier, kinder, and are way better at uno and table tennis than me ↳ (name)s_username shut up now please 😃 ↳ noahgrossman214 so this was what had you blushing earlier... ↳ (name)s_username you too, shut up now please 😃 ↳ username44 they are perfect together, your honour. ↳ username21 (yourshipname) forever!

username01 I am so in love with you (and spencer).

username54 so excited to watch the film!

sydney_sweeney thank you for making me look cute! 🥰

↳ (name)s_username you always look cute, my lover ❤️ ↳ sydney_sweeney 😘

username33 get a life. work a real job like the rest of us.

co_mill marry me.

↳ (name)s_username yes. ↳ shaynetopp what the hell man! ↳ spennser yeah, what the hell man! comment deleted by user ↳ glen_powell they are canonically my spouse first! ↳ (name)s_username i'll always love you, first husband ❤️ (throuple?) ↳ glen_powell throuple ❤️ ↳ co_mil throuple ❤️ ↳ username54 spencer really has me out here crying over instagram comments 😭

username27 I aspire to be as cool as you 😔

username11 watched the apology video, I forgive you!

username88 please be in more videos with Damien, I love your dynamics!

username19 did anyone manage to see spencers deleted comment?

─────── · ·

REWIND: 🔔 This post is getting a lot of likes, check it out!

Liked by spennser, ianhecox, shaynetopp and others

(name)s_username crazy it is to think I met you 12 years ago, here's to another 12 and then some my best friend ❤️

View all 1,577 comments

spennser wouldn't have made it this far without you 🫶

↳ (name)s_username same goes to you 🫶 ↳ spennser 😊 ↳ (name)s_username 😊 ↳ username01 i am going feral over here, gnawing at the gates.

username23 new (yourshipname) lore just dropped! they met in college?!?!?

username45 thank you (name) for supplying us with new spencer images!

username32 going to find a bridge, wish me luck 🤞

username50 sobbing, crying, throwing up. /positive

ianhecox one of my favorite duos

↳ (name)s_username could never beat you and anthony though 😄 ↳ anthonypadilla i think we are in different competition brackets... ↳ (yourshipname)updates 👀 the tea! the shade!

username90 there is NO WAY you two have been pining after each other that long. how're you both still alive and functioning??

username22 if this is the only type of anniversary we are ever going to receive from you two, i will accept it with a heavy heart.

co_mill love you two!

username74 OMG they are getting married and nobody thought to tell me!!

↳ username01 we wish 😭 they are just celebrating their friendship here, nothing romantic (yet)...

username07 he is so fucking cute, (name) is you don't want him, let me at him!!!

─────── · ·

REWIND: 🔔 You got tagged in spennser's post. click to view.

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spennser 12 years went by way too quickly with you.

View all 2,403 comments

mobile_suit_alex you and me don't have a friendship anniversary 😔

↳ username99 tell me about awkward... 😬 ↳ username14 rip. ↳ spennser we can make something work 👍

(name)s_username I can't believe it either 😆

(name)s_username play lego star wars later? 🫶

↳ spennser hell yeah. 🫶

username39 please kiss already, everyone knows you want to.

username17 we might see GTA 6 before spencer and (name) get together, i don't like this timeline.

angelagiovanagiarratana you guys are so darn cute, i want to eat it 😤

filmingamanda lowkey jealous.

↳ username12 join the party! ↳ username43 we have been here

username84 NO! You both don't get to hold each other and call it "just-friends!" I am officially calling you and (name) out!

username15 someone hold me like that, please. it would fix me.

username19 anyone else raising eyebrows to that last pic?

username61 spencer be holding on for dear life fr.

smoshgames we are so happy for our parents!

↳ spennser i thought i told you guys not to use the account for things like this ↳ smoshgames sorry not sorry, boss! 🏃‍♂️💨 ↳ anthonypadilla i thought i was dad? ↳ username22 i can't with these comments 🤣

username68 can't wait to watch your boyfriend/girlfriend go kiss a bunch of hot people on the big screen! 😄

username39 SCREAMING FROM THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.

username01 i like to think that last picture is spencer being jealous over some comments and wanting to prove a point mwahahahha!!

↳ (youshipname)updates yes, please! feed the delusions!! ↳ username71 i love fan-canons, i love this community ❤️

username57 make more content. i am bored.

─────── · ·

FAST-FORWARD: 🔔 (name)s_username just posted, check it out!

Liked by sydney_sweeney, glen_powell, and others

(name)s_username sneak peak: kisses! we are almost done filming now, so excited for you all to see it 🥹

View all 10,120 comments

sydney_sweeney you know, i'm not too happy with that last shot. want to try that scene again? 😉

↳ (name)s_username 😳 o-oh? ↳ glen_powell i'm left out again, i swear you two- ↳ (name)s_username you love us both, who are you kidding 😘 ↳ glen_powell well, I can't deny that 🫶 ↳ username22 HEY!! 😡 that hand-heart is spencer and (name)'s thing!

username67 is this a car accident? because i can't look away!

username88 so, nobody on smosh is saying anything?? okay then...

chickenshopdate i am formally asking you out.

↳ (name)s_username yes ma'am! 🫡

Sonypictures see the full scenes of sydney_sweeney, glen_powell, and (name)s_username this winter!

↳ username99 what happened to the holiday release? ↳ Sonypicture hi username99! filming has processed a lot faster than planned and we want this movie to have its own time to shine with little competition. ↳ username50 hey- the sooner i can watch this- the better!

romcom_interviews i think i need a cold shower after these pictures, oh shoot! wrong account!

username70 i can't stand all these promotional accounts trying to act funny, like get out of my feed.

username36 I LOVE U (NAME), PLEASE CAN WE HAVE CHILDREN?

↳ username07 well, at least they were polite about it...

username31 I am having emotional whiplash. 😣

username01 (name) really be out here living like (y/n).

─────── · ·

─ · · A/N: something a bit different, what did you all think? thank you all for the support on every part so far- means a lot to me and makes me want to write more! what are you looking for to in the next part?

─ · · TAGLIST: @lisiliely

[mixtapedoh]

and it was all yellow | y.j.

welcome back to SVTU ! lost your way? refer to our campus map for directions.

pairing: yoon jeonghan x gn!reader with guest appearances from c. seungcheol, h. joshua, w. junhui, and more !

word count: ~5.9k genre: neighbors to friends to lovers warnings: language, intermittent Lore Dumping™ (i have to kick us off into svtu somehow), jeonghan is a little shit, light suggestive themes (heavily lampshaded and perhaps only occuring twice?)

☄. *. ⋆

olive's notes: these individual headcanon sets are going to be very ~stream of consciousness~, so bear with me, here. second, cheol and jeonghan are brothers (and there's a secret third brother i'll introduce eventually, don't you worry), also, thank you for stopping by <3. now here's the content you signed up for.

☄. *. ⋆

now playing... ılı.lıllılı.ıllı. ... ⌜ angel baby — troye sivan ⌟

AND IT WAS ALL YELLOW ☄. *. ⋆

— it all started when jeonghan realized that jun was loaded.

now, don't get him wrong. it wasn't as though he had befriended jun because jeonghan had been looking for someone rich and easily persuaded. it's not like jeonghan used his ineffable charm to win over the quasi-cryptid that was wen junhui because of jun's apparent legacy funds.

not that jeonghan couldn't have done — he clearly had the persuasion and cunning to do it — he just didn't. jeonghan wasn't in need of someone else's money. please. he was very capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much, he was just also, however, very good at knowing things.

especially those things that could be used to his advantage.

— and well... wen junhui was loaded. wealthy as shit. a classic trust fund baby. a walking dollar sign that just so happened to share classes with jeonghan every year since he started SVTU as a political science major (of arts, of course. he hadn't taken latin in high school to not absolutely crush the romance languages in uni).

— you see, SVTU had this fun little program for long-suffering students interested in the government and manipulating it to their will wherein if you took merger courses — lectures that ate up a hell of a lot of your time and money but gave substantial credit hours that counted for both applied and allied course credit — you could get a jump start on your degree, be offered more opportunities for internship, and explore a subject's "many facets" through "multiple lenses."

to jeonghan, it meant working faster and harder so that he might graduate early and get into the actual politics of pol sci quicker — at a more “genius” and “revolutionary” age.

(half of politics, after all, was being appealing enough to make headlines. there wasn’t time to waste, in the long run.)

to wen junhui it had to mean something different — after all, jun was a pre-law student with a completely different career path from the other party involved (though jeonghan had considered law at one point in time — something he’s not above admitting though certainly not pining after). merger courses for him likely meant an expedited process to law school. but that was truly beside the point. an aside.

— what mattered in the end, was that jeonghan and jun had more than enough shared merger courses to go around, and in the process of things, had gone from strangers to acquaintances, then study partners (blame it on the fact that jun — the altruistic leaning bastard he was — actually tutored in his free time. willingly. as in, not a joke.) to committed group project members, and eventually to that nebulous thing called friendship.

ask them both when that final stage commenced and you’d get varying responses — jeonghan always far more generous than jun in such regards, but almost annoyingly so, like he wanted to be the one leaning more on the ridiculous.

— yes, it was quite a ways into their friendship when jeonghan learned that wen junhui, his sweet jun, was loaded. like, living alone off of campus in his own two bedroom apartment on the wealthy side of the city that prospered from the University Living Aesthetic™, loaded. as in, so loaded he could have easily found more than enough willing bodies to become roommates with him and help pay for the exorbitant expenses but simply decided against it because he hadn’t, and i quote “thought about it before.”

“never thought about it? jun. how much does this place cost?”

and jun had to think for a minute. genuinely think about how much he paid in monthly rent. “i suppose for a month’s rent i pay around… [REDACTED].”

and jeonghan was no stranger to dramatics, to be sure, but anyone else would have gaped the same as him. “[REDACTED]??”

"[REDACTED]."

"...shit."

— yes, jeonghan finding out that jun was loaded, living in a (rather well kept) apartment with an empty room, no roommates, and an assortment of (dying) houseplants that needed care, was truly the beginning of it all.

— after all, while the chaos settled in a year after the fact when he and joshua would finally move in with jun because of circumstances that aren't truly relevant to the here and now, all true origins start a little before dramatic changes. there's always a gentle precursor, something soft that sets the stage. rumblings of change are necessary forefathers to the strength of revolution; jeonghan learning that jun was a walking line of credit with property to his name and a work ethic that would make any professor blush was necessary groundwork for the events that would follow.

and goddamn, if things didn't follow.

— but i suppose, if we're back tracking all the way to jeonghan and shua moving in with jun on one very ill timed sunday (jun had an exam in his special topics in deviance, crime, & the law course the next day), we are also brushing up against jeonghan meeting you.

another precursor to the chaos that would follow. another tremor that would shake the ground and cause things to tumble.

— you also lived in the terraces on 17th and attended svtu. you lived on the same floor as jun — two apartments down from his, no less — and his first week there, you showed jeonghan the campus shuttle routes that passed right outside the complex (he'd come to learn that the domino route was the one you took most often, as it led right to the heart of the university, but the pinwheel route was also a convenient option for evening courses).

— you and jeonghan weren't friends right away. no, you were always a friendly face around the complex and a decent conversationalist when stuck in the elevator together, but it wasn't as though you and jeonghan became fast friends. you were just neighbors for a while; just another person grabbing mail on monday afternoons, stopping at the in-residence coffee shop on bleak wednesday mornings, ordering pizza on saturday evenings and giving joshua a slice after he weaponizes his big, brown eyes.

— and then came The Series of Fire Alarm Mishaps.

— you see, at some point in the middle of the semester, someone new moved into the apartment building, in the same hall as you and jeonghan. at first, you barely even noticed the change, and then they started cooking.

— which wouldn't have been a problem. if they had been good at it.

the first few times the (incredibly loud and not unreasonably sensitive) fire alarms from down the hall had gone off, it had been unfortunate - a mild nuisance that disrupted what jeonghan had been doing, and nothing more. but then, the first few times became multiple, and from multiple, came a pattern. every other day, at least twice, the fire alarm next door would go off. and it would always be at different times - breakfast, the afternoon, early evening, even sometimes at 1:28 in the morning. the fire alarm would sound, and while it would mostly be no longer than a minute or two, it was still enough to be irritating.

you and jeonghan talked about it every time you saw each other in passing, or just so happened to be taking the same shuttle to campus (which happened quite often, anymore, since jeonghan enrolled in an extra course to help him graduate all the sooner). your neighbor and that damn fire alarm. your neighbor and their inability to cook, yet unnecessary dedication to the craft. you both joked about the inevitability of them actually burning the apartment down.

— and then, one day, the fire alarm went off at 2:19, waking jeonghan up out of a dead sleep (he hadn't meant to fall asleep at his desk, and his neck would pay for it all the next day). he heard it, and immediately decided to ignore it, knowing it would stop soon.

but then it didn't.

at about 3.5 minutes of non-stop alarms, jeonghan was annoyed enough that he left his room and staggered into the kitchen for some water, where shua and jun were already waiting around, likely with the same idea (though it was clear that shua hadn't ever fallen asleep, and perhaps jun was in the same boat, though he'd changed into sweats and a light t-shirt).

at about 6 minutes, jeonghan opened the door to see if anyone else was, well... concerned.

and at 13 minutes, he was standing outside in the brisk autumn air, agreeing with jun as he whispered that if there wasn't an actual fire but just their talentless neighbor attempting to cook in the middle of the night, he was going to kill the bastard himself.

— and there, in the middle of all this stupidity — sleepily rocking back and forth from one foot to another — and on the other side of him, was you.

— and, well, when you offered to buy him and the rest of his roommates coffee at the convenience store that was just down the street, not far, he couldn't do much beyond say yes. what was he going to do? decline your offer?

and so all four of you walked to the convenience store and aimlessly wound your way through the almost neon colored aisles. jeonghan used the opportunity to stick to you like glue and get you to open up — about yourself and your roommates, both of whom had gone home for two weeks for (separate) family vacations (not that you were jealous. clearly the superior option was to stay at the apartment, embroiled in course work and standing outside at 2:00 am because of some loser neighbor who can't cook a singular meal without burning the building to the ground, and yet refuses to have anything delivered).

— in the end, the fire hadn't been bigger than something contained in the pan ("thank god," you had said, shaking your hands in lackluster triumph, "i have a physics exam next week. i need those notes more than you know"), but at only 4 months of having a new neighbor, someone new moved in within 2 weeks at most. and, after being neighbors for almost 7 months, you and jeonghan were decidedly friends.

after all, you bought him a triangular gimbap, ice cream, and convenience store coffee. jun had slipped away with just a banana milk (which he promptly paid back the next day), and shua nearly bought out the whole store once the two of you got to talking about the best midnight (and hours after) snacks lining the walls. at the least, he was indebted to you, which could only be solved by more trips to the convenience store with more mindless conversation, and more time for the both of you to endear yourself to the other.

and the way jeonghan saw it, friendship at that point was inevitable. especially when, at the start of the next semester, you and jeonghan both had an early morning class and used the domino route to get to class via campus shuttle.

(and sure, jun had an early class, too, and drove himself to campus everyday, meaning jeonghan could have easily just gotten a ride, but he didn't. for no particular reason, really, he just never did; but one frost bitten morning after a snowstorm, when jeonghan was waiting at the shuttle stop and you stood beside him, bundled up in a thick winter coat and rubbing the tips of your fingers to keep them warm, you turned to him, the cord of the wired headphones the both of you always shared swaying from the movement (a streak of yellow against all this white, the sun in the middle of stark winter), and smiled, "i'm glad you're here with me." and maybe — just maybe — that was reason enough.)

— and thus, for reasons above explained, in the end, it all started with jeonghan learning jun was loaded. if it weren't for that simple knowledge, he wouldn't be anywhere near where he currently stood.

— which was the open doorway of jun's apartment, garbage in hand, falling in love with you.

"what?"

and you at least had the presence of mind to be flustered by it.

jeonghan could laugh, really. "is that my jacket?"

it totally was, and perhaps the way you fiddled with the sleeve of it and scoffed awkwardly, refusing to meet his eyes, was the true giveaway that you knew it most certainly was. "i don't know, is it?"

you were met with smug silence, so of course, you'd elaborate.

"i thought it belonged to my ex. i just chose what looked the warmest. it's storming out there — you might want something more than a sweatshirt if you're taking that all the way to cans." you gestured to the garbage bag — a detail jeonghan had almost forgotten at the sight of you in his clothing.

"you think your ex would have bought that?"

of course he wasn't going to take your bait in changing the subject. that would make things easy. you rolled your eyes, spinning your key ring and making it jingle. "hoseok has great style. it's just different from yours."

"and that jacket is more my style than his."

"it is," you conceded. under jeonghan's gaze you stuck one half of the jacket out, towards him. "do you want it now? you'll need it out there."

"i don't think i will. not when i'll have your sunny presence to warm me."

and for a split second your eyes narrowed. you had just come in from the storm — that much was plain to see from the wet of the jacket to the reusable grocery bag in your hand, full of pantry odds and ends. there was no need to go back out, and you and jeonghan both knew it. and not to mention that the invitation (thinly veiled) was unattractive — stay inside where it was warm or brave the stormy weather once more, all for a garbage run?

"race you to the elevator."

— and see, the truth of the fact was, it wasn't as though you made it difficult to fall in love with you (though even if you had, jeonghan would have liked the challenge, perhaps. there's fun in plenty of things). you were generous, a good conversationalist, you bitched about people with jeonghan but still tried to see the best in them, you were knowledgeable about the most random yet oddly applicable things, and for all of his teasing, you put up with him. perhaps enjoyed him.

— it certainly confused seungcheol, to say the least (but don't such things always confuse brothers).

"as someone who's had a lifetime to cherish your personality, there has to be something wrong with this y/n if they're willingly spending time with you. i'm trying to save my soul, putting up with you on the daily. they have no excuse."

"if i'm going to respond to that, you'll have to give me five minutes to run first."

and it ended with jeonghan quickly pushing away from the table, trying to duck out of seungcheol's grasp; but of course, the older brother and president of the boxing club would get him anyway, and through laughter, attempt to knock some humility into jeonghan (it wouldn't stick).

— but no need to focus on all of that, now. after all, this deep into the semester, jeonghan was busy enough without Crippling Thoughts of Romance.

— the worst damage you wrought thus far was making him choke that day you wandered into karaoke club and he was in the middle of a duet joshuji had managed to cajole him into doing on the spot (you swore up and down that you didn't know he was even in the club to begin with, but something about your flustered behavior and shua's glee at the whole affair made him consider otherwise); while it had been a (minor, he claimed) blow to his pride, it was easily pushed aside. jihoon, the bastard, might bring it up on occasion — the one (1) time angel voice yoon jeonghan chokes, and it's all on camera — but other than that, jeonghan? cool as a cucumber.

the last thing he'd do is be awkward around a crush. jeonghan was cool; jeonghan was suave; jeonghan was speaking in the third person because joshuji had been on a self-love bender a few months back and had said daily affirmations into the mirror every morning, and after finding out and teasing him relentlessly for it, jeonghan unfortunately picked up the habit.

AND IT WAS ALL YELLOW (CONT.) ☄. *. ⋆

— and now that we've gotten this far, i suppose it's time we bring up Jeonghan Habits™ because there were many, the closer you and jeonghan got to each other, strings of fate drawing you ever nearer, joining you at the hip.

— for one, it seemed that ever since that first unfortunately timed run to the convenience store at hours after-midnight, jeonghan felt comfortable just showing up at all odd hours of the evening, all messy hair and too-big hooded sweatshirts (most stolen from seungcheol, he'd reveal to you one day when you were confused as to just when jeonghan had picked up a love of coton de tulear puppy conventions — enough to get a commemoriative sweatshirt, no less), with the oh-so-enticing offer of going to grab a snack.

he even called it a date, once, when you were wrapped up in three blankets and your fuzzy house slippers, weakly try to convince him to just rummage through you're cupboards instead

"you're so cold you're going to cancel our date? and here i thought we had something real."

(you'd been so flustered by the whole exchange you simply ended up going to the with him, hoping that the act of Just Doing It would buy you time against his rapid fire machine gun comebacks — probably exactly what the fucker had planned in his 4d chessboard of a brain — and jeonghan took the opportunity to file away in his mind the cute expression that crossed your face in the split second that the words hit you fully in the chest and you floundered, wide-eyed into recovery)

— another, of course, was his habit of casually leaving things at your place whenever the two of you hung out; the first few times he left something — his jacket, a pair of sunglasses, necklaces that you don't ever quite recall him taking off to begin with — you promptly returned it with the naive belief that it was a one-off mistake not like to happen again. but it just kept happening, and so eventually, you just stopped returning.

if it were important, jeonghan would have texted you about it — he texted you about all kinds of random things, anyway, his lost socks would be no more strange than texts of ootds or how particularly sparkly his eyes looked that day.

and he never did...

until you started to wear the things he left, of course.

'should i get two of these?' the text came in while you were walking to your next class, taking your sweet time since the weather had cleared up nicely and the campus shuttles were running smoothly — not a single one hand been late all week, a sure change from usual. a moment later your phone chimed again, and jeonghan had sent a picture of a silver ring with a greek key styling. it was cool enough, and fit in nicely with jeonghan's usual style of accessory (not that you were particularly knowledgeable of such things... haha.)

'sure, but why 2?'

'so you can have one of your own instead of stealing it.'

'???!?'

'look at your outfit right now. you're wearing MY necklace. it's been missing for weeks.'

'YOU LEFT IT AT *MY* APARTMENT??????'

'you still have necklaces of your own; didn't have to be mine.'

'😑'

'so what's your ring size?'

'stfu'

— in your defense, you didn't think it was an issue, borrowing the things he'd randomly leave at your apartment. it had started off innocuously enough — seonghwa and momo (your roommates, bless them) needed you to go grab a few last minute ingredients for dinner (they were the ones cooking, so charitably you offered to do the grunt work) and when you couldn't find your own sunglasses, there were jeonghan's, just sitting on your dresser and waiting to be used.

and after that, well... jeonghan had nice style, okay? you were not immune to convenient and accessible clothing. if jeonghan wasn't so forgetful of his own articles of clothing, it wouldn't be the case that you steal his favorite sunglasses and borrow his usual rings and get a little too caught up in the way his cologne lingers on his jackets and night shirts, a smell all-too comforting and somehow tempting...

— you attempted to give the necklace back later that week when you and jeonghan met up to take the domino route to university, but he just shrugged it off and told you that you might as well keep it. he already bought himself another.

and besides. it looked good on you.

— and as for the last of Jeonghan's Habits™ (certified and trademarked, of course, everything jeonghan did was protected by common law)... well... the discovery of this one came later, at a time you weren't expecting it, and so perhaps that explains why it makes you as flustered as it does.

— see, it's of no surprise that yoon jeonghan is clingy in a very positive sense.

being friends with jeonghan is always being kept in the loop, having an ongoing dialogue about most everything, doing lot of Things together and always knowing that if there's something you're even thinking of doing, jeonghan has already cleared his schedule in anticipation of going to do said thing alongside you.

— what surprised you, but really shouldn't have (so perhaps the right word is simply astonished, flustered, made giddy by the realization of), was that he was also very cuddly. and very hard to be talked out of, no less.

— and like, okay, sure, it was kind of hypocritical of you to be taken aback when you'd been indulging jeonghan of his affinity for physical touch for quite some time, now.

the surprise hugs whenever he caught you waiting for the campus shuttle or simply Minding Your Own Business, his inclination towards taking your hand to make you walk a little faster when the two of you were going convenience store diving (yes, again), the quite literal poking and prodding whenever he was attempting to get you to change your mind and agree with his worst impulses... it was all pretty damning, in retrospect. but it never really fazed you: jeonghan's cuddly sort of behavior.

though you had gotten a smug kind of glee whenever you initiated contact and jeonghan's cheeks would warm to a beautiful shade of pink before he'd counter his own seeming embarrassment with a comment like "aaahhhh y/n, you're so familiar, what would others think if they saw you?"

randomly touch jeonghan's forearm, whether to pull him closer for some reason or another or just to softly massage the skin while you absentmindedly scrolled on your phone (instagram scrolling was sacred time you and jeonghan shared — then you didn't have to send him the reel with your comments, you could just tap him on the shoulder and show him). they way jeonghan would get all shy at the touch — like maybe he felt some of those butterflies that perpetually fluttered about in your stomach whenever he was around — was all the satisfaction you could ever need.

— so yes, you were quite used to clingy jeonghan. but cuddly? you had never quite strayed into full cuddle territory... until you did.

— that fateful night, you had lovingly been given notice via a very abrupt group text that you would not be able to return to your apartment for the evening (someone was going to have company over, doing... things that familiar company do) and when you had told jeonghan of your plans to join seonghwa in his trip to the computer rooms at crescent hub (they were open 24 hours and while it was based on reservation, you were almost always able to get a seat), he offered you come to his apartment instead.

either that, or i guess you could spend your time watching the gaming club host whatever tournament they had going on — apparently jun was planning to be gone for Quite Some Time (as a senior member of the club) and shua was there... for moral support? that part was unclear, to be quite honest, but it wasn't as though shua ever needed a reason to be Busy and Outgoing, so it didn't quite matter much, in the end.

"why aren't you at crescent hub with your roommates, then?"

"and encourage them? ah... don't make me look soft."

and you're sure that the way you roll your eyes can be heard through the phone.

"i had an assignment to finish." / "you had work to finish."

"but! it's all been submitted now."

"then i'll meet you."

— after all, it's not like you were a stranger to jun's apartment — you'd hung out there plenty of times as your bond with jeonghan deepened and your friendship to shua and jun grew — and they did have a rather comfy couch... you were almost certain jeonghan's offer implied and unspoken 'you can at least get some comfortable sleep on our vertiable cloud of a couch when i'm done prying at the finer details as to just who momo decided to bring home.'

you both, after all, had a deep-seeded delight for gossip.

— and when you got there, it was exactly what you expected: jeonghan had seemingly raided the pantry finding ingredients so the two of you could make dakdoritang — excepting the carrot, of course.

despite his seeming love for convenience store runs and general lazy attitude toward preparing his own meals, cooking together seemed to be something jeonghan enjoyed lately — or at least, that's what you surmised. to you, it seemed that one day jeonghan woke up and chose cooking as a new hobby.

if you were to ask jeonghan, he would brush it off, of course, probably saying something about his mom visiting and praising jun's affinity for cooking and there was no way jeonghan could let the bastard win — but really all it had taken was one (1) absentminded hand on his chest from you and a "hannie, can you pass me the garlic cloves?" for him to make cooking with you a new personality trait of his. go figure.

— and so the two of you made your stew while debating which movie you should watch when you were done. you ended up compromising on some drama that you'd seen people claim was so bad it was good, and it really was. the cringe,,,, the mutual yelling at the tv,,,,,,, threatening the lives of fictional characters,,,,,,, talking over whole dialogue scenes because you had a brilliant rewrite in mind and jeonghan simply couldn't resist the way you looked when there was an earnestness in your eyes and an opinion on your lips,,,,

it was quite late, indeed, before you even knew it. and when you switched the tv to a music video you really wanted to show jeonghan, the autoplay sort of took over, and your mind sort of shut down... drifted off to sleep.

— you woke up at some point in the early morning; the sound of the lock clicking and the door opening wasn't the sound you were used to, in your apartment two doors down, and it was just enough to snap you awake momentarily, still half in dream yet with one foot in reality.

it was just shua and jun, and they whispered an apology before padding off to their respective rooms (jun his own, shua his shared room with hannie), clearly worn out from their gaming activities.

— but that little push to semi-wakefulness was just enough for you to take stock of where you were, and you noticed belatedly that jeonghan had never left to go back to his room. you were both sleeping on the couch, legs intertwined; jeonghan was resting his head on your shoulder and your hands were reaching out, as if almost to give him a subconscious hug.

— the embarrassment ran through your nervous system almost instantly, and when you made to slowly and gently move your limbs so you were less... interwoven, jeonghan stirred and, still sleeping, pulled you back towards him. perhaps even closer than before.

you couldn't help yourself. a giggle escaped you; perhaps half nerves, mostly endearment. jeonghan stirred again and the sound and you covered your mouth, not wanting to wake him.

he stilled soon enough, and before drifting off again, you kissed him on the forehead.

— when you fully woke up the next morning, jeonghan had already began his day, but he didn't even try to hide the fact that the both of you had unwittingly unlocked a new feature in this friendship of yours. he sort of just... took the night prior as a confirmation that cuddling was on the list of approved actions and refused to let go of you, after.

not that it bothered you, of course.

it just seemed that the butterflies in your stomach were given wild energy at this new development; all your strategies for calming them suddenly ineffective.

AND IT WAS ALL YELLOW (CONT.) ☄. *. ⋆

— so.

if you had asked jeonghan at any point in his life if he were good at manipulating, his answer would be an unequivocable yes.

deceit? of course.

scheming? obviously.

lying? naturally.

blackmailing? most assuredly.

gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlbossing? undoubtedly.

changing criteria? yes.

moving goalposts? clearly.

hiding the apparent? well...

— see, the thing is... you get so good at the others that concealing the obvious isn't exactly necessary. everyone might know to be wary of the scheming, cheating, self-serving yoon jeonghan, but it didn't change the fact that he was so astute at the rest of it, image didn't exactly matter.

and besides, why save face when it was so fun to see people accuse him of what they were all very aware?

— so yes, jeonghan was quite skilled at all manner of deception. the one facet he was not so adept in was hiding his feelings toward the matter.

— thus, it should be no surprise that everyone and their mother knew jeonghan had a crush.

and it was only getting worse.

— don't ask jun when he put the dots together — he was more emotionally intellectual than he let on most of the time — and don't ask joshuji when either — that fucker had this quirk where he joked about something before it had real honest basis, but in some way only attributed to the gift of clairvoyance, he always seemed to be right. if you were to ask joshua, he'd likely recall the first time he had looked at jeonghan and wiggled his eyebrows and call that he knew then (he didn't; at least, not really).

— as for s.coups... well, don't ever ask cheol anything about jeonghan. he'd rather die than give it to you straight.

please. when he could embarrass jeonghan? seungcheol lives for that shit.

after all, what else are older brothers for?

— so yes, it was obvious to those close to him that jeonghan was in the long-suffering limbo of Having A Thing For Your Best Friend But Not Acting On It, and it had been apparent for months.

— after all, it felt like centuries ago that joshua had offered to play matchmaker for jeonghan and you — the veritable apple of his eye — and set the two of you up on a date.

it had been some lazy morning and jun nearly spit out his breakfast.

"you'd both love it! i'd get jihoon to play something romantic on the violin; well, maybe recorder—"

cue jun choking once more.

"and you could be there waiting in full suit and tie."

"with couples rings waiting in the bread basket." and joshua's eyes went comically and maniacally wide at jun's inclusion.

"ah, cheol would crash any date like that."

"but then y/n could get his blessing!"

— at some point, jun was at his wits end.

in his defense, it was him who had to see the two of you be all sweet and love-struck all the time, giggling and teasing each other on his couch in his apartment while all he's trying to do is eat a sorry excuse of a subway sandwich (eat fresh.) before jetting off to his internship again.

if you had to see that shit while eating soggy bread you'd be annoyed, too.

one more "aigoooo" while jeonghan squishes your cheeks, and you bat him away with a roll of your eyes and jun would take a knife out of the block behind him.

— especially when jeonghan started calling you "angel" at every chance he got. had jun's eye twitching, it did. never had he regretted getting roommates until jeonghan fell in love.

one day jun learned that the phrase "get a room" made at least one of you self conscious enough to at least tone it down, and he never stopped weaponizing it, since.

— of course, overtime jun's protests became background noise, but once, when your roommates and jeonghan's all went to the museum of fine arts together to celebrate the end of finals week (it was free admission so long as you had your svtu activities card), jun had deadpanned his new favorite phrase in the middle of the outdoor conversation area. jeonghan had turned to you grinning, like it was the excuse he'd been waiting for all day, and after a lighthearted "shall we?" you grabbed his hand and the two of you pranced off to explore the sculpture terrace.

jeonghan had raised an eyebrow at your choice of exhibit, but you pulled him over to a sculpture of a human figure with black wings and flashed a smile: “it’s not a private room, but i think it works.”

“if you’d prefer it, i’m sure there’s a custodial closet we could go to instead. i bet there's one right outside, even.”

you snorted. “and if i did kiss you? what would you do then?"

— you stunned him into silence. him. yoon jeonghan. 

— right as he was about to recover and shoot back some smartass comment, you laughed — the sound clear and playful, bright and radiating with warmth — and then you wandered to where they showcased student work.

— umm... uhhh... WHATTHEFUCKWEREYOUDOING WHATTHEFUCKWASGOINGONNNNNN

“angel.”

you hummed absentmindedly, only half hearing jeonghan through the internal screaming reverberating in your skull.

“y/nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…”

he was closer now, if you focused, you were sure you could feel him, inching closer, right behind you, just to your right…

— he kissed your cheek: half on the corner of your lips, half on the soft of your skin.

— you couldn’t help yourself. you turned.

“if you were bold enough to kiss me here, i’d kiss you back. then i’d be scandalized, ‘how forward!’”

your mouth opened: in shock, in delight, in laughter, in a heavenly mix of the three. jeonghan just stood there, all self-satisfied grin.

“you could waste your time finding a comeback, or you could be forward.”

“i think i have time for both.”

☄. *. ⋆

end of file .

SVT (sophrosyne; virtù; truth) University hopes you've enjoyed your stay !

[lovieku]

Good Luck, Babe! #2 ☆ jeon jungkook

what happens when you leave everything behind, only to be faced with it again years later? eunbi is convinced she was given another shot at keeping all she ever wanted, but it’s difficult when that all is her childhood best friend who doesn’t want to do anything with her anymore. how to earn his trust back?

☾ pairing: non idol!jk x fem!oc

☾ genre: childhood friends to strangers, friends to lovers, angst, fluff, smut

☾ word count: 9k +

☾ warnings: alcohol consumption. explicit language. underage drinking. this whole thing is fluff vibes imo. like jk is just a little loser who misses his best friend. gureum debut! i love this dog so much he deserves his own one shot.

☾ author’s note: hello !!! i hope this chapter isnt too slow for u guys.. i like this pace tho! we r starting to get to know our ggukkie better. but we’ll get to eunbi too! oh also, theres little hints that help understanding the timeline of the whole story so 👩🏻‍💻 thank u for ur time!!

ps : dal = moon in korean; boreumdal = full moon in korean. it’ll be useful as you read hehe.. ok bye!

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two ⋆ ribs

The first time Jeongguk got drunk, it was with his best friend. At the age of 15, the number of coming-of-age movies he had consumed with her by his side was more than he could count on both his hands and feet, never having enough of getting lost in a world that seemed so entrancing yet far. Not only because his age wasn’t exactly the one depicted in those films, but mainly because Busan didn’t offer such scenarios. Jeongguk was continuously inspired by those, so much so that he’s confident when admitting it was exactly that genre which got him to take directing and film production not only as a silly dream, but as an ambition. No matter how crazy it sounded to everybody’s ears, he wanted to follow that path, because only then he could translate his wild and eager imagination into somewhat of a concrete, tangible reality.

Having Eunbi by his side was only a bonus. At the end of every movie, after impatiently but silently waiting for the credits to roll (she knew Jeongguk took those very seriously, almost as a ritual), she would vomit every single thought she had harboured regarding what she had just watched and Jeongguk felt seen. His same hunger was reflected in his best friend’s eyes, and words, and passionate gestures when yearning for those experiences. The only difference was that, if Jeongguk was content with only jotting down their endless brainstorming after a long session of movie watching for future ideas that he hoped he could bring to the big screen, Eunbi was longing to bring those to life.

”I really wanna get drunk,” she whined in the older boy’s ears while munching on some remaining snacks, attentively observing Jeongguk’s skilled hand doodling what looked like two people watching the sunset on a beach. With time, he got used to staying focused on whatever task he was leading even with the girl going on about whatever passed her mind, but this time he released a chuckle and let his pencil roll down the couch, shifting his attention to his sulky friend.

“Why would you want that?” He said with a curiously amused expression, entertained by the pout on the girl’s face while she took his sketchbook and delicately traced the beer bottles he had scribbled earlier.

10 Things I Hate About You had been the current topic of discussion, being the last of three movies they had watched that afternoon and the one that Eunbi liked more. She couldn’t stop geeking about how cool Kat was and how she wanted to be her when she grew up. Jeongguk thought her little moment of admiration was funny, and let her go about it, “Everybody says it’s bad for your health and bla, bla, then why would they make it look so exciting?”

For the first time since their five years of friendship, Jeongguk thought of himself as the more rational one of the pair. Even if older (by one year), he had always been a bit childish around her and seemed to need his best friend to scold him with her witty, book-obsessed vocabulary. Thus, saying he was surprised by Eunbi’s claims would be an understatement. It was like the roles had switched when he said, “Well, it’s fiction. It’s supposed to be exciting.”

In response, he got the same glare he would reserve for her anytime she would tell him off for his immature behaviour, with an addition of an eye roll and an even sulkier expression, emphasised by her crossed arms. The boy giggled at her disappointment and snatched his sketchbook back from her hands, retrieving the pencil from where it had been buried under the cushions so he could resume his earlier activity.

However, the sudden silence was unsettling. It gave him a moment to realise he had never really been surrounded by quiet when hanging out with his neighbour. The Converse-lover girl would always fill any empty space with words, thoughts, songs, even random sounds made with her mouth, or hands. He was not sure if he should be thankful for such unusuality or if he should search for hints that could be hidden behind her odd quietude.

He went for the latter, and he was proved right when he lifted his head from his drawing and found his friend torturing her lower lip with her front teeth, staring into the void with narrowed thinking eyes. When she noticed his gaze on her, she exchanged eye contact and, unable to hide it longer, a mischievous smirk made its way to her mouth. Jeongguk shook his head, “You’re not seriously considering-“

”I’m just saying!” Her talkative self was back, sitting cross-legged on the couch and fully facing Jeongguk, trying to get him to direct his whole attention to her, “Dancing on a table seems fun…”

Jeongguk scoffed, amused by the way this one movie seemed to have had a huge impact on Eunbi’s running imagination, which he was very familiar with but, as he was having this conversation, he doubted if there was more he needed to discover, “Do you realise Kat was about to fall-“

”And! Got saved by hot Heath Ledger. Twice!” Jeongguk was used to being interrupted, especially when the conversation was about one of the girl’s favourite topics. He didn’t know Heath Ledger was on that list, though. He frowned, “You think he’s hot?”

Her response was as simple as a Duh!, making the boy feel stupid for questioning what seemed to be an ultimate truth. He rolled his eyes and went back to doodling meaningless details that would complete the image that had been clouding his mind, only for his shoulder to be shaken by a whiny Eunbi, “That was not the point. I’m telling you I wanna drink alcohol.”

Jeongguk snorted, taken aback by the unexpected outburst of confidence, then widened his already big eyes at her, signalling to quiet down, “My mom is literally in the next room.” That only got the daring girl to shrug her shoulders, eyebrows raised, and expecting an answer to her admission.

The older one sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed and contemplating. His meditation was interrupted by his determined friend rocking his body back and forth by the sleeve of his t-shirt, in hopes of getting what she wanted. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but figured Jeongguk could find a solution for her. Said boy tried to get the constant pulling to stop, only when it wouldn’t he could only lightly push the younger one away, knowing it would cause a huge reaction. And not even three seconds after, she laid down and acted as if her arm was broken, and her whole body severely injured, faking cries and whines. Jeongguk laughed, “What do you want me to do? Where would I even get it?”

It’s like she was waiting for that exact question, because the moment it was asked her acting immediately came to an end, as she lifted her body up again and sat straight on her heels, “Your dad has a whole collection of random bottles. He won’t notice if one is missing.” The quick response sounded strangely rehearsed, and Jeongguk furrowed his brows.

A smile danced on his lips at seeing his best friend trying not to break too and instead maintain a serious composure, wanting to make her intentions clear and unmoved. Jeongguk was surprised at her sudden resolution, figuring it must not have been so sudden after all, ”How long were you keeping this inside?”

”Literally forever,” she eventually broke, releasing a long breath, her body bending down with it but then regaining its straight posture, resuming her Convincing-BFF-To-Get-Drunk plan, “Movie was the last straw. Please Ggukkie?” She mustered her best puppy eyes and Jeongguk narrowed his, unbelieving of all the tactics she was using to get to her goal.

”No.” He strangely managed to sound firm, despite Eunbi insisting and now deepening her pout, making it hard for the boy to deny her request, “Dad will kill me.”

”I’m sure he won’t notice,” the way she was talking made it sound like she knew exactly what needed to be done, as if she was explaining something as obvious as Heath Ledger being hot. The look in her best friend’s eyes, however, let her know he wasn’t fully on her side yet, so she came up with something unexpected even to herself, as proved by her dubious expression after uttering out, “I will also steal a few beers from mom.”

Jeongguk fully broke out laughing then, nose scrunching and eyes squeezing, hand over his belly while muttering something close to You’re insane, and that went on for a minute, the reaction carrying at seeing his neighbour being as serious as ever, not even hinting a smile (even if she was doing her best to suppress it).

When the chuckles eventually came to an end, the brown-haired boy shook his head and went back to his drawing, leaving the girl incredulous at being ignored like that by who she thought would always be her Number One Supporter. She gasped, mouth hanging. Jeongguk smirked amusedly, seeing her through his peripheral vision, “What?”

The younger one whined and fussed on the couch, impatient with Jeongguk being seemingly impossible to convince but stubborn with wanting to make him agree. When not even her begging worked, going ignored as everything else she was doing, she sat silently just following Jeongguk’s hand on the paper. The boy thought it was over, until Eunbi let her mind speak again, this time more spontaneously, “You know, this thing you’re drawing, it could be reality. Not just film reality, I’m talking about us two drunk on the Busan beach, enjoying everything it has to offer. Can you really resist it?”

Eyebrows wiggling and a mischievous smile on her face, Jeongguk knew he was being difficult just because, the idea of getting drunk with his best friend had sounded inviting right from the start. Little by little, he was breaking, still hesitating when he admitted, ”Busan beach doesn’t sound that exciting but… Yeah, that would be pretty cool.”

At that, the girl’s eyes went sparkling, hopeful of finally winning her battle, ”That would be suuuper cool! C’mon, Ggukkie.”

Her hands were back on his shoulder, shaking him with less vigour this time but still making the boy giggle, “How would that even work-“

”We sneak out.” Once again, her rapid reply sounded so sure, it almost scared Jeongguk. He wanted to laugh again, but something in the girl’s expression made him hold back, slowly being persuaded by her convincing tactics, “I got everything planned. Let’s put the movie brainstorming aside and keep the get-drunk plan brainstorming going and I’ll tell you exactly how we’ll move through it.”

Jeongguk hesitated. The light in her eyes made him put the doubts to the side, ”Alright.”

That same night, they put the plan into action. It wasn’t too thought-out, but Eunbi had a way with words that made anything sound magical and captivating, just as those directors Jeongguk admired could depict their young age in a way too fascinating vision. They had decided to sneak out of their windows at 1 a.m., and before that, they would get their hands on what they had agreed and figured would get them drunk enough: whatever hard liquor attracted the boy more out of his dad’s collection, and two beer bottles from Eunbi’s fridge.

Both of them were clumsy with their actions. If they had to complete this initial part being together, the whole plan would have failed with how much one would have laughed at the other, and vice versa. Jeongguk made the bottle clink with another, while his best friend in the house next to his closed the fridge too hard, causing uncalled-for noise. The sounds were amplified by the quiet of the night, making the youngsters awkwardly stand still for a second, terror-stricken in hopes they wouldn’t get caught. What followed after was hastily placing the contents in their backpack and waiting some more by their window, ensuring no odd movement was heard from their parents’ room. When everything seemed under control, they nimbly climbed out, landing on their feet.

The first to appear outside was the younger one. With every fast and speedy beat of her heart, she felt it coming up her throat. All her senses were ten times stronger at that moment, and she could feel a jittery sensation travel through her whole body, running in her veins and seemingly unstoppable. She tried to, by harshly biting her lip and clasping a hand over her chest. Where the heck was Jeongguk? And why was she so cold? She wished telepathy existed, as she hoped with all her might that her friend had brought a jacket she could steal.

When a minute passed and there was no sight of the older boy, she felt utterly betrayed, and tried to come up with any excuse that could justify Jeongguk’s delay: there were none. If she could make noises she would whine, both the cold and the wait being unbearable.

Jeongguk appeared seconds later, looking like a deer caught in headlights as his feet landed on the ground with a stomping sound. Eunbi couldn’t help the snort escaping her mouth, quickly clasping a hand over it while the boy made his way to her with big eyes and his pointer finger laying over his lips, demanding absolute silence.

The two didn’t utter a single word until they were at a safe distance from their houses, and when they looked back and noticed how those were becoming smaller with each step they took, the smiles on their faces grew bigger. The girl in her Converses giggled and incredulously shook his friend’s arm, “What. The. Heck. We did it!”

Jeongguk let a nervous chuckle escape his lips, sharing that same excitement mixed with tension that he could feel oozing from his best friend, now hanging from his arm, “We did it. Now, where do we go from here?”

“Trust me, Gguk. I told you I know my way,” once again, the younger one managed to sound convincing enough, and Jeongguk let himself put his whole trust in her, too agitated to argue. However, Eunbi expertly noticed the unusual edginess in her friend’s nodding and lost gaze, so using the time it took to get to the beach through the route she knew best, she let out every single thought that passed her mind. Just as the dynamic between them was often like, but this time it served as a way to distract Jeongguk; and it did. The boy chuckled there and then at various comments, adding to them too. He laughed loudly when Eunbi admitted she brought some strawberries and water, just in case, and called her a dumbass. They then proceeded to have a meaningless argument about it, all while he took note of how the girl’s skin seemed to prickle with the soft wind, and laid his hoodie on her shoulders. They had a subtle way of caring about each other, which nonetheless never went unnoticed, but still not really mentioned.

1 a.m. was dark, darker than they’d ever witnessed, and if it wasn’t for the tall buildings behind them, the beach would have been completely surrounded by obscurity. The closer they got to the sea, the more the moon also helped reduce such blackness, with its light reflecting in the water. The pair sat down on the sand, picking the spot they had claimed as theirs during one of their many beach days on the hottest days of summer. There wasn’t much talking now, both of them eager to start the final and main part of the plan, but none of the two brave enough to break the seal.

Eunbi wrapped herself around Jeongguk’s hoodie, her knees to her chest and her chin to her knees, observing the boy sitting by her side with a playful smile dancing on her lips. Her nose scrunched tenderly when he reciprocated it, and her voice was suddenly small, “You want a strawberry?”

”You dragged me all the way over here to eat strawberries?” He chuckled at the girl’s out-of-character embarrassment and lightly shoved her shoulder, getting a lively giggle out of her. She shrugged, putting up her best innocent act, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jeongguk didn’t say anything while he unzipped his backpack and took the main character of the night out, a bottle of Absolut Vodka, the one that had scared the boy less out of the whole collection, its liquid clear like water and seemingly free from danger. Who knows, maybe it also tastes like water.

He was proved wrong not much later, when he brought his mouth to the rim and gulped the first sip, its burning taste firing up his throat, then extending to his chest and finding home in his stomach. Jeongguk emitted a loud groan, eyes squeezing shut with the force of the foreign feeling, and distanced himself from the bottle to cough. The younger one had watched the whole scene with big eyes, unconsciously following every movement of his with her head, attentively studying his reaction and then laughing at his disgusted expression. She stole the bottle from his hands and repeated the same actions.

Unexpectedly, she accepted the sensation much better than the older one, only shaking her head fast in hopes the liquid would go down rapidly, and then taking another huge gulp right after. Jeongguk snatched the bottle from her hold to clasp it to his chest, his brows furrowed, “Woah, slow down there.”

”If I focus on how shit it tastes, I will never get drunk. Let me finish it,” her eagerness triggered Jeongguk’s competitive side, bringing him to swallow down a bigger amount than he had seen her sip, gulping loudly and then standing still, as if to prove a point. See? It doesn’t affect me either, that’s what his eyes were screaming. Of course, Eunbi didn’t back out, a silent race starting between the two the moment she claimed the bottle again and looked him right in the eyes while drinking. Jeongguk laughed too loudly, but he couldn’t control it, “That’s how it is?”

In between sneers and roasts, the competition went on until Eunbi announced her whole world was spinning, and the liquid covered a little less than half of the bottle. Jeongguk felt irrational contentment brimming his mind, making his body feel light yet still shaken by adrenaline. Unlike his friend, he could at least form coherent sentences, though. He had regulated the amount of alcohol he was ingesting, so that he could ensure one of them could still lucidly operate in case anything happened. He had also pulled the bottle away from Eunbi’s mouth multiple times whenever she would overdo the quantity she was drinking, but he figured it still affected her way more than it did him.

Indeed, a whole 10 minutes had passed of her munching on those strawberries she just had to take with her while walking in circles around Jeongguk’s sitting figure. Before going on that ritual-like path, she had also tried one of the two canned beers, and the littlest sip of it had made her declare it as the worst beverage on earth. Jeongguk didn’t mind it, surely liked it more than the clear vodka, but made sure to empty the opened can and hide the other in his backpack, in case his very tipsy friend wanted to try some more.

From his sitting position, he looked at her grinning when she would share bitten pieces of the red fruit with him, while still keeping up the constant walking and the random babbling. In the midst of it, she would also laugh to herself, and then resume her muttering, making the boy laugh as well with no exact knowledge of what she was saying. He just went along with it, didn’t get what was so funny but figured he was too tipsy to entertain meaningful conversation.

As he kept observing her, he saw her look up at the sky, the movement too fast for her spinny head, “Ouch.” She squeezed her eyes shut and quickly reopened them, only to be welcomed by black patches appearing and disappearing from her vision. Then, the starry sky is what she saw; the moon was next. She laughed at that too, spinning around a few times with her arms wide open.

Jeongguk does find a reason to laugh along with her now, his friend acting too silly his heart feels content just watching her, ”You look so dumb. What are you even doing?”

Giggles are her first response, followed by her suddenly sitting down on the sand, on the spot next to him. Jeongguk noticed some of the strawberry juice had dripped down her chin, so he cleaned it carefully with his thumb until there was none. She hiccuped, “Gguk, I think- I think I love the moon.” The sudden admission was out of context, but he accepted it. A little over an hour had gone by at that point, but once again she assumed the position she was in when they first arrived, knees to her chest and chin to her knees, with that same soft smile directed at him, only with sleepier eyes.

With the hand that was already close to her face, the older one moved some of the locks that were blocking her vision, then gently placed them behind her ear. He melted at the pleased expression on her face, her eyes gently closing. Jeongguk had always felt a sense of protection in her regards, just like a brother would to her sister. He wasn’t much older than her, but he still felt like he needed to be someone Eunbi could lean on and look up to. He followed along, nodding, “Yeah? You do look like the moon.” The tender moment seemed to have been interrupted by his comment. Her soft smile was replaced by a frown. Huh? Did he say something wrong?

With Jeongguk seated next to her, she turned to fully face him (the fast movement probably causing her head to hurt again) and furrowed her brows, “You do realise that’s not a compliment,” the same confused expression was now mirrored on her friend’s face, so she kept explaining, “You’re saying my face is round and puffy.”

The boy sitting cross-legged also fussed so he could be directly in front of her, facing the tipsy girl when he smirked, “Your face is round and puffy, Bee.” The grin turned into a full laugh when she hit his shoulder with a stronger force than usual, making him stumble. At that, she shoved him again, intent on making him fall on his back.

”What the hell? No, it’s not.” When she realised how weak alcohol was making her, she backed down from her mission and instead sat on her heels and crossed her arms, annoyed by the stupid smile on his face. She narrowed her eyes, “If anything, you look like a coconut. Fuck you.”

The boy feigned his shock, the act quickly being revealed by his uncontrollable giggles. The alcohol was getting her way sassier, and she was already too mouthy for his liking. Still, he was never intimidated by that, instead living off these moments just to make fun of her and wind her up further, “Should I call you Dal? My little Boreumdal?” His sickeningly sweet mocking voice was aggravated by his tickling under her armpit. She swatted him, “You’re being disgusting. I’ll throw up everything I drank on you.”

”I dare you Dal,” he wiggled his eyebrows and shortly after he figured that was the last teasing comment he could allow himself to throw at her before being pushed fully to the ground this time and receiving harmless punches on his stomach, which made him burst into lively laughter. The sand was getting in his hair and all over his clothes, but he didn’t care, his only goal being winning the nth fight between them, “Ouch, Dal stop-“

“Don’t call me that!” She was fully screaming at him now, her vodka breath fanning over his face while she kept tossing him on the sand, giggling along, “Stupid coconut.” Between laughs and jabs she didn’t realise how close they got, Jeongguk also working his way to free himself from his spot on the ground, resulting in her determined attitude trying to block him by sitting on his stomach and pushing his shoulders down.

However, when she felt his hands on her wrists, the contact triggered sudden awareness in her mind, registering the compromising position they were in, her whole face changing colour. With her movements being haltered, Jeongguk also seemed to notice the quick change in her expression. After a moment of silence, of her staring big-eyed in his starry eyes, a tipsy 15 year old Jeongguk could only come up with, “This is the first time I’m seeing a red moon.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It’s the echo of her voice, yelling Shut up! in his face that startles him awake. When he takes in his surroundings, he relaxes in the bed again. Jeongguk was right when he predicted how hard the simple act of falling asleep would have been, following being so close to the cause of his nightmares after years. He checks the time displayed on his phone, 6:08 a.m. His alarm isn’t set to go off for another hour. Sighing, he’s aware trying to get some more sleep after it had failed to find him would have been useless, reason why he goes on a staring contest with the ceiling.

It becomes a canva for his running mind, which projects the last image that he saw behind his closed eyelids: Eunbi’s face being centimetres to his, her head crowned by a shining white full moon. He’s unconscious of the smile creeping up on his mouth, but when he feels its sides twitch it turns into a deep frown. He hates his own brain for doing this to him, but is also aware the girl coming back so strong and unexpected in his life played a huge role.

It’s not like he was ever confident with the possibility of fully forgetting about her. How does one forget about the moon? But he could still say he had done a great job at keeping her locked in one dark room in the back of his mind; until not more than three months ago, when she showed up beside Dahye, her big smile greeting the rest of the group, but breaking in pieces when she spotted him. Had it been such a disgrace for her?

Jeongguk can’t blame her if she felt like that, because after an initial, very brief moment of surprise, excitement and sparks, he was surrounded by doom. It had been gruelling battling against the kid inside him, probably confused as to why his first instinct wasn’t to hug his Dal. It’s as if that version of him got stuck right in the place he was left, and when he saw her again he wished to pick up from where they had stopped, never having gotten closure. Last night would be an example: the urge to keep an eye out for her, care for her safety. It’s like telling a child Santa Claus isn’t real, and watching his world break. But Jeongguk needed the kid in him to be faced with the truth badly, before a light gets switched on in that dark room of his brain he keeps her in, and next thing he knows she finds the key to open it and escape.

That truth being the fact that everything changes, and people do too. Although, compared to the first time he saw her drunk, he wouldn’t say there were any changes: she would still mutter incoherent nonsense under her breath, and laugh for no apparent reason. And it had the same effect on him, pure amusement and adoration. But this time, he couldn’t let himself indulge in it.

Jeongguk can’t stand his brain being manipulated so easily by his heart, and rather having to sit helpless while witnessing such conflict, he figures he can start his day ahead and get up from his bed. What awaits him is a train journey to Busan in exactly two hours. With summer break starting, he had concluded he could use the most of it to be with his parents, starting by the weekend ahead. He’s fairly excited to be in his hometown again after months, and with the way his mind has been taking him back in time through the memories, he finds it funny how he used to depreciate Busan and fantasise about Seoul, when right now he would do anything to not be surrounded by the capital’s chaos. You truly never know what you have until it’s gone.

Jimin, being also from Busan, had offered to drive him there and go with him, but Jeongguk refused. He’s aware his best friend was just being nice, a leading characteristic of his nature, since he also knows Jimin doesn’t really enjoy being back in his city, and tries to stay away from it as much as he possibly can. The blonde had opened up once to his flatmate, admitting how home wasn’t really that for him. Seoul was his one and only occasion to escape it; he loved it here, and had finally built what felt closest to a home. The fact that Jeongguk is part of it makes his heart swell with joy.

He’s as quiet as ever while he packs the last things in his backpack and exits the flat, making sure the door isn’t shut too loud so as not to wake Jimin, who’s probably going to suffer from the worst hangover as soon as he opens his eyes. Still, the brown haired boy now wearing a baseball hat over his head shoots his friend a text to let him know he’s left the house. A cheeky Don't miss me too much :p is sent after that.

Considering he still has a significant amount of time left before the train leaves (more than he had deduced yesterday, when he had set his alarm at 5 a.m. for 7 a.m. and had gotten even less sleep than that) he picks walking to the station over taking the bus, in fear if he sits anywhere he will fall into deep slumber due to his single hour of sleep and fuck up his whole getaway plan. The walk contributes to waking his senses and shaking off the weariness, his mind finding it especially hard after the previous hours spent in the small suffocating club, swimming in the smell of alcohol and weed, and being surrounded by blasting music.

When he gets to his destination, there’s still 30 minutes left before the train arrives. He sighs while he sits on a bench by the platform, and waits. Two cigarettes later, he figures there’s nothing else he can do but put his earphones to use and play the first album in his recently played. When not even Twenty One Pilots’ Vessel can avert his eyes from batting until they’re slowly closing, Jeongguk forces himself into a staring contest with the nothingness, in hopes the illusion of having to win a fight keeps him awake. Until even then his vision starts to unfocus, and in his zoned out state he feels like passing out on that same bench.

His phone is his last resort, mindless scrolling on social media apparently the only activity capable of avoiding his mind from completely shutting down. When he gets to Instagram, rather than checking the new posts on his feed, he clicks on Dahye’s story popping up as the first one of the list. Stories are a fairly new feature to the app, but he soon came to learn how much his friend loved it, documenting every piece of her life through them. What he didn’t expect, and surely didn’t need, was her recent updates to be a rundown of Eunbi’s recovery from her drunken state last night: firstly, a close up of her baby face, with cheeks covered by smudged mascara and what looked like tears, and a pout so pronounced with furrowed eyebrows; soon after, a sneaky shot of the girl completely bent over the toilet, almost hugging it, Dahye captioning it with her new BFF!; then, an hour later, Eunbi peacefully sleeping surrounded by all sorts of pillows and plushies. Dahye ended the small series with a short apology to her roommate, adding i love u @song_eunbee hehe.

When he realises the unconscious, dumb, stupid, smile on his face, he jerks his head up and shuts his phone, violently shoving it in his sweatpants pocket. Blinking a few times, he also notices how he quite literally almost missed the train, only then registering it had stopped in front of him and was ready to depart again. Jeongguk quickly gathers his stuff and makes his way onto the train, searching for any seat that is close to a window overlooking the outside. He thinks if he can focus on the view for the rest of the ride, he’d be able to shut off the urge to go on a three hour Instagram spiral. He knows he’s so wrong when not even two minutes in, he physically can’t stop his hands from retrieving his phone and looking up song_eunbee on the app’s search bar.

He’s relieved when he clicks on the first account that pops up and finds out it’s not private. In her profile picture her face is half covered by her hand, but the dimple adorning her cheeks doesn’t hide the fact that she’s smiling. He’s welcomed by quite a few posts, varying from landscapes, friends, family, baby photos, random kittens on the streets, club nights, and some selfies. He learns she’s pretty big on Ariana Grande and that she still loves the moon, as confirmed by the crescent moon emoji being the only thing in her bio. He can’t help but foolishly wonder if looking at it at night makes her even subconsciously think of him, and the fact that he kept calling her that nickname even after her protests. A handful of the pictures on her feed portray the moon too, and one of them is captioned with Kat Stratford’s unmistakeable monologue: but mostly i hate the way i don’t hate you; not even close; not even a little bit; not even at all.

Jeongguk was right when he predicted he would be a victim of an Instagram spiral, because for the next hour he studies her posts more attentively, the people she tagged, the people in her comments, the places she visited, the quotes in her captions. He is so consumed by curiosity, and maybe something more (awfully close to envy, anger and misery) that he doesn’t even notice the sleepiness completely dissipating from his body, his mind now running to connect every single pin on the imaginary board his own brain had offered for him to better analyse her account.

Until, after being extremely careful for the entire endless minutes spent on her profile, he accidentally clicks on her story and before he can react, he’s left to stare at the picture until the 15 seconds finish. He blinks. Keeps his eyes shut for a few seconds. Reopens them. Clicks on the story again. Only one side of her face is showing, and beside it it’s her middle finger, on top of it FUCK YOU @dahye.lee96 !!!!!

He shuts off his phone and puts it on his lap, squeezing it in his hand from time to time. He takes deep breaths every one minute. Considers deleting his account, or his whole existence. He doesn’t know what to do with himself now, his eyes closing but not with the intent to sleep. He’s trying to block his flow of thoughts, unsuccessfully.

The incident haunts him for the rest of the trip, causing him to check his phone constantly and contemplating flushing it down the train’s toilet. Only when he sets foot in Busan’s station he’s able to distract himself from it. He sports a boyish smile when he sees his parents’ car parked outside, and bashfully lets himself be coddled by his mom’s praises and his dad’s content grin before driving away. He’s almost 21, most people his age feel too grown for this type of affection, but he will never deny it. That’s enough for him to stop worrying about his earlier slip. It’s still in the back of his mind, though.

Opening the door to his childhood home, he’s greeted by a fawning Gureum, his tail wagging so hard his whole body moves with it. The white Maltese has been the family dog for almost six years now, and giving him a new life after rescuing him from a shelter had cured Jeongguk’s loneliness and heartbreak; he hopes it did the same to the dog. He blocks out all kinds of noises and questions from his mom while he spends the first ten minutes in his house entertaining Gureum’s zoomies, using a sickeningly sweet tone that is only reserved for the small pet. To the point Gureum almost looks like he’s had enough of being called a good boy, feels like he can confidently reply to who’s the best boy ever? with the correct answer. Me! He just barks.

After settling his stuff and catching up with his parents on university and life in Seoul (he doesn’t mention that Eunbi is a new entry in his friend group, yet) he spends the whole morning in between naps, sleepiness eventually catching onto him. He dozes off after lunch, his tummy full and content with his mom’s cooking, which he had dearly missed, and ends up sleeping for more than intended. Next thing he knows, it’s 5 p.m. and it takes him some time to readjust to the reality surrounding him. He drags his feet to the kitchen to retrieve a snack, only to sit again, this time on the couch, Gureum finding home on his lap. The sleepyhead is close to spacing out again while munching on some Peperos, until his dad asks for help, his voice coming from upstairs.

Jeongguk finds out his most recent obsession has been decluttering, and that’s what he was called over for. His dad had collected old stuff that belonged to Jeongguk in two boxes with the intention of getting rid of it, but he still wanted to make sure there was nothing his son still needed, or valued. The boy is glad for such consideration the moment he spots his old Samsung camcorder in between worn plushies and damaged toy cars. He can’t imagine what would have happened if he wasn’t there; he figures the camera would have probably got thrown away, with his dad’s eagerness. He gets sensitive over it, entertaining a small argument with his father about it and forgetting the task he was supposed to complete, instead returning to his room to check on the camera’s contents.

Leaving the door ajar, he can still hear his dad’s faint voice calling for him and asking for truce, and even if Jeongguk’s little fit of anger is already over, he is too enthralled by the device to acknowledge any other sound around him. It had been a while since he last picked it up, not only because ever since he started university the boy had managed to afford better equipment for his short films and casual moments of inspiration, but also because what is stored in there could potentially break the thin line of sanity he has been walking on for the past weeks.

The first videos he’s met with make him chuckle, his big 10 years old eyes reflecting in his equally wide 20 years old ones, still sharing that same love for filming and blabbering on about his passions and ideas. With time, the contents captured by the camcorder changed, from video diaries of family trips and shared meals, to dramatic storytellings starring any toy that could be put to use. He can see the exact moment he began developing a bigger interest for directing, and his various attempts at finding new original shots and angles put a sweet smile on his lips.

Until, one particular clip marked an important switch, and the introduction of who soon after became the main subject for the rest of the images filmed on the device. From the moment she met him, Eunbi had been a constant presence anytime he would hit record on the camera. Their very first encounter is documented by it, when Jeongguk had forgotten to stop the recording, too startled by the sudden changes occuring right in front of his eyes; nevertheless, it resulted in a pure, authentic fragment that he’d never been able to replicate. There is no way to, the earliest smile she directed at him was captured by those lenses, and that started everything which followed.

He can spot the point in which they eventually got tired of making up stories to play out through their toys, even with the addition of Eunbi’s impressive Barbie collection. They also tried replacing the dolls with their own selves, but changing outfits and makeup for every single clip was only fun for a short while. Four episodes later, the both of them left the telenovela they had started taping unattended, and looked for a new reality to portray, even if it was always only for their own eyes and enjoyment.

Jeongguk was searching for something more simple than cliffhangers and plots. He now remembers how even his little self would always go back to that initial scene that saw them together for the first time, Eunbi’s small voice greeting the camera with the sun beginning to set behind her. He wanted his shots to be characterised by that same unadulterated, filtered feeling.

That is most probably what led him to start a documentary about their friendship, just what he had said behind the lenses while his best friend tilted her head to the side, sporting a confused look on her features, unaware of Jeongguk zooming in and out on her face (which probably got Eunbi to yell at the top of her lungs later on), “Was I unaware of you being a National Geographic reporter?”

“Are you calling yourself a beast?” Jeongguk could be heard chuckling in the microphone at Eunbi’s incredulous reaction. That was how it would always go between them, a constant back and forth to battle on who had the last word in. The girl just scoffed, clearly scrambling to find a quick reply, but only managing to roll her eyes with crossed arms and muttering something close to says you. It seemed the older one was ahead, for now.

Jeongguk grins at everything that follows next, and he tells himself it’s because he’s amused by his younger self’s manners, but it’s not like those were the main subject of his shots. He quickly comes to terms with the fact that if he wants to keep scrolling through the videos, he’d have to be constantly faced with Eunbi; there is really no way of escaping it. Jeongguk had underestimated the amount of clips portraying her, to the point the idea of a documentary seemed more like an excuse to film his friend. Make her his first muse. It was Eunbi playing, doing her hair, secretly trying on her mom’s clothes, blowing candles on her birthday cakes, revising for tests, baking Christmas cookies, coming up with friendship jingles; and everytime, she seemed so natural, as if being in front of a camera was all she was ever created for. She insisted she always wanted to be a teacher, though. He wonders if that changed.

He doesn’t know how much time he spends crouching on his desk with the recorder in his hands, but he knows it has to be hours when he gets to a close up of Eunbi’s face, her sleepy eyes and sheepish smile immediately taking him back to the night that infested his dreams hours earlier in his bed, his assumption being confirmed when he can see the sand extending behind her figure. At that point, he figures the relatively small amount of alcohol they had drank had already dissipated from their bodies, only leaving them feeling hazy, but in a good way. The wind makes it hard to decipher their slurry dialogue, and he misses the reason why Eunbi suddenly stole the camera and pointed the lenses at him. It makes him realise how little he showed himself in front of those. His timid smile probably gives out why: contrary to his friend, he wasn’t a natural. Still isn’t. He works better behind them.

He rewinds the clip a few times, curious as to what they were talking about. He can faintly hear Eunbi mention how that scenario looked so much like the drawing Jeongguk was working on that same afternoon. He doesn’t remember what it was, wishes he still had it. Then, the girl balanced the camcorder on the half empty bottle of vodka and stood, struggling to bring the older boy up with her. Now next to each other, Eunbi looked like she was instructing Jeongguk how to pose, and he figures she was trying to recreate that same doodle. She laughed hard when the boy shoved her, visibly annoyed with being moved around, more so with the girl seemingly repeating something again and again in his face. Her voice got louder, but the recording couldn’t quite catch it. From her lip movement, it looked like she was saying Put this in your movie! Put this in your movie! Jeongguk giggles. Was he already working on something? He wishes he could return to that moment to know, and maybe stay there for some more just because.

The boy is startled by sudden soft knocks on his door, jerking his head up and placing the camera on the desk, his hands sweaty from holding it for such an endless amount of time. He hums, signalling to come in, and he smiles when it’s his dad timidly peeking out and lifting his brows expectantly. Jeongguk giggles, “Dad, I forgive you.”

The older man sighs with way too much energy, exaggerating his relief and then coming to his son’s side. He smiles, ruffling his hair, “Are you hiding a girlfriend from us? This thing keeps going off,” handing him his phone, he cackles when he sees Jeongguk’s panicked expression. He must have left it on the couch earlier. And what does his dad mean with “girlfriend”? Phone going off? Does this have to do with him viewing Eunbi’s story? Is she publicly shaming h-

“Anyways. Dinner is almost ready, Gguk.” His dad pats the still alarmed boy’s shoulder and exits the room. As soon as Jeongguk hears the door close, he dashes himself on the phone and unlocks it. It keeps pinging with texts from his friends’ group chat, but there’s no new notification from Instagram. He releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, but his relief is short lived when he comes up with another thought: was he that irrelevant to Eunbi? She didn’t even think of requesting his account? He frowns.

His initial idea was to quickly scroll over the messages as to join his family downstairs, positive it was probably just going to be either Seokjin sharing awful unfunny memes or Hoseok updating the group on the next possible catastrophe looming over human beings. He furrows his brows when, instead, he’s met with the whole group chat coming at Jimin, for no apparent reason, after his own name was mentioned.

Jiminssi, 7:48 p.m.

heeeyyy so…. ggukkie’s bday is very soon guys

Dahye, 7:50 p.m.

jimin.

Yoongi hyung, 7:50 p.m.

Park Jimin.

It’s in two weeks

Jiminssi, 7:51 p.m.

what

im just saying

its gonna be exciting!

Dahye, 7:51 p.m.

shut your mouth rn.

Joon hyung, 7:52 p.m.

Bro I thought I could trust u w this

Jeongguk is even more confused when, as he goes on reading, his friends keep brutally bullying Jimin, going as far as threatening to ban him from the next club nights out that he himself had planned. He chuckles at his friend’s misery, but soon remembers he is somewhat involved in it. He pouts, angrily typing.

Jeongguk, 7:58 p.m.

What is this about

Hobi hyung, 7:59 p.m.

baby it’s nothing

Jeongguk, 7:59 p.m.

???

Its not nothing

I wanna know

Like the baby he truly is, he keeps spamming the chat with messages to make himself noticed, until he sees Jimin’s texting bubble going on and off.

Jeongguk, 8:01 p.m.

My dear jimin what is it

I know you wanna tell me 🌀🌀🌀

Jiminssi, 8:02 p.m.

WE R GOING CAMPING FOR UR BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

The next thing displayed on his phone is an incoming group videocall from Namjoon, but Jeongguk remains still staring at himself on the screen for more seconds than necessary, registering the sequence of events that had just occurred. Camping? His birthday?

He slides to answer the call, and he giggles at the imminent chaos he’s welcomed with, all his friends throwing shade at Jimin while he just laughs along with his roommate. As all the members keep joining, he still doesn’t notice a certain someone missing.

”Was this supposed to be a surprise?” Jeongguk finds it hard to stop his laughter, both because of Jimin’s incapability at keeping secrets, but also — and mainly — because of the excitement he feels at the news just revealed to him.

”Well, duh. Jimin just had to ruin it,” It’s Dahye who replies, and Jeongguk can see the indignation on her features even in the little pixelated box she’s now displayed in. She then proceeds to entertain an argument about it with the boy she mentioned, and as everyone just listens and tries to excuse Jimin’s reasoning, Jeongguk searches for Taehyung on the screen. When he finds his eyes, he’s already wiggling his brows and the younger boy silently chuckles, mirroring his actions. It’s been a couple months since the two of them started suspecting something going on between Jimin and Dahye, even with the former always denying it. What is undeniable is the tension between them, though. It is showing right at that moment.

Jeongguk decided to intervene, having to raise the volume of his voice to be heard over the soon to be (in his and Taehyung’s opinion) lovebirds, “Guys, guys. I’m not mad. This is amazing. Thank you, really. Are we the only ones going?”

He questions just because in the last period they were often times joined by Seokjin’s girlfriend, as well as a couple of Dahye’s friends, and he genuinely enjoys their company, would be totally okay with them being present to celebrate his birthday. Seokjin himself speaks, “Sora is coming, and I think Iseul and Aera are also gonna be there. Oh, and of course-“

”Guys!” His phone tings, signalling a new person joining the videocall. It’s Eunbi. Oh. He almost didn’t consider the fact that she is most probably going to be invited too. Well, obviously. From what her camera is showing it looks like she’s outside, more specifically waiting at a bus stop, headphones on, “Sorry, I just saw the texts. Jimin, why the fuck would you do that?”

As the topic of the conversation moves once again on Jimin being awful at secrets, Jeongguk dissociates for a minute, no longer giggling along. He realises this would be the first birthday of his he shares with her by his side after years. He’s not sure how he feels about it. Can only sense a nervous sensation travelling his body, and making him feel uneasy. His furrowed brows and sudden silence don’t go unnoticed by Jimin, while on the other side Jeongguk surely doesn’t seem aware of his internal battle showing on the outside. He can’t let one person ruin his own birthday. He just has to ignore her. How hard can that be?

When he returns to the reality surrounding him again, he absent-mindedly listens to the others talk and can only distractedly pick up that the attention has been shifted to a complely different matter, Eunbi seemingly finding it funny assuming from her loud pearly smile. He frowns, his confidence wavering. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy to ignore her. Still, not wanting to dwell too much on it at that moment, leaving it for his future self to worry about, he leaves the call not before thanking his friends again. He misses Eunbi’s fond smile as the others shower their baby with praises, dismissing his gratitude with this is the least we could do for you, Ggukkie boy.

When he joins his mom and dad downstairs, it’s oddly quiet as they eat. Gureum places himself under the table and sighs, laying his head on Jeongguk’s feet. The boy can perceive the eerie atmosphere, so he asks about Gureum’s health and shows genuine interest when his dad updates him on the dog’s improvements. His mom, however, defines herself as an expert when it comes to her only son. She can spot even the tiniest change in his demeanour. Still, she knows to be delicate when asking about it, “Is everything okay, honey?”

Jeongguk stills with the fork in his mouth, looks at his mom with wide telling eyes, then nods. He hesitates, gulping down the previous bite, “Uh, my friends and I are going camping for my birthday.”

His mother smiles a big one, “That’s nice!” She seems aware something is being left out, so she inquires further, “But…?”

The questioned boy plays with his food while still munching on a big bite of it, “I guess I kinda forgot to mention it,” he starts, trying to mask his embarrassment by talking with his mouth still full. When his mom glares at him, he forces it down, “But, huh… Eunbi is in Seoul. And she’s Dahye’s roommate, so she’s coming too.”

It’s his mom’s turn to be silent. She looks like she’s taken aback, her mind working slower than usual to register a name she hasn’t heard in a long while, “Eunbi as in Song Eunbi? Our neighbour?”

Jeongguk unconsciously furrows his brows. The girl hasn’t been their neighbour for years, and never will be again. He doesn’t know why such a simple definition of her makes him feel edgy, “Yeah, our old neighbour.”

”Right… Well, that’s good, no?” Mrs. Jeon tries to lift up the atmosphere, even while knowing the mentioned girl could still be a touchy subject for the boy. When everything happened, a piece of him had been taken away with Eunbi’s sudden departure. There was seemingly no way to mend his heart, and as time went by Jeongguk closed up more and more every time his old friend was brought up, to the point she was never mentioned again, as if she had never existed. That illusion seemed to help the boy move on. His mom is not sure how her son feels about it now, but she unknowingly figures the scar has to have healed after all those years, and maybe seeing Eunbi again even brought her son to the closure he needed. When Jeongguk just nods, she hopes that is the case. His mom smiles, ”Invite her over sometimes?”

“… Yeah, mom. Huh, I will.”

[lila-lou]

✨His true fate - Part 1/?✨

Summary: Jensen hasn't been happy for years. But it seems almost impossible for him to escape. After another nasty argument between him and his wife, he decides to visit his ´former´ best friend for his birthday. Back in Austin, an encounter awaits him that will turn his life completely upside down.

Pairing: Jensen x Reader

Warnings: Language, age gap, tough topics

Word Count: 4167

A/N: Alright. I'm only going to write this once. Danneel doesn't come off well in this story. She's pretty much described as the devil himself. She does and says things that are absolutely awful. In this Story she's pretty much the biggest bitch. I don't want to hear any complaints because it's just a story. Fiction. No hate towards anyone. So, that being said, I hope you enjoy reading it.

English isn’t my first language, so please be lenient. 💙✨

Jared parked in front of the airport in Austin, his fingers tapping restlessly on the steering wheel. It had been too long since he had seen Jensen outside of the conventions. This visit was different, just for spending time together, no panels, no crowds. As he waited, Jared couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement mixed with a hint of nervousness. It was the first time Jensen was visiting him after he moved away from Austin, a chance for them to catch up without the chaos of their usual meet-ups.

As Jared watched the stream of passengers disembarking from the plane, his mind drifted back to the rocky path that had led them to this moment. Their friendship had weathered its fair share of storms, strained by distance, conflicting schedules, and the pressures of their respective careers. Yet, despite the challenges, they had somehow found their way back to each other. It had taken time, effort, and countless late-night conversations, but slowly, they had begun to rebuild what they had once thought lost.

This weekend, as they celebrated Jared's birthday together, it felt like a new chapter unfolding. Jensen's decision to fly to Austin, despite his busy filming and convention schedule, spoke volumes about the strength of their renewed bond. As Jared caught sight of Jensen emerging from the crowd, a genuine smile spread across his face, washing away any lingering doubts or tensions. This weekend was about reconnecting, about rediscovering the camaraderie that had always defined their relationship.

Jensen opened the trunk and unceremoniously tossed his suitcase inside before collapsing into the passenger seat with a heavy sigh. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, looking every bit as exhausted and worn-out as Jared had feared.

"Wow, someone looks like they've been through the wringer", Jared teased, a playful grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he started the car.

Jensen shot him a mock glare, his eyes heavy with fatigue. "Thanks, Jared. Always great to get a warm welcome", he quipped, though there was a hint of amusement in his voice despite his worn-out demeanor.

"Just calling it like I see it, man", Jared chuckled, pulling out of the parking spot and heading towards the exit. "But seriously, you look like you could use a week-long vacation on a deserted island".

"Tell me about it", Jensen muttered, sinking back into the seat and closing his eyes for a moment. "Filming has been brutal lately. I swear, I'm starting to feel every single one of my thirty-something years".

Jared couldn't help but chuckle at Jensen's dramatics. "Thirty-something? More like ancient, old man", he teased, earning himself a playful shove from Jensen.

"Hey, watch it, Padalecki. I may be old, but I can still kick your ass", Jensen retorted with a smirk, the weariness momentarily forgotten as the car with little laughter.

As Jared merged onto the highway, the gentle hum of the car filled the silence between them. Glancing over at Jensen, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there was more going on beneath the surface.

“So, it’s just the filming that’s got you looking like you’ve aged a decade overnight?”, Jared ventured, keeping his tone light but his concern evident.

Jensen let out a heavy sigh, his gaze fixed on the passing scenery outside the window. “Yeah, filming’s been intense, but that’s not all of it”, he admitted, his voice tinged with resignation.

Jared knew better than to push too hard, but he couldn’t ignore the sense of unease that settled in the pit of his stomach. “Is everything okay at home?”, he asked tentatively, knowing full well the delicate balance Jensen was trying to maintain.

Jensen’s jaw tightened, a flicker of pain crossing his features before he masked it with a forced smile. “Yeah, everything’s fine”, he replied, his tone betraying the lie.

But Jared wasn’t about to let him off that easily. “Come on, man. You don’t have to pretend with me”, he pressed gently, his concern outweighing any discomfort he felt broaching the topic.

Jensen hesitated for a moment before finally speaking, his voice barely above a whisper. “Things… haven’t been great”, he admitted, his gaze fixed on his hands folded in his lap.

Jared could sense Jensen's internal struggle, the weight of unspoken words hanging heavy in the air. Before he could push him further, however, Jensen seemed to retreat, throwing up his defenses like a shield.

"Hey, forget I said anything, okay?", Jensen mumbled, his voice barely audible over the sound of the car's engine. "Let's just focus on having a good time this weekend. I could really use a break… from everything".

Jared nodded, respecting Jensen's boundaries even as his heart ached for his friend's pain. "Yeah, of course", he replied, his tone gentle yet supportive. "We'll make sure this weekend is all about relaxing and having fun. No drama, no stress".

Jensen managed a small, grateful smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Thanks. I appreciate it", he said quietly, a hint of vulnerability slipping through his usual facade of strength.

As they continued down the highway, the weight of their unspoken conversations hung heavy in the air, but for now, they both agreed to set aside their worries.

As the miles flew by, a more simple conversation flowed easily between Jared and Jensen, the tension of their earlier exchange dissipating with each passing moment. It didn't even take 30 minutes until Jared pulled into the familiar driveway of his family home.

"Home sweet home", Jared announced with a grin, turning off the engine and casting a sideways glance at Jensen. "Welcome back to Casa Padalecki".

Jensen chuckled, the weariness in his eyes momentarily replaced by a spark of excitement. "Thanks, man. It's good to be here", he replied, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

As Jared and Jensen climbed the front porch steps, they were met with the eager faces of Tom and Shep peeking out from behind the screen door. The boys' eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of Jensen standing there, and their excitement was palpable.

"Uncle Jensen!", Tom exclaimed, darting forward to wrap his arms around Jensen in a tight hug, his enthusiasm bubbling over.

Shep followed suit, his smaller frame joining in the embrace as he grinned up at Jensen. "We didn't think you were really coming!", he said, his voice filled with a mix of surprise and joy.

Jensen chuckled warmly, returning their hugs with equal affection. "Well, here I am", he replied, tousling their hair playfully. "I couldn't miss the chance to hang out with you two".

As they stepped inside the house, laughter and chatter filled the air, the boys buzzing with excitement at the prospect of spending time with their favorite ´uncle´. Jared couldn't help but smile at the sight, grateful for the bond that had formed between Jensen and his sons over the years. With Jensen back in their lives, even just for the weekend, he knew that memories would be made and cherished for years to come.

As Tom and Shep dashed off to explore the backyard, their laughter echoing through the house, Jensen turned to Jared with a curious expression.

"So, where's Gen and mini Gen?", Jensen asked, a playful twinkle in his eye as he referred to Jared's wife and daughter.

Jared glanced at the clock on the wall, a knowing smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "They're out shopping", he replied, his voice tinged with amusement. "Looks like it's just us guys for now".

Jensen chuckled, nodding in understanding. "Ah, a little father-son bonding time, huh?", he remarked.

"Yeah, something like that", Jared replied, his gaze drifting toward the backyard where the sounds of his sons' laughter drifted in through the open door.

As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the backyard, Jared and Jensen found themselves sitting side by side, beers in hand, watching as Tom and Shep played with the chickens.

Jared took a sip of his beer, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them. "So, how are the kids?", he asked, his tone casual but genuine.

Jensen's smile faltered slightly at the mention of his own children, a flicker of sadness crossing his features before he quickly masked it with a forced grin. "They're good", he replied, his voice tinged with a hint of uncertainty. "Busy with school and all that".

Jared nodded, though he could sense there was more to the story than Jensen was letting on. He had seen firsthand how Jensen had thrown himself into his work, often using it as a means of escape from the troubles at home.

"Must be tough juggling all that work and family", Jared remarked sympathetically, knowing all too well the pressures of balancing a career with family responsibilities.

"Yeah, it's… still challenging", Jensen admitted, his gaze drifting off into the distance. "But hey, enough about me. How's Gen and the kids? They keeping you on your toes?".

Jared chuckled, grateful for the diversion. "Always", he replied with a fond smile. "But wouldn't have it any other way".

As they sat together in the fading light, the sound of laughter and chatter filling the air, Jared couldn't shake the feeling that there was still so much left unsaid between them.

As the evening wore on and the sky darkened, Gen and Odette returned home, their arrival greeted with hugs and laughter from Jensen. They exchanged pleasantries and caught up on each other's lives, the warmth of their conversation filling the air.

However, as the hour grew late and the kids were ushered off to bed by Gen, a sense of tranquility settled over the house. Now alone in the quiet of the evening, Jared and Jensen found themselves relaxing on the porch once more, the glow of their beers casting long shadows in the dim light.

But their peace was short-lived as Jensen's phone rang, breaking the serene atmosphere with its shrill tone. With a frustrated groan, Jensen glanced at the caller ID, his annoyance evident.

"Danneel?", Jared asked quietly, his brow furrowing with concern as he watched Jensen quickly silence the call.

Jensen nodded, his jaw clenched in frustration. "Yeah", he muttered, his voice heavy with irritation. "Probably just checking in to make sure I'm not having too much fun".

Jared could sense the tension radiating from his friend, the weight of Jensen's strained marriage casting a shadow over their evening.

Jared let out a heavy sigh, the weight of unspoken words pressing heavily on his chest. Finally, unable to contain his thoughts any longer, he spoke up, his voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and concern.

"Jensen, can I ask you something?", Jared began, his gaze fixed on his friend. "Why won't you just finally leave her?".

The question hung in the air, laden with the weight of years of silence and suppressed emotions. Jared knew it was a delicate subject, one that had been tiptoed around for far too long, but he couldn't stand by any longer and watch his friend suffer in silence.

Jensen's expression hardened, a flicker of defiance crossing his features before he quickly masked it with a forced smile. "It's complicated. You know that", he replied evasively, his voice betraying the turmoil raging beneath the surface.

"But is it really?", Jared pressed, his tone gentle yet insistent. "I mean, I get that there are always reasons, but at what point do you say enough is enough?".

Jensen's jaw tightened, his gaze drifting off into the distance as he wrestled with his inner demons. "I wish it were that simple", he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "But you have no idea what she's capable of".

Jared's heart ached at the pain etched into Jensen's features, the deep-rooted fear and resignation that seemed to consume him. But he refused to back down, knowing that sometimes, the hardest conversations were the ones that needed to be had the most.

"I know it's fucking scary", Jared admitted softly, reaching out to place a reassuring hand on Jensen's shoulder. "But you don't have to face it alone, you know. We're here for you, no matter what".

Jensen's grip tightened around his beer bottle, frustration simmering beneath the surface. "You don't get it, Jared", he muttered, his voice tinged with bitterness. "If I try to leave, she'll make sure I never see my kids again. She'll ruin me. In every fucking way possible".

Jared's eyes narrowed, his patience wearing thin. "And what do you think she's doing right now? Keeping you trapped, suffocating you with her control", he retorted, his voice tinged with anger. "She's already ruining you, Jensen. Can't you see that?".

Jensen's jaw clenched, his fists balling at his sides as he struggled to find the words to express the turmoil raging within him. "I can't risk losing my kids, my image, my career", he finally admitted, his voice choked with emotion. "I can't".

Jared's heart ached for his friend, the pain etched into every line of his face. But he refused to let Jensen succumb to the fear and manipulation any longer.

"You're stronger than that, Jensen", Jared said firmly, his voice filled with conviction.

Jared's frustration softened into determination. "Listen to me, Jensen. You need to stop letting her control you", he said firmly, his voice unwavering. "You just need to get yourself a damn good lawyer".

Jensen's gaze flickered with uncertainty, the weight of Jared's words sinking in. "But what if it's not enough?", he whispered, his voice filled with doubt.

"It's a start", Jared replied, his tone resolute. "And you're not alone in this. We'll find you the best lawyer, one who'll fight tooth and nail to make sure she won´t ruin your life more than she already did".

As they sat in the quiet of the backyard, the weight of their conversation hanging heavy in the air, Jensen felt a glimmer of hope stir within him. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of the darkness that had consumed him for so long.

But then, with a heavy sigh, Jensen's resolve wavered as he confessed, "I can't take it anymore, Jared. Every time I'm home, I feel like I'm suffocating. I drown myself in conventions just to get away from her. And when I am home, I'm mostly drunk just to be able to deal with her".

Jared's heart sank at the raw honesty in Jensen's words, the pain and despair evident in every syllable. But he refused to let his friend continue down this destructive path.

"We'll figure it out, Jensen," Jared said firmly, his voice filled with conviction.

Jared knew how bad Jensen really was. For years he could do nothing but watch as Danneel destroyed his best friend. Publicly humiliated him, manipulated him and mentally abused him. She gradually destroyed his self-confidence, his friendships and caused him to isolate himself from everyone. Jared wanted nothing more than to finally see his best friend happy again. Truly happy. But with Danneel and her toxic personality by his side, that wouldn't happen. So he hoped to use the time they had together well enough to somehow get through to Jensen.

As Jensen made his way to the guestroom an hour later, the weight of the evening's conversation hung heavy on his shoulders, his mind consumed by a whirlwind of emotions and stress. Each step felt like a burden, the familiar sense of suffocation creeping in as he retreated from the warmth of Jared's home to the solitude of his temporary sanctuary.

Slipping into the guestroom, Jensen closed the door behind him with a heavy sigh, the darkness of the room enveloping him like a shroud. He sank onto the edge of the bed, his head in his hands as he tried to quiet the storm raging within him.

But despite his best efforts, the memories and fears clawed their way to the surface, threatening to overwhelm him with their intensity.

And as he lay there in the silence of the night, the weight of his burdens pressing down upon him, Jensen couldn't help but wonder if there would ever be a way out of the darkness that had consumed him for so long. But for now, all he could do was try to find solace in the quiet of the night, hoping that somehow, someway, he would find the strength to face another day.

The next morning, Jared and Gen bustled around the kitchen, the savory aroma of breakfast filling the air as they worked together with Odette by their side. The sound of laughter and chatter filled the room, a stark contrast to the heaviness that had hung over the house the night before.

As they set the table with plates of pancakes and fresh fruit, Jared glanced at Gen with a playful smirk. "Think Jensen will be able to handle waking up to the smell of your cooking?", he teased, earning a chuckle from his wife.

Gen rolled her eyes, though there was a hint of amusement in her expression. "He better be ready for the Padalecki family breakfast experience", she replied with a grin, her culinary skills on full display.

Just then, Tom bounded into the kitchen, his energy infectious as he eagerly awaited his next task. "Can I go wake up Uncle Jensen now, Dad?", he asked, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

Jared nodded with a smile, ruffling Tom's hair affectionately. "Go for it, buddy. Just try not to scare him too much", he replied, unable to contain his own amusement at the thought of Jensen's reaction to being roused from his slumber.

With a mischievous grin, Tom dashed off to carry out his mission, leaving Jared and Gen to share a knowing look.

As Tom made his way towards the guestroom, his excitement bubbling over, he couldn't help but feel a mischievous urge creeping in. Quietly, he slipped inside, tiptoeing towards Jensen's bed with a grin plastered on his face.

With a sly glance towards Jensen, still lost in slumber, Tom couldn't resist the temptation. He settled himself down beside Jensen, his heart racing with anticipation. And then, with a mischievous gleam in his eye, he let out a loud fart, breaking the silence of the room with a resounding blast.

Jensen jolted awake with a start, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at Tom in disbelief. "What the…", he sputtered, his voice trailing off as he tried to process what had just happened.

Tom couldn't contain his laughter, doubling over with mirth as he reveled in the chaos he had created. "Gotcha, Uncle Jensen!", he exclaimed between giggles, unable to contain his excitement at the successful prank.

Jensen instantly grimaced, his hand flying to cover his nose as the pungent odor assaulted his senses. "Oh, man, Tom! What did you eat?", he exclaimed, his voice muffled by his hand as he tried to escape the noxious fumes.

Tom doubled over with laughter, barely able to catch his breath between fits of giggles. "Sorry, Uncle Jensen!", he managed to squeak out between laughs.

Jensen waved his hand in front of his face, desperately trying to dispel the stench that hung in the air. "You're absolutely your dad's kid", he grumbled, his tone laced with both amusement and exasperation. "Damn, that fucking stinks!".

Again Jensen waved his hand in front of his face, still trying to rid the room of the lingering smell. "Alright, alright, Tom", he said with a chuckle, trying to mask his amusement. "Why don't you go air out that stinking butt of yours while I get dressed?".

Tom grinned mischievously, his laughter echoing through the room as he bounded out of the guestroom, leaving Jensen to shake his head in amusement.

Dressed and somehow awake, Jensen made his way towards the kitchen, the promise of breakfast and laughter drawing him forward.

Jensen took a seat at the table, a grin playing at the corners of his lips as he recounted Tom's prank to Jared. "You won't believe what your son just did", he chuckled, shaking his head in amusement.

Jared raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. "Oh? What did he do this time?", he asked with a smirk, already bracing himself for another one of Tom's antics.

"He let out the loudest fart I've ever heard right next to my face", Jensen replied, his laughter infectious as he recounted the incident. "I swear, that kid is just like his old man".

Jared couldn't help but laugh at the image of his son terrorizing Jensen with his infamous flatulence. "Well, I guess he takes after me in more ways than one", he quipped, a proud smile spreading across his face.

Shep and Odette's laughter filled the room, their amusement at Tom's antics contagious as they teased their brother relentlessly. Gen couldn't help but shake her head affectionately at their sibling banter.

Turning to Jared, Gen's smile widened as she made a suggestion. "Hey, do you think you and Jensen could handle getting the drinks for tonight's party?", she asked, her tone hopeful as she looked between her husband and his friend.

Jared grinned at the idea, nodding eagerly. "Of course", he replied, excitement lighting up his eyes. "Consider it our mission. We'll make sure we have plenty of drinks to keep the party going all night long".

Jensen nodded in agreement. "You can count on us", he chimed in.

As they made plans for the evening's festivities, the anticipation of the birthday party ahead filled the room with a sense of excitement.

Two hours later, Jensen found himself sitting in the passenger seat of Jared's car, the hum of the engine and the rhythm of the road soothing his frayed nerves. They were on their way to the next liquor store, their mission to stock up for Jared's birthday party well underway.

Jared glanced over at Jensen with a grin, the excitement of the evening ahead evident in his eyes. "Ready to make a dent in the liquor aisle?", he joked, his tone light as he navigated through the traffic.

Jensen chuckled, a sense of camaraderie washing over him as he settled back into his seat. "You bet", he replied. "Just promise me we won't end up with more beer than we can carry".

Jared laughed, shaking his head at his friend's jest. "No promises", he teased, though there was a hint of mischief in his tone.

As Jared disappeared in search of the restroom, Jensen remained leaning against the overflowing shopping cart, his expression a mix of boredom and introspection. With each passing moment, he found himself sinking deeper into his own thoughts. Again the weight of his troubles pressing down on him like a suffocating blanket.

He couldn't shake the feeling of unease that gnawed at him from within, the nagging sense that he was trapped in a life that no longer brought him joy. Despite the excitement of Jared's birthday party looming on the horizon, Jensen couldn't escape the shadows of his own turmoil that threatened to engulf him at every turn.

Lost in his thoughts, Jensen barely noticed the bustle of shoppers around him as they navigated the crowded aisles of the liquor store. His mind was a whirlwind of memories and regrets, a tangled web of emotions that left him feeling adrift in a sea of uncertainty.

Lost in his thoughts, Jensen barely registered the collision until he felt the impact against his back. Startled, he stumbled forward, nearly losing his balance as he turned to see what had caused the disturbance.

"Hey, fucking watch where you're going!", he grumbled irritably, his frustration evident in his tone as he glanced over his shoulder.

But as he turned around, ready to unleash a torrent of curses, Jensen's words died on his lips as he met your gaze.

"Sorry", you apologized quickly, your cheeks flushing with embarrassment as you struggled to regain your composure and the bottles of whiskey in your arms. "I didn't see you there".

Jensen's irritation faded, his annoyance evaporating as he took in your apologetic expression. "It's okay", he replied more softly. "No harm done".

———————————

A/N: I wanted to give you a little preview. I don't know exactly when it will continue. If you want to be tagged, please let me know <3 It's going to be a damn long story, that's for sure, lol.

Please let me know what you think.🥰

-

Part 2

[shocymer]

Ref:rain

"He was young and reckless, but loving you is another exception. After all this time refrained his feelings that spilled over in the midst of rain, he only wished for you to return his favor."

Pairing : Seonghwa x f! reader

Word counts : 3,02k

Contents & warnings : smut mdni! , hurt/comfort, slowburns, bestfriend to lovers, TW! mention of abused, soft dom! seonghwa, gentle sex, oral (receiving), multiple orgasm, fingering, unprotected sex, creampie, after care.

He is the nostalgic night, the comfort of your frantic mind, the steady shelter under the pouring rain, the warmth in the middle of snow storm, and the salvation of your helpless soul.

You know it’s too much to describe him that way, but reality never proves you wrong. Living in the countryside on secluded area with your parents’ unstable marriage is definitely driving you insane. But, there’s always something that brings the joy whenever you feels his presence. It’s him Park Seonghwa.

Best friend? No. Just friends? Both of you are knowing each other for almost the rest of your life the second you’ve started walking on the ground. Childhood sweetheart? Yeah, maybe that’s the right thing to called your friendship status with him.

Growing up with him made you realize that the dynamic between you two is a bit weird, it’s like 'close but not that close' relationship. He know what’s happen in your life and so did you, but you’re not shared everything to each other. Just like when he’ll come to comfort you that bawling your eyes out in the middle of the night on the hill back of your house. He just sitting next to you, patting your back gently until your crying subsided. Didn’t ask a single word until you wanted to tell him everything what you’ve been through.

Or he will treat your wounds in silence, only giving you one or two questions at the most just to divert his anger.

“Again?” Furrowed his eyebrows while he dabbed your wounds with the cotton soaked in antiseptic.

You only nodded as you wincing in pain everytime it touches your grazed skin. He really hate to see you like that, his jaw tighten the entire time he treated you. Well, there’s nothing you can do, you’re still a minor and still live under those parents of yours, unless avoiding your abusive father is the only option you’ll take.

He tucked a few strands of hair that fall over your face behind your ears, “It’s done. I’ll help to treat it again tomorrow, just come to me okay?” His face looked somber when you met his eyes. You sure he felt frustrated too because this doesn’t happen once or twice.

“Yeah.. Thanks Hwa.” You gave him a reassuring smile, as if to say everything was fine.

But it’s all different at school, you almost never talk to each other. Being in different class and different circles of friends, make it less likely for you to cross paths with him. Well, he's quite famous. How could he not be, he's tall, handsome, dance genius, and also quite smart academically. On top of that his personality makes him liked by a lot of his friends including you.

Sometimes he stole glances at your class, looking for your figure who is immersed in reading your favorite literature book. Only to make sure you’re fine after seeing your smiley face surrounded by your friends. He felt relieve, there’s nothing to worry about.

⁠✧

“Oh.. hi Mrs. Park, is Seonghwa home? ” A little surprised, didn't expect it to be his mother who opened the door after you were knocking for a few times.

“Yes, come in sweetie,” she invited you in, giving you a warm smile that reminds you how it’s exactly like Seonghwa’s. You stepped slowly, feeling awkward due to sudden meet with her. It’s been a long time since you visited his house, you believed it’s when you’re still in the middle school. Then both of you only met outside all the time.

After exchanged small talk, she pointed towards the stairs. “By the way, just go to his room, he’s been there since morning. I’ll make some snacks for you.” She winked then proceed to leave you to the kitchen. You only shook your head after looking at what was his mother did. But at least you feel happy that you’re so warmly accepted here unlike in your own home.

You climbed the stairs carefully before knocking on his door. “Seonghwa.. I’ts me.” Tapping your foot as you waiting for him, but no answer heard from inside. You decided to open his door only to find him sleeping peacefully with a headphone still intact to his ears. Some books were open, scattered around him. He must be tired studying all the day.

You crouched down, bringing your head closer to the same level of his headphone, wanting to hear what song that was playing. Ah, it’s the same song you listened together a few years ago. As soon as you grasp it, you hummed the melody, bopping your head a little to the left and right.

Until you turned towards him, he’d been watching you for who knows how long it is. He shifted his headphone slightly, blinking for a few times still half asleep. His fingertips slowly caress the plastered wound on your cheeks, looking at it closely with a hurt stare.

“Seonghwa?” Your voice brought him to his sense. He immediately sat on the bed, patting to his side, gestured you to sit next to him.

“I’m sorry, I overslept.” He said, while his hand is busy reaching for something inside the drawer.

Your eyes fell back to the pile of his books. “It’s okay hwa.”

Suddenly he removed your band-aid gently, then applying a thin layer of the ointment on top of your wound. His face is so close to you, make you staring to his long lashes every time he blinked. The way he showed his earnest expression was fascinated you, to the point you didn’t hear what was he said.

“Are you there?” He’s still focused treating your wound with patience.

You shook your head slightly, “Uhm sorry, can you repeat it again?”

“Well, since the graduation is near, I decided to go to college.”

Your heart dropped after hearing that. It means he’ll moved out to the city and you won’t see him for a while, leaving you alone in this small town. But of course, you’re happy for him. He got so much potential to waste if he stayed here for too long.

“You’re going too, right?” His gaze shifted into your eyes, as if expecting a reaction from you.

“I- I still think about that. I’m not sure, what I’m gonna do.” On the contrary, you know exactly what you will do. Your parents have already planned for your future, forcing you to continue their own business. You really hate being stuck with them even though you’re just turning into adult a few weeks ago.

“All.. done. I hope it won’t leave a scar.”

His words snap you back. Lowered your head, you felt ashamed that he always be by your side whenever you’re in difficult times. “Once again, thank you hwa. I wish I can return your favor.”

He smiled, tucked your loose hair behind your ears. “You don’t need too.” But then he paused for a second like there’s something clicking on his mind.

“Well actually, I’ll ask about that one day. So,” he touched your chin, “be prepared for that.”

You chuckled before slap his hand playfully, “Sure, I’ll get ready from now on.”

Both of you spent the rest of weeks together before he left. Starting from the graduation day, then talking about this and that in his room all night, and hanging out at the usual favorite places just like today. He really enjoyed your accompany, the way you dressed prettily, walking at the downtown side by side and seeing you smile at him sweetly. He’s struggling to keep the urge not to hold your empty hands that swing back and forth on your every steps. Hoping the time will pass slowly, so he won’t leave you too soon.

He decided to stop by the cafe, after spending a day looking for the things he needed with you. Sitting opposite each other at the same table, made him keep looking at your presence. He didn’t realize since when his feelings grew this big for you.

As soon as the order served, he noticed that you stirred the drink long enough, battling with your own self whether you should tell him about this matter or not.

He stopped your hand from doing it, “say, there’s something on your mind?”

His worried look breaking your defense, you took a deep breath before you tell him the truth. “I will get married”

If previously he wished for the time would pass slowly, but for now the time is completely stopped. Loud silence burst into his ear while his mind is going blank. “What?” Is the only word that left from his mouth.

“I eventually will get married, my parents told me to.” You clarified.

Right it’s always her parents, are they finally going crazy or something? She’s still young and what the fuck she’d accepted their ridiculous request gladly. He kept all of his thought, afraid of hurting you even more if he said it out loud. He clicked his tongue trying to suppress his anger. “Then, what was your exact motivation to agree with them just like that?”

“So I can get out of my house.” You took a quick glance at him, “and maybe I’ll love him as the time goes by.”

His eyes pierced through into yours that remaining unfazed. “Okay then good for you.” he’s leaning to the chair as if nothing happen, after he catch your slightly disappointment look towards his remark. He thought, there’s no point to carry on the conversation if it was your own will too.

Both of you were silent like there’s no suitable words needed to say. On the other hand, Seonghwa is still contemplating, blaming himself why he only could repair the damage but unable prevent it to happen. He’s totally mad, to the point taking his shopping bags roughly in one swoop.

“Let’s wrap it out for today, I’m tired.”

⁠✧

On the day of his departure, you thought he’ll give you a warm hug or few words as farewell. Unfortunately, what you’ve imagined never happen. He only gave you a faint smile while sitting in his car, before rolled up the door glass and drove away. It was the beginning that you feel he’s distancing himself from you.

He still responded your texts in the first months, but over the time the intensity slowly decreased. Once he replied to your text no sooner than two weeks, only contained with a short reasoning, “sorry, been busy.” It must be rough in the first year of the college, so you tried to understand.

Until you send him one about your wedding day, telling him the place and the date of events. And a month passed, there’s no single replied come from him. Your anxiety skyrocketed in a week before the wedding day, you kept checking your phone waiting for his answer. To the point you’re hating yourself that you still need him just to calm yourself down. You felt empty, all the feelings of relieved thinking that you’ll be free just disappeared. It's enough, you definitely didn’t want this.

Few hours before the wedding started, you’ve done wearing your dress and make up. There’s no time left, you grabbed the necessary things as much as you can, then immediately stormed out of your house after you told your family that you need some time alone in your room.

You keep walking aimlessly with no thoughts, ignoring people gaze to the runaway bride. Didn’t even know how far you’ve gone and just realize the rain is pouring hard ever since. Your feet ache, blistered by the heels, you can’t drag yourself anymore due to how heavy your dress soaked in the rain.

You sat down on the side of road, the tears blending in with every raindrops fall onto you. What have I done? What if I rejected them since the beginning? And most importantly, What if I patiently wait for Seonghwa a little bit longer? The thoughts of losing him feared you the most. The pain is not only on the back of your feet, but now it’s spreading into your heart. It feels suffocated that you love him truly.

A pair of black leather shoes stopped in front of you, suddenly you didn't feel the rain hitting your body. You looked up and found Seonghwa holding an umbrella. His suit is drenched despite being under it. You proceed to stand on your feet, “You here.. you finally here.” The overwhelmed feeling is breaking you down, throwing out your weak fist on top of his chest, for several times. “Where have you been Hwa.. I need you, I- can’t do this”

He didn’t budge at all still covering you from the rain. Letting you to vent out all of your burden. He brought the palm of his hands towards your cheek, caressing it gently before pulled you into the kiss. He missed you so bad, until you could feel his warm tears rolling down touched your skin. He pulled out from the kiss, pressing his forehead to yours.

His reddening eyes staring deep down into your own, he sighed before closing his eyes. “First, I’m such a coward. I can’t stand you with someone else. I’m so sorry for acting so childish.” He letting out the same frustrations as you feel. Then he open his eyes, continuing his words, “I’ve always love you, from the beginning till now”

Putting your hands to the back of his neck, you pulled him closer, returning the kiss. Pouring out all of your feelings into it, hoping he’ll catch that you feel the same. I do, I love you too Park Seonghwa.

⁠✧

Warm. That’s what you feel right now. He’s behind you, wiped your back with lukewarm water after peeled off your soaked dress. Placing kisses on the side of your neck, down to your shoulder. While his another hand teasing your clit. You can’t keep your legs still due to tingling sensation on your core, splashing the water all over the floor.

It’s more than half an hour he continued to tease you in the bathtub, causing you to reach the orgasm over and over. You hold his hand, hoping he’ll stop. But it only made him flicked his fingers even faster. “Hwa.. enough..” You’ve said this for who knows how many times it is.

Pressing his lips to your ears, he letting out his honey voice softly, “Hm.. not yet.” He tugged your earlobe between his teeth, before pushing his fingers deeper into you. You gasped as it spread open your inside, then it curled up hitting your spot. Your body shaking violently, gripping on the side of the tub as you riding down the orgasm.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that?” He showers you compliments every time you came undone, while kissing the back of your neck.

He decided to carry you into his arms, then lay you down on the bed slowly, starting to kiss your forehead, down to your eyes, then to your pretty lips gently as if it’s too fragile. His hand roaming around to tease your nipple by pinching it a little.

Then he’s going down, holding your thigh open while his tongue busy exploring your slicked fold. Licking it up and down, devouring the spilled juice. He looked up, eyes fixed to your face, anticipating for every expression you made. He’ll suck hard on your clit, only to make you moaning his name in pleasure.

After being satisfied with it, he sit on his knee right under you. Stroking his hard member for few times till throwing his head back as he drowning in sensation. Your inside is twitching, looking at the way his cock throbbing hard between his fingers plus those scrumptious jaw of his.

Your fingertips brushed to his knee, begging for his attention. “Seonghwa..” He turned back to you, giving you a mischievous look “Hmm?”

“Please..” Squirming your legs, you trying to scoot over him desperately. Only wanting his tip slightly to touch your swollen cunt.

He moved back a little, “Say it clearly, I don’t get what you really want.”

“I want your dick inside of me, please.”

He immediately put it into you. Bringing his hand to intertwined with yours as soon as he saw you flinched cause of the first thrust. After you feel comfortable enough, he started moving his hips in steady pace.

He kept the eye contact while pressing the forehead against each other, occasionally planting soft kisses all over your face. You could feel he’s pulsing inside of you, gradually thrusting his hard member even faster. The feelings become unbearable, as he pushed your lower stomach with one hand while the other one gripping onto your waist to keep it stay still.

You moan out incoherent mess, reaching for your own climax. Can’t control your shuddering body as you feel his hot seeds filled you up, shooting all his load inside. He’s grinding for a few times, before pulled it out, causing his cum leaked, dripping down from your pussy. He scoop it out with his index finger then pushing it back in. “Would be a shame if it’s going wasted, right?” Throwing out rhetorical question, while bringing his finger towards your mouth to let you know how he taste like.

Now you snuggle up with him, placing your head on his chest. You can feel his heart beating rapidly, makes you think it’s your own. His fingers played with your hair, caressing it or twirling it around delicately. The two of you, spending the time together in this warm hotel room while the rainstorm outside never stopped. Suddenly his voice breaking the silence, “So, I want you to return my favor.”

You looked up to him, “Tell me how?”

He swept your hair to the side then placing a kiss on top of your head. “Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”

Your tears fall in instant, still can’t believe the feelings are mutual. You know he always there, he always save you, and you always love him from the deepest of your heart. You nodded,

“Yes, I will.”

[polakina]

on his knees for you

pairing: javier escuella x reader

rating: mature

outline: a robbery goes sideways, and your already rocky friendship with a fellow camp mate is put to the test as you evade the guards of Van Horn

warnings: cursing, so much bickering, canon-typical gore and violence, flirting, slightly suggestive (this is by far the tamest thing i've ever written)

requests are open! hope you enjoy, petals <3

a/n: i can't believe how many notifications i've gotten about my works over the past week. its fucking crazy. thank you so much, you're all absolute stars

masterlist

II

It was a simple job, really. Get in, steal the bonds, and get out.

But nothing ever went as simple as the original plan, did it? Not with the Van Der Linde gang. There was always a little bit of improvisation to be had. Which was exactly what you were doing right now.

Bullets firing past your ears, blood running down your leg, the target’s personal guards chasing you down the winding paths of Roanoke Ridge.

-

One day earlier.

The plan was set. Arthur, Bill and Lenny were to infiltrate the building and steal the bonds, while Micah and Charles handled the guards. You and Javier were on lookout, posted at the entrance gates. 

You were all stationed just outside of Van Horn, your target being the mansion and its occupiers. Trelawny had brought intel of bonds on their way through Van Horn to Annesburg, stopping off at the mansion overnight. Roanoke wasn’t a place anyone wanted to be caught up in at night.

“It’s fucking freezing out here,” you muttered, leaning further against your horse, absorbing his body heat as much as you could. It had been hours of waiting around and checking on the mansion. No movement whatsoever since the sun began to set. Darkness was nearing and the coach was nowhere to be seen.

Javier stood beside you, rifle in hand, eyes fixated on the road to the right, where the coach should appear from. “Want my poncho?” He asked, glancing at you briefly.

You didn’t even cast him a look as you responded. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your style, Escuella. I think I’ll survive without it.” You sighed, and moved from your position, heading further down the road, hiding in the trees to watch from a different position, seeing the road winding down Roanoke Ridge to New Hanover.

The two of you had never gotten along. He didn’t like your attitude one bit. You were snarky, cold. Something you’d developed after years of running with Arthur and John. He’d try and make conversation, you’d brush it off. He’d invite you on a fishing or hunting trip, you’d decline and say you preferred to hunt alone. He couldn’t win. You never sat with the camp during his songs or meals, you were always perched somewhere else, keeping lookout. That’s what you did. That’s all you ever did. 

So after a few months, he gave up. Not exactly understanding your harshness to him, he just accepted it instead. He returned your cold comments and your mean stares. Years passed and you bickered like enemies living beside one another. 

You whistled out to the group as you spotted the coach. Your whistle blended with the birds, so it was undetected by the gourds watching the bonds.

Everything went smoothly, Arthur, Lenny and Bill making quick work of breaking into the bonds lock box, and you heard the guards grunting and groaning as they hit the floor from Micah and Bill’s attacks.

Through your scope, you spotted as the boys grabbed the bonds, throwing them into their satchels. Drifting your rifle along the side of the mansion, you sensed something wrong with Bill. He was arguing with Micah. More so than usual. 

“What’s going on?” Javier whispered, lying beside you, hidden between the trees.

You shushed him, focusing on Bill. Their argument grew even more heated, and you caught a glimpse of lantern light behind them. You watched as they turned, cursing loudly before returning fire. Micah had scurried off during the brawl with the guards, seeking other treasures and getting himself caught in a scuff with guardsmen minding their own business.

“Shit, shit,” Javier cursed, throwing an arm over you and holding you down, protecting your head as bullets fired your way. “He can’t keep his head for one mission, puta madre!”

Arthur had ordered for, if the mission went south; which you had good money on it that it did, that you scatter. Split up and evade Van Horn at all costs, go the long way around New Hanover until it was safe to return back to camp so you were sure you weren’t followed. 

They had the bonds, all they needed to do was escape without getting caught. But you wouldn’t have minded if Micah got murdered in the. Just when you thought he’d found your last nerve, he managed to hit another one.

“I think this is our cue to leave,” you said through gritted teeth, pushing yourself onto your feet and grabbing your gear. Javier was on your heels, close behind. You hiked deeper into Murfree Brood territory, constantly keeping an eye over your shoulders for lantern light.

“Our safest path is through Roanoke,” Javier said from behind you, following your path through the trees. “The guards won’t dare follow us through there this late at night.”

You halted suddenly, whipping around to face Javier. He was caught off guard, almost stumbling into you, a surprised expression on his face. “Are you crazy, Escuella? Murfree Brood hunt here at night. If it’s not the guards who get us, it’ll be them. And I’d rather take my chances with bullets rather than-”

A bullet shot through the wind, straight through your leg into the tree behind you. It caught your words in your throat and you almost crumbled to the ground under the pain firing down your leg. Javier didn’t even blink as he wrapped an arm around you, catching you before you fell. He pulled his gun from its holster at his hip, pointing it over your shoulder and firing it straight into the head of the guard who fired at you first.

It drew attention. Of course, it did. Javier pulled you away from the scene, down the winding path leading to New Hanover. His arm stayed firmly around your waist, and you tried to hold in your groans of pain as your feet collided with uneven terrain, worsening the sting of the wound.

You both heard voices, coming from the top of the hill of which you had just descended. Javier pulled you around a large oak tree, pushing your body against the bark which pulled a pained gasp from your lips. “Fucking hell, Javier. At least try to be gentler with-” His hand clamped over your mouth, his body pressed against yours as he looked past the tree trunk to the guards making their way past you, checking their surroundings as they went. 

“You need to learn to shut up once in a while,” he whispered, looking back to you. His hat was tipped down his head, shielding his eyes. “I’m trying to save you and you’re still complaining.”

You looked up at him, your mouth still firmly covered, your hand wrapped around his wrist, instinct from when he shut you up. He smelled of whiskey and firewood, his scent filling your nostrils. His hand wrapped around your waist protectively, tightening as the footsteps grew closer.

Pulling his hand down, you noticed his skin never left yours. It rested around your neck. Softly, no pressure in his fingers, but the heat of his palm burned against your pulse, and he felt your heart rate jump. “Thought you would have wanted to get rid of me, Escuella,” you whispered, looking up at him. 

But he just looked down at you, surprised. “What?”

“Get rid of me. Hand me off to some guards searching through half the woods for us.” Your gaze never wavered. “Would certainly save you the trouble of dealing with me back at camp.”

He just smirked, tilting his head up, his eyes turned down to look at you. “And why would I want to get rid of you? Perhaps I enjoy the trouble you cause me. Ever thought about that?” His eyebrows raised as you stood there, unable to form words. “So are you going to  shut up and behave yourself while I get you out of here? Or are you going to keep talking until they figure out where we are?”

Javier waited for your response, but it never came. You just bowed your head, sealing your lips in a thin line. He took that as a sign that you’d ‘shut up and behave’. 

The men eventually left, abandoning their search for you, leaving both you and Javier a window of opportunity to flee.

-

The sun poked out above the trees from the makeshift camp Javier had set up in New Hanover. You were shielded by the canopy of branches, the fire in front of you keeping you warm. But it wasn’t doing anything good for the bullet wound in your leg. You stretched out your leg, wincing at the pain shooting through your body.

“I told you not to try and fix it by yourself,” you heard Javier say as he emerged with an armful of firewood, dropping it by your bags. “Your hands will shake before you’ve finished stitching it.”

You glared up at him. “Would you suggest I just leave it? Cut my leg off?”

Javier rolled his eyes at you, kneeling in front of you, his knees on either side of your wounded leg. “I would suggest…that you should wait for me. I’ll stitch it for you.”

Pulling his knife from the holster at his ankle, he sliced the blade through the fabric of your pant leg like butter. All the way up to your hip. “Hey!” You called out. “They were new pants.”

“I’ll buy you a replacement. Now shut up.” He was always harsh with his words, but now, it was even more so. A slight pang of worry soaked his tone.

“You’re such an ass sometimes-ow!” His fingers pushed against the wound on your leg, blood pooling out to the floor. “The fuck was that for?”

He looked indifferent as he looked up at you. “Feeling for any shrapnel. You don’t have any, thankfully, or else this would have hurt a lot more than its about to.”

“I could have told you that,” you grimaced as he began cleaning the wound. Applying pressure to one end of the bullet hole only forced blood through the other side. You could see both the entry point and exit point of the wound, stretching across the left and right sides of your leg.

You were both silent as he cleaned your leg, but you gasped as he pulled out a needle. He saw a panicked flash across your face, seeing it appear as quickly as it fled. “Easy,” he soothed, patting your knee. “I’ll be quick. You won’t feel it.”

“Don’t lie to me,” you whispered, your eyes only focused on the needle.

He sighed, leaning closer, tipping your chin up to meet his softened gaze. “Okay. You will feel it. But not much. A bee sting, that’s all it feels like. But it’ll be easier if you lie down.”

“Why?”

“Your muscles tense when you sit upright. You could at least be comfortable while I stitch you up.” He helped you into a more comfortable position. Javier still straddled your shin, one of his hands pressed against your thigh while his other stitched the hole closed. You laid there, his poncho acting as your pillow as you looked up at the trees.

You ignored the sting you felt each time the needle pierced your skin. Javier wasn’t wrong, it did feel like a bee sting. What’s more important, was that you could manage that sort of pain. “Thank you,” you said quietly, but you weren’t certain he heard you at first, until the needle stopped in your skin, his actions immoveable. Lifting your head and straining your neck, you met his eye. There was a small smile on his face, the corners of his moustache turned upwards with his laugh lines driven deep into his skin. You always did like his smile. That was the one thing that never changed about him. 

“It’s the least I can do,” he smiled, turning his attention back to your stitches. “It’s sort of my fault you got shot in the first place.”

“Sort of? You mean ‘entirely’?” You laughed as he playfully slapped your other leg with the back of his hand.

“Quit laughing,” he chuckled with you. “Or I’ll end up stabbing you in the wrong place.”

He finished quickly, wiping away any trace of blood before gently bandaging your leg. His soft touch lingered for a little while, his thumb gently rubbing soothing patterns into your skin. Your breath stopped in your throat as his touch rose higher. Higher up your thigh. To where your thigh met your hip. He was so fixated on it, he didn’t realise what he was doing until he felt your pulse beating at an ungodly rate at the top of your inner thigh.

His eyes flicked up to yours, where you laid, patiently. You were curious what sorts of thoughts were running through his head right now. What sort of cogs were turning in that brain of his.

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your face closer to his than it had ever been before. “What?” You coaxed, too curious to keep quiet now.

“Nothing,” he moved to lean back, his hands drifting down your thighs, but they never left your body before you grabbed the front of his shirt, holding him in place.

“What did I say? Don’t lie to me, Javier.” Your voice never raised above a whisper. It didn’t need to. You were so close a whisper felt like a shout.

He didn’t respond. He couldn’t speak. The close proximity had rendered him faulty in speech. So instead he closed the gap. His lips touched yours, his body melting against your touch. You didn’t expect it. All those years of bickering. All those years of cruel comments and nasty looks. Nothing prepared you for this. But you welcomed it.

Javier leaned you back, your head meeting the poncho  as you felt his body settle on top of yours. Breaking away for air, you saw a softened, kinder look in his eye when he looked at you. “Is this your apology for me getting shot?” You asked, smiling against his lips as he kissed you once more.

“Is it working?” His lips moved to your neck, hovering above your skin to a point where it tickled.

“Hmm…maybe.” 

“Then perhaps I’ll try a different angle,” he smirked, unbuttoning your pants, encapturing your lips in a soft kiss, his tongue slipping into your mouth. He had a lot of making up to do.

[takaraphoenix]

I hate how much heteronormative storytelling links romance and sexuality together, because I just know that that’s why it took me so many years to figure out that I’m ace.

And yes, I’m specifying heternormative storytelling, because that’s the thing we get force-fed in media pretty much from the day we first get put in front of a screen.

Once we move past the fluffy Disney movie stage of life and enter the teenage years, where sexuality becomes a part of the storytelling to varying degrees of explicitness, we hit the real problem zone. *

(* For this particular issue. The forced romantic narrative in every single children’s movie is its own problem zone when we’re talking about aromanticism.)

A thing I complain about quite frequently is the lack of m/f friendships, the way whenever A Guy and A Gal are friends, the heteronormativity kicks in. Unless they’re both in explicit other (stable! not ‘this ship is meant to be broken up for The Main Romance’) romantic relationships, it’s virtually impossible for the straights to just... keep them friends. There have to be some kind of romantic feelings involved. No other possible reason why A Guy might like A Gal or vice versa. The notion of pure, actual friendship goes over these writers’ heads.

Anyway. To the point of the post. Once The Gal and The Guy realize that they aren’t ~just friends~ but really have romantic feelings for each other and once the will they/won’t they stops and they actually will... More often than not do the writers forget to actually include any romance at all.

I mean, genuinely. Their relationship continues the exact same way it was before they got together. But now they have sex. The only discernible difference between “friendship” and “romance” in pretty much every TV show or movie I grew up on was that they now fucked and kissed.

Very often highlighted even more by the fact that they’re portrayed as so fucking horny, they barely got the confession out before immediately stumbling into the bedroom to get it on. Not a single date. Not even a full conversation wasted there. Just going at it like Noah just herded them onto a big ship.

And if you grow up watching these things during your formative years of what constitutes a relationship and they influence you during your “what the fuck’s going on with my own identity” phase, they paint an incredibly conflated image of romance and sex.

Namely, that romance not only doesn’t work without sex, but even more so also a notion that the only real difference between friendship and romance is sexual intercourse.

So, even if the term “asexual” somehow crossed your path at any point prior to the “what the fuck’s going on with my own identity” phase, that gets immediately dismissed as even vaguely being a possibility if you do experience romantic attraction. **

(** And also if you experience aesthetic attraction, seeing as absolutely nobody and nothing really prepared 90s kids for the difference between aesthetic and sexual attraction. Kids nowadays have more resources more readily available thanks to the internet and I’m genuinely so glad for them.)

Clearly, I can’t be asexual because I find people pretty and finding people pretty means wanting to have sex with them and having sex is the requirement for romance and I do want romance in my life. So, I guess I’m a “late bloomer”?

So. Yeah. My two cents on how heteronormative storytelling has harmed not just homosexual kids figuring themselves out but also asexual kids, because of the ways in which heterosexual relationships have been and still are being framed in media.

[ivystoryweaver]

Steven Grant oblivious roommate headcanons pt. 4

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SGORH masterlist

Part 4: Sometimes he almost seems like two different people

"Steven, what are the chances that we both had terrible dates on the same night?” You pose the question.

You and Steven tipped the server at the steakhouse and walked home, arms linked.

“At least you had a date. I guess I misunderstood... I thought today was Friday.”

“You thought today was…”

Something is up. You and Steven sit side-by-side on the couch, arms touching from shoulders to elbows, feet stretched out on an old trunk that doubles as a coffee table

You remind Steven that he was visiting his mom on Friday - even missed work because of it

Something strange happens to him then. He gets flustered and he can't seem to string together a coherent sentence.

Then he goes completely statue-like, and deadly quiet. His breathing changes - it slows. And almost imperceptibly, he pulls away from you.

You ask if he's ok. He nods once, pushes off the couch and starts to walk away. "Just tired." His voice sounds different.

Did you say something wrong? Maybe he just feels terrible for getting stood up. Yeah, that's probably it. He's embarrassed.

You scurry behind him, reaching for his arm. He always likes your hugs, so you try to hug him.

You just want to see the tiniest smile from him, or at least to remind him that he's wonderful and it's Dylan's loss.

He stiffens at your touch - then he gently shrugs you off and says goodnight.

You feel like he's punched you square in the chest. Seriously, your breathing is affected.

The next morning, you find Steven talking to Gus - an adorable habit of his. "If you're Gus, then I'm the bloody Queen of Sheba," he mutters.

Things get weirder. Steven misses more work shifts, but whenever you ask him about it, he shrugs you off and acts different. Maybe this is why he can't keep a roommate?

Sometimes he almost seems like two different people

You try not to take things personally - after all, you're co-workers and roommates. Maybe he doesn't share your feelings about your friendship.

One day, after you switch from the train to the bus, on the final leg of the trip home, you notice a man watching you. In fact, you're pretty sure he was watching you on the train too. He's followed you onto the bus.

Steven wasn't at work today, so you're alone. Maybe you're just paranoid.

When you exit the bus at your stop, the same man exits behind you. Your heart beats wildly - you pick up your pace. So does he. You turn to take a different path home. He's not ten paces behind you.

Just when you think you might break out into a run, a hand grabs your arm. With a yelp, you see that it's Steven. He doesn't smile or give you a typical greeting. His hair is pushed back from his face, styled neatly.

"Come on, let's get you home." What is going on? He doesn't even sound British. He takes your hand and pulls you along.

"S-Steven?" You ask. "Where were you today? I thought you were sick."

"Not now," he answers, in a hushed tone. "It's not safe." He says nothing else. He simply maneuvers you home, keeping a possessive hold on you.

His mouth is set in a firm, thin line. His dark eyes scan your surroundings for danger. His defined jaw clenches in determination.

You're so confused, but you feel safe. "Thank you," you gasp.

He spares you a glance and a nod. Then he tucks you into the door of your flat and gives instructions. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

You protest.

"I just wanna make sure it's safe. Stay here." He leaves.

Twenty minutes later, after you've paced a hole in the floor, Steven comes back. "Oh...hi love. You hungry? Just got some takeaway."

what the hell

next

tbc...

Coming up: Don't worry, more Steven incoming

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[sc0tters]

Different Paths | Jack Hughes

summary: 5 times Jack and your paths ran parallel to each other and the one time they finally became perpendicular.

song: Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince

request: yes/no

warnings: none.

word count: 1.61k

authors note: this is officially the end of the 150 celly! I struggled to write this one but I’m very happy with where it ended up. Thanks for all of the love and support that it’s been given and we’ve only just gotten started.

His brother’s best friend was all Jack was never meant to see you as.

Luke had always been your best friend, you were like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb whenever you were around each other. The friendship started when you were four and it was around a similar time that your feelings for Jack begun.

Of course though at that age they were simply because a pretty boy looked at you.

1.

Luke and you were in the kitchen as you ate the berries that Ellen had cut up for you two. Jack walked in with some of his friends from hockey as it caused you to grow nervous “hey Luke,” the middle Hughes boy had a grin on his face as he realised that he could screw with his brother. You turned pink as Jack locked eyes with you, it shouldn’t have been something you were okay with but the older Hughes boy always caused your heart rate to increase.

You smiled “h-hi Jack,” the boy sent you a wink as he stuck his hand into Luke’s container “mom!” Luke groaned as he watched his brother take half of his fruit.

Jack laughed as he shoved the sweet fruit into his mouth “get your own fruit!” The youngest Hughes boy added as he wasn’t impressed.

A soft voice left your lips “you can have some of mine Jack.” You offered as you held out your container with a smile.

The middle Hughes boy couldn’t help it when his heart felt warm, you were always just so sweet “no thanks sweets.” He shook his head as he ruffled his hand in your hair,

For now Luke was going to have to sit there and watch the way his best friend looked at his brother.

2.

Quinn was like the big brother you never had, he always knew what to say and when to say it to you.

That’s what brought you on the couch as you told him about all of your life worries.

You should have felt stupid as jealously coarsed through your veins at the thought of Jack with that girl from down the road. It was stupid, yes you knew it was but as you could hear her laughs from the other room you almost wanted to scream “I know it’s crazy,” you mumbled as you crossed your arms slouching back into the couch cushions.

It was tough trying to remain calm “it’s not crazy at all,” Quinn shook his head as he placed a kiss on your temple.

Jack had seen the whole thing go down as he was meant to get himself and his new friend a drink. As much as he appreciated how comfortable you felt with Quinn he just wished that you’d be like that with him.

The way you were an open book with his older brother made him long for a day when he could be like that with you, even with something a little more.

3.

You must have fifteen at the time, everyone was back in the lake house just how they were every summer “you coming or what?” Quinn called out as you had been soaking in the sunshine as you lay in your swimsuit “where to?” You furrowed your eyebrows as you got up and held your hand up to your forehead to block the sunlight.

Trevor let out a low whistle as he saw yours bounce in the bikini top that you were in “stop looking at her like that,” Jack sent the older boy a glare as he joined in the watch party.

Puberty had truly hit you like a truck over the last year. Your breasts had gone up two cup sizes, your waist was now more pronounced as your ass was rounded.

Jack knew it was wrong of him to see you in the light that he was, but he simply couldn’t help it “don’t be jealous cause you didn’t say it first.” Trevor warned as he shrugged smirking as you walked onto the boat “got a space next to me for ya sweets,” he offered as he patted the cushion next to him.

Luke gagged as he heard the shameless flirting come from his lips “I’ll sit with Luke.” You shook your head “thanks though Trev,” Jack felt like the Cheshire Cat when you sat in between the two boys.

The middle Hughes smiled as you looked at him “hi,” your own smile was now clear as you had also just lost your braces just weeks before the lake house.

His hand danced over your knee “hey sweets.” Jack had given you the nickname because you always had a sweet tooth, Trevor was the first one who chose to steal it.

4.

Just like always you were dragged along to watch Jack play hockey, it was your families Friday night tradition as you were always in the crowd to watch him play.

Luke had his arm around your shoulder as the two of you made your way into the players area “I’m gonna go say hi to them,” Luke explained as he gave you a soft squeeze before he walked over to his coaches.

You weren’t left for long though as Jack found you “hey sweets,” he smiled as he held his arms out.

He was still sweaty as he was in his gear and still in his skates “like seeing you this tall,” you joked as you let out a laugh.

The boy scoffed “I’m always tall,” he mumbled as he furrowed his eyebrows.

Everyone watched on with a sense of curiosity as you reached up to brush some of the hair out of his face “keep telling yourself that,” an amused smirk spread across your face.

Ellen knew all about your crush on her son, it was hard not to. The way your eyes lit up when you saw him, or how your cheeks would grow hot whenever he’d touch you. She also knew that her son felt similar to you because of the lingering glances that were always sent to and from each of you. It was amusing how clueless Luke was as he never seemed to notice how this was the worst kept secret that you two had.

5.

The big day for you and Luke had finally come. You two were officially graduates from high school. Since you arrived at school that morning you hadn’t seen Luke because you were both so apart from each other in terms of your last name.

So naturally when the ceremony ended you both ran back to your families who had been sat together “woah there sweets,” Jack smiled as you bumped into his back.

Your cheeks turned pink “sorry Jack,” you were quick to apologise as you brushed your hair out of your face,

The boy hooked his fingers under your jaw “I’m proud of you,” he confessed as he softly pinched your chin “high honours and all,” he added as his fingers brushed over the scarfs that you had gotten.

A toothy grin formed on your face “‘m more than just a pretty face,” you joked as a soft laugh fell from your lips.

His reaction mimicked yours “you have been,” Jack mumbled as you practically melted into his touch.

“Y/n!” Luke called out totally unaware of the sight in front of him as you whipped your head around.

It was like clockwork, you ran into Luke’s arms as you tackled him in a hug.

That was a constant reminder that Luke was always going to be first in your life.

+1

You always enjoyed laying on the boat as it was still docked. It gave you place to simply just think, and the boat rocking in the water was always soothing “thought I’d find you here.” Jack smiled as he jumped onto the boat.

The quietness that you loved was now gone, not that you were complaining though as you patted the cushion next to you “didn’t know you were looking for me,” you mumbled as you had almost fallen asleep so you let out a yawn.

It brought a chuckle from his lips “don’t tell me I’m boring you already?” He joked as he watched you shake your head.

Jack grew comfortable in his seat next to you “you’d never bore me,” you confessed as you shook your head.

His hand moved to your knee as he grew nervous. It was a feeling that Jack wasn’t used to usually, it was something he only grew to know about when it came to you.

It would have made you melt if you knew the way he thought about you. Your heart was full in that very moment, despite the fact that Luke was so far away. In fact maybe that’s what made you feel at ease, it made you not feel as guilty about your feelings for the boy in front of you.

The air around you two was dense as the tension could have been cut “what are you thinking about?” You asked as you turned to face him, your lips dangerously close to his.

He smiled “thinking about kissing you,” Jack confessed as he let his filter get thrown out of the window.

You giggled as a grin came across your face “thinking you should do it then,” you could barely get that statement out of your mouth before Jacks lips were on your own. Your sweet cherry lipgloss invaded his taste buds as he let his hand move to the back of your neck not wanting to lose you just yet as he let out a groan pulling you onto his lap.

“Always knew my sweets would taste so good.”

[cougheemedicine]

Twisted Fairytales; Twisted Wonderland Fantasy!au - Prologue

Will include all main cast x GN!Reader

Summary: A nameless adventurer with an incredible amount of friends in high places. Each more infamous and conniving than the last. The things those friends are willing to do for you is only a glimpse of how a so-called "Nobody" ensnared the most powerful in the continent.

A/n: A little au I'm cooking up. Not entirely sure where this will go so I'm not going to put any warnings/specific content until I get the individual chapters out. If this goes anywhere I'll probably add Neige, Che’nya, Rollo, etc. I already have come ideas cooking up for them. Have fun, dear adventurer~ 〜(￣▽￣〜)

˜”*°•.•°*”˜

        Night Raven College. An incredibly prestigious academy, whose history goes so far back in time that only the oldest Fae of the Briar Valley can even begin to fathom the legacy that such a renowned institute holds. Aristocratic families from all over the continent vie to send their children to study the art of magic in its' hallowed halls.

        You had attended such a college, once upon a time, though you are far from noble. You met the esteemed headmaster by chance one day, though you didn't know at the time. You had sold him a newspaper, and he grinned at you from under the beak of his mask and patted you on the head. He flipped a single gold coin into your shaking hands, it was the most money you had ever seen at the time. When you had turned around to thank him, more than ready to drop onto your knees and praise the dirt he walked on, he was gone. Leaving only a lone, ink-black feather in his wake.

        You can only assume he took pity on you. Some unclaimed, nameless child, too old to be taken in by an orphanage but too young to be sent off to the mines. The old crones of the villages you wandered to and from would wax poetic about his benevolence and graciousness (only after they prattled on about his villainously handsome face). You couldn't even read, let alone weave illusions from incantations or summon a beast from a bottle of bubbling liquid.

        But he appeared before you nonetheless, with a flurry of his feathered cape. He offered you his hand, that which dripped in gold, and swept you off to Night Raven College. Over the years he taught you everything you know now. He taught you how to paint and juggle, how to fluently read and speak every language used on the continent, even some more eccentric practices like how to identify cursed objects, how to weave certain sprigs of herbs together to create the most powerful warding charm, even which nerve to pinch to have any assailant drop unconscious instantly.

        While under the roof of Night Raven College, you met creatures from every walk of life. One could say you were popular, even. Everyone wanted to get to know the charge of the infamous headmaster Crowley. You grew close to many, some you would even call your friends. Some others, maybe more. But they led very different lives than you. Friendships fade, it's simply a way of life. Even if waving goodbye to them as they graduated and left you behind stung in a way you don't really wish to name.

        You stayed at the college longer than most. Not taking classes, simply acting as an errand runner for the headmaster as a way to repay him for guiding you to a much better path in life. But even he, past his grandeur and games, could see that you wished to spread your wings farther than the astronomy tower and botanical garden.

        With a final pat on your head, he sent you away to pave your own path. His name and the beautifully detailed dagger on your hip, an ivory crow head for the hilt, as your only weapons. On your own you ventured for more years, gaining wisdom from those you met on the way. You had all but forgotten your old friends from your school days. All until one fateful day.

        Sat on the edge of the cliff, you gazed down at the view below you. The sun was setting, painting the sky in vibrant hues. You were in your own world, leaning back on your arms and kicking your feet over the edge of the cliff. Until a shrill meow drew your attention elsewhere. A scruffy grey cat emerged from the undergrowth. Eyes too blue to be a normal feline blinking up at you. A black and white bow tied neatly around his neck. In his mouth was a letter, the envelope only the most ornate of finery. The crest on the wax stamp was that of a noble house.

        The cat curled up in your lap as you used your dagger to cut the envelop open. The parchment inside just as luxurious as what housed it. You scanned the words on the page, language so flowery and formal it may as well have been another language of it's own, but you got the message.

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Where will you go first, dear adventurer?

Heartslabyul Manor, the home of the ruthlessly strict Count Riddle Rosehearts and his cronies. They say he bows to nobody but the queen himself.

Savanaclaw tavern, the home base of a ragtag group of mercenaries. Rumor has it their roguish leader, Leona, isn't of this land, and that his reputation is far from good where he’s from.

Octavinelle Gambling Den, a house of luxury and debauchery. The head, Master Azul, is said to be incredibly kind and benevolent. For the small price of your darkest secrets.

Scarabia Merchant's Guild, a travelling guild with gold flooding from every crack in their coffers. The ever-so-kind Master Kalim is said to only be the face of the guild. His servant is who really runs things.

Pomefiore palace, the main residence of the illustrious Queen of the region, Vil Schoenheit. His past is stained red, as is the story of how he managed to sit on the throne. But the people adore him, so what is there to see if not perfection?

Ignihyde tower, the hiding spot of the forsaken Lord Idia Shroud. Head chair of the Magic Council. His brilliance is said to be unparalleled, but people talk... and sources say he hid himself from society after committing a sin to magic itself.

Diasomnia castle, skeptics say that centuries ago, the old castle at the northern border was occupied by Fae royalty. Now it seems there's life in those haunted halls once more, for an air of regality hangs heavy in the fog surrounding the grand castle.

        Many a path to choose, and you have all the time in the world. But, even still, do you think it wise to keep them waiting?

        I wish you luck,

Choose wisely, my dear adventurer~

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work belongs to @cougheemedicine, all forms of plagiarism, modifying, translating, reposting are not allowed.