#little to no control over? do you really get that?

[elodieunderglass]

Why are jockeys not supposed to look at smartphones?? will it make them heavier

No, of course not!

It’ll make them criminals

This is in reference to something I mentioned about a prominent female jockey leaving the sport over breaking smartphone usage rules. Nanako Fujita, who raced for Japan, was an excellent jockey with a promising career and international prospects. She was lucky, talented, and in a sport that’s starving for public interest, popular. But she used her smartphone on a weekend, so on October 2024 she tearfully penned her resignation letter and left the sport.

Now, this is slightly more about Japanese sporting authorities than general horse racing practice, but it’s embedded in the idea that jockeys are inherently just such unscrupulous little bastards that they can only be prevented from cheating by locking them in hamster cages.

Going back to how horse racing is historically the province of organised crime, disorganised crime, chaotic crime, things that aren’t crimes but should be, crimes that haven’t been invented yet, and felonies; and given that it all happens for the amusement of billionaires and royalty, not noted for being generous and scrupulous; and given that - much like how claiming a hobby of “knitting” is really a cover story for collecting yarn - horse racing is really an excuse to gamble;

Given all that background - there’s always been a lot of anxiety about jockeys “fixing” races. After all, they’re historically treated as disposable and make inconsistent and indifferent money while entire fortunes are wagered on their backs they’re in an obvious position to influence race outcomes, and there are unbelievable amounts of money at stake.

Thus, the sport feels that we have to assume that jockeys are simply inherently susceptible to bribery. In the UK, jockeys can’t bet on any races and have to declare their mobile phone numbers to the horse racing authority, and have restrictions placed on where/how/what they can use smartphones for around the tracks. They can’t bring a phone to work, basically. Which isn’t too unusual in some professions. The idea is that jockeys with phones could communicate with each other or outsiders to change racing outcomes, or share information in advance before it can impact on the betting odds (like insider trading on the stock market.) this is not commonly practiced in other UK sports. It’s a working condition imposed by anxiety about preserving the integrity of the gambling.

The Japanese licensing authority is more strict. The night before a race meeting, Japanese jockeys surrender their phones and go into separate quarters without lines of communication. So you might give up your phone at 9pm Friday night, enter a sort of corporate youth hostel, work for 2 days, and recover your phone on Monday. Nanako was caught using her phone during this period of sequestration, even though there’s no evidence that she was using it for race fixing (another jockey caught for the same thing in the crackdown was making a restaurant reservation.) again, this level of control over personal communications isn’t practiced in other Japanese sports! Even Japanese pop idols, famed for having restricted personal lives, don’t risk getting pushed out of their job entirely for touching a phone.

It’s about a lot of things, but the level of control exerted over jockeys is interesting to me! and speaks to their position as athletes who aren’t the focus of the sport they do; of jockeys as the disposable pilots of things that are far more valuable than they are; of workers whose working conditions are unique; of sportspeople whose sport is defined by the anxieties of the rich about gambling; of people whose bodies are ferociously honed for a specific set of rules that don’t even necessarily make sense; of a sport thousands of years old, one of the oldest continuous sports of human history, in which the humans who play it are invisible; of ancient once-immovable traditions colliding, in the 2020s, with renewed interest in animal and human welfare and renewed pressures to Perform for social media and everything changing in ways we can’t see because we’re in the middle of them. Like when I say “one of the oldest continuous sports in human history”, as old as the domestication of horses, think about it for a minute and think how strange it is that the human athletes are this invisible, this disposable, this secondary to considerations. Why is it that you’ve been forced to learn about football against your will all your life, and you never thought for a second about this. Isn’t that wild? I think it’s wild.

(Disclaimer: I’m really not an expert, just a mild fan, which is a bit unusual for my demographic; despite the sport being ancient and internationally known, it isn’t very relatable to “people like us,” so this is kind of the first time anyone on tumblr’s really posted about having an interest in horse racing/jockeys. I’m really not an expert and I barely follow the news and do NOT attend races or understand the stats/gambling. It’s just that it was my first career ambition when I was 6, and it’s one of those things where literally no one else cares, so you get to feel like you have Secrets and a Unique OC.)

[dyingswanpavlova]

"Your girl" - Part 6 | The Salesman x Reader

Summary: You make a mistake and get punished. You try to hate him, but there's something inside of you, clearly working against you. Stick to the plan. Play along, get his trust, get the hell out.

Warnings: dead dove do not eat, kidnapping, mentions of sexual abuse and other traumatic events in the past, numbness, helplessness, violence, threatening, mentions of blood, mentions of murder and rape, body issues, trauma talk, stockholm syndrome, forced relationship, unhealthy relationship, depression, manipulation, mentions of sexual activities and desires, not beta-read, if I've missed any please tell me! mdni 18+!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

“Where the fuck are you?! Get your ass over here, this instant!”

You froze when his angry voice cut through the silence.

It wasn’t really all too silent. Your thoughts had been keeping you entertained all morning, if you didn’t count the whole night to that as well. Unfortunately, you did. Not a wink of sleep, again.

And all because he didn’t approach you. The door to your room stayed closed, which was something that should have been a good thing in your book. He didn’t bother you, didn’t attack you, didn’t seduce you.

It was more than good, it was heaven-sent. It was a good thing, whenever he granted you a little bit of peace, a tiny ounce of normality.

And yet you found yourself tossing and turning all night, filled with the sinking feeling of...

Disappointment.

Disappointment?

Why on earth would you be disappointed?

Because he didn’t come into your room in the middle of the night with the intention to do unholy things to you and your body?

You should have been thrilled and relieved. But instead you felt empty. So empty, that once you got out of bed and realized he wasn’t anywhere to be found, you made a mistake. A grave one.

You snuck into his room.

It wasn’t like you had any bad intentions. You were actually trying to find him, to talk to him, to ask him-

Ask him what exactly?

However, your main intention was to find him. See him. Instead you found…nothing.

An empty room with an untouched bed. The second you saw that he wasn’t there, you should have turned on your heel and left. But some devilish kind of curiosity forced you to place one foot before the other until you ended up in the middle of his bedroom.

His bedroom.

Not yours.

His.

Nothing about it had been all too uncommon. It was a room with a bed and a wardrobe, a bookshelf, some notebooks. One caught your interest in particular.

A red notebook which you found underneath his pillow. Like a little girl and her diary.

What the hell was even going through your head to touch his pillow?

At first you didn’t want to, you truly didn’t. You just wanted to get a short, small peak into the room of the man who controlled every aspect of your life, even after he had explicitly forbidden it. So far you had obeyed him, but that morning some devil drove you to get inside and take a look around.

And God, how embarrassing was the reason. You were already half on your way out, when his scent caught your attention. The subtle perfume, this gentle note of him.

And that was when your mind went blank and you were so incredibly stupid. You had felt like a stalker, leaning down and pressing your face against his pillow. Inhaling his sweet scent like a lunatic.

But you didn’t really have the time to ask yourself what the hell you were doing, because that was when you found the notebook. And your hands, well, they acted like they weren’t really your own, like they were somehow disconnected from your brain.

They opened it. And what you saw confused you terribly.

On top, your name written in capital letters and crossed out.

And below that countless names. Female names. None of which you knew.

Some were Korean, you could tell. Others French. English. Slavik. Italian. Spanish…

When you heard a faint sound from the hall, assuming he came back from wherever he went, you quickly pushed the notebook back where you found it and scurried out of the room like the devil himself was after you.

Which he, kind of, was.

But he hadn’t been home yet and still, you couldn’t get back into his room. You were far too afraid that he might come back and catch you. So you stayed out of it, went back to your own bedroom and went back to waiting.

And now you were certain. He knew. He knew.

Before you even had the time to get up from the bed, he was already there. The door to your room flew open and he came in like he was indeed the devil.

His eyes were blazing with anger. You hadn’t ever seen him that angry before. Not even that one time, after you called him out on being oh-so unlovable.

And now you were sure.

He was going to kill you.

Your initial reaction would have been to beg and plead, to crawl and butter up, even negotiate.

But no. You could tell the severity of the situation had changed drastically.

So you did the only reasonable thing. You jumped up and hurried to the bathroom. You didn’t even have the time to catch on his reaction, because you were too busy slamming the door shut and locking it.

It seemed to catch him off-guard, because it took him a moment to move, but when he finally did, he pounded against the door like a madman.

You couldn’t tell why you were even able to lock it. Maybe he didn’t think about it when he made his apartment kidnapping-safe. But now you were more than grateful for that circumstance.

“If you don’t open the door right now, I’m going to kill you!”

You slowly backed away against the wall, glancing at the window. You knew it was pointless, but you decided to still try it. Maybe, just maybe, you’d get the mercy of a quick death, jumping from the twenty-third floor.

“I will gut you and then I will kill you!”

He pounded even harder against the door and you were sure it was going to give in soon. All the while the window didn’t move an inch. You started pounding against it as well, desperate to find a way to survive this godforsaken hell, but it just wouldn’t move. You felt tears sting your eyes when you realized it.

There were so many things you hadn’t done yet.

You never sailed on a boat. Never saw Prague in December. Never saw the ballet or swam in the ocean.

Never told anyone you loved them. Never loved anyone. And you never got loved in return.

You didn’t even have sex yet.

It wasn’t fair. It simply wasn’t fair.

But it was your life and maybe this was how it was supposed to end.

Maybe this was how it was going to end.

But you didn’t have more time to think about it, because suddenly there was a loud cracking sound and you witnessed in horror as he broke the door down. Your eyes widened and you stifled a sob, while he stepped into the bathroom. He was breathing heavily and moving slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. The look in his eyes was…murderous.

But the only thing you could truly focus on was the blood on his cheek. How had you missed it earlier? Probably due to the adrenaline. But now you watched intently as you saw the small cut on his cheek, messing up the perfection that was his face.

“Please.” You whispered breathlessly, but it was barely audible under choked sobs and gasps for air. “Please, I…What did I…”

He stormed forward and pushed you against the wall, so hard that your head banged against it with a fervor that made you go dizzy. His fingers wrapped around your neck, squeezing tightly.

“What should I do with you?” He whispered in a low voice. It was less of a whisper and more of a growl.

You opened your mouth to beg some more, but all your words were getting lost under a veil of tears and the symphony of your desperate, breathless sobs.

“Should I cut you open and watch you bleed to death?” He whispered as he squeezed your neck a little tighter. You coughed up and dug your nails into his wrist in a desperate attempt to get some air.

“Should I fuck you to death?” He whispered in the same feigned thoughtfulness, all the while you were ferociously fighting for your life.

“Should I make you-“ He stopped and let go of your neck. You doubled over and desperately gasped for air.

“No.” He whispered and his lips curved up into a twisted smile. “I know now.”

He looked you up and down in a way that made you less uneasy and more terrified, before he spoke in a tone that resembled gentleness.

“I’ll take something from you.”

After you finally regained your ability to breathe and gingerly touched your neck, trying to assess the damage he had done on you, you slowly looked up at him. And again, your whole focus was on the cut on his cheek. Only then you realized the blood on the collar of his shirt.

It wasn’t your fault, you suddenly realized. Not entirely. He had a bad day. And you found yourself aching to ask what had happened. Despite him taking his anger out on you, unfortunately.

But after all, it was you who went into his room, despite the clear instructions not to. Never to.

Silly girl.

“And give something else to you.” He whispered while he reached out and gently ran his fingertips over your neck. The touch made you wince.

When his words made you shake your head in confusion, he smiled slowly.

“Your name, sweet girl. It’s about time you got a new one.”

Oh, and how it hurt. How it hurt not knowing what was worse. Dying? Life hadn’t ever really been your thing, it seemed. You just weren’t good at it. But your name? At least you were someone. And now he was going to take that, too?

A small part of you was relieved. He wouldn’t gut you and hang you from the window. But he’d strip you of the little identity you had left.

Your lip quivered in an attempt to say something, but he just shook his head, the crooked smile still on his lips.

“You just made me break down my goddamned bathroom door and you think you got any right to complain?”

You stared up at him with wide, horrified eyes, your vision blurry with tears.

“That’s why you wrote all the names down.” You whispered in the voice of a timid mouse.

He hummed in response. “I was going to give you a say in choosing one. But that deal is in the past, sweet girl. I have the perfect name for you.”

He leaned in and murmured: "Kneel."

You didn't need to be told twice. You would have done anything, however degrading, if only it meant he wouldn't perform heinous crimes on your body.

You were shaking in silence, only interrupted by a few occasional sobs, as you watched him pick up the pair of scissors from the drawer.

Suddenly you didn't feel so safe anymore.

"Please."

He shot you a look that instantly shut you up. There was no way out and nothing you said or did could save you.

He stalked around you like a tiger, ready to pounce. And when you expected him to land a blow and knock you out, he instead gently played with a strand of your hair. And suddenly you were painfully aware of what was about to happen.

It's better than death, you kept trying to tell yourself. Better than torture, better than not being allowed to pee, better than being paraded around-

You gasped loudly when you felt the sharpness of the scissors press against your jugular.

"I bet you look beautiful when you're bleeding." He whispered.

You squeezed your eyes shut. A part of you wanted to continue begging, but you knew it was pointless. Not when he was like this.

Instead of stabbing and cutting you to death and watch you collapse under a fountain of your own blood, he took your hair into a deadly chokehold between the scissors. You gasped again.

"Hana." He purred. "It's the perfect name."

He tugged on your hair, making your head jerk back.

"Hana is the first girl, here in Korea. One. First. My first girl.”

He ran the scissors up the length of your hair until it nearly reached your shoulders. You held your breath. This was it.

The girl you once were was about to be murdered.

"Hana", he murmured, "makes you a fresh, new thing. With no past and no strings attached. All you are now is my sweet girl. My Hana."

You squeezed your eyes shut so hard that you got a headache when you felt the metal of the scissors scrape against your hair.

"My sweet, darling Hana." He murmured.

And then he murdered you.

You kept trying to tell yourself that you got lucky. He barely even cut anything off, right? At least he didn't cut it to your chin or shoulder length.

At least he didn't kill you.

But he did kill you. The part of you that had been you, a little stubborn, a little defiant, was gone now as well. All that was left was this obedient, sobbing mess.

He had cut off just enough to make it noticeable. It didn't even look horrifying. You knew your hair would grow back.

But would your name ever grow back?

Would your soul ever grow back?

Hana, Hana, my sweet Hana. My first girl.

The second he released you, you found yourself marching back to your room. You didn't even feel the need to run and hide. And what for? What more could he do, how much more would he take?

"I'll cut it off, piece by piece, every time you deceive me, until you look like a Young-hee doll."

You had seen the ugly, little creature in a Korean store before.

You could already picture it. You with your hair cut down to your chin, wearing a yellow shirt and an orange dress. What was left of your hair, bound in pigtails.

You hated pigtails.

"I've been too soft on you, Hana. It's about time you learned how things work around here."

And after you finally managed your death-march to your bed, you collapsed on top of it like a lifeless doll. You couldn't even cry anymore. You were too exhausted after not sleeping all night and then this.

Maybe you would never feel well-rested again.

Maybe you would never smile again.

Did you smile much before all this? No. But at least you did sometimes.

That was all gone now.

Now you were Hana.

And Hana didn't smile.

The day dragged on like that. You didn't even get up to pee when you felt you had to. It was all pointless. Why not torture yourself a little more? Maybe you deserved it. Maybe you deserved it for going in his room, for reading his notes, for deceiving him, for taking his fucking hand after he just threw someone on the train line.

You should have known.

Looking back, you should have known.

Good people don't just go around, breaking other peoples' necks. Only sick psychopaths did.

So what had driven you to take his hand?

Was it his charming, reassuring smile?

Was it the fact that he rescued you from being raped at the train station?

Was it the excitement he promised, the new way of looking at things? The prospect of breaking out. Out of your dead, numb haze.

God, how you longed for a sitcom now.

Sitcoms usually ended in Happy Endings. Unlike you. You just ended.

Hana.

The way the door flew open would have made you wince, was there any fight or any life left in you.

Instead, all you did, was slowly lift your gaze. Your red, puffy eyes meeting his in the dim light of your bedroom.

"Still sulking, are we?" He sounded cheerful. Fucking bastard.

"Come. It's about time you ate something."

You didn't move. Didn't even blink. It wasn't to spite or challenge him. Instead you simply felt you couldn't move. Getting up, eating. Water. Teeth. Shampoo. It all sounded so distant. So useless.

You had felt like this before. More than once.

Every time your mother finished beating you with the belt.

Each time you woke up in your tiny, South Korean apartment and realized there was not much to live for.

It was mostly phases. On other days you got up just fine.

But today was such a phase, far more prominent than it had been in long.

His brows furrowed and he tilted his head to the side. A part of you expected him to chase you to the kitchen with a chainsaw.

"Don't be like that. Don't give me that look."

When you still didn't move or blink, his frown deepened and he slowly moved closer until he was crouched down by your bed.

He reached out and touched your chin.

"Are you going to kill yourself now over some hair?" He mocked.

"It'll grow back." He sighed impatiently. "You know you can't starve yourself anyway. I'll make you eat."

You didn't protest, but you also didn't react.

His frown stayed in place, but eventually he sighed and leaned back.

"Come." He said in a softer tone. "I'm making Hotteok. You're going to like it."

And suddenly, just like that, you sobbed again. Very quietly. You didn't move. But something inside of you was aching so terribly.

You expected him to get angry, furious even.

How dare you complain? You’re my Hana, my first girl. My Hana doesn’t complain. My Hana just takes it.

But instead he resumed the notion of gently caressing your hair.

He would hit you.

Somehow magically make a chainsaw appear.

Instead he whispered. Deadly. Menacing. Scary.

Gentle.

"You're still beautiful."

The first bite was hard. The second one way easier. You only ever realized how famished you were, after you bit into the warm, juicy piece of heaven. It tasted sweet and nutty and buttery.

For a second, you allowed yourself to forget about it.

All you could think about was the heavenly taste of whatever it was he had prepared for you.

And then it came back to you, stealthily at first and then suddenly hitting you like a brick.

Hana.

He watched you while you ate, his eyes unreadable. He leaned back and rested his ankle over his knee, watching you in quiet contemplation.

That didn't stop you from chewing your way through three more Hotteoks.

You had these issues, these unhealthy habits of being unable to eat infront of other people. Your mother had always demanded of you to act like a porcelain doll who didn't eat or use the bathroom.

But the longer you were here, the quieter her voice became.

Until all you could hear was his voice.

Hana. My sweet Hana. My first girl.

Your tiny eating disorder slowly dissolved into nothingness, your neuroses turning into ash and dust.

You ate to survive. You ate because it gave you comfort.

And any kind of comfort was a great distraction from the cruel farce which your life had become.

“You know”, he suddenly said after he took a sip of his tea, “no matter how short your hair is, you would always be beautiful.”

You slowly looked up at him with a frown. Suspicious.

“It’s true.” He hummed. “So deceive me all you want and maybe I can prove to you.”

There it was. No kindness without a jab to follow.

You looked back down at the food on your plate. You weren’t all too hungry anymore and your appetite turned back to what it was before. You slowly reached out and took a sip of your water.

“I’m curious though.” He said calmly. “What made you go inside there, hm? What made you disobey me? Were you looking for something?”

You stiffened. What were you supposed to tell him? Hopefully he wouldn’t mention the notebook. The pillow.

“Underneath my pillow, anyway.”

Fucking shit.

“What? Were you trying to set a trap for me, hm?” His voice stayed as calm as ever, but the look in his eyes only ever got colder.

“No.” You whispered.

He leaned forward, looking at you with an disturbing intent.

“Then what?”

He clenched his jaw tightly and grabbed a knife from the table. It wasn’t big, but enough to kill you. He squeezed the handle tightly in his hand and rammed it down against the table.

Poor wood.

The cold fury in his voice felt almost as unsettling as the scissors had.

No, actually more so.

“I was looking for you.” You said quietly, unable to look at him.

What kind of idiot were you? What were you trying to do, admit to that? But maybe it was better than to have him believe that you went in there with some ill intentions. Like placing a blade under his pillow and hoping that maybe somehow he managed to stab himself by accident.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned even closer. All you could look at was that cut on his skin.

“Looking for me.” He repeated and the disbelief in his voice was obvious.

What the hell was he so furious about? He had been so calm, just a minute ago.

But with him, you could never really tell.

You finally looked back into his eyes and nodded. “I thought you would-“ You immediately stopped yourself.

Oh God.

Oh God.

You thought what? That last night, he’d come in your room and sleep with you? Were you about to just say that out loud?

You took a shuddery breath, trying to come up with some other excuse. But it was too late. He already seemed to grasp your thoughts. And he wasn’t laughing or coming off somewhat amused about it, no, the thought seemed to make him even angrier.

Whatever had happened last night must have been horrible if it turned him into that.

More horrible than what happened to you just earlier that morning? You doubted it, but still, something like concern gnawed at you.

“You thought what?” He said slowly. “That I’d come in your room and fuck you? Is it that?”

You immediately looked down at your hands like you’d been struck. Your face flushed furiously and you suddenly felt the need to throw up.

“Are you that desperate? Are you that needy? I thought you were a fucking virgin.” He practically spat the words out. And you felt more and more nauseous with every word that came out of his mouth.

“I am.” You choked out.

“And still you crave my attention so desperately that you go inside my room, even though I told you you’d get punished if you ever did? Stupid girl. Such a stupid girl. Hana, you should know better than to-“

“That’s not my fucking name!”

You didn’t know if it was the use of that name or the other thing, but something inside you snapped and your depression crumbled down just like that. You could sit here and let him insult you or you could take action and find out what the fuck was going on here.

All the while you tried to ignore the bitter feeling of disappointment and shame that welled up in you, after he tried to shame you for what? Missing him?

You nearly shuddered. Missing him? Him?

You had a mission here.

Play along. Get him to trust you.

Get the hell out of here.

Right? That was the plan. Why did everything feel so…unstable then? Especially your own thoughts. You weren’t supposed to miss him. You were supposed to run. Grab his gun, shoot him and then shoot against the lock of the door until it fell apart.

And maybe then you’d finally find peace.

Instead you sat in silence, as you watched the expression in his eyes change. The bitterness and the man that had stooped down to insult you vanished and the monster who had cut your hair and punched your gut took his place.

“What did you say?”

“I said”, you gritted out in a fit of rage, so intense it left you breathless, “that’s not my fucking name.”

And just like that he snapped. But he didn’t snap like a normal person would, no. He snapped so hard, his head nearly exploded. And he lunged at you. He lunged forward and knocked you off the chair in the heat of the moment. Your head came down onto the floor with a thud, but what was far worse was the pain that shot through your back when it hit the ground.

He was on top of you, straddling you, before you even had the time to cry out in pain. But this time, something was different. You were different.

Before he could wrap his claws around your neck, you pushed him back, with such roughness that it left you surprised by your own strength. And before he had the time to recover and slap the hell out of you, you did something even more surprising. And probably stupid. 

You punched him. Right in his face, bruising his unharmed cheek. Your eyes shot wide open, but it was nothing in comparison to his own eyes.

First he looked surprised. Caught in a cloud of disbelief. And then the look changed. And just like that he was back to furious.

Murderous.

He got a hold of your wrists and pinned them down to the ground, ignoring the wince that shot through you and the cry of pain that left your lips, when he dug his nails into your skin.

“Such a stupid girl.” He hissed. “I really thought you learned your lesson. But it seems you didn’t. But don’t worry. You will in time.”

He reached out a hand to slap you, but before he could, you kneed him right in the stomach.

He let out a grunt of pain and momentarily loosened his grip on your wrists. But it took him no longer than two seconds to regain his balance and pin you down even harder.

You writhed underneath him, fighting as hard as you could to free yourself before he got the opportunity to damage your already damaged kidney, but he was on his best way to. He balled a fist and gritted his teeth, ready to make you pay.

“What happened last night?” The question sounded so incredibly ridiculous, coming from your trembling lips, underneath him, fighting for your life. And it was so ridiculous that, indeed, he paused for a moment.

“What?”

“Yes.” You gasped out. “What happened last night? What happened to your face?”

He blinked slowly, his grip on you never wavering.

“You don’t get to ask me questions.”

“Yes, I do! Where were you?”

He had trouble to control his temper, while he gripped your wrists so hard that his knuckles were white and his hands were shaking. He pressed his thumbs against the insides of your wrists so hard that a sharp pain flared through your arms and up to your shoulders.

“I was working. I had work to get done. And you don’t get to ask me questions!” He growled.

“Yes, I do!” You repeated, growing more and more impatient. His grip on you was so painful, that your legs kept kicking into the air, desperate to find some kind of relief from the pain. But it never came. And yet you forced yourself to stay angry. Don’t budge. Don’t beg. “What happened to your fucking face?!”

“Why?! Are you worried about me?!” He hissed and suddenly he was so far up in your face, you felt his breath on it.

“No!” You hissed back, still kicking into the air like a fool. You released something akin to a shriek of frustration, struggling against his grip, but he wasn’t even trying and he was so much stronger than you. “But I know nothing about you! I don’t know what you do! I don’t know what you are! I don’t know who you are! What’s you fucking name?! What is even your name?!” You were out of your mind, yelling furiously and pushing back against him, until he actually had to apply more pressure to keep you pinned against the ground.

“You want to know my name?” He gritted out. “I don’t have a name, silly girl. All you need to worry about is that you belong to me.”

“To a ghost.” You spat out. “Because that’s what you are, isn’t it?  You’re nothing but a ghost. You don’t have family or people who care about you. All you have is your job and yourself and this soulless place with no windows to open and let some sunshine in. All you have are these walls covered in sunny colors and yet there is no real sun here. It’s a façade. Everything is a façade. Because you’re nothing but a fucking ghost. You could be dead and no one would care.”

You gritted your teeth like a feral animal, ready to rip his throat out with your teeth if he’d let you, but of course he didn’t. Instead he met your deadly glare with one of his own, except that his was far more menacing than yours, more dangerous. Crazier.

“I may be a ghost, but you still belong to me.”

“What happened to your face?” You whispered in the same, angry tone.

He leaned further down until the tip of his nose nearly touched yours and slammed your hands against the floor.

“Why do you care?” He hissed back.

“What happened to your face?!” You nearly shouted.

“Why do you care?!” He shouted back.

“Because I do!”

It was true, you suddenly realized.

You cared.

Not in a curious way.

Not in a matter-of-fact way.

It was eating away at you. You needed to know what had happened, because you cared, you cared so much, it made your insides twist painfully. Ever since you had seen him that morning, you were in pain.

Not because he cut your hair.

Not because he demanded you to take a stupid name like Hana.

His first girl.

Were there others? Were you truly the first? Why not the last? Why not the goddamn last?

Was that jealousy?

The cut on his cheek made something inside of you ache and you were dying to know who the hell had dared to put his hands on him.

He seemed to have the same thought, because something in his expression changed. But you couldn’t tell what it was. Not yet at least.

“You care.” He spat out incredulously. “Idiot girl. Are you falling in love with me?”

You scoffed. “Not in a million years.”

“Good.” He whispered and leaned closer.

“I could never fall in love with a monster like you.” You whispered back and tilted your head up towards his.

His breath tickled your lips, but not half as much as his gaze did, as it slowly slid down to them.

“Stop.” You whispered, suddenly breathless.

“Tell me that you mean it and I will.” He whispered back. His brows furrowed and he took in a shuddering breath. It sounded like an exhale, it sounded like a moan.

Oh God.

“Stop.” You whispered again.

He stopped tormenting your wrists and you stopped struggling against thin air.

You didn’t know how but somehow his touch was almost gentle.

You didn’t realize when but somehow your legs wrapped around his waist.

“Don’t.” You whispered.

“Don’t…”

“Please…”

“Don’t…”

Oh, fucking hell.

Fuck it.

“Please…don’t…stop…”

______________________________________________

Author's note: I'm dying, you are all too sweet to be true! Thank you so, so, so much for your sweet, kind words and I love you all so incredibly much! Just a few days ago, I had a moment when I was feeling like everything was going pretty shitty, but then I thought about this story and all the kind and loving support I'm getting from you and it cheered me up beyond belief. Much, much love! Lana ❤️

Tag list: @mitsuki-dreamfree @kpopsmutty69 @heroine-chique @vkeyy @mizuwki @blu-brrys @z0mbi345 @yourpointbreak @ayieayee @freddyzeppsworld @lola11111111 @indifitel6661 @salesmanlover08 @laurenbenoit70 @lalalaa2210 @lila-marshal @auspicious-lilana @0-aubrie0 @lovelyaegyo @theredvelvetbitch @violentbluess @muriels-lover @dorayakissu @eviebuggg @muchwita @ririgy @strxlemon @obsessedwthdilfs @kiwilov3 @misty-q @whitefeathers @ennvfv @heartzxx @yourpointbreak @hell0kittt @salesmanlover08 @pascalislove @nina357 @ing9449myu @vamplivivi @tvbais @ilovenana00 @misswannadiesworld @glads-stuff @chunkzdeluluwife @estreiiuh @lokis-lovely-muse @zaimeskuna @lalalaa2210

also thanks to @i-might-be-vanny for the name issue inspiration!

[ditzydoe444]

okay wait cuz what about jason tries to make his pillow princess work for it to see what happens but she just gets soo tired easily :(( she doesnt know how to work in sex!!! so jay feels all bad (even tho seeing her struggle to please him does make him feel things) and takes control!!

— your fav, 🍓

MDNI 18+

a/n: i love all of your requests sm anon 😵‍💫😵‍💫

“come on sweetheart, it ain’t that hard,” jason cooed as he watched you bounce on his cock, your lips out in a pout whilst you whined. “s-so tired jacey,” your thighs were burning as you barely caught your breath. your chest was going up and down heavily with each breath you took, your arms trembling as they gripped his broad shoulders.

“sometimes you need to work for what you want, can’t have you just layin’ down looking all pretty whilst i do every can i?”

yes he can, and that was exactly what you wanted. you loved being a his little pillow princess, just laying down taking his cock whilst he did everything. now you actually had to work to get some sort of release and you weren’t sure if it was even worth it.

you were all hot and bothered, your hair stuck to your forehead and cheeks flushed from your frantic and desperate movements. “t-tired,” you mumbled, your movements slowing down.

a low chuckle escaped jason, “worn you out have i?” he teased, his large calloused hand touching your cheek softly. “want me to take over?”

you nodded eagerly, you were already knocked out from a couple of minutes, you weren’t going to handle this for any longer. jason didn’t hesitate to take over as he switched your position from cowgirl to a mating press, his large body pinning you down.

“such a pathetic little thing aren’t ya?” he grunted as his thrusts picked up, his balls slapping against your ass. “can’t even bounce in it hm?”

secretly though, jason loved it. he loved how pathetic and dependent you were on him to make you feel good, how only he could make you come. “this feel better sweet thing?”

“y-yes jacey,” you moaned as your arms tightened around his neck, “bet it does, you making all of those sweet cute noises.” jason loves the way your mouth opened in an ‘o’ shape, and how your eyes would roll back with each thrust.

“now tell me why i should let you come sweet thing, you’ve barley worked for it.”

“m-mph, don’t be mean jacey,” you whined as you snuggled into his neck, attempting to give kisses as a poor attempt of persuading him. “trying to bribe me with kisses now huh?” he smirked seeing how pathetic you were. “didn’t think you were that desperate.”

“p-please jacey, let me come?” you pleaded as sweetly as you could, giving him your best puppy eyes. jason’s eyes sparkled seeing your face, “aw sweetheart, you really want to come hm?”

“next time you need to work for it alright? i’ll be nice this time.”

[im4rmy]

when he hurts you during sex by accident - OT7 (idol AU)

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Mark　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• after growing up with only men, he's still trying to size down his strenght when he's around you, but when he's lost in the pleasure of pounding into you chasing his climax... he loses that last thread of control. and that's a little too much for you.

• you squeeze his shoulders to get his attention but he doesn't seem to notice. "mark- wait, slow down please"

• nothing. but when he thrusts again roughly, hurting you, you scream and squirm away from him, finally getting his attention.

• "what's wrong baby?" "you were hurting me- ugh" you groan clutching your lower belly.

• mark widens his eyes. "w-what? oh my god, i'm sorry! are you okay baby?"

• you take a deep breath and relax your legs, feeling the ache already fading. you give him a little smile and get closer to him again, but his face and body are completely shutted down.

• "i'm so sorry... it's- are you okay?" "yeah, it's nothing. don't worry, okay?"

• he keeps on apologizing again and again until you snort and decide that the night it's over

• he feels so guilty that he won't touch you again for almost 2 weeks

• "i just- i fear i will hurt you again" "that was an accident, baby. i trust you"

• let's say that the sex with him will be VERY gentle and careful for the next two months or so.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Renjun　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• he's not rough in bed but he's freaky: he likes to tie you up (and to be tied up but this is not the case).

• but tonight he seems to be a little too lost in the moment to notice that you arching your back that way is not from pleasure but pain: you're lying on your belly with your hands handcuffed behind you while a whiny renjun pounds into you from the back.

• and when you feel like your back is about to break in half, you decide that is the right time to use your safe word. "APPLE PIE!"

• renjun instantly stops his movements and takes a breath to regain awareness of his surroundings and when you try to relax your back squinting in pain, he comes out of you gently. "are you okay baby?"

• "no please- u-untie me"

• you don't need to say anything else: your hands are free in no time and you collapse on the bed with a whine, face buried in the pillow.

• "talk to me pretty, is it your back?" you nod against the pillow and you feel his warm hands on you, softly massaging you.

• you breathe a few times relaxing your whole body, then you turn around to lay on your back now. you meet his worried eyes and offer him a little smile "i'm okay now"

• "are you sure? we can stop-" "nono, it's okay, really"

• you lift a little to kiss him and he reclutantly melts into your warmth again. he's still a little hesitant but it doesn't last long: you two comunicate a lot and you have a safe word for a reason. it's not the first time one of you isn't comfortable in a certain sexual activity since you both love to experiment new things. you say the safe word, the other stops and then you can continue your love making without overthinking it.

• that's why now renjun is thrusting in you again, slowly and deeply, passionately but gently, kissing you and taking care of you in his embrace. you smile at him and anything else doesn't exist anymore.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Jeno　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• you love sex with jeno. you absolutely LOVE it: he's hot af, he knows what he's doing, he's a pro at using his hands and mouth. he isn't even that rough but he's strong and sometimes he doesn't notice if he's gripping your sides or your wirsts with too much strenght. let's be honest, you don't notice either in the moment.

• in the morning, however, you feel the skin on your hips BURNING. and when you look in the mirror and see dark bruises here and there... you know that jeno can't see these or he'll never touch you again. (you can't let that happen omg)

• but when you can't seem to mask the winces every time you twist your body, he knows something is wrong. he ignores your protests and lift your hoodie, revealing your secret.

• "what the fuck happened??" he looks at you worried and when you can't even look at him nor answer- he realizes it's his fault.

• "oh my god baby- did i do that? i'm so sorry, why didn't you tell me i was hurting you?!" "because you weren't! i swear it didn't hurt till this morning"

• he looks at you with mortified puppy eyes and hugs you tight. "i'm so sorry baby. does it hurt a lot?"

• you giggle and enjoy his cuddles. "no it's okay, really. it'll fade quickly, don't overthink it okay?" "mhmh"

• you stayed cuddled up like that for a while, he even skipped his gym session with jaemin just to stay with you and do absolutely nothing but spoil you with endless cuddles.

• the next night he makes up to you eating you out like never before.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Haechan　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• sex with him is messy and loud and whiny. so it's understandable that he doesn't notice immediately when your pleasure moans turn into pain ones.

• when he angles himself wrong and thrust in you roughly, you choke out a cry and flinch, but he thrusts in you again making you scream.

• he finally looks at you sensing that something is wrong and he widens his eyes seeing your hurt expression. he's out of you in a second.

• "are you okay?" "fuck- ow"

• you hold your legs to your chest to ease the pain and take some deep breaths.

• "y/n you're scaring me, say something" "i'm okay, i'm okay" "can i take a look?"

• his soft and gentle voice and his warm hand caressing your knee are enough to make you relax. you nod and let him spread your legs.

• "you're not bleeding sweetie. what if i prepare a hot bath and we can cuddle until it gets cold and then i massage your whole body with my lotion and then i cuddle you until you fall asleep in my arms?"

• you giggle at him, locking your arms around his neck letting him lift you up and bring you to the bathroom. "why i have the feeling that you're going to enjoy this more than me?"

• "impossible! i'm using my good and expensive lotion for you!" "and rubbing it on all of my naked body is not worth the waste?" "it'll be SO worth it omg"

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Jaemin　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• jaemin is a HUGE... anal lover. you have to be honest: you don't enjoy it as much as him but he loves it so every now and then you give in, despite the initial discomfort you know you'll feel.

• but today you seem to not be able to overcome the stiffness, not when you're pressed against your door, completely naked, with your buff boyfriend thrusting in and out of you from the back holding your breasts like his life depends on it. that would be the hottest thing you two did in a while (and you two do a lot of steamy sex sessions so-) if you could at least relax just a little...

• "wait jaem- please stop" "w-what?" "i-it hurts- please"

• jaemin stops his movements and release the pressure on your body. "are you okay?"

• you collapse back against his body. "i'm sorry baby- i'm sorry i can't" "what's wrong princess?" "i don't like it- it hurts"

• he starts to caress your belly leaving sweet kisses on your shoulder. "i'm sorry... was i too rough?" "no it's just- i can't relax tonight"

• you can FEEL his smirk against your skin. "mhhh my girl wants to relax? i know a thing or two that will do the work"

• in less than thirty seconds your discomfort is well forgotten and replaced by the pure bliss of his head buried deep between your thighs. a win is a win.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Chenle　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• it cannot happen. during sex, chenle is entirely focused on you. he can't lose himself enough to not notice if he's hurting you.

• his every move is oriented towards YOUR pleasure so it's hard to believe he would hurt you even by accident.

• the worst it can happen is him doing something you don't really enjoy.

• "oh you don't like this? noted. and what if i do it like this instead- yeahhh that's my girl c'mon"

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　Jisung　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

• jisung is not rough or wild in bed, at all. but- he's big. you're the experienced and freaky one in bed so you can play and tease him all you want masking it as foreplay but honestly- you do all of that to make sure that you're wet enough to take him without accidents (and of course you enjoy the foreplay).

• but today jisung is tipsy from wine and he seems to feel like taking control. you don't mind it, he's hot af and you're really down bad for the clumsy and awkward boy.

• so when he eagerly undresses you and BOLDLY licks and kisses your breasts you're on cloud nine, but when he goes straight between your thighs and you feel him against your core- you flinch and widen your eyes.

• "wait ji- SHIT"

• he enters in you (or at least he tries to) but you're not lubrificated enough. you curse squirming away from him, who is looking at you confused as fuck.

• you get on your feet to ease the pain and shot him a glare. "are you insane? you can't do that straight away! ouch"

• you moan in discomfort and take a few steps around his room. you're not angry at him, of course, so you take a deep breath to calm your scared heart.

• "did i- did i really hurt you?"

• you look at him and your heart melts in your lungs: he's on his knees on the bed, very naked, cheeks flushed and eyes popping out. you sigh and go back to the bed, sitting beside him. "baby, you're too big to just slide in"

• "t-too big?" "yes baby" "so i hurt you every time we-" "no! make love to you is my favourite thing in the world. but i have to make sure that i'm ready to take you. you understand?"

• jisung keeps looking at you with puppy eyes. then his gaze goes down, directly between your bare legs. he wouldn't be able to do that without alcohol in his system. he faintly nods. "i understand. i should touch you first"

• you blink a few times and try to answer but you feel his fingers on your clit and your words die in your throat. you feel his unexperienced but effective movements and relax instantly.

• "is this working?" you laugh giving him a kiss. "yes, my good boy"

• (he came right in that moment)

♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤

masterlist

Taglist: @carelessshootanonymous

♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤

[dreamdrbbles]

TRUTH OR...DARE?

𝐬����𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you’re a cheater babe, sawry!

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: aaron pierre as himself & the black!fem reader as you.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy smut, oral (female receiving), adultery, protected sex, dirty talk, and some more stuff. also, please do not try this at home, pretty babies. minors, do not interact.

It had been four years since you stepped foot in a club, and it showed. Marriage had introduced your social life to a bright red octagon, halting any late nights out or wild adventures with friends. But when your girls planned an impromptu trip to New Orleans to celebrate your big promotion at work, you couldn’t say no. You needed the break, no, you deserved it. You were especially grateful they chose a spot that fit your aesthetic. The club was classy, with dim lighting that set a sultry tone and a strict over-25 entry policy. The drinks were strong, the music was hitting just right, and the men? Fine as hell. You were married—somewhat happily, but there was no harm in looking. Right?

“Ooh! Let’s play truth or dare!” Ashlee’s voice cut through the bass-heavy beat of Glorilla rapping about her love for being outside.

Her mischievous grin told you everything you needed to know: trouble was coming. You and Layla exchanged a knowing look, silently agreeing that your friend was already on one. The three of you had been thick as thieves since college, and truth or dare had a history of bringing chaos into your lives. It was never really truth or dare—it was dare or dare, and Ashlee’s ideas always toed the line between bold and outrageous. “Ash, you need to put the Casamigos down. I see you already on some bullshit,” you said, side-eyeing her as she poured another round of tequila shots.

“I’m not!” she defended, her voice dripping with feigned innocence. “But since you got so much to say… truth or dare?” Your competitive spirit flared instantly. Ashlee knew how much you hated backing down from a challenge. She fixed you with a smirk, her eyes glinting with the kind of energy that let you know she’d already thought this through.

“Oh, what the fuck… dare,” you said, waving her on. You figured she’d keep it simple; a dance with a stranger, getting a man’s number, something light. But you should’ve remembered who you were dealing with. Ashlee’s grin widened, wicked and full of intent.

“I dare you to have a one-night stand.” You nearly choked on your lemon drop. “Excuse me?” Ashlee didn’t flinch. She just crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair with the confidence of someone who knew she’d just dropped the gauntlet. “This heffa is crazy.” you muttered under your breath, wiping your mouth as you set the glass down. You shot her a look that could’ve burned through steel. She knew you were married. She’d been standing right there when you said “I do,” the one who held your bouquet and straightened your veil before you walked down the aisle. Sure, Ashlee had never liked Derrick—she thought he was controlling and boring, but this? This was outrageous. “Daring me to commit adultery is insane. No,” you said firmly, shaking your head.

But Ashlee didn’t back down. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, locking eyes with you. “It’s not like you’re happy with Derrick anyway.” she teased, her voice just loud enough for you and Layla to hear over the music.

You stiffened. Ashlee had struck a nerve, and she knew it.

You looked down at your drink, swirling it in the glass as the weight of her words settled over you. Your marriage wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Derrick had been distant lately, and the spark between you had faded into routine. You loved him… but sometimes you wondered if that was enough. Layla cut in, sensing the tension. “Ash, come on. That’s a little much, don’t you think?” The most logical of your friend trifecta added, bringing some levity to the situation. “Fine, fine.” Ashlee said with a shrug, raising her hands in mock surrender. “But if you don’t take this dare, then you have to at least… flirt with someone. You’ve been locked up in that marriage too long. Have a little fun.” You sighed, your sense of spontaneity battling with your sense of loyalty. It wasn’t like flirting was cheating… was it?

You tilted back your glass, letting the last of your drink slide down your throat, the burn of the vodka sharp and unforgiving. The cocktail glass hit the table with a decisive clink as you set it down, and the tension at your table crackled in the air. Your best friends were watching you closely, Ashlee with a look of smug challenge, and Layla with quiet pleading in her eyes, silently urging you to stay grounded. Tonight, you knew you were about to break one of their hearts. Would it be the devil on your shoulder or the angel? Taking a deep breath, you pushed back from the table, standing to your feet.

The movement was smooth, deliberate, almost as if you were psyching yourself up for the dare. You smoothed your hands down your dress, tugging it slightly to make sure it covered what needed covering—but there was no hiding the bold tattoo on your thigh: a coiled snake intertwined with roses. That tattoo was a relic of your younger, wilder days, when you were eighteen, impulsive, and drunk on a spring break trip you’d never forget.

Back then, you were reckless, bold, and free. For a brief moment, the memory of that version of yourself stirred something deep inside. “Flirt with a random man, got it.” you said, nodding as if to convince yourself. Your voice carried a mix of determination and resignation, a subtle reminder that you didn’t back down from dares. The beat of the club vibrated through your chest as you scanned the crowd, searching for your unsuspecting target. A few pairs of eyes lingered on you as you stepped away from the table, the confidence in your stride undeniable, even if you were faking it. Tonight, you weren’t just completing a dare, you were testing the edges of who you used to be. But where to start?

‘The bar’, you thought. Because you’d definitely need another round of liquid courage to go through with this. You sauntered to the crowded bar, sifting through bodies until you reached the counter. The bartender was a beautiful woman with bohemian locs that fell to her waist, beads adorned the feature. God, you loved New Orleans. The date was the flirt with someone, not a man in particular. Could making eyes at the gorgeous mixologist count? Probably not. Before you could pipe up to speak, you were bumped out of the way. Your eyebrows furrowed in frustration as you looked up at the towering figure. “Uh! Excuse me!” You called out, her voice only carrying a few inches away from you, but apparently it hit the intended target.

The male turned around and you were instantly stunned. Not only was he tall, but he was fine. Fine was an understatement. When God was done molding him even he had to give himself a pat on the back. From his chiseled jaw line to his ocean blue eyes that were covered by gold wire glasses, his features immediately enticed you. Fuck. The top two buttons on the shirt he wore were unbutton, revealing a gold chain with a simple cross pendant, shit had you ready to confess your sins. “Oh, my apologies love. I didn’t see you there.” He responded, a british accent stunned you, but the depth and rasp of his voice almost made you melt where you stood. “Let me buy you a drink, since I cut you in the queue.” His smile, FUCK. You giggled in response, as if you weren’t about to give him a piece of your mind just ten seconds before you got trapped in his eyes. Flirt. “Good idea, that’ll save you from my wrath.” You responded, your orbs holding his as you naturally tilted your head to the side. “A lemon drop, please.”

“Lemon drop.” he repeated, nodding toward the bartender. But his eyes never left yours, and the way they raked over you, slow and deliberate, made you feel like the most captivating thing in the room. “And an old fashion for me.”

As the bartender prepared your drink, he leaned in slightly, closing the already narrow space between you. His scent wrapped around you, warm, woodsy, and intoxicating. You could almost feel the heat radiating off him, and it took every ounce of composure not to let your knees give out.

“I’m Aaron, by the way.” he said, his voice lower now, meant just for you. You swallowed hard, your tongue darting out to wet your lips as you replied, “Nice to meet you, Aaron. I’m…” You trailed off, momentarily distracted as his gaze flicked to your mouth.

“Beautiful name.” he said before you could finish. Your cheeks warmed, but you held his gaze, determined not to let him see how flustered you were. “I didn’t tell you my name.” You replied, confused.

“No,” he said, leaning in just enough for his breath to brush against your ear, “but I’m sure it’s beautiful.”

Your drink arrived, breaking the moment, and you reached for it, your fingers brushing against his. The touch was brief, but it sent a jolt of electricity up your arm.

“Thank you,” you said, raising the glass slightly, your voice steady despite the way your pulse raced.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied, his eyes darkening slightly as he leaned back, his smirk now a full-fledged grin.

Flirting had never felt so natural, or so dangerous.

Suddenly, Ashlee’s dare didn’t seem so far-fetched. The idea of a one-night encounter felt thrillingly close, the kind of reckless decision you hadn’t made in years. As Aaron turned to walk away, you acted without thinking, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. The firmness beneath your fingertips sent a jolt through you, and he stopped, glancing back at you with curiosity in his eyes.

Boldly, you slipped your arm around his, letting him guide you through the lively crowd. The club’s energy buzzed around you, but it all seemed to fade, the world narrowing to just the two of you. His confidence radiated with every step, and you found yourself mesmerized by the ease with which he moved.

Eventually, he stopped at a table in a quieter corner, turning to face you. He leaned in close, his breath warm against your ear as he spoke. “Beautiful,” he murmured, his deep voice sending a shiver down your spine. “If I’d known buying you that drink would bring you this close, I would’ve done it the moment I saw you walk in.”

Your cheeks burned, the compliment sending a rush of heat through your body. But then it hit you-he still didn't know your name. You opened your mouth to tell him, but he cut you off, pressing a finger gently against your lips.

"You're going to be whoever and whatever I want you to be tonight," he said, his tone commanding but laced with an edge of teasing. "Understood?"

Yes, fuckin’ sir.

You felt his words settle deep in your core, your heart hammering as you nodded, unable to find the words to respond. Then, remembering yourself, you let out a soft laugh. “I guess I should thank my friends for daring me to flirt with someone tonight,” you said, your tone light but tinged with nerves.

His brow arched, amusement flickering in his gaze. “Just flirting?” he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small smirk. “That’s a pretty tame dare.”

“Well…” You hesitated, glancing down briefly. “They actually dared me to have a one-night stand, but ⸺.”

“Am I not worthy of that dare?” he interrupted smoothly, his voice playful but edged with curiosity. Your lips parted, unsure how to respond to his suggestive quip.

“Maybe,” you replied, feeling your heart race under his gaze. “But it’s complicated.” You lifted your left hand, the glint of your wedding band catching the light. His eyes followed the motion, lingering for just a moment before returning to yours. There was no judgment there, only intrigue. He leaned back slightly, sipping his drink, his calm demeanor unshaken.

“Is he here?” Aaron asked, his tone casual, though his words held a weight that made your breath catch. “Your husband? Is he here?” He continued when you didn’t respond quick enough.

You shook your head slowly, the honesty in your response surprising even you. “No.”

“Then it sounds like you have a choice to make, Love.” he said simply, setting his drink down on the table. His hand brushed yours lightly, a fleeting touch that felt electric. For the first time in years, you felt truly seen, the weight of routine and expectation momentarily lifted. The noise of the club melted away, leaving only the pounding of your heart and the magnetic pull of his presence. This wasn’t about making a decision yet; it was about the possibility ⸺ a spark of something wild and untamed.

Indeed, you did. Was one moment of indulgence worth betraying the vows you made? Was your competitive nature driving this, or something else entirely? Every rational thought warned you to step back, but then you caught sight of Aaron’s smirk; mischievous, yet inviting—and all logic slipped away. The heat in his gaze made your pussy throb, and the thrill of the unknown sent a shiver down your spine.

“Let’s go.” You said, the words spilling out before doubt could creep in. Your voice carried a conviction that surprised even you.

His lips curved into a slow, knowing grin, one that sent a wave of heat down your body. He finished his drink in one smooth motion, setting the glass down with a deliberate air. “No hesitation,” he murmured, almost to himself, before reaching for your hand.

His touch was warm, firm, and commanding as he led you through the crowded club. The air inside felt suffocating now, charged with tension, but as soon as you stepped outside, the cool New Orleans night greeted you like a cleansing balm. Yet even the breeze couldn’t temper the heat coursing through your veins.

While you waited for the valet, Aaron stood close, closer than he needed to. The faint scent of his cologne lingered between you, earthy and rich, making it harder to think straight. His hand remained on yours, his thumb absentmindedly stroking your skin in small, soothing circles.

A tinge of self-preservation kicked in, and you fished your phone from your purse, typing a quick message in the group chat.

“Leaving with him. Keep an eye on my location.”

You hit send and glanced up at him, finding him watching you with a curious tilt of his head. “Taking precautions?” He asked, his voice low, teasing, but with an undercurrent of respect. “Of course.” you replied, meeting his gaze with a faint smirk. “You’re still a stranger, no matter how fine you are.” He chuckled, the sound rich and inviting, as the valet pulled up with his car, a sleek, black luxury vehicle that seemed to match the polished disposition he exuded. He opened the passenger door for you, stepping aside with a small bow that was both playful and impossibly smooth.

“After you, beautiful.” he said, his tone soft yet dripping with intent. You hesitated for the briefest moment, one last flicker of restraint threatening to pull you back. But then you stepped forward, sliding into the plush leather seat, the door closing behind you like the start of a story you’d never expected to write. As he rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat, you couldn’t help but glance at him, a mixture of anticipation and trepidation swirling inside you. He caught your gaze and smiled, a slow, devastating twitch of his lips that seemed to promise everything and demand nothing.

The car ride was steeped in a quiet tension that buzzed between you like static electricity. Neither of you said much, but the silence wasn’t awkward ⸺ it was charged. Every so often, your eyes would meet, and in that brief exchange, a mutual understanding passed between you. This is really happening. Aaron’s right hand rested on your thigh, warm and firm against your skin. The casual intimacy of the gesture gave you goosebumps, but it also grounded you. His thumb occasionally traced small, idle circles, igniting tiny sparks that made your breath hitch. Meanwhile, he drove with practiced ease, his left hand guiding the sleek car through the city streets like he’d done it a hundred times before.

As the neon lights of the club district gave way to quieter, tree-lined roads, your heartbeat quickened. His place wasn’t far, and the realization settled over you with the weight of inevitability. You had crossed a line tonight, and every passing second carried you further from the point of no return. When he finally pulled into the driveway of a modern, elegant townhouse, he killed the engine and turned to you. His gaze was steady, his aquamarine eyes searching yours as if to make absolutely sure. “You ready?”

The words were simple, but the way he said them ⸺ low, careful, and tinged with concern, made your chest tighten. You nodded, your voice momentarily caught in your throat. “Yeah.” You managed softly. It was way too late to back out now, and honestly, you didn’t want to. Aaron smiled, a subtle grin that made your stomach flutter. He stepped out first, walking around to open your door.

Always the gentleman, it seemed, an unexpected touch for the man who now held the reins of this impulsive, reckless night. As you stepped out of the car, the cool night air brushed against your skin, heightening your senses. Aaron’s hand found yours again, his grip firm yet reassuring as he led you up the short walkway. The sound of your heels clicking against the pavement felt louder than it should have, like a drumbeat marking the anxiousness building between you. At the door, he paused, his keys in hand, and turned to face you one more time. “If you’re not sure, we can stop here.” he said, his timbre gentle but resolute. “No pressure, no hard feelings.” Your heart raced at his sincerity, but there was no hesitation left in you now.

“I’m sure.” you reassured, your voice steady this time. You were so fucking sure. With a small nod, he unlocked the door, holding it open for you as you stepped into his world, leaving everything else behind.

You barely made it through the threshold before you were engaged in a steamy kiss, and you were ripping each other’s clothes off like it was the end of the world. Patience was no longer a virtue, the only thing that mattered was the dare you had to complete. You two left a trail of clothes to the bedroom, where he pushed you down on the bed and demanded that you get in your favorite position. He would take you anyway you wanted. Without a second thought you rolled over on your stomach, pushing your ass out with your top half pressed firmly against the bed. The arch in your back made him hiss. You spread your legs just wide enough so that he could see your plump sex. “That’s a pretty pussy. Almost as beautiful as you.” He commented as he walked up behind you, slamming both of his hands down on your ass before he kneeled down behind you and released a wad of spit onto your throbbing mound. His tongue followed, gliding up and down your leaking slit with precision, he moaned as he tasted you.

Your nectar satisfying the male’s natural sweet tooth as he continued to indulge himself in your waters. “Oh my god…Aaron.” You squealed as his tongue ventured inside of you, caressing your walls as he thumbed your clit in a slow, figure eight motion. “You’re gonna make me cum already!” You exclaim, causing him to pop his plump lips off of your southern lips.

“Not yet…this is a one night stand.” He mumbled as he stood up behind you, gripping your waist and positioning you just right. He gripped his manhood in his hand and he slowly worked his tip up and down your opening, watching as your glaze coats his thick tip. “That means I got you all night.” He uttered as he slid inside of you, your walls clenching tightly to envelope him inside like a glove. You whimpered with every inch, he had your husband by at least three inches, but you were a determined one. You relaxed your body fully as he buried himself inside. “Good girl, keep opening up for me.” He praised, and you listened, forcing your walls to take every bit of his manhood until his body was flushed with yours.

“You feel so good…” You bellowed, clawing at the comforter underneath you as he began to stroke. He patterned in and out of your slick cunt, your juices flooding his pole with every impel. It felt like his dick was made perfectly for you, like you settled with the wrong man way too soon. All the time, your soulmate was less 500 miles away.

“You dripping all over my dick, baby. Who got you this wet?” The question was a rhetorical, but got dammit, the man had a right to know that he was doing his big one.

“You! Only you…” You replied breathlessly as you began to counteract his grinding with your own. Throwing your ass back at him, the sweat and other natural fluids from your bodies causing your plump cheeks to glue to him each and every time you pushed back. He grunted, encouraging you to continue fucking him back, the more comfortable you got with his size, the more you took, until you were sliding down on his entire cock, ramming into his pelvis. You were fucking him like you would never get the chance to again, because that was your reality.

The phone rings, and for a second, everything stops.

“Uh oh, is that hubby calling?” The male asked in a gruff tone as he placed his hand in the center of your back, slamming his pelvis into your plump cheeks, plummeting his manhood deeper and deeper into your guts. Before you knew it, he was handing you your phone, without even thinking you took it in your trembling hand. You had two missed FaceTime calls, and now he was calling on the regular cell. He had somehow gotten through the do not disturb function, even though he wasn’t on the approved list. “Answer it.” He demanded, bringing his hand up into the air before he smacked it down on your ass, undoubtedly leaving a palm shaped bruise.

“N-no…” You stuttered as he continued to thrust deeper into your abyss, his curved tip thrashing against your g-spot.

“I’m not gonna tell you again, beautiful. Answer it.” He directed once more, his strokes slacking up some until he completely stopped, leaving you full of his girth; your bodies pressed together.

The phone rang again, and this time you accepted the call. “Hey…babe, hey…” You slurred, trying to make it seem like you were drunk, even though the only thing intoxicating you was the man leaning over you, now pressing kisses to your shoulder as he stroked you deeply. You bit down into your lip, masking a moan as the familiar tone came through the phone. You clumsily hit the speaker phone and laid the device next to you.

“Hey, I was just checking on you. I know y’all were going out tonight. Did you have fun?” Derrick asked casually. Aaron chuckled in your ear, only loud enough for you to hear it. “Sounds like you had fun, you slurring your words.”

“Y-yes….so much fun! C-Can I call you back? The service isn’t good out here.” You powered through, despite being long dicked through your conversation with your spouse. Before he could even answer, Aaron reached over and ended the call. Kicking his foot up onto the mattress, he abandoned his steady, pointed strokes for brutal, merciless thrusts, sending shockwaves through your body. “FUCK! Right there, right there!”

“Your husband doesn’t fuck you this good does he?” He asked as he slipped in and out of your fortress with clear intentions, he wanted you to think of him even when you went back home. Even when it was your husband behind you. You shook your head no, but that just wasn’t good enough for him. He slid his hand into your fresh silk press and wrapped your tresses around his hand, yanking your hair until your back was flushed with his torso. He turned his head, planting soft kisses on your earlobe before he spoke again. “Answer me. Use your words.” Both of his hands wrapped around your body, one landing on your neck, and the other against your throbbing sensitivity.

He squeezed the column of your neck, while slapping his hand down on your clit to provoke an answer from you. “No! He could never fuck me like you…” You declared boldly. One night with this man and you had already thrown your husband’s boring bedroom skills under the bus. Your silk-lined walls spazzed, your clit pulsated with anticipation as your stomach muscles tightened. The curl of your toes told a story, the contortion of your face was the foreword. You were about to unravel, harder than ever before. He needed no introduction to your orgasm, he could feel you tightening around him. “That’s it princess, gimme what I want.” He encouraged as he sent one more swift pop to your engorged bundle of nerves, sending your body into a frenzy as you came. Frothy, ivory cum coated the latex between the two of you as a shrill cry left your lips. “Shit…shit…” you cursed as he placed another kiss to your temple.

“Keep cumming like that and I might have to keep you.” He murmured, a promise he couldn’t keep. He slid out of you, only for a moment to replace the condom. Grabbing your leg, he used it to flip you over on your back. He positioned himself between your thick thighs, pushing them up to your chest as he tapped his throbbing tip against your sensitive clit. He didn’t waste time entering you once again, pressing both of his hands on each side of your head as he leaned down on top of you. His gold cross pendant dangled right over your line of sight. The symbol was so fitting, because he was nailing you to that motherfucka.

This had to be the most dangerous position. His gaze felt like something you weren’t sure you could pull back from. Those piercing blue eyes of his—deep and endless like the ocean—held you captive, silently daring you to dive in, to let go of everything else. The sexually charged as the air between you thickened, it became harder to grasp onto reason. All you could focus on was the way his skillful phallus edges you closer and closer to glory.

“You don’t love him…who do you love?”

“I love you!” You blurted out mindlessly. You didn’t love this man, you’d just met him. But you absolutely loved the way he felt inside of you, so, same thing?

“I love you too,” He retorted, pressing his lips to yours to steal a few kisses. “Keep giving me this pussy, make me nut.” He grunted as he closed any gaps between the two of you, his sticky, sweaty frame clinging to yours. The religious symbol carved from gold swayed above your mouth as he defiled you. You impulsively grabbed the pendant with your teeth and held onto it, causing the male to growl in response. “Sexy ass…” Your action clearly arousing him, you could feel his erection twitch insiders of your fortress.

You wrapped your hands around his waist, letting them fall further down to his muscular ass, sinking your french manicure into his skin and holding him in place. “You wanna nut so, bad. let me feel you, daddy…” you purr into his ear, and lock clockwork his entire body tenses, he gives you a few more choppy strokes, a throaty snarl covering a string of obscenities as he filled the latex between the two of you, another orgasm ripping through your own body simultaneously. The two of you laid there in silence for a few moments; enjoying the feeling of your bodies sticking together. Finally, he reached between you and pulled out. Placing a soft kiss against your duo before pulling away all together.

You watched as he swaggered to the bathroom, his beautiful round butt on display. You’d just cheated on your husband, and you honestly had no regrets. He would never know, you would get back to your life in a few days and forget this ever happened. Or would you?

You heard the sound of the toilet flush before he walked back out to you, in all his glory. “You okay?” He asked, your lips curved up into a smirk. “Let me get you some water…”

As promised, he made you touch every wall in the house. From the kitchen while he was “getting water” to the living room floor, back down to the hallway, until you circled back to the shower and ended in the bedroom again.

Normally, you loved the sunrise ⸺ it was your favorite time of day. You were an early riser, always savoring the quiet peace of dawn. But today, you hated it. The soft, golden light spilling through the curtains was an unwelcome reminder that your night with Aaron had come to an end, and reality was waiting just outside that door.

Carefully, you slid out of bed, moving as quietly as possible to avoid waking him. His steady breathing filled the room, and for a moment, you paused, watching the way the morning light kissed his face. He looked so peaceful, so perfect, and it only made it harder to leave.

You tiptoed around out of the room, gathering your clothes from where they’d been discarded the night before. Piece by piece, you dressed in silence, your movements deliberate, almost hesitant, as if you were trying to hold on to the last remnants of the night.

But as you reached the front door, a tug of longing made you stop. You couldn’t leave ⸺ not yet. You needed one last look at him.

Turning back, you crept down the hall and peeked into the bedroom. Your heart stuttered when you saw him staring back at you, his dreamy eyes half-lidded as he rubbed the sleep from them. His voice, low and raspy from sleep, broke the silence. “You were just gonna leave like that?” The corners of his lips displayed a faint smile, and the vulnerability in his tone hit you harder than you expected.

“Yeah, before you make it even harder to leave,” you admitted with a matching smile, your voice barely above a whisper. You lingered at the doorframe, taking in the sight of him one last time, trying to commit it all to memory. “Goodbye, Aaron. Thank you for last night.”

The sincerity in your words hung between you, unspoken truths layered beneath them.

He propped himself up on one elbow, his eyes searching yours. “Before you leave… what’s your name?”

You hesitated, your lips parting as if to tell him, but instead, you offered a soft, enigmatic smile. “Let’s just leave it as ‘Beautiful,’” you said, the words laced with finality and a hint of playfulness.

Aaron leaned back, his smile widening as he chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Beautiful it is.”

Without another word, you turned and slipped out of the room. Outside, your best friends were waiting for you, their faces alight with curiosity and mischief. They immediately bombarded you with questions, eager for every last detail. But as you settled into the car’s backseat, you held onto the memory of last night, knowing some moments were better left unspoken, cherished in quiet secrecy.

[wuahae]

hiii hehe :3 first off i'm SOO sorry it took me this long to get around to it omg i really wanted to go into this with a #Fresh mindset and also school Just started and already is pummeling me into the ground but . it's saturday Monday. and i am Here now and i just cracked open a cold one (ginger ale) and i am Ready to get into it!!!!

Here, in the dark, there is just you. 

banger first line btw its so telling... also i remember workshopping this first scene with you and i'm so glad this is what you decided on! it sets the mood perfectlyyyy it fits the perfect amount of humor (SHAKIRA WAITS FOR NO ONE!!!) and ambiance and the ENERGYYY of it is so good like Yeah this is an opening scene of a 2010s romcom! its likeee yeah even though you're in this club at fuckass o'clock the ghost of your mother and all your expectations still digs into you... you can never run away you can only face the things you must!!!! also another thing i wanna say is that its kinda crazy how short this scene is but there's so many things that it establishes like Man... That's good writing... yn who is forced to be everything she isn't and as a result she cannonballs herself into everything she Shouldn't be... just so she can have the feeling of being nothing at all.... yeah!!! oh to be young and wild and free . But what does it all mean for the future...

They stand tall in their planters, majestic and hairy with French lavender. Today you notice that the rightmost one's nose has been pruned off by accident, and he stands, snoutless, staring at his green brothers and sisters. 

picture perfect palace hosting a picture perfect family but if you look close enough you see signs of the suffocation.. the overbearing preening.... WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!! also the part about y/n noticing the little details about the number of terracotta stones... its like Yeah it's probably bc she's been in this palace all her life but also its like. no one would pay attention to those things if some ounce of her didn't care. used to. etc.

Your father paces near the window, either wondering why you can't be softer, more pliable, like your older brother Jeonghan, or, alternatively, why one of the lions is missing a nose.

only the real ones know who jeonghan used to be... YOU WILL BE MISSED 😭😭😭😭😭

"We have arranged for you to marry someone."  And all at once, it seems as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. There's a sharp pain lodged somewhere between your chest, your stomach, and your unhappy liver. The larks sing emptily in the garden. 

the pacing is sooo good here like yeah... top 10 announcements you won't believe! also the detail of the larks is so good it places you back into the palace setting and also it makes the palace seem so like. big. empty. just a bunch of air and space.

"Why?" you ask. Your voice wobbles, treading over that childlike waver you never learned to control. "Is this to punish me?"  / She's right. She's always been right. Maybe not about the swimsuit, but you haven’t exactly been the PR princess your family needed you to be. If anything, you would think it made Jeonghan look better by comparison, but you know that your parents would prefer you to make appearances in something other than Deuxmoi’s Sunday Spotted. But the royal charade never fit you well either; it clings and sticks and bunches up at the seams like a cheap Halloween costume. 

this makes me sooo like. MY BABYYYYY.... the emphasis on like. you might be an adult but whenever you're dealing with your parents or anything royal it just feels like you're a Child all over again (childlike waver / cheap halloween costume)... i have nothing else to say that doesn't involve my own convoluted parental trauma but just know i #GetHer

You were so sore the next day, you were bed-bound–truly a punishment worse than death, if not for another reminder that everything you do ends up hurting you a little. 

OWIE.....

Past August, you don't think you ever got your brother back.

i loooove this relationship with jeonghan btw idk if i ever said this to you but its like. vulnerabilities in yn that show she isn't just being disobedient to Be disobedient and like. she cares!!!! she just copes bad and has no one around to help her... not anymore :( also this scene in general is just really good backstory without being too monologue-y which is something i am Always impressed by... Good worldbuilding. good dynamic.

Without thinking, you quickly push out the first excuse you have. "I apologize, I was—" 

also i think its so interesting how like. before you know it's jihoon at the door you default to your more proper princess "I apologize" smth that like. Fits your position more even though on the surface level you've long given up on being proper or whatever impossible thing your mother expects you to be.... yeah. Trying is still somehow ingrained in your being

"You forgot your jacket," Jihoon replies. 

unfortunately for both of us i endlessly need him. also reliable best friend jihoon meeowwww I NEEED YOOUUUUU. also yn's imposter syndrome and guilt complex is making me soooo sad....

You wish she was human for a moment so you could show her the crater-sized hole that "prince joshua google images" left in your browser history. 

THIS IS SOOOFDMLDFK me searching up Joshua Hong boyfriend on pinterest to the same effect

The mental image of Joshua Hong being struck down by the first ten seconds of Throat Goat makes you laugh, but you still don't feel far away enough from the truth.

#foreshadowing

You knew you should have done better for your brother, but he didn’t even feel like your brother anymore. 

nooo..... fuck. also me reading this knowing full well What happened that day.... rocking back and forth chanting My Shaylaa....

So you press your heart to Astrid's mane, the pale moon high over the both of you, and you ride. 

astrid who represents the last bit of your childhood and yourself and your Brother, all of which you wonder if you can even bring with you to acros, pressing your heart to her and all that she encompasses... Yeah

You choose to let it slide—you have no choice, really. At least you have an ass. 

#smallblessings

"Didn't know you had a choice."

ooohhhh he's soo.... ITS SO ARC WORDS!!! of course he would say that....

"I mean, I read an insane amount of Dan Brown," you reply. "Not many of us can say we've solved the Davinci code, you know." 

this is actually the worst im clawing at my neck rn MDSFJSDFML is there any greater humiliation than someone not laughing at your jokes...... LAUGH WITH MEEEEE oh my god.... josh being hot and boring. the 10th circle of hell.

You glance to your right to catch a glimpse of Joshua. He smiles, a dutiful press of the lips, and you watch it ripple.

heol........... the first crack in his mask. hah... tfw you're so annoying u make resident stick-in-ass regret his princely duties

He's out of words, so he bends down to awkwardly pat you on the head, which, in all your years of knowing him, is the most affection he can muster. This is why you prefer horses to Jihoon for therapy, although you appreciate the effort. 

he is SOOOOO..... I NEED HIM 😭😭😭😭😭

You still keep your pillow pet on your bed (a horse named Robert).

i tried thinking of a horse pun with robert pattinson for a joke and the best i could come up with was cobert pattinson... robert trottinson... me when rob is destined to have bat puns no matter what . but anyway i love that yn is consistently a horse girl its so cute HSDFJLSFDKM

He's got a copy of Anna Karenina under his arm, probably to weigh the pros and cons of cheating on you. You don't blame him—in fact, maybe it would make your doomed marriage exciting enough to be tolerable. 

THIS IS SOOOODSFMSDFLKJ aaron taylor johnson Where are you!!!

"Oh right, because this is where happiness goes to die, huh?" You snatch it back from him, feeling the knot of anger in your gut flare. 

Oh that's not...... 😬 well Yes actually!

You sink into your side of the bed, a damask-woven vat of quicksand, and watch the spears of light dance on the ceiling.

imagery that fucks immensely..

The prince of Acros owning a book with the words "juicy", "mewling", and "best friend's brother" in the first fifty pages are enough to tide you over for the night. Probably the next week, to be honest.

prince joshua hong caught reading ICEBREAKER?!

"Is it too bright for you?" Joshua's voice, now tempered by the stillness of the evening, pulls you out of your thoughts. "I can turn the lamp off."  / Joshua smiles, and this time, you think it's a real one. 

also one thing to mention is that i love how after the truce is settled they're quick to act like. civilly/almost kind to each other like. they're both not Bad or intentionally hard-to-stand people it's just they're both put in impossible situations . a thin line between hate and kinship and love... etc etc etc. speaking of hate u are an expert at writing e2l banter the tension is palpable

"Any minute now," bitches Jihoon from the other side of the door. 

HE IS SOOOSDFMDSFLK my favorite animal is jihoon being forced to do anything for the royal family. also you calling yourself a HARLOT is so funny. next up the list is calling yourself a reddit-approved hussy

Outside, there is a lone photographer. The sun, morning-ripe, reflects off his camera lens like a third eye. The lawn, freakishly green, sprawls out around you, and the blue spruce frames the scene, perfect by design. 

your descriptions are SOOOO good like theyre so Telling without being too wordy or needlessly purple-y like just a few sentences from you and i am #In it

You can see why people dote on him so much—his cheeks get round, and his eyes magically gain the sparkles that people pay for on Facetune. God really seems to have wasted a perfect face on him.

the thought of being fake-married to him is making me rock back and forth like actually Oh my god.... i unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole with my 8 rows of teeth.

He's just like anyone else, you tell yourself. You're at the club. They're playing Everytime We Touch by Cascada. 

CASCADA MENTION HELL YEAHHHH 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

“Shut the fuck up. Wait, is he actually coming?”  ”Dunno. Wouldn’t be very Mr. Worldwide of him to flake, though.” 

u are actually the funniest person alive. also i think its soooo like. even though you came back home to have semblance of your Old life back your thoughts inevitably drift to joshua again... trying to fit him into the familiar memory of your old life even though you know it's a little funny to imagine him with anything less than 100 year old wine in his hand... and when somi asks if she should invite him you say No even though you were clearly thinking about it . What does it all mean. the dichotomy of having a hot boring HOT fake husband... oh the terrors....

but you couldn’t let him walk away from that conversation thinking wet dirt was a normal, socially acceptable, scent for a bedroom. (—It said moss on the label! —So, dirt. —Moss is not dirt. Maybe you need to go back to school.) 

GWHMASFDLFSDK the parentheses format is so funny i'm stealing that /hj. also im soooo glad you added in this scene about seeing him half naked its so romcom-y... so shenanigans-filled.... pornhub title: HOT PRINCE WITH HUGE TITS CAUGHT NAKED!

Later, on the walk to the library, you reach for your lip gloss. Instead, you pull out q-tip number five and get mad all over again. 

like she's so funnyydfmdflk she's sooo me.

"I just have to know—how did you guys meet?" 

this entire exchange is so funny JSDFMLASDFK like i love when they're bickering and being annoying to each other i feel like they match each other so well also the little digs to each other to ruin each other's reputation... yn raccoon era. joshua stalker era.

Joshua doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of your eye, you see his gaze has shifted. You feel it land somewhere near you, but you’re too engrossed in the race to investigate further. Perhaps he’s admitted defeat preemptively, wisely so.  “You know your stuff,” he murmurs, the clamor of the audience almost burying him. 

oh man...... an ounce of sincerity is all it takes.... me when josh sees the girl underneath the Act.... starts howling.

You turn to Joshua and clasp his hands between yours, somehow less wooden now, and so, so human. The crowd cheers; they come alive. 

OOOUUUUUUUUUGGGHHHH WOLF TEARING OFF HIS SHIRT JPEG.

also next scene with josh and his damn HORSE PUNS HES SOOOO ANNOYINGJFDMLDF but also this is the first time we're really seeing him not be prickly and testy and being Lame so its like. you show me your cards ill show you mine... etc. he's just trying to make you comfortable cause you really are a Team rn... oh man. OH MAN.

You’re not asking for love—just a little bit of like. and, right now, you think you like Joshua Hong. 

rubs hands together like a little fly... all according to plan. also theyre just soooo cute oh my god...

“Do you want to keep this?” Jihoon holds up a choker that resembles a jock strap. “When did you even wear this? It looks like a cat toy.” 

NOOOOOOO

“Right,” says Joshua, and when he gets up from the bench, he doesn’t look back. 

i have a lot of things to say about this scene and All of them are good... i remember the first time you brought up Piano as a scene and i was like. Wrinkles nose. at it because of my own personal experiences with piano being used as a cheesy plot device But i told you this then and im telling you this again Now i think its so well done... the dynamic between josh and yn is so well done like. they're just starting to blindly feel around how to interact with one another now that they're not Enemies but theyre still forced-to-marry but also like. they're also starting to be friends, even if josh was being a tad insufferable After the derby. like i love that they're both fumbling around at the piano and for Once in this palace yn is leading josh on how to do something right... yn teasing him all in good nature ("buddy, left hand goes here.") and josh giving himself the leniency to be a bit of casual when no one is watching ("aw, what?" he whines. "see, i told you i was no good. give me a second.") like its all just so cute. like watching two puzzle pieces spin themselves around trying to click. Pajama joshua is better than prince joshua... but even pajama joshua is thinking of duty... duty the knife and the wound... and Of Course josh brings it up when they're having a cute moment like OF COURSE!!! rubs my temples. yn trying to change the topic again. josh opening up again about wanting to play guitar because this is Pajama Joshua who doesn't know how to read the ledger lines and makes silly puns and not Prince Joshua who looks at you with a firm press in his brow... like everyone else with a crown... Man.

“That's not really fair.” You absentmindedly play a few keys, all disjointed. “Taking guitar lessons doesn’t make you a problem child.”  “It's not about that, though,” Joshua says. He's avoiding your eyes. “It's everything, together. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and be someone else.”  [...] “Yeah, and you think I don’t think about that every day? How, maybe, if I had done something different, then we wouldn’t be here?”  You feel stung. You don’t know how to tell him that you’ve been trying to figure out the same thing your whole life. If you were a better daughter, you’d have spared everyone the trouble. Unfortunately, you’d gotten it wrong so many times, you stopped trying.

FUCK!!! like this whole exchange is such masterful character building . joshua who doesn't know How to give himself leeway and does whatever mommy and daddy tell him because if he disobeys one thing then its like a slippery slope and all of a sudden he'll let himself think he can be someone other than a prince. vs yn who doesn't see the big deal because what's one misstep when her entire life is just one purposeful fuck-up.... but it doesn't even matter!! because even if josh was rebellious and learned how to play guitar and not piano and if yn was the good little princess her parents wanted her to be they would still be here!!! both at opposite ends of the spectrum. DUTY THE KNIFE AND THE WOUND!

like the whole scene is just so push-pull... conflicting coping mechanisms... they see each other but do they really. they see but do they understand... things to consider....... anyway this is my favorite scene. i love character building.

“You ready to get stuffed?” 

GHWMAFSMLSDKVSLDFKSDVMLSDFK

“Yeah, although on second thought, maybe it’s a bad idea to bring the girl who’s gonna puke everything up anyway.” 

Just like me...

“Nope.” You pop open your compact. “I have to change, and I desperately need to locate a coffee. I will suck a fucking bean off if i need to.”  “I'm hanging up on you,” Somi whines. “It's too early for you to be gross and late.”   “As if you weren’t talking about getting stuffed.” 

THEY ARE SOOO FUNNY like somi really is the star of the show... if this was in the 2000s she'd be played by judy greer

“Don’t give me any ideas,” he replies. Under the bluebird sky of late morning, lips upturned and eyes bright, Joshua may be a sight you could get used to. Someday. “Brought you a coffee. I can’t have you sucking off a bean—the reporters would go crazy.” 

i love how his humor slowly gets more crude as the fic goes on HSDFJLSDFK like him laughing at you being the #top in the piano scene... JOSHUA HONG I KNWO WHAT YOU ARE. I KNOW THE PERSONALITY YOU'RE HIDING. also it's actually a skill to casually describe joshua in a way that is injected with so much Need but what else would i expect from husbandjoshi...

Instead, you circle each other in an unsure, clumsy dance. You can’t quite get it right. It's all the same now. The bite of a horse saddle not made for your body, the glow of your heirloom ring, now cheapened by your graceless hand, Joshua’s lonely, reaching palm as he disappears in the rearview mirror. 

aw man... i always feel so bad for her like she's always trying... all she does is try 😭😭😭 like that thing about the jeonghan play too... she tries and its not good enough and so it gets discarded anyway because what good is trying when its not good enough... better to pretend to be perfect than to try and be yourself. and whatnot. my shayla........ what a sad notion... to be perfect and lonely...

You also learn that you, paradoxically, might not know how to love Joshua Hong, but you sure do know how to kiss him. 

oh meow.............. MEEEEOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.............. you don't need me to tell you how good you are at writing intimate scenes you already know.... i also don't have much to say btw you look in my brain and its like tv static and the rainbow bars bzzzzzt bzzzztttt bzzzzzzzzzt

ok. obviously i have more to say. I will see you on the next part.

title: royally screwed [m]

pairing: joshua x f!reader

wc: 30.8k in total; part 1: 15.4k, part 2: 15.4k summary: between remembering last night’s party and pleasing your unrelenting family, you think being a princess is hard enough. then you’re thrust into an arranged marriage to royal darling joshua hong—straight-laced, infuriatingly obedient, and everything you’re not. pretending to be the perfect couple? impossible.   notes: romcom + smut (part 2), modern royalty!au in which yn is the princess of cotria/joshua the prince of acros (both fictional), enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, quarterlife crisis/coming of age, very very slow burn. lots of swearing, lots of alcohol, lots of feelings. very special thanks to @meiozis for all their help with worldbuilding and @wuahae for bearing with me through the endless drafts, scene changes, second guessing, horrible word choices, etc. you are the only reason this got done, and i love you to the moon and back <3 [read part 2 here!]

Here, in the dark, there is just you. 

The strobe lights press into your skin with all the brilliance of the sun, there's half a Modelo running down your leg, and you think you kissed the stranger behind you last week, but if you close your eyes, it's just you. No rules, no five second curtseys, no talk about the throne or whoever's ass happens to be keeping it warm at the moment. 

Here, you're nobody, and it's perfect. 

"I'm getting more champagne," Somi says, her voice careening over the music. "You sure Jihoon doesn't want any?" 

You glance back at him. He's flattened up against the back wall, holding your purse, like a raccoon caught going through the trash. This is one of the many trials he's forced to endure for your entertainment, but it's his job–not as your closest friend, but as your legally employed bodyguard. 

"No, he's on duty." 

"Right," she slurs. "Sometimes I forget you're a literal princess." 

If only it were that easy. Five drinks in and you think you can still feel your mother's vice grip on your arm and all the little white crescents of her french manicure. 

You love this song–at least, you think you do. You're too drunk to tell, but it doesn't matter. The dance floor is muggy, sardine-packed with one warm body after another, and it's heaven. The crowd moves, and you move with them. Shakira waits for no one. 

Somi must have secured another bottle of Cristal already. Soonyoung, your other partner-in-crime, hands you a flute and you take it, the glittery foam already bubbling over the lip. 

"Cheers." Out of his too-drunk mouth, it sounds like a new word altogether, but you bring your glass to his anyway. 

Tomorrow, you have a meeting with your parents. This, unlike all of your other involvements, is actually important, they said, and their voices had wound around you like a snare. 

When it gets late, Jihoon will sling your arm over his shoulders and haul you back to the palace, still tipsy and holding your stilettos to your chest like a shield. Tomorrow will come, and it's then when you'll have to try to be good. It's a useless, stupid affair, but you'll go through the motions anyway. 

But tonight, there is you and the music and the wonderful laughter of your friends, and you don't have to be anything at all. 

"Cheers," you tell Soonyoung, and you drink. 

--

There are four large topiaries in the palace garden: all lions. They stand tall in their planters, majestic and hairy with French lavender. Today you notice that the rightmost one's nose has been pruned off by accident, and he stands, snoutless, staring at his green brothers and sisters. 

You know this because this is the view from the study, and it has never changed. There is only one study in the east wing, and it is small and useless and the perfect room for your parents to sit you down and remind you that you do not, in fact, own a single thing about your own life. 

There is nothing new about this ritual. Even as a child, when you were more desperate to please, you could never be the right kind of daughter to your parents or princess to your country. Again and again, you landed yourself here, in trouble once more. 

So you stopped trying–you would find these four walls anyway, no matter what you did. Why not enjoy your Fridays instead?

By now, you’ve memorized the carvings on the armrest of the chair you’re in (a knobby column, then underneath, the whorl of a seashell). There are thirty-four terracotta stones on the way to the fountain, all spaced perfectly apart, sanded down to the millimeter. 

The scene remains unchanged. Your mother now stares down at you over the bridge of her nose, with that tight-lipped frown you've gotten so used to. Your father paces near the window, either wondering why you can't be softer, more pliable, like your older brother Jeonghan, or, alternatively, why one of the lions is missing a nose. Maybe both.

"Enjoy yourself yesterday?" your mother asks. 

"Yes," you reply, out of other answers.

"Wonderful. Then our early morning briefing with PR was good for something. You should be grateful last night's pictures won't make it out of the darkroom." 

Her voice, bitter and incisive, makes the hangover bubble up in your stomach. You and the tabloids weren't exactly on good terms, but it wasn't your fault so many people seemed to care about what you were wearing or who you were out with. 

"What did you want to meet about?" you ask, hoping to change the subject. 

You can't put your finger on it, but there's a cloying, heavy energy hanging on you. You feel as though you're on the precipice of something, although that could just be the consequences of all that Cristal ready to reintroduce themselves to your digestive system. 

Your mother clears her throat. 

"We have arranged for you to marry someone." 

And all at once, it seems as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. There's a sharp pain lodged somewhere between your chest, your stomach, and your unhappy liver. The larks sing emptily in the garden. 

"What?" Your voice sounds like it's unraveling somewhere in your throat. Quickly, frantically, you grasp at the faraway possibility that it can't possibly mean what you think it does. Marry? You can’t even remember the last time you thought of going on a second date with someone. Now you might actually throw up. 

"Prince Joshua, of the Hong family. The crown prince of–" 

"Acros. I know," you interrupt, the words jumping out of you in shock and anger. 

Of course you know who Joshua Hong is–Acros is a tiny, unremarkable country nestled into the border of your much bigger one, and Joshua their crown jewel. If you were the nation's problem, he was their darling. A bland thing to coo at when life got boring, the walking embodiment of a media training session. Smile and nod, smile and nod. He might as well be AI generated.

You wouldn't last a day with him. Not with your impatience, your opinions, or that loud mouth your parents always scold you for. Your mind swims with the mental image of the two of you on a gaudy parade float, doing that stupidly slow wave everyone seemed to insist on.

"Wonderful. So you'll pack a bag? The Hong family will be thrilled to meet you tomorrow," says your father.

"Why?" you ask. Your voice wobbles, treading over that childlike waver you never learned to control. "Is this to punish me?" 

"My dear, your brother will be ascending to the throne soon," your mother answers, looking you dead in the eyes. "It’s his face that needs to be on the front page, not you in another abomination of a swimsuit. The Hongs will keep enough of an eye on you.” 

She's right. She's always been right. Maybe not about the swimsuit, but you haven’t exactly been the PR princess your family needed you to be. If anything, you would think it made Jeonghan look better by comparison, but you know that your parents would prefer you to make appearances in something other than Deuxmoi’s Sunday Spotted. But the royal charade never fit you well either; it clings and sticks and bunches up at the seams like a cheap Halloween costume. 

"The Hongs thought their country would benefit from our money. It was an easy decision, really," your mother finishes, as if that makes you feel any less like a silly, bikini-clad pawn in a game of chess you never asked to play. 

"Does Jeonghan know?" 

"He sees its purpose,” your father says simply, like that was all that mattered. “You will too, in due time.”

He nods solemnly, which is how he closes every conversation–just another turn of the silent knife. As your parents turn to leave, their silken garbs trail behind them like ink in still water. Business as always, especially with you. 

"Your brother will be coming home from his press tour this week," your mother says on her way out. "You mustn't ruin this for him. The car leaves for Acros in the morning." 

There's a mean, barbed feeling in your heart. You don't know whether to scream or to cry, so you do what your mother taught you to do. You sit, stilled by a feeling of hopelessness, and let yourself be emptied. 

--

When you were thirteen, you learned how to ride a horse. 

Not the impractical, side-saddle way drilled into you when you were a little girl, with your skirt billowing over the fender and catching in the stirrups, but how to really ride a horse. 

It was on a night much like tonight–indigo and starless. Your brother had climbed up the marble trellis, his teenage, noodle body a perfect fit for scaling the lattice, and threw a stone at your window, just like you had seen in the movies. Jeonghan was still young, then, rebellious and unchanged by the throne. 

It was him who laced up your riding boots, hoisted you on your first horse, and pressed the reins into your palms. You remember the unforgiving hold of the leather saddle, not yet broken in. You were so sore the next day, you were bed-bound–truly a punishment worse than death, if not for another reminder that everything you do ends up hurting you a little. 

"It's great," Jeonghan had told you, breathless and haloed by the moonlight. "You can just ride. nowhere to go and no one to answer to." 

You had spent the summer this way. Every night, you learned the sound of the forest at twilight, chasing Jeonghan's mud-splattered palomino. In the mornings, breakfast consisted of rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and whispering about whatever misadventure you had found yourselves tangled in the night before. 

That was before he had come of age. Before your father gave him the Throne Talk, and before he was whisked away into endless meetings and etiquette lessons and parliaments. Your inside jokes became foul, overripe in his newly coached mouth. He even learned to play golf, and he hated golf. 

Past August, you don't think you ever got your brother back.

You slide the oaken doors of the stables open, feeling your arms squeeze underneath your riding shirt. Here, it’s always quiet after sundown.

It hasn't changed since the day you first snuck in with Jeonghan. You let the green scent of the hay fill your lungs, the sleep-stir of the horses like music to your ears. Dokyeom has left the tack room open by "accident" once more, likely to avoid catching you picking the lock with a bobby pin like he had a few months ago. 

"Hey, you," you whisper, coming to the stall of your own horse. Astrid, a bay thoroughbred, was Jeonghan's gift to you on your 18th birthday, a wistful reminder of a summer now past its prime. "No surprise here, but I had a really, really bad day." 

Astrid, oblivious, noses at your palm in search of a nonexistent sugar cube. Somehow, this brings the anxious chatter of your mind to a crescendo—would Astrid come with you to Acros? When would that happen? More importantly, when were you moving? You think of a too-warm summer morning, the ridiculous, oversized brim of one of your mother's sunhats, and a moving truck. That, and a country ready to delete you from its ranks. 

It's now, with the bridle in your fists, that you hear the wheedling groan of the stable door as it slides open. Without thinking, you quickly push out the first excuse you have. "I apologize, I was—" 

"It's me." 

Jihoon. 

You would tease him about his fear of ponies—perhaps it's because he is quite literally the same size as them—but you think hearing another person tell you off would officially push you over the edge. You don't want to be dramatic, but you don't even know if Acros even had horses. 

That, and somehow he's both the first and the last person you want to see. The guilt feels a bit heavier when you know his life is about to change too, in no small part due to your own failings.

"Jihoon, I…" you start. There’s an apology that’s been sitting on your tongue, one you haven’t quite learned to spit up yet. You don’t know who it’s for—yourself, or everyone else—but Jihoon interrupts you before you can finish your thought. 

"You forgot your jacket," Jihoon replies. 

For once, you can't read him. You wonder if he's thinking about if he'd get along with the other bodyguards, but, more likely, he's probably pitying you. You're the last person in the world that should be in an arranged marriage, and even someone who kills people for a living could tell. 

"I'll be in the foyer." 

You don't exchange any more words. Jihoon knows that there is nothing he can say that will erase what's about to happen, and like always, he is right.

After you saddle up, Astrid takes you to the forest like usual. Honestly, you've lost count of the times you've come out here to cry, usually about a boy you don’t even like, or, worse, Jeonghan declining your weekly Facetime session again. But now, you think you both know this time is very different. 

"Astrid," you groan. "Joshua looks like a Ken doll from hell. He probably pronounces tomato like tomahto and has a closet dedicated to his tweed collection. I can't marry him." 

Astrid is none the wiser. You wish she was human for a moment so you could show her the crater-sized hole that "prince joshua google images" left in your browser history. 

"Do you think he only listens to classical music? I think a Kim Petras song would kill him instantaneously." 

The mental image of Joshua Hong being struck down by the first ten seconds of Throat Goat makes you laugh, but you still don't feel far away enough from the truth.

You remember your 21st birthday, a balmy spring Friday. Jeonghan had been helping out at the local youth theater, and the opening night of their production was coincidentally the same day. Jeonghan had never been one for theater (last time, he had fallen asleep during Mamma Mia, of all musicals). You knew the press turnout was expected to be huge, but the whole thing felt like one big charade to you. 

So you had planned your big birthday bash—you only get one 21st, after all—that day. The paparazzi fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Unsurprisingly, drunk, hot girls made for a better story than Greek theater. 

You remember the raw, stinging look Jeonghan had in his eyes the next morning. He didn't even have to say anything, but you knew. The memory carves out an abyss in your chest. You knew you should have done better for your brother, but he didn’t even feel like your brother anymore. 

Still, actions have consequences, and this was a hell of a consequence. Even out here, the inconvenient reality of it seems closer than ever. but you're out of time. The night fades fast, especially ones like these. 

So you press your heart to Astrid's mane, the pale moon high over the both of you, and you ride. 

--

Late spring is kind to Acros. 

The tulips push their bright heads out of the dirt, winking and blazing in the daylight, and the green fields stretch so far they look like water. 

You had spent the car ride with your nose pressed to the window, watching all the sun-bleached buildings zip by. You mustn't ruin this for Jeonghan. It spins around in your head like an old pair of shoes in a washing machine. 

Now you stand in the grand foyer, your parents on either side of you. Jihoon hovers behind, holding the overstuffed duffel bag you had rushed to pack this morning. 

A hushed arrival such as this was unbecoming of your family, but it was necessary. your parents had stressed that the arranged part of the deal was not meant to be public knowledge because it was bad for optics. To you, the arrangement was actually the entire deal. That, and you and optics never exactly got along. 

Waiting for Joshua and his parents gives you a moment to observe what could be your new home, although you’re still waiting for the miraculous plot twist that will save you from your fate. 

That being said: you’ve set foot in plenty of nice places, but if HGTV ran segments for castles, this would certainly be the blueprint. It’s smaller than the palace in Cotria, but you like that—it’s cozier, less cold-seeming. 

The filigreed ceilings vault dizzyingly high, and the chandelier above the muraled walls is set afire with the noontime sun. the blushing azaleas cascade from their pots, and they line the hallways with joyous pops of white and pink. breaking the spell is the distant staccato of several sets of footsteps on marble, and you straighten your back, as if by divine command. 

Three figures approach you: Joshua and his parents. Even from a distance, you can see the trained walk of royalty, their shoulders straight enough to hold water. You’ll give credit where credit is due—they look even less thrilled to meet you than you are to meet them.

Unfortunately, up close, Joshua is more handsome than the cameras would betray. He's taller than you had imagined, too. without trying, it looks like he jumped out of a shitty Disney movie, one where the prince says two words and still gets the girl. More than that, you notice how his face is like glass—unwavering, cruelly still. One wrong move, and you'd break him. 

"Your highnesses," you say, lowering your head in a pronounced curtesy. 

Joshua bows in response, like clockwork. He reaches for your hand, then brings it to his lips to kiss the back of it. 

At once, you feel your hackles jump up, even though many a man has done far nastier to you. You can’t tell what pisses you off more: a, the fact that he smells like a hotel lobby, or b, that he managed to get his mouth on you in less than five seconds. 

"I'm elated we have the privilege of welcoming your daughter into our home," Joshua's mother says. Like him, she is staggeringly elegant and even harder to read. "She's beautiful." 

Fortunately, she has picked the one compliment that your parents can agree on without lying through their teeth. You watch them laugh and titter amongst themselves, and it's now that you notice Joshua has been looking at you this whole time.

You think look is too kind of a word, though. It's something colder than that, more clinical, and you really don't like it. Your stylist had spent upwards of two hours today in front of your vanity this morning, mostly in a losing battle with a pair of fake lashes, and you wonder if one of them is crooked. That, or Joshua is similarly wondering just how he will endure a life wedded to you. 

"Joshua, please," his mother chides, and you watch him almost immediately pivot towards her, like he’s on wheels. "Where are your manners? You should show the princess around. Get to know each other a bit before press tomorrow." 

Press. Of course. Your least favorite word. You vaguely remember your parents mentioning it in the car this morning, but it must have gotten lost among all the other terrible things they'd told you. 

Your head starts to hurt. Joshua keeps smiling at you, empty, doll-like.

"Yes, I'd love that," you say, feeling like a deflating balloon. You were hoping his company will be better than watching four grown adults fall all over each other, but you're starting to doubt that. 

Joshua offers you his arm, and you take it anyway. 

"We'll be off then," he chirps before bowing once more. His freakishly shiny shoe nudges yours to remind you to do the same. Begrudgingly, you listen, watching your shellacked, angry expression in the patina of his loafers. 

Not a good start, but what did you expect?

You tamp down your irritation and let him lead you into the Great Hall. It's a shiny, golden tunnel, studded with glossy oil paintings of his parents, his grandparents, then the next set of old people before them. Their eyes stare at you, pools of hazy paint in their moon faces. You briefly imagine your painting up there, with Joshua's hand hovering meekly over your waist, unused to being more than two feet away from a woman his age.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Joshua says. "I think I've only seen you in pictures." 

He's referencing the one of many “encounters” you've had with the paparazzi, a la yesterday night. They take trashy photos, overexposed and grainy from the camera flash, with your ass most likely in the frame. 

You choose to let it slide—you have no choice, really. At least you have an ass. 

"The pleasure is mine," you reply. "I believe you were at the cricket championships a few months ago, right?" 

"Correct. Do you watch? I don't believe I saw you." 

"No, but my brother was there." Your footsteps echo against the marbled walls. "Just trying to think of your last public appearance," you offer unhelpfully, since you and he both know those are few and far between. 

"That's right. He mentioned you were busy," Joshua replies. "Glastonbury was that weekend, was it not?" 

He's right. It was, but you don't like the insinuation he's making. You weren't at Glastonbury anyway—your parents wouldn't let you attend, and Jihoon was unwilling to come up with a cover story for you. Because you would rather watch paint dry than attend another cricket game, you instead spent it with takeout and reruns of Rupaul's Drag Race. 

"Can't recall," you answer. "Doesn't matter. I'm not one for cricket, anyway."

"Didn't know you had a choice."

You watch Joshua halfheartedly gesture to the Great Hall. The seemingly mile-long dinner table is empty now, save for a gratuitously piled fruit bowl. 

Your country frequently hosts guests, but the Hongs are notoriously insular. You imagine the four of you, crammed together at one end of the table, making horrendous small talk every morning over wilted danishes and raspberry preserves. Somehow, your mood worsens even more than you thought possible.

"Can I see the library?" you ask in an attempt to pivot. 

"Of course. Do you enjoy reading?" 

"A normal amount." You pass by another set of windows and take note of the rose garden outside, verdant with the May sunshine. Astrid has a bit of a penchant for eating roses, which would definitely complicate your plan to smuggle her in. No matter—you’ve done worse. "I studied political science at university, so I got a healthy dose of it." 

"Didn't we all?" Joshua chuckles.

He pushes the door open to the library, which is just as lavish as the rest of the palace. You wonder how well-worn it is, how many spines have creases in them, how many dedications were speckled with a funny annotation or two. But judging by first impressions, you wouldn't be surprised if all the books still had their dust jacket on. 

"I mean, I read an insane amount of Dan Brown," you reply. "Not many of us can say we've solved the Davinci code, you know." 

You hoped this would crack a laugh out of him, but his grin is thinner than an eyebrow from the 2000s. Truthfully, you would compare this conversation to a death by a thousand papercuts, but somehow that feels preferable to the guillotine of discussing the terms and conditions of your rapidly impending marriage. You feel as though that would be violating some rule you aren't yet aware of, and you're unwilling to endure the patent leather consequences of another faux pas. 

"I've heard of it," says Joshua after much thought. "My parents were shuttling me between meetings and private lessons, so, unlike some, I was quite busy during university." 

You're not about to explain that you were equally as busy as him. Something tells you that he'd be too prideful to believe you anyway. 

"How difficult. Surely you were able to have some fun," you say, your voice betraying your distaste. "Or were you too good for that?" 

Too far. 

"I did what my position allowed," is Joshua's terse reply, and you know you've crossed a line. Still, it dazes you that the man standing next to you may have never done anything for himself in his life. Even Jeonghan did, before your parents really tightened the reins. 

The air buzzes with a silence sharp enough to make you bleed. You wish literally anyone else was standing next to you, but you realize there are no more horses or emergency cabs or Jihoons to rescue you from this one. 

"How about I take you to our room? I hope you'll find it comfortable." 

You glance to your right to catch a glimpse of Joshua. He smiles, a dutiful press of the lips, and you watch it ripple.

--

"Jihoon, it is so much worse than I thought." 

You sit on the plush carpeting of your bedroom floor, amongst your small disaster of things. Jihoon examines you, one eyebrow raised, as he leans against the bedroom door. 

"He's not around, right?" 

Jihoon shakes his head.

"I don't get it," you sigh. "I go out. I get drunk. I have a little fun on the weekends. I don't see how any of this makes me a bad person." 

"You know how traditional your families are." Jihoon bends down to pick up a hair bow that jumped ship from the vanity. "It's just how it is." 

"He treats me like some high school delinquent. I tried, but he has no sense of humor. No joi de vivre. I think he would actually explode if he knew I went out two days ago." 

"Give it time," Jihoon supplies unhelpfully. "I don't know French, but he can't be that bad. You just met him." 

“Yeah. Usually that’s a good thing. I’ve fucked people i know less about.” 

Jihoon shakes his head and laughs, one of those little cackly ones he reserves for your company. 

"Well, you have been with worse," he tuts. "Definitely worse." 

"Jihoon, be serious. This is the rest of my life we're talking about." 

“I know." He draws his lips into a line, likely searching for the right thing to say. "This sucks. I wouldn't be good at this either." 

"You're talking to me. I don't think there's a single royal thing I can do right."

He's out of words, so he bends down to awkwardly pat you on the head, which, in all your years of knowing him, is the most affection he can muster. This is why you prefer horses to Jihoon for therapy, although you appreciate the effort. 

"I'd stay, but they want me to go to some meeting," he says, jerking his thumb towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

So he leaves you, desolate and linen-covered. Back to square one. 

The room seems to echo with how empty it feels. The bare walls are painted champagne, a rich, indifferent color. They soar to an arched ceiling lined with baroque crown moulding. There's a large window facing the garden, framed by deep green velvet. Atop the vanity cradled to the wall, the ivy of the wrought mirror curls at the edges, as if escaping. The chandelier hangs low, fat and pear-shaped, and its crystals douse the room in gauzy lamplight.

At least the canopy bed looks comfortable. It's the one thing keeping you from calling this place a veritable jail cell, which still seems like an understatement. For once, you miss your own bedroom. Granted, it didn’t look much different on the surface. but despite all the paneling and the heavy velvet, you still like to think it had some personality. You still keep your pillow pet on your bed (a horse named Robert). The back wall is chipped from a Gossip Girl poster your mom made you take down.  

Before you’re able to get too sentimental, the unwelcome sight of your future husband steals you from your thoughts. 

"Evening," Joshua says, stepping into the room. He's so quiet, it takes you aback. "Still unpacking?" 

"Sorry." You gesture around you. "I underestimated my ability to overpack."

"You should have told the staff," he says, surveying the damage. "Do you need help?" 

"No," you insist. Somehow the prospect of him getting on the ground to sort out all of your things upsets you, even more than him touching all of your unmentionables. "No. Please. Just ignore me."

"Alright." 

Joshua seems to take no issue with that, gratefully. He takes a seat on the chaise at the foot of the bed. He's got a copy of Anna Karenina under his arm, probably to weigh the pros and cons of cheating on you. You don't blame him—in fact, maybe it would make your doomed marriage exciting enough to be tolerable. 

"PR event tomorrow," you start, folding up a nightdress. "Bet you're excited for that." 

“As excited as one can be before announcing their arranged marriage," he replies dryly. "But surely you have enough experience with the press for the both of us." 

So that’s how he wanted to play. Fine. You wouldn’t let him walk all over you a second time. 

"Well, I'd hope all those classes you took would be good for something."

"That's rich, coming from the case study on bad media training." 

"Oh, please," you snap. "At least I know how to have a good time." 

"I was having a great time before I was informed this was happening." 

"Forgive me. I had no idea you were so invested in my personal life." You huff as you heave an oversized armful of clothes to the closet. “Think TMZ has any job openings?” 

"Very funny," he retorts. Joshua holds up a skimpy black dress that's fallen from your pile, one well acquainted with the midnight grease of one too many nightclubs. "You dropped this, by the way. I don't really think the nightlife here will be quite to your taste, though." 

"Oh right, because this is where happiness goes to die, huh?" You snatch it back from him, feeling the knot of anger in your gut flare. 

The room seems to pulse with an uncomfortable silence, red-hot with unsaid words. You recognize the all too familiar way Joshua sets his jaw back, and you're transported all the way to the study in the east wing, snoutless lion, terracotta steps, and all. He’s not any different from anyone else, so you’re not sure why you expected anything else. 

You do the only thing you can do—bite your tongue. 

"Look," you finally say, gathering the wherewithal to call for a truce. "I know that we didn't ask for this." 

Joshua laughs. Actually, it's the first time you've heard it since you've met, and it would be an otherwise tolerable, even nice, sound if it wasn't directed right at you.

"Right, because who doesn't want to have to babysit someone for the rest of their life?" 

You take a hard swallow.  You've both done enough damage for tonight, although you'd love to see his expression when you call him the live-action version of Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Maybe another time. 

Instead you think of Jeonghan, stuck in his meetings and sunk into this new, starched form of himself that you find difficult to recognize. Still, he's your brother, and you'd hate to see him suffer for it. 

"Stop. I'll be good," you say. "I promise. I know there's a lot at stake for the both of us." 

You can hear Joshua's long, drawn exhale. The furrow dug between his brows flattens out, and he seems to be reminded of everything they taught you both in Conflict Resolution 101. 

"I apologize. I got out of line," he says. You watch the cogs turn on that unfortunately pretty face of his. You hope he finally reveals that he has a much better, kinder personality that he was waiting to debut, but he doesn't. Instead he picks up yet another fallen item from your stash and hands it to you (this time, a much more presentable blouse). 

"I know we don't like each other—" You hold up a hand to interrupt him from lying to you. “—but we can do our best for the cameras. Because that matters. Hate me all you want in private." 

"Okay." He gives you a defeated look, which is all you suppose you'll get out of him today. "Deal." 

That night, there are no more backhanded compliments, quips, or mean-spirited attempts at sarcasm. 

You sink into your side of the bed, a damask-woven vat of quicksand, and watch the spears of light dance on the ceiling. If you had known your last outing was the one a few days ago, maybe you would have drank a little more, stayed out later. Maybe you wouldn't have even gone home. 

Joshua has been reading on the other side of the bed, which seems like oceans apart. The metronomic turn of his pages would have put you to sleep if it wasn't for this new fear, a black, trembling one, that's now taken residence in your chest. It feels like you are further from yourself than you've ever been, and you don't know how to get back. 

"Is it too bright for you?" Joshua's voice, now tempered by the stillness of the evening, pulls you out of your thoughts. "I can turn the lamp off." 

"It's ok," you groan. "Can't really sleep. Don't worry about it." 

He doesn't say anything. Instead you hear the oiled pull of the bedside nightstand before he places something on the bed beside you.

It's a book. Specifically, one of those trashy romances that they only sell at the airport because no one would be brave enough to read them anywhere else.

"It's no Dan Brown," he says. "Hopefully still to your liking." 

You sit up against the headboard and flip through the pages. The prince of Acros owning a book with the words "juicy", "mewling", and "best friend's brother" in the first fifty pages are enough to tide you over for the night. Probably the next week, to be honest.

"Yes, indeed, your highness. Of the raunchy summer fling." 

Joshua smiles, and this time, you think it's a real one. 

--

You hate mornings. 

You thought this one would be different, probably due to the fact that you would soon be standing in front of a few too many cameras to announce your tragic fate to the entire world. Unfortunately, it's like all your other mornings—rushed, nauseous, and now with all the added anxiety of a semi-non consensual public appearance. 

"Five minutes!" you holler as best you can, a hair pin wiggling in the corner of your mouth. Rule number one of a hard launch: don't be caught looking complacent. Even if the other half of the launch would rather be with anyone other than you. 

Joshua's in the attached bathroom doing his hair. Like everything else he does, it is painfully calculated. He might be the only person in the world who takes "pea-sized" seriously as a measurement tool. 

But even as he so carefully measures his pomade, pump by pump, you don't miss the way his eyes skim over your figure as you lean over the vanity chair to apply your lipstick. Maybe it's because your ass is practically vacuum sealed into your sundress, or maybe he's just looking for another fight to pick. Either way, there's a small part of you that takes pride in this, even if just a little. 

"Ready?" Joshua asks, switching off the bathroom light. You hate to admit it, but he looks good in a sports jacket. You remind yourself that you had to literally rock-paper-scissors this morning to use the vanity mirror because you fogged the bathroom up after your shower. "It's not a pageant." 

"Shush. You are so rude. Never interrupt a girl when she's getting ready." 

In the mirror, you watch Joshua huff behind you. Then he procures a little black box from his pocket, and a crazy sort of feeling washes over you before you remind yourself to be normal. Ten-year-old you would have cried and threatened arson if she knew this is how you would eventually be proposed to, but you have no choice. 

You're sure Joshua feels the same. He was probably hoping for something classic with all the works, and instead he's got a pissed-off Jihoon and you, internationally renowned harlot. Funny how things turn out.

"Any minute now," bitches Jihoon from the other side of the door. 

You close your compact and turn around to face Joshua, who's still fumbling with the box.

"I'm sure this is not what you anticipated," he says, finally cracking it open. “But—" 

"No speech. Just put it on." You stick your left hand out, still glittery from last week’s manicure. "Not like it means much anyway." 

"Yeah."

And just like that, it is done. You feel the shock of Joshua's huge hands over yours, then the unceremonious bite of the cold band. He doesn't linger. 

You hold your newly engaged hand in front of you. The ring must have looked better in the box—on you, it seems out of place, gaudy, yet another thing you can't quite fit into. It squeezes your finger a bit, but it'll do. 

"Ready?" he asks. 

"Let's get this over with."

If romance wasn’t already dead, then it died here, today, in your prison cell bedroom. 

You have no time to lament this, as Joshua’s already half out the door. Quickly, he seems to shed his foul, argumentative inside personality and slip into a second-skin, one that is more poised, gracious, and luminous.

Today's objective is supposed to be simple: friendly, premarital pictures to accompany a written statement to the public announcing your engagement. No paparazzi, no journalists. Still, you're starting to see why your parents decided it was a good idea to stick you with this guy. 

In the foyer, your families await you. It's as if their gaze can slow time—at least four people approved your outfit, and still, the weight of their eyes on you, ever appraising, is crushing. Immediately, your mother starts rearranging the strands of hair on the top of your head and fiddling with the sleeves of your dress, like you're some sort of doll. 

"Come, come," a member of the PR team urges. "Everything is set up. We'll be quick." 

There's a frenetic, tense energy over the palace. It's clear that this marriage is a gambit no one is happy with, and today would make it very, very real. 

Outside, there is a lone photographer. The sun, morning-ripe, reflects off his camera lens like a third eye. The lawn, freakishly green, sprawls out around you, and the blue spruce frames the scene, perfect by design. 

"I just need you to stand next to each other and smile," he says. "That's all, right?" he directs this towards your PR team, about seven too many for a task like this. One of them whispers something in his ear. Your parents watch from the shaded doorstep like wax figures in a museum. 

You and Joshua stand shoulder to shoulder, yearbook photo style. 

"Bit closer," the photographer calls out, and you smush yourself against his arm, close enough that you can appreciate he's got some muscle on him. "Alright. Hold still." 

Click. You've always hated the flash, but you root yourself obediently to the concrete. Your cheeks hurt from smiling. Click. 

Your mother interrupts her conversation with a staff member—likely haggling over the minutia of the statement—and says, "Look happier," as if you're in some dystopian advertisement for a new car. 

"She's talking to you," Joshua says through the grit of his fake, pink smile. 

"Right, because you're such a peach." 

You just want to go back inside and have breakfast. 

You place a tentative hand on Joshua's bicep and turn to him, beaming like you would at a hot bartender when there are five other people waiting for a drink. 

There's a glimmer of surprise in his expression before he matches you. You can see why people dote on him so much—his cheeks get round, and his eyes magically gain the sparkles that people pay for on Facetune. God really seems to have wasted a perfect face on him. 

"Move your hand up so we can see the ring." You obey, feeling the firm cord of his arm underneath you, and you wonder where the gym is in the palace. Joshua was certainly gatekeeping it from you. "Perfect." 

You stand there, living your America's Next Top Model nightmare, before the photographer hits you with, "A kiss for the camera, yeah?" 

All the blood drains from your face. You think you actually say Huh? aloud. Joshua opts to turn to his parents to intervene, which would be funny in literally any other scenario except this one. 

"You heard him," his father replies. "Act like you're actually engaged." 

Honestly, it was a fair request. No one wanted to take any chances. Plausible rumors of an arranged marriage would backfire spectacularly. Jeonghan wouldn't see the front cover of anything ever again, and the entirety of Acros would wonder just how deep in the shitter they were that Joshua was forced to marry you. 

Your parents were already so far into the conspiracy, you overheard them talking about using unpublished paparazzi pictures and rebranding them as times you snuck off to see your unfortunate lover. Point taken. 

"Okay, okay," you laugh nervously. "Of course." 

You face Joshua, steeling yourself, and lean in. The world seems to fall away, but not how you like—it feels as though you've been sucked out of your own body and dropped into a new one that doesn't know what a kiss is or how to do it. 

He's just like anyone else, you tell yourself. You're at the club. They're playing Everytime We Touch by Cascada. 

Soon all you know is the heat of your cheeks, the shaking flat of your palm over Joshua's shoulder, and the wet pressure of what feels like a pair of lips, soft but also very unwilling. 

Click. Click. Then it's over. Everyone huddles around the camera, like animals to a watering hole. Shame, hot and heavy, seems to drape itself over you. 

"Can we get one more?" the photographer asks.

Fuck. Your stomach drops. You can't even glare at Joshua. 

"Sure thing," Joshua says easily, unaware he was the reason it went so badly in the first place. 

You take a deep breath. You imagine a good Kylie Minogue song and a tall stranger with pecs that could fit into a bra, and your eyes flutter shut. 

You decide to go for it this time. Unfortunately, you and your inept partner are on entirely opposite pages again, and you almost miss each other by a mile. When you do get it right, it's messy, two teenagers fumbling in a closet with the lights off. 

Once everyone sees this massacre, it seems they resign themselves to the same conclusion you had long ago. Someone throws a thumbs up above their head, and everyone clears out so fast, it's like nothing ever happened. 

Soon, it's just you, Joshua, and your mother with a red pen and the manuscript. Your heart is still buzzing in your chest, even though you and Joshua are now standing at a distance that makes you believe in the cheese touch again. 

"Now that wasn’t so bad," she says, before escorting the two of you back inside. Perhaps lying cushions the blow of a bad decision, but you're already in too deep. The script, the cameras, even your mother's glossy words—your life is starting to feel like a permanent movie set, and you don't know how to clock out. 

The first thing you do is take off the ring. It's starting to look more and more like costume jewelry on your untrained, bumbling hand. Even still, you can still feel its ghost on your finger, see the glare of the camera flash in the laser-cut facets. 

Worse, you watch Joshua shrug off his sport jacket, likely wondering how exactly that went so wrong, and you can feel that same sensation, still warm, right over your lips.

--

"Save me, red wine, save me." 

Home, sweet home. You're back in Cotria for the rest of the week. This morning's stint was the only thing you had on the schedule, and you told Joshua you had some business to attend to at home. 

Said business was a Niçoise salad and half a bottle of wine, but no one had to know that part. Your struggle meals were your own business, and you think you will actually disintegrate on the spot if you have to sit through another conversation about World War II with Joshua's dad. The one you had at dinner last night was plenty. 

The restaurant you’re at is a familiar haunt, but not too familiar. The ass-kissers and the groupies have gotten good at keeping their heads on a swivel, and you’re not exactly planning on another encounter with a camera. But here, the crowd is quiet enough, the food good enough, the service fast enough. It’s enough, which you’ve come to prefer. 

That's the other thing about Cotria—there’s an overabundance of everything. Department stores, parlors, dog cafes, polished bars with overpriced cocktails. It’s almost a rarity to find a place like this, quiet enough to actually talk. 

"You must be in the fucking trenches," Somi says, shaking her head. "When's the press release getting published?"

"Next week," you groan. "The good news is that they want us to go to the derby afterward."

"Okay, miss horse girl," Somi says, clinking her wine glass against yours. "You betting this year?" 

"No, I shouldn't." You shovel another forkful of leaves into your mouth. "But I really hope I get to watch it instead of pretending to like a guy the whole time." 

"I didn't see you pretending in uni," Somi says, cocking an eyebrow up at you. "And those guys are ugly. This guy isn't." 

"Okay, wait," you protest. "Ugly cute. Don't get it twisted. And they don't act like sentient wet paint. This guy sucks." 

You're reminded of the moment before you left the palace this morning. Joshua saw that same black dress that he used against you make its way into your bag, and he gave you the dirtiest stink eye you'd ever seen. 

I'm not above tattling. They were the first words he'd said to you after The Incident. 

Good thing you won't have to, you replied. He didn't even see you out because no one was standing around to clap him on the back for being a good fake fiancé. 

"Whatever." Somi picks a tomato off your plate in exchange for some of her fries. "I wouldn't mind it, is what I'm saying." 

"You slept with the bouncer to get into Annabel’s." 

"Fuck off. He was actually really good. Club entry was just a bonus," she laughs. "That reminds me—you're coming to my birthday, right? Or do you have wifely duties now?" 

"Of course I'm coming!" you insist, feeling the word duty hit like an actual bullet to your chest. "I wouldn't miss it for the world." 

"Just making sure! You know I gotta have my people around." 

You had known Somi since you were in diapers. She's the cousin twice removed of a baron, or a count, or maybe even a viscount–you never were good at keeping track of those kinds of things. Even though you had seen her at countless brunches, coronations, and garden parties, you don't think you actually became friends until you ran into her at a college party in Mykonos. She sidled up to you, smelling like strawberries and the bleachy sting of hair dye, and handed you a cucumber margarita. 

The beer here sucks, she had whisper-shouted to you, right over the shell of your ear. Wanna dance? You were inseparable ever since. 

"It's going to be huge. There are, like, 200 people on the guest list right now. Soonyoung rented a villa, There's gonna be a champagne tower, and the music won't suck. Guaranteed." 

"That sounds perfect," you sigh. "Please tell me there's gonna be a pool. I need to show off my new swimsuit." 

"Duh." Somi rolls her eyes, glittery under her extensions. "The perfect opportunity to show the world that their hottest bachelorette is a bachelorette no longer. Also, we invited Pitbull.” 

“Shut the fuck up. Wait, is he actually coming?” 

”Dunno. Wouldn’t be very Mr. Worldwide of him to flake, though.” 

Pitbull or not, you think of the heat of the strobe lights, the electric trill of the too-loud speakers. You're dancing in a dress that looks like a chunk of the moon, with the little neon ties of your bikini top peeking out the sides. There's a peach highball in your hands and no one is telling you what to do, how to do it, or that you're doing it wrong. 

Then you think of Joshua. Maybe he'd loosen up after a few drinks. Maybe he'd dance with you, put those hands to use on your hips and kiss you like he should have earlier today. Maybe he'd even be good at it. The thought makes your cheeks sting.

“Should I invite Joshua?” Somi says, wrinkling her nose at how you immediately grimace. “What if he’s actually a blast?” 

"No! No. Absolutely not." 

“What if he’s—” Then she drops her singsong voice to a whisper. “Hung? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen those pictures of him in the Galapagos.” 

Unfortunately, you have. A lurid, glassy image of your soon-to-be-husband in a sleazy pair of swim trunks comes into vision. You push past the smile, the unfair pecs, and remind yourself of that horrible, self-righteous twist of the lips that he always has. 

Yes, that’s right. That’s the Joshua you know. 

You grab the wine from her and drink it right from the bottle. 

–

Of course it had to be the one time you’re not late to an event that you forget you had swapped everything in all your purses around. You double check your bag—empty. 

You’re already down by half of your worldly possessions (still at home, your real home), and you probably left the other half on Joshua’s bathroom counter. Yesterday, you got derailed mid-task by Joshua lighting the grossest candle ever. You never thought you’d ever fight over candles of all things, but you couldn’t let him walk away from that conversation thinking wet dirt was a normal, socially acceptable, scent for a bedroom. (—It said moss on the label! —So, dirt. —Moss is not dirt. Maybe you need to go back to school.) 

You fling open the bathroom door, still checking the pockets of your handbag, before you collide into a big, sopping wet wall. 

“What the—?” You look up. The wall is not a wall. No, in fact, it is your fiancé, bare fucking naked. 

Your heart jumps up to your throat. It feels like you walked right into a porno, and you can hear Somi’s self-satisfied, witch cackle right in your ear. His dark hair seems to fall into his eyes just right, a nice change from how he normally gels it up, and you watch the beads of water from the shower, torturously glittery, run down his jaw, the hollow of his neck, right onto his chest. 

Men should not be allowed to have bigger boobs than you, at least, not dowdy Joshua Hong, who normally has the sex appeal of an eraser. And God forbid your eyes travel downward and confirm Somi’s sick and twisted hypothesis, past the washboard abs, the v-line, the trail down his— 

“Sorry, did you need something?” You blink again and Joshua suddenly has a towel wrapped around his waist. And he’s eyeing you like you ate a million cloves of garlic and then proceeded to spit on him. “Or are you just going to stand here and ogle me?” 

“I wasn't—no!” You start snatching things off the counter, anything really, and throwing them into your bag. “I just needed to grab stuff for my… my thing. You’re in the way.” 

“Right, because you need four q-tips and my razor to read a children’s book,” Joshua replies, plucking the offending items out of your purse. “It's almost 12:30, by the way.” 

“Shit. Fuck,” you stammer. You can’t glare at him anymore because you know where your eyes will end up and it is not on his face. “Stop distracting me. Whatever.” 

“Have fun,” is the last thing Joshua tells you before you close the bathroom door, that portal to hell, right back up. 

What you can’t do is return the image of what you saw back to where it came from, the wicked, glistening form of Joshua and his B cup tits. He looked so good, it makes you angry. 

Later, on the walk to the library, you reach for your lip gloss. Instead, you pull out q-tip number five and get mad all over again. 

–

The car ride to the derby feels like your own personal Saw trap, if Jigsaw wore a ridiculous hat and was actually your mother. 

Your engagement was announced to the public just a few days ago. It came with no fanfare, no warning. You were sitting on your bed, making your way through the smut Joshua called a novel, when the news app on your phone kindly notified you that you were now a taken woman. 

To some degree, the media uproar fascinated you. The idea that people with actual journalism degrees were writing headcanons about your honeymoon when you hadn’t even seen Joshua since The Bathroom Incident was surely entertaining, to say the least. But, like everything, the unsaid pressure of being a perfect princess, now part of an even more perfect couple, hangs heavy over you. 

You remind yourself this is supposed to be fun. A real couple would be pawing at each other in the backseat, perhaps pregaming with champagne or fan-casting their pick for Spirit the horse. Instead, you’re stuck rehearsing your pitch to the reporters when they inevitably ask you about how the hell this happened. You wish you could tell them you’re not quite sure either. 

Silently, you look at Joshua. Joshua looks out the window. The world rumbles under you. 

[10:15 am, race 1]

The air seizes, swirls with clay-colored dust in the morning sun. The clubhouse is already heady with the low buzz of conversation—you watch the freckled sunhats and oily toupees bob up and down in the swell of the crowd, deep in the morning’s small talk. You wonder how many of them are talking about you, given how recently the news hit. You’re used to people ignoring your media appearances, not celebrating them. 

Someone, tipping their head down to greet you, hands you a program. Joshua elects to tuck his in his back pocket. People don’t come to the derby to watch the races. Instead, it’s an excuse to gossip, day drink, and gamble, which would ordinarily be a good time for you if you weren’t overly invested in the racing circuit. 

All the way from the entrance to your seats, you were met with a tidal wave of camera flashes, all hungry for a glimpse of your first public appearance as a couple. Alongside this, a decidedly worse flurry of congratulations paired with an overly familiar touch to the shoulder or a limp handshake. Joshua is quick to respond with either a smile or some trite platitude. Your least favorite: We couldn’t be happier. Now he’s just lying for sport. 

“We should find the reporters doing interviews,” Joshua says the second his ass touches the chair, unfazed by the onslaught of perhaps a million different people. “The Sun probably wants to talk to us.” 

You’re not listening—you can’t let on that this whole ordeal is mildly terrifying for you. He has enough reasons to dislike you, and stage fright wouldn’t exactly be a good addition to the list. 

The racehorses have lined up at the track, their manes catching the daylight like holy fire. You like the one on the end. He looks like Peanut, Jeonghan’s stubborn palomino. 

Joshua says your name insistently, curdled with the annoyance that you’ve now become acquainted with, and you catch a stray camera flash from the stands. You have an audience, and the audience demands a show, even if they’re second-rate journalists like the scum from The Sun.  

“Darling,” you reply flatly. “Relax. Let's enjoy the races.” 

The horses stretch their long legs, anxious for the thunderclap of the starter’s pistol. Joshua raises a tired eyebrow before the same realization dawns on him. 

“Absolutely.” He clears his throat. “Darling.” 

You wrap a hand around his arm—somehow he makes hand-holding seem like third base—and watch his shoulders sink with a sigh, like you just popped him. 

Likewise, your highness. Likewise. 

A shot crackles through the air, and you’re off to the races. 

[12:43 pm, race 2.]

"I just have to know—how did you guys meet?" 

You know the duchess of Pemarlia to be beautiful and unashamedly nosy, and she has yet to prove you wrong on either account. 

The last time you saw her was on the beach at Lake Como last year, where she spent the entirety of your conversation asking if Jeonghan was single (and peeking into your bag to see what brand of lipstick you were wearing). Like everyone, she always seems to have a look of appraisal on her face. What makes her different is that she never really bothers to hide it; instead, she wears it like an en-vogue accessory. 

She eyes you with an intensity, sizing up your dress, your tawdry sunhat, your ring. You wonder if she’d agree that marriage didn’t look good on you, but any shorter of a dress, your mother would call you a stripper. And God forbid you leave the house hat-less. 

Now she’s no minotaur. This shouldn’t be much of a problem, save for one very small issue: you actually hadn’t planned your answer to this. You had quibbled over it briefly in the car, but you were too focused on your interview pitch to worry about minor gossip. 

"Well," Joshua starts. Through his smile, you can hear the warning edge of his voice. “It was quite ordinary.” 

"Actually," you cut him off. Not only would his version of this story be boring, it would also be horribly out-of-character for you. You did not come this far for your cover to be blown by Joshua’s lack of imagination. "Josh's parents hosted a—" 

"Brunch," Joshua finishes. Whether his teeth are gritted because he's grinning or frustrated is none of your business. “It was Easter brunch, wasn’t it, sweet pea? Four years ago?” 

The pet name makes you want to puke. Now he’s just trying to piss you off, but you know this is his attempt to play along. He's annoying, not dumb. 

"Yes, we sat across from each other.” You playfully dig your elbow into Joshua’s rock-hard side. “He was giving me the eyes the whole time.” 

You watch your hapless victim giggle, her spidery lashes wide with intrigue. Joshua is a little less pleased. 

“If you could call it that,” he replies. “I think you had chocolate on your nose.”

“Which you so kindly wiped off for me, dear.” You try to peek around the flaxen billows of the duchess’s blowout to watch the horses behind her, but to no avail. “After a morning of staring, we had to do an Easter egg hunt, planned by Joshie himself. I had no idea he loved silly little games like that.” 

“It's because people like the princess get so competitive,” Joshua says, with his laser beam grin boring into your eye sockets. “I believe I found you rummaging through the trash for eggs, like some kind of animal.” 

“Oh my goodness,” the duchess laughs. “How...charming.”  

You feel your eyebrow twitch. Only you’re allowed to ruin your own reputation, but you suppose that’s just another thing your horrible fake fiance gets to take from you. 

“Not as embarrassing as seeing Joshua leer at me from behind the corner,” you retort. “He was so enamored that when I invited him to join me, he got right down on his knees to look through the trash together.” 

“Well, did you find anything?” 

“Yes—”

“No—”

“Well—”

Fuck. Luckily, the duchess is either stupid or wildly entertained by the clown show playing out before her. Maybe both. 

“Cute,” she coos. “You must have been too smitten to notice.” 

“Absolutely,” Joshua says, as if there is a gun held to his pretty head. “Among all the garbage and the girl next to me, I suppose nothing else really mattered.” 

“If that isn’t love, what is?” she asks blithely. 

If only she knew. 

[3:45 pm, race 3]

The sun descends on the stadium, swollen and yellow with the afternoon. 

Last year, you and your friends had a betting ring set up during the racing circuit. Obviously, you had won—not too hard when your competition included Soonyoung, who only bet on horses named after food (sadly, it was not Tater Tot’s year). Somi was no better, and your brother thought every horse deserved a participation award.

This time around, things aren’t so simple. But you’d hate to say that you spent a whole day at the track and didn’t bet on a single race. Life could afford you at least one win for today. 

Again, the horses take their positions at the starting line, wound up like a line of rubber bands. The air heaves with bated breath. 

“Joshua,” you say, folding your hands in your lap as you find your target. “I'd like to propose a bet.” 

“You must be a glutton for punishment.” 

You bite back a laugh as you watch your favorite horse, the palomino, ripple in place. Fans would call her a charity case, but you know better. 

“Pick a horse. Mine is number Three, in the blue.” 

“And if mine wins? What’s in it for me?” he asks. Still, he leans forward, corded forearms on his thighs. You watch him squint as he surveys the field with renewed interest. 

“You pick,” you reply. “Choose wisely. I personally cannot wait to call in a favor from you.” 

“The chestnut one. Number Nine.” So he is competitive. “And likewise. Perhaps I'll hold it over your head until the wedding.” 

Before you can reply, you hear the starting pistol rip clean into the air. The racehorses surge forward, as if a silken ribbon through air. 

“Nine makes sense for you,” you say, eyes fixed before you. “He's flashy, the crowd favorite. Spotless pedigree.” 

“I'm picking your punishment already.” 

“I didn't say he would win.” You feel the lilt of your voice rocking upward, the tremulous beat of your heart against your ribs. “You see, Three’s had a rough season. There she is, passing Four right now.” 

“Nine is still first, though.” 

“It’s not about that,” you reply. “She does this, she starts all the way out back and then flies up. No one suspects anything—it’s like she likes proving people wrong. The first couple races of the season, she was just stretching her legs; they were small, small fry. It’s this one that matters.” 

The saddles are just blurs on the track now. To the march of the hoofbeats, Three lunges past Five, Six. The crowd roars. 

“This will be her first win. I'm counting on it. She’s come really close before.” 

Joshua doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of your eye, you see his gaze has shifted. You feel it land somewhere near you, but you’re too engrossed in the race to investigate further. Perhaps he’s admitted defeat preemptively, wisely so. 

“You know your stuff,” he murmurs, the clamor of the audience almost burying him. 

“How can I not?” Three coasts past One and Ten like she’s flying, until it’s just her and unlucky number Nine. “Oh my god. Go, go, go!” 

You and Joshua rise to your feet, as if drawn by a string, now wholly invested in the race. 

“Still beating you, you know.” 

“Not for long! Come on!” 

You watch your darling number Three, against all odds, pull past Joshua’s number Nine, burning a trail past the inevitable finish line. 

From somewhere inside you emerges a joy that you hadn’t felt since this whole ordeal started. You turn to Joshua and clasp his hands between yours, somehow less wooden now, and so, so human. The crowd cheers; they come alive. 

[4:50 pm, races 4 and 5. mainly, the reporter from the sun.] 

The smaller races take place shortly after the headliner, for better or for worse. This forces you to finally face the music—the music being a dull-eyed, greasy journalist ready to sink his teeth into the public’s new favorite topic. 

Joshua is a good sport about it, or at least, he’s good at pretending to be one. 

“It was great,” is his answer to a question you didn’t hear. You’re busy going over the parts of the script that you remember. Your media team spent the better part of the morning repeating it back to you, which was helpful until it wasn’t. You weren’t sure how to tell them you’ve actually never been good at speaking to the press, since you had spent the better half of your life doing the exact opposite. 

“And what did the princess think? It’s not often we catch you for an interview, you know.” 

The eye of the camera seems to pierce through you. You can see your shellacked figure, long and distorted, in the reflection. 

“I—um,” you swallow hard. God. Pull it together. You can already hear the lecture you’re going to get on the way home today. “Yeah, big day today.”

“She’s had to really rein in her excitement, you know,” Joshua adds, chuckling. 

Briefly, you feel his hand brush against yours. Ordinarily, you’d pass it off as a fluke, but you feel the steady, insistent warmth of his palm again, first, to the inside of your wrist, then lower still. Before you’re able to really process what’s happening, he then takes your hand in his all at once, as if to say, I’ve got this. I’ve got you. 

You figure he’s cashing in his favor early–he’d much rather leave you out to dry, let you flounder a bit so you learn to read the PR memorandums the night before. I told you so, he’d say. That’s what everyone else would say, anyway. 

“The races are sure exciting, but I'm sure you’re even more excited about your upcoming wedding.” The reporter grins at you, as if he smells your fear. His hair looks like it’s glued to the top of his shiny head. “If I'm going to be honest, you were one of the last people we’d expect to tie the knot this year. We are all dying to hear more.” 

What? You force yourself to breathe, feel the air fill your lungs, to avoid making an expression you’ll regret. 

“Well, yeah, I'm sure it looks like it all happened quickly,” you answer, feeling your tongue trip over the words. Mostly because it did, in fact, happen quickly, but you can’t let them know that. “But Josh and I feel strongly about, uh, this whole thing, and—”

“Please, don’t spare us the details.” 

Telepathically, Joshua squeezes your hand. This, you understand. He’s telling you to lean on him, and you trust that. 

“Hold your horses,” he cuts in, almost too quickly, which makes the corners of your mouth twitch upward. He was definitely looking for an opening, but you, bizarrely, don’t mind at all. He turns to you and smiles. “What's the fun without a little mystery? It's been a wild ride, but I'm loving every second of it.” 

It’s this one, the lamest and most embarrassing dad joke of them all, that gets you. 

You laugh: a real one, big, loud, and unafraid. It's here, caught in the glare of the camera flash, where you find yourself hoping, even just a little, that this wasn’t just a favor, that this was a sign you could actually survive this arrangement. 

You’re not asking for love—just a little bit of like. and, right now, you think you like Joshua Hong. 

—

In the evening, you find yourself in the oaken parlor nestled away in the back halls of the Acrosian palace. 

There's a piano there, gathering dust. It's a Steinway, spindly and chestnut, almost identical to the one you have at the palace in Cotria. 

You and Jihoon had been unpacking your hodgepodge of things (unsorted, since the act of sorting would have forced you to stomach the fact that you were actually moving), when he had found your old lesson books. 

You should break in that piano, he had said. Either that, or wait for your fiance to find you. He seemed ok at the derby today. 

I guess. 

What Jihoon hadn’t seen was all the photographs you had to take after your interview with The Sun, where Joshua decided to remind you that you were supposed to hate him. By that, you mean that he managed to make every single one unbearable. (A tap of the foot: Stand up straight. A careful brush of the elbow: Let’s link arms. A discerning, tactful glance at your chest: Pull up your dress. That, or he was no better than the average man.) 

You and he hadn’t talked much after that. Hopefully, he’s fled to your cold, dark dungeon of a room to read, so he can finally leave you alone.

“Remember when your parents invited all their friends over and asked you to play?” Jihoon says, perched on the loveseat while he sorts through an old jewelry box. 

“Yeah, and I literally forgot everything?” you laugh. “Freaking Jeonghan had to check on me because I locked myself in my room for 24 hours straight. And then he had the nerve to laugh at me.” 

You thumb through the fattest book of the pile. The binding is soft; the pages now yellow and fuzzed over by time. 

On page 5, Chopin's Waltz in A-flat major. three four time or whatever, you had scrawled in defiant red ink. Page 37, a thick black line through Debussy's name on Arabesque No. 1. This is because you would always laugh at it during lessons, and you wanted to save yourself the trouble. 

“Do you want to keep this?” Jihoon holds up a choker that resembles a jock strap. “When did you even wear this? It looks like a cat toy.” 

You ignore him and start to play. You were never excellent—competent would be a better word. Still, it was enough for you. Soonyoung would ask you to play during drunk karaoke, and you could still keep up with Jeonghan when he played one of his overcomplicated duets. 

Your hands remember the velvet thud of the keys, the glide of the pedal. When you turn the page, there’s a scrawled in BITCH! next to a heavily circled allegro. Piano was one of the only things that your parents forced you to do that you actually liked. The kicker was that it didn’t even do you any good. You weren’t as talented as your parents would like you to be, meaning that, to them, you weren’t talented at all. 

It’s then that your fingers slip, and you miss a chord. In your defense, you have a fresh manicure. Always blame the nails. Your mom hated when you kept them long, even more than your hardass tutor.  

“The prince is helping with the theater production this year, right?” Jihoon holds a single earring up to the light. You think you lost the other one in Ibiza last year. “You gonna help out again?” 

“Maybe.” Another wrong note. You’re losing steam trying to read all the ledger lines and your smeared, illegible writing next to them. “I don't know. He probably won’t even want me to. I'm choosing a different piece, by the way. Bored of this one.” 

The truth about your 21st birthday was that you did actually intend to spend it at the youth theater. It was your idea before it was Jeonghan’s idea, but, at the time, you both still were a package deal.

You were on piano; Jeonghan was on whatever else he pleased. He'd always been indecisive like that. At the bench, you’d hoist the little ones on your knee and regale them with the classical version of the opening song from paw patrol. Jeonghan stole prop masks from the back, mostly to hide behind the curtains and scare people, you included. You’d both stay up late, paint spackled on your palms, trying to Michelangelo a backdrop with the combined artistic talent of a TI-84. 

The production became your thing, just you and him, no cameras, no press releases, no parents. But like everything else, neither you, Jeonghan, nor anyone else was able to keep those inevitable truths apart. The set pieces were repainted in Italy, the finger-painted fields turned luminescent with varnish; the pins and needles in the costumes swapped with mother-of-pearl; and, finally, you, replaced by a classically trained pianist from Juilliard. At least he was hot. 

Everyone knows the rest of the story—the red carpet, the empty seats, and the puffy pink balloons outside the mansion in Saint Tropez. 

“Oh please,” Jihoon wheedles. “You and I both know he wanted you there.” 

“Then maybe he should have fought harder.” You flip to a random page, this one marked up in pink gel pen. You remember it bled through all the pages behind it, making it a pain to read but awfully funny during lessons. “It doesn't matter. There’s probably wedding stuff i gotta deal with.” 

Jihoon lets you play this next piece uninterrupted. It’s not that it’s a sensitive subject for you—there were plenty of other things that filled the wedge between you and your brother—but it certainly didn’t help. 

You let your fingers wander over the stubborn keys. It feels good to play, even if you’re almost unforgivably rusty. You reach for the page, when you hear Jihoon again: “You know, you’re allowed to come in, your highness.” 

Immediately, your hands freeze. Like a scolded child, you become aware of how your fingers teeter over the keys, the stumbling, awkward clacking of your nails, the one or two missed quarter notes from the last measure. 

You turn to face the door, where Joshua stands, leaning against the frame like a sleazy model from an Abercrombie catalog. He probably came from the gym. Seeing him dressed down is still very weird, mostly because you can’t decide if it’s because he looks good or if it’s because it reminds of seeing your teacher at the grocery store. 

“Anyone teach you manners?” you ask, unsure if your hackles should be raised. 

“No, I was raised in a barn, just like those horses you like so much,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to interrupt. You’re not bad, you know.” 

“Thanks.” You eye him skeptically. “Thought you were gonna comment on the nails.” 

“Do you want me to?” 

“Preferably not, but it’s not like you‘d listen to me anyway.” You look for Jihoon’s reaction, but he seems to have conveniently disappeared. “Let’s play a duet. I’m cashing in my favor.” 

“Sure,” Joshua replies. “I'm no good, though. Might be more of a punishment for you.” 

You slide over on the bench, and he sidles up next to you. He smells like Le Labo and sweat, the sting citrusy and bright, close enough to linger. 

“No good?” You pick up another fat book from the stack atop the lid: The Joy of Duets. “Me neither.” 

“You have no idea,” he chuckles. “And trust me, I tried.”  

“I’ll do top?” you announce. 

Joshua snickers, and you kick him under the bench (really, just a tap of your foot). 

You spend the next two minutes tripping over a Schubert piece. Terribly, this is endearing to you. You make somewhat of a couple—you, with your horrible form, and Joshua, now squinting at the key signature like it’ll make it easier to read.

“Buddy,” you exclaim. “Left hand goes here.” Laughing, you reposition his hand mid-chord to an octave below. You feel it tense beneath you before yielding to proper technique. 

“Aw, what?” he whines. “See, I told you I was no good. Give me a second.” 

You watch him puzzle over the next few lines, pretty brow furrowed. You conclude that Pajama Joshua is decidedly better than Prince Joshua. He’s funnier, kinder, warmer. Even his hands feel softer. 

“Also, about earlier today,” you start. The words are starting to dry up on your tongue, but you figure Pajama Joshua is an easier target than usual. “I didn't know they trained you in stand-up comedy.” 

“We laugh in this country too, you know.” When Joshua says this, he grins, bumping into your shoulder like you’d been friends for a long time. For once, it feels easy, natural. 

“Well, thanks anyway.” 

“I couldn't leave my fiancée out to dry.” The word must sound ridiculous even to him, because he laughs just the same as he did when he unloaded his ridiculous puns onto the unassuming world. “No really. We’re in this together, unfortunately. It’s my duty.” 

Duty, both the knife and the wound. You can’t say you’re surprised he’s only nice to you out of obligation. So is everyone else, and you don’t know why you thought it’d be any different, especially coming from him. It’s not like you’re wearing your ring now either; you suppose you’re just as guilty. 

“You cross over here,” you tell him, changing the topic. You slide your hand over his, and it bends to you. “Thumb under. Sorry, I couldn't help but notice.” 

“It's ok,” Joshua replies. “I only learned piano because I had to. When I stopped going to lessons, I forgot everything. Now I feel like I put this piano to shame.” 

“Really? Not to stroke your ego, but you strike me as the type to be good at everything.” 

“No,” he chuckles. “Only when I have to be. I actually wanted to learn how to play guitar.” 

“No way.” 

“Yes way. I wanted to have one of those woven guitar straps, get a little pick collection going, be able to play any song from the Beatles discography. All the cliche stuff.” 

“Well, why can’t you?” you ask. “Minus the Beatles thing. Pick better music.” 

“Back then, it never occurred to me. We all learn piano.” 

“That's silly,” you blurt out. “Who cares?” 

“That's a little rich coming from you.” 

You frown, feeling all the usual unpleasantries bubble up through your skin. 

“That's not really fair.” You absentmindedly play a few keys, all disjointed. “Taking guitar lessons doesn’t make you a problem child.” 

“It's not about that, though,” Joshua says. He's avoiding your eyes. “It's everything, together. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and be someone else.” 

“Someone else? You mean you? The real you?” 

“Yes,” Joshua presses. “That's the point. I can't just do whatever I want. Sometimes the real you is more trouble than it’s worth.” 

“Someone’s dramatic. If you do everything the same, nothing will change. Maybe getting into a little trouble isn’t such a bad thing.” 

“Forgive me,” he says, mid-chuckle. “You wouldn’t call this trouble?” 

He’s got you there. Childishly, all your pride hardens to a lump in your throat, one you’ve never learned to swallow. 

“Your family needed our help too, remember?” 

“Yeah, and you think I don’t think about that every day? How, maybe, if I had done something different, then we wouldn’t be here?” 

You feel stung. You don’t know how to tell him that you’ve been trying to figure out the same thing your whole life. If you were a better daughter, you’d have spared everyone the trouble. Unfortunately, you’d gotten it wrong so many times, you stopped trying.

What's worse is that he doesn’t even sound mad—you watch his fingertips ghost over the keys of a C-scale, rhythmically, methodically. Piano scales, this marriage, everything: just things to do on his never-ending list. 

A hesitant knock at the door interrupts any possibility of you coming up with anywhere close to the right thing to say. 

“Prince Joshua, the king and queen need to speak to you.” It’s an aide, probably sweating bullets deciding when and how they should intrude on this wonderful conversation of yours.

“Right,” says Joshua, and when he gets up from the bench, he doesn’t look back. 

—

“You ready to get stuffed?” 

Good fucking morning to you—Somi’s voice, fluorescent through your phone speakers, seems to be enough of an alarm clock for you. Joshua, in the doorway dual wielding a coffee cup and the morning paper, raises a tired eyebrow.

After the events of last night, you’d wondered if he would somehow disappear at nighttime in an effort to avoid his eventual fate (you). Instead, you found him on his usual side of the bed, drinking his usual mug of chamomile tea, in his usual silence. 

You've heard that couples shouldn’t go to bed angry, but no one said anything about indifferent. Then again, you and Joshua are hardly a couple. 

“Ew,” you laugh. “No. Maybe? Should I be scared?” 

“Absolutely. You’re eating your weight in food today because I need your opinion on catering.” 

Smushing your phone between your cheek and your shoulder, you watch the mirror as your wavering reflection puts on a layer of mascara. 

“For your party?” 

“Yeah, although on second thought, maybe it’s a bad idea to bring the girl who’s gonna puke everything up anyway.” 

“My IBS is none of your business. Besides, the real food critic is Jihoon,” you reply. “Sometimes I feel like that’s the only reason he still works here.” 

“You’re coming in an hour, right?” 

You check the clock. No, you are not. You’re only halfway through a full beat and if you don’t get any caffeine inside you within the hour, you will commit a crime. 

“Nope.” You pop open your compact. “I have to change, and I desperately need to locate a coffee. I will suck a fucking bean off if i need to.” 

“I'm hanging up on you,” Somi whines. “It's too early for you to be gross and late.”  

“As if you weren’t talking about getting stuffed.” 

“Whatever.” Click.

At this point, you feel like Somi’s party is both the proverbial and literal light at the end of the tunnel. No expectations, no rules, and no semi-arguments between you and your doomed fiance. 

Then you notice that Joshua’s disappeared from the room—he probably couldn’t stand listening to your end of the conversation. Briefly, you wonder where he is. Off running an errand for his dear parents, perhaps, or maybe at the gym you still haven’t discovered yet. Even from the hefty distance he keeps you at, you can still appreciate a man who looks like he’s touched a dumbbell. 

It's only when you’re halfway out the door, almost an hour later, juggling your purse and your phone and the distinct absence of a caffeinated beverage, that you find him. 

“Come to ruin my day?” you ask, maybe three-fourths joking. 

“Don’t give me any ideas,” he replies. Under the bluebird sky of late morning, lips upturned and eyes bright, Joshua may be a sight you could get used to. Someday. “Brought you a coffee. I can’t have you sucking off a bean—the reporters would go crazy.” 

Jihoon, hovering by the car, chokes on his water. 

“Oh!” The surprise knocks the sound out of you. “Thank you. Really.” 

“Gladly,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

He holds all your stuff as you clamber into the car, before handing it back to close the door for you. You’ll admit it’s nice, but as Jihoon starts to drive, you feel a familiar twist in your chest.

“Interesting,” he remarks. “Didn’t know you were on a coffee order basis.” 

“We’re not,” you answer. You pop the lid open. It's a cappuccino, made the classic way, milk foam bubbling out the top. Not your favorite, but it’ll do. 

More than that, it’s an olive branch. Yesterday did get weird, but you’re getting the impression that it’ll always get weird. Undoubtedly, there is someone out there who’ll get Joshua. His schedules, his straight-backed obligation, the polished photo ops and the cappuccinos made to a perfect one to one to one ratio. You know this because this is the world you came from, one that should be home to you. 

Instead, you circle each other in an unsure, clumsy dance. You can’t quite get it right. It's all the same now. The bite of a horse saddle not made for your body, the glow of your heirloom ring, now cheapened by your graceless hand, Joshua’s lonely, reaching palm as he disappears in the rearview mirror. 

—

On your arrival home in the evening, you return with two things: a few extra kilos and an absolutely horrendous copy of the Daily Mail, courtesy of Somi, who saw it at the grocery. 

"Great showing from the couple of the year," you say, shucking your copy at Joshua. "It looks like we're in Shark Tale." 

Even from a distance, the cheap ink-spackled cover shows more than enough. LIP LOCK FLOP!, it reads, although you wouldn’t really call it a lip lock. 

It was at the derby—Quick, they’re looking at us, you had said. Then what you would call a nun’s version of a kiss: you, already halfway out the door, and him, lips hesitant and pursed, as if he was asked to smooch his withering, dusty great-grandmother. 

"I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that," Joshua answers, voice level. "It's not that bad." 

He puts his book down to pick the magazine up, holding it at a distance like the image will jump out of the page and bite him. You see his expression flicker, and that's all you need to confirm your suspicions. 

"Ok, it's a little bad." He places it on the nightstand next to him face-down. "It'll be alright. It's not like the wedding will be called off over one bad picture." 

"You know that's not the issue." You sit on your side of the bed, about a full meter away from him. You kind of want to look again just to see how bad it is, but you're sure it'll be inescapable by the morning. 

"Since when did you care what the press thought of you?" 

"Since it mattered." You stare at your lap, eyes fixed on the too-new, wiggly hem of your pajamas instead of him. You can tell he's still looking at you, though–you think those big, watery eyes have some sort of flashlights in them, and you don't like it. "It seems wrong if our mistakes take up space." 

You hear him make a small noise of agreement. Joshua still won't admit that you're right, but you suppose you like that a little. At least he'll be stubborn about something, even if it's about clearly not liking you. 

"What do you suggest?" he asks, putting his book down. “We didn't choose each other, so I'm not surprised there's no attraction." 

"Ouch." He's right, but you'd rather be the one saying it. "I'm a good kisser. You aren't." 

"I'm just not good at kissing you," he retorts. 

"Evidently." You shimmy towards his side of the bed, where the sheets are cooler under your thighs, the pillows still neatly arranged on the headboard. "What I'm saying is that we should at least try to look more realistic. Like–" 

"Are you saying we should practice?" Joshua looks at you over the frames of his glasses, incredulous. 

"Yeah," you say, now too far in it to back out. "Like exposure therapy. For unwilling couples." 

The room gets quiet, as if it wasn't unbearably so before. You watch Joshua pick up his book again. He puts the bookmark in, two-thirds from the spine of the book so as to not ruin the binding, and places it over the doomed tabloid. 

"Okay." To your surprise, he turns to face you. The lamplight catches the lens of his glasses and makes his eyes look warmer than they truly are. "How should we do this?" 

The way Joshua's gaze settles on you makes you feel like you're being evaluated. An exam in Kissing 101, except the test would rather not have anything to do with you at all. For the first time in your life, you let your eyes wander to his lips, rosy and full, and you feel the pit of anxiety in your belly grow wider. Somehow he's managed to take all the fun out of one of your favorite activities, but you'll be damned if he walks away from this thinking it's you who's the problem. 

"Just...let me lead," you say quietly, now leaning closer to him. You have to ease yourself into it. You let your body respond, feel the skip of your heart, a heady flush wash over your cheeks. He smells like spearmint and clover. 

You've kissed a lot of people. None of this should feel new to you. His eyelashes skim against your cheek, and you can hear the breath he takes, quivering, gentle.

Despite all this, the first kiss is no better than any of the other ones. his lips meet yours, hesitant before they start moving. He's shy, and it would almost endear him to you if he wasn't so annoying. But then the charade is over. His nose clocks yours and it startles you both enough to draw away, ever so slightly. 

"Not my fault," you murmur. You're so close, you can see your reflection in his pupils, glassy and dark. 

"Thought this was practice," responds Joshua, unfazed. 

So you lean in again, giving it another go. Two is better—sweet and succinct. a first date type of kiss. You can taste the berry of your lip balm on him. 

Then again, except this time it's him who goes in, chases your lips. 

The scary thing is that you thought this would be much harder. You had stood in the bathroom, looked yourself in the mirror, and psyched yourself up to do the impossible. 

But the moment you meet him, now so close there's no room to breathe, you feel an impenetrable, unshakable desire crawling up your bones. Your palm finds the flat of his chest. Even under the silk of his ridiculous pajama top, you feel the heat of his skin, the restless quick of his heartbeat, and your stomach flips. 

Four, five. You're losing count. Joshua's hand trails up your arm to cup your cheek, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't feel your breath catch in your chest. 

He's warm, so warm. When your other hand finds the back of his neck, he makes a small sound in his throat and you like it.

It's at this point you realize there is no point in pretending. Maybe you don't want to kiss Joshua at any other moment during any other day, but you do now. You really do. 

When your tongue meets the seam of his lips, it feels all too natural. At first, predictably, he buffers a bit. For a split second, you envision him pulling away and saying you've gotten more than a lifetime's worth of practice in. 

But he doesn't. Instead, an arm winds around your waist and that's all it takes for your body to stop listening to you altogether. Lips still connected, you lift yourself to straddle his lap, right over the folded up covers, and his hands, devastatingly strong, find your hips to keep you rooted there. 

You're starting to think he isn't such a bad kisser after all—maybe he really was holding out on you, but there's something weirdly rewarding about him waiting until he liked you just a little more. Whatever that means. 

You learn that his hair is soft, really soft, at the base of his neck. You learn that he likes when you bite his lips and you learn that his spearmint mouthwash does, in fact, taste as good as it smells. 

You also learn that you, paradoxically, might not know how to love Joshua Hong, but you sure do know how to kiss him. 

--end of part 1--

[part 2 -> ]

[nor-ay]

Our first masquerade ball - (unrequited love story) 

Shadow Milk Cookie thinks that you are... Odd. Different, if you will. It’s in the way you roll your eyes at White Lily Cookie, in the harsh tone that slips out when you find someone annoying, or in the way that you always seem to be out of place. But don’t get him wrong; he certainly enjoys that. He thinks that you have great potential to be his right hand. He just needs to give you a little push on the right path. Sweet talks to you a little until he gets in your good graces and WHAM, controls you like a puppet. It's a win-win situation; he gets to have you on his team and breaks your friend's spirit. 

At least, that is what he initially thought, but that changes when you accept his gift and lie to your supposed friends. You lie to Pure Vanilla Cookie, and that has him clapping and laughing like a king entertained by the best jester there is in his kingdom. He almost can’t believe it! There is no need for him to break your perception of Pure Vanilla Cookie or the nature of Cookies. You already have resentment towards them. 

… 

You think that Shadow Milk Cookie is testing you. That has to be the only explanation for the gifts and fever dream. It’s not like it bothers you, but when you look at Pure Vanilla Cookie, you feel guilt growing and wrapping itself around you. He’s not deserving of this whole situation… Shaking your head, you try to push all these thoughts away. You’re not evil—

Apple Faerie Cookie’s voice cuts through your thoughts. “Cookies! Let’s go to the top of the Spire!” 

“I sincerely hope we’ll find what we’re looking for!” You find Wizard Cookie’s reply relatable. You’re tired too. And desperately wanting to get out.

“I bet you will! Now, shall we?” 

“Um…you guys can go ahead, I have to go, I mean, I forgot something.” You hate how your voice sounds so suspicious! Cringing at yourself, you try to smile. 

GingerBrave is looking at you strangely, and Pure Vanilla Cookie is unusually silent. Strawberry Cookie is the one to break the silence. “Really…? Are you sure?” 

“Yeah! I mean, what's wrong? I’m sure you all can live without me for a bit, right?” You try to laugh, but it sounds forced. When did you become so awkward around…your friends? 

Wizard Cookie frowns “Well, the way you—“ 

“All right! [Name] Cookie, I trust you; I’m sure you’re going to do something helpful! Just be careful.” GingerBrave without realizing it, saves you from being interrogated. And again, your lungs fill with guilt. You find it harder to breathe and the smile on your face falters. You’re not evil. 

“Can you not—ugh, never mind.” Wizard Cookie gives up. And you internally thank the witches for it. 

“Right. Thank you. And- please…be careful on your journey.” Ah, this is what you’re doing now. You don’t feel part of them. You never did. Not even with the five ancient heroes. You were always more of a confidant. Hearing Pure Vanilla’s worries, comforting White Lily Cookie after discovering her other half. Playing along with Golden Cheese Cookie, helping out Dark Cacao Cookie and Holyberry Cookie with their tasks. You never felt like you belonged. And so you grew resentful. 

You turn around and go in the opposite direction. Silence is the only thing you hear while going down the stairs, and you have to blink quickly to stop the tears from falling. You were not lying before when you said that you forgot something. When you arrive at the same spot where you woke up hours ago, the doll is still there. Sitting down, you pick up the mini-you and hug it tightly. Closing your eyes, you confess to no one. “I don’t know what to do… I miss when things used to be easy… I don’t want to hurt them. I’m just, so so so sick and tired of the same things over and over again…it’s like I’m trapped in a loop.” 

…

You don’t know how long it’s been since you parted ways with GingerBrave and company. But, unexpectedly, the doll in your arms starts moving on its own. So you let it go, waiting for its next move. 

Clap

A Colombina mask appears in front of you. It’s beautiful. You smile, thinking it’s a bit ironic. Perhaps even mocking that he gives you a mask. Is this his way of telling you that you’re two-faced? 

Nevertheless, you still put on the mask and follow the doll through some large hallways. Arriving at a luxurious ballroom. “How did we not see this?” You ask, completely in awe. The tiles on the floor are so white that you can see yourself reflected on them.

“Well… I had it hidden, of course; did ya forget that you’re in my domain, mhm?” It takes you a second for your brain to register who answered. 

“S-Shadow Milk Cookie!?” 

“Awe…are you really that surprised to see me? Well? Go ahead!” You notice how he’s also wearing a mask similar to yours. 

“Uh…ah-“ You don’t know what to say. Sweat begins to collect on your forehead. You begin to panic. You have to say something!! But, what can you say that he doesn’t know already?

Before you can think of anything to say, you hear Shadow Milk Cookie groan, as if annoyed. “Ughh right, I’m going too fast, this is a masquerade ball, you’re not supposed to know who I am.” 

“O-kay, let's start over!” You watch dumbfounded as he claps twice and the ballroom fills with different puppets who are dancing and talking to each other. 

You watch all this and can’t help but laugh, and, oh, it feels so freeing to be able to be as loud as you want. Everything is so out of the blue that you just can’t help it. Shadow Milk Cookie seems to be interested in what is making you laugh so much. “I’m sorry…this just doesn’t make any sense, and I love it.” 

He smiles, seeming pleased. “Now, THIS is the type of audience that I like! Alrighty! Let's get to it.” He closes the distance and takes your hand. He runs cold, you shiver at the contact.

You feel relaxed, and that should make you worry, but, as Shadow Milk Cookie gives you a twirl and spins you around the ballroom, you can’t. The giggles don’t seem to stop coming out and your eyes are all teary from all the laughter. Your hands are tightly grasping his shoulders and it doesn’t surprise you how agile he’s on his feet. It’s so easy to let him guide you. 

“Awww look at you! You’re enjoying yourself so so so much! Aren’t you going to ask me where are your frieeends?” 

“Well…,” you start—

“Oh, wait, WAIT, don’t tell me! You finally realize that it’s not with them that you belong? Especially that dreadfully, painfully, unbearably Pure Vanilla Cookie?” You can’t fully read the tone in his voice; it seems playful, but the hate he has for them inevitably seeps in. 

“That’s right,” Your smile wavers as you revert to your natural state of being. “It took me a long time, but… I’ve finally understood who I am and what I want.” A sudden bravery fills your heart as you finally ask him- “Please, take me with you!” You surprise yourself by the loudness of your voice.

Have you always been that desperate to escape your life?

“…” His eyes blink several times and it feels like the whole ballroom has grown silent. You start to feel self-conscious and—

His laugh fills the whole ballroom, and in just a second, Shadow Milk Cookie dips your body back dramatically. You grip onto him like a lifesaver and- and you’re out of breath. “Perfect,” you hear him say. His voice is lower than you’ve ever heard. “Alright, since you asked so nicely…you’re with me now!” 

“Huh, so…”

“Oops, looks like I have to go, feel free to explore my humble domain, hehe!” 

He’s gone in the blink of an eye. All the puppets that were dancing vanished too, all left behind in the ballroom was the mini-you doll and your racing heart. 

“…Did he lose track of time?”

Okay!! I actually struggled a bit with the dialogue. In my mind, there were so many different things about what Shadow Milk would say in certain situations! But, I’m happy about how it turned out. I hope you enjoyed it too!! AND, this is important, the story is going to be on hold until we get episode 8 of Beast-Yeast. It’s not like I can’t improvise, but if I continue, and then they release ep 8, I know that I’ll end up rewriting everything, and I don’t want to do that, to be honest. 

Besides that, I’m already thinking of writing Shadow Milk x reader with a trope that I really enjoy!! Orr some headcanons (maybe nsfw, still unsure about that).

@notboomm @fyodors-belovedxoxo

[atzloverr]

Stay with us - Wooyoung & Mingi x reader

pairings: Wooyoung’s roommate!Mingi x f!reader, boyfriend!Wooyoung x f!reader

cw: yandere behavior, stalking, kidnapping, bondage, dubious consent, drunk sex, blackmailing, biting, use of Y/n, smut, drugging, manipulation, non-idol au, female reader

You stood outside of your door with your bags in hand, flabbergasted by the thing that just happened. Tonight you came home to all of your things packed up in bags, and a note from your roommate.

Leave or I’ll kill you.

Any other night you would’ve called her and cussed her out, but you couldn’t do this anymore. Maybe it was a great idea to move out after all, leave this shitty roommate and your miserable living conditions behind.

You weren’t even shocked when you found the note, this was just like her. She was simply a mean girl, straight out of the story. You had only lived here for two months, and the first month was great. Your roommate was nice, always asking before bringing people over, respecting you and your boundaries. But after the first month, something about her changed.

She started practically bullying you, not letting you live a second in peace, and always making sure to ruin your day in some way. She made fun of you, made fun of your boyfriend, and the only thing that made you stay was the fact that you couldn’t afford anything else.

You sometimes wondered what made her change. She seemed so unsure of her own words when she first changed. She always paused before delivering a mean comment, but as time passed, she grew more confident. By now, it was as if it went against her nature to not treat you like total garbage.

”Darling? What’s up?” you heard Wooyoung’s voice in your ear. You sat down on the bench at the bus stop, sighing deeply into the phone. ”I got kicked out…” you said. ”What!?” he gasped. You just hummed a yes. You were so ashamed to ask Wooyoung to stay at his place, but you didn’t have a choice. Wooyoung lived with his roommate Mingi in a small flat, and you just hated to take up space in their home.

”Oh my god, baby,” Wooyoung gasped into the phone. ”Come to my place!” he said with excitement. You smiled with confusion and took a deep breath. ”Wooyoung, I’m so sorry for intruding, you know I hate—”, ”Baby no!” he interrupted. ”I love it when you come over, even if you’ll stay longer than usual.”

You bit your lip in thought. ”What about Mingi? Are you sure he’ll be okay with it?” you asked nervously. ”Of course he will!” Wooyoung almost laughed into the phone. ”Can you ask him?” you suggested before hearing footsteps.

”Mingi?” you heard him yell. ”Y/n can stay here for a while, right?” you heard Mingi’s faint voice in the background, but you couldn’t make out what he said. You held your breath. ”See, I knew he would agree!”

You sighed. ”Did you really give him a chance to say no? Maybe he didn’t feel like he had a choice?” you stressed, hearing Wooyoung’s airy laugh in your ear. ”Stop worrying okay? I swear he’s fine with it, hell, if I know him he’ll probably love having you over!”

You answered with a quiet ’mm’ before standing up to get on the bus. ”My bus is here, I gotta go.”, ”Alright! See you soon baby!”

————

”Promise me you’ll behave now that she’s going to live here, kay?” Wooyoung smiled, looking up at Mingi’s smug grin. It was safe to say that your boyfriend’s roommate was more than happy when you called Wooyoung. ”I’ll be good, you should probably be asking her that question, y’know?” Mingi teased. Wooyoung’s eyebrows furrowed in question. ”We’ll see how well your little baby will be able to control herself around me.”

Wooyoung laughed a hearty laugh and was about to respond with a cocky remark when the doorbell rang. ”I’ll go get that,” Mingi sang, his long legs moving towards the door, not letting your boyfriend catch up.

You watched the door open, and when you saw the tall man, your jaw dropped ever so slightly, but just enough for Mingi to notice it. ”Hey, Y/n,” he said melodically before wrapping his arms around you in a tight hug. You gasped at his unusual closeness, but smiled when you heard your boyfriend’s sweet voice.

”That’s enough,” he patted Mingi’s shoulder, making him laugh before letting you go. ”There’s my baby,” Wooyoung said with a pout before you ran into his arms. You almost started like tearing up when you felt his hands roaming your body lovingly. ”Welcome home,” he giggled, making you laugh. You let go of him, turning around to speak to Mingi.

”I’m so sorry for intruding you guys’ place like this I— I swear I’ll start looking for a new place immediately and—”

”Hush now, sweetheart,” Mingi smirked, interrupting your rambling. You had always found his vocabulary with you odd. The way he spoke to you as if you had known each other for much longer than you actually had, almost as if you were dating. ”You can stay here for as long as you need.”

⊹ ࣪ ˖

You had only stayed at Wooyoung’s place for about a week when you started noticing his and Mingi’s odd behavior. The exchanged looks, the sentences you couldn’t help but question mentally and of course, Mingi’s eyes. His eyes always seemed to be on you, no matter the situation. Hid gaze so piercing, his eyes seeming to follow you as you walked around, always dripping with what you would guess to be lust.

”Y/n? Love?” Wooyoung said, snapping his fingers to regain your attention. You snapped out of your thoughts, smiling at him. ”I asked what you wanted to get? We’re planning on eating takeout tonight!” Wooyoung winked. You smiled and thought. ”I’ll just have the same as last time, I don’t remember the name—”, ”Got it!” Mingi said from across the room, writing it down on his phone. You blinked.

Yet another thing that was odd about Mingi. He seemed to remember every small detail about you. Every little thing you said, all of your habits, what food you liked, even how long you used to shower.

”Longer than usual today,” he said as you exited the bathroom. ”Excuse me?” you smiled in confusion. ”You showered for thirty minutes today, that’s longer than usual,” Mingi stated. You didn’t know how to answer him. ”Just saying!” he put his hands in the air at your lack of an answer. ”O-okay,” you meekly answered.

”And baby,” Wooyoung said, regaining your attention once again. ”We’ve got beer, shots, wine, whatever you want!” You smiled. ”It’s been so long since we got really drunk together! I miss those nights we used to spend together, drinking until we could barely walk straight!” Wooyoung said, reminiscing about old memories.

The day went by smoothly, and suddenly, it was dinner time. You always loved nights like these with your boyfriend, ordering takeout and drinking. Only now would you be accompanied by his roommate. While you did enjoy Mingi’s company, you couldn’t ignore his creepy behavior.

Your smiled when you heard a whistle from the corridor as you tried on your long dress for the night. You turned around to greet your boyfriend, but your smile dropped when you saw the man standing in the doorway. Mingi.

”Why the long face, darling? Just because I’m not your boyfriend doesn’t mean I can’t find you hot,” he smirked. You blinked, putting on a small smile despite your discomfort. Darling. That’s what he had called you. The only person you were comfortable with calling you that was Wooyoung, your boyfriend, not his creepy (but hot) roommate.

”Food’s here by the way,” Mingi stated before leaving the room. You took a deep breath, trying to compose yourself. You weren’t comfortable with this, so why were your cheeks turning red? Why did you feel butterflies in your stomach when you saw Mingi in that tight shirt, showing his toned body?

”Baby!” Wooyoung entered the room, snaking his hands around your waist from behind. ”You look so cute,” he said into your neck, placing a small kiss where your shoulder met your neck.

”Hey Wooyoung,” you sighed, gathering the courage to say what you were about to say. ”I feel a little… I don’t know uncomfortable?” you started, making his eyebrows furrow in worry. ”With what? The dress?” he asked. Your lips pressed into a thin line. You got ready to speak again, when a knock interrupted you. ”It’s dinner time, lovebirds,” Mingi said. Your head turned to meet his gaze, and you didn’t miss the way his eyes only looked at you. Not at Wooyoung, just at you.

”Alright,” Wooyoung smiled, turning you around to walk out of the room. ”Looks like you’ll have to save what you were going to say for later.” You swallowed, hesitantly letting Wooyounglead you to the table, mentally preparing for the night you were about to spend with your lovely boyfriend and his roommate that you just couldn’t seem to read.

You gasped in excitement at the food plated out on the table. ”Yum!” you let out squeezing Wooyoung’s hand. He smiled at your reaction, pulling out a chair before sitting down on the one next to it. Your smile dropped slightly when Mingi sat down by the small and round table, feeling his knee brush against yours for a split second.

”Let’s eat!” Wooyoung clapped, keeping his wide smile on his lips. He always succeeded to cheer you up when you felt a little down. Mingi started playing some music in the loud speakers as you and Wooyoung started eating the delicious food.

Before you knew it, the three of you had had perhaps just a little too much to drink, starting to slur your words and loudly sing along to the music in the speakers. Wooyoung was clinging to you like never before, his mouth attached to your neck and hands roaming your body. ”Woo, stop it,” you whined with a grin on your face. You both knew you didn’t mean it, your arms thrown around his neck, pulling him closer.

You had almost forgotten that Mingi was there, watching everything unfold. But getting drunk was exactly what you needed. You didn’t think about Mingi’s stares, his lingering touches or the fact that your body reacted to him in a way that you couldn’t admit to yourself.

”Wanna move to the couch?” Mingi said, catching your and Wooyoung’s attention. ”Yes please!” Wooyoung sang, standing up to walk over there. You happened to sit in a corner, so it took you a minute to get out of your seat, the moment Mingi had been waiting for.

”Think I haven’t noticed?” Mingi whispered, suddenly standing right in front of you. In your drunken state, you didn’t fear him, you didn’t feel as intimidated. ”Noticed what?” you challenged, looking him right in the eye, drawing out a wide-eyed smirk from him.

”The way you feel about me,” he said, his hand meeting the back of your waist. You gasped when he pulled you towards him. ”I can see the way you react,” he whispered. ”The way your body reacts.”

You blinked, wondering if these words were really coming out of his mouth. ”I bet you’re really turned on right now, aren’t you?” he smirked, and that’s when you decided that you had had enough of this. You pushed him away from you and stormed off to the living room, where Wooyoung lay sprawled out on the couch, clearly about to fall asleep.

You sat him up and immediately took a seat next to him, basically gluing your body to his. ”Baby, I missed you,” he whined, body inching even closer to yours. You watched as Mingi entered the room, his gaze plastered on you. You shrunk slightly at the attention.

”Sorry, your girlfriend had some trouble getting out of her seat,” Mingi lied. You swallowed, wondering if you should speak up or not. ”Thank you for helping her,” Wooyoung smiled. You rolled your eyes, and before you could have a say in the matter, Mingi sunk down by your other side, maybe even sitting closer than Wooyoung was.

You held your breath, feeling Mingi’s warm skin press against yours as Wooyoung buried his face in your neck. You couldn’t stop a small whimper from escaping your lips when Wooyoung bit you lightly on your neck, and right as he did so, Mingi’s big hand landed on your thigh, giving it a firm squeeze.

You looked at Wooyoung, but your boyfriend’s eyes were closed. What would he think if he opened his eyes to see Mingi’s hands on you? If he found out that that whimper wasn’t just because of him, but also because of his roommate?

You glared at Mingi, who just smiled innocently. His hand travelled further up your thigh as he held eye contact with you, and you put your hand over his in a weak attempt to stop him, but you barely even tried. Because deep inside, you knew you were attracted to him, and he seemed to know it as well.

You hated this feeling, because you truly loved your boyfriend. He was your everything, your best friend and your one true love. And the fact that Mingi could see right through you, was enough to make you fear him.

His hand rested incredibly close to where you ached it to be, but begged for it to not be. ”You like this baby?” Mingi whispered into your ear. Your eyes widened, your head turning towards Wooyoung immediately, but he didn’t react. He must’ve not heard it. ”I know you do” Mingi’s lips touched your ear, making you squirm.

”Mingi?” Wooyoung said suddenly, making you freeze in anticipation. ”Yeah?” said man answered, tone very cool considering what he was currently doing with his friend’s girlfriend. ”Can you pass me my phone?”

You were so confused. How on earth didn’t he notice anything? Sure, he was drunk, but still!?

”I wanna go to bed honey,” Wooyoung finally said, making you sigh in relief. As Wooyoung stood up, Mingi’s hand immediately left your thigh. Your boyfriend went over to him, to give him a hug. ”Goodnight Mingi,” he said. ”Sleep tight,” said man replied, looking at you.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

”Baby, right there please,” Wooyoung moaned out as your lips closed around his length. It seemed he didn’t actually mean going to sleep when he wanted to ’go to bed’, but you weren’t complaining. ”Wait no,” he whimpered, grabbing your head to stop you. ”Don’t wanna come yet, baby,” he smiled, hands patting your head gently.

You raised your head from between his legs, meeting his lustful eyes. ”Can I fuck you? Please I’m so—”, ”Yes you can,” you nodded before he could finish his sentence. He almost ripped off your dress when he heard those words, oozing with excitement.

”I wanna taste you first though,” he smirked, not preparing you further before shoving his face between your legs. You moaned loudly when you felt his skillful tongue on you. Everything felt so good when you were drunk. You were both dripping with pleasure, not being able to hold yourselves back. ”So wet, baby,” he hummed. ”How did you manage to get like this, hm?” Wooyoung asked before continuing to pleasure you.

Your eyes widened at the question. Mingi had been right. You were turned on by him, and it made you hate yourself. You wanted to cry from how bad you felt, and decided to just hum as an answer. You felt your orgasm approaching you, but Wooyoung soon stopped, biting his lips and getting ready to fuck you.

”Ready baby?” he almost breathed out, making you nod enthusiastically. When he finally entered you, you felt as if you could come right away. You moaned his name as he thrusted into you at a rapid pace.

”Shit, I might come already, I’m sorry,” Wooyoung rambled while letting his hips slow down slightly. ”It’s okay baby, I will too,” you assured him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He fastened his pace at those words, making the two of you approach your orgasms quickly.

Wooyoung’s loud moans filled the room, and so did yours as he finally finished inside of you. You were both breathless, sweaty and absolutely exhausted. The alcohol only made you more tired.

”I might fall asleep,” he informed, making you let out a tired giggle. ”Me too, don’t worry.”

Just as you were about to close your eyes, you spotted a tall figure standing in the doorway. You rubbed your eyes, not wanting to believe what you had just seen, and when you looked again, there was no one there. Had you really begun hallucinating now too? You wanted to barf at the thought of how much power Mingi had over you. He knew your innermost desires, didn’t hesitate before breaking boundaries and made you question yourself like never before.

You fell asleep, and that night, you dreamt of Mingi. You dreamt of him touching you, him having his way with you, and even though your mind was so against the idea, your body seemed to crave it.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

You used Wooyoung’s soft shirt to wipe your tears away as you sniffled into his shoulder. He looked down at you sympathetically before looking at the TV once again. ”I can’t believe he just left her like that!” you cried, watching the end credits roll after the fourth movie of the night.

Somehow, both you, Wooyoung and Mingi had all ended up with the flu. The three of you had spent the last few days cuddled up on the couch, binge-watching movies and TV-shows while coughing and sniffling.

You hadn’t spoken to Mingi about that night yet, because honestly, you didn’t know what to say. For these few days, he had actually been nice for the most part. He had kept his distance, and reminded you why you used to enjoy his company so much.

His funny and charming demeanor was back, and everything felt just right, well, except for one little thing.

Your things were disappearing. It started with your favorite skirt. You basically turned Wooyoung’s room upside down when looking for it. You ran out of the room, hurriedly asking if any of the guys had seen it, to which they both shrugged their shoulders.

Then, it was your underwear, then your hairbrush. You searched Wooyoung’s face to see any signs of a lie, but he really looked clueless when you asked about your favorite black pair of panties. He loved to play pranks on you, but why on earth would he do this?

Aside from that little detail, everything was going great. Maybe he had stopped doing it, or maybe you had just started to get used to Mingi’s piercing gaze, you honestly didn’t know.

”It’s getting late,” Mingi stated, getting up from the couch. ”Hey,” you stopped him from leaving. ”Can I just borrow your phone for a second? I need to look up one of the actors,” you asked, reaching out your hand.

You couldn’t read Mingi’s face, and you couldn’t understand why he looked at Wooyoung in such a panicked matter. ”Hello?” you asked, keeping your hand outstretched.

”Don’t you have your own?” Mingi smirked, continuing to walk away from you. ”Don’t be a dick, it’s not here,” you yelled as he walked away. ”Just let me search it up!” you whined.

Mingi came back a second later, you phone in hand. ”Here you go, princess,” he smiled making you roll your eyes at the nickname. ”I didn’t ask you to get it,” you muttered before opening up your phone.

Later that night, when you lay in bed next to Wooyoung, you thought about that moment. Why couldn’t he just give you his phone? Was he just really private? Or was he just this secretive with you? You had seen Wooyoung use Mingi’s phone, so why was it different with you?

A few days later, you showed Wooyoung the apartments that you were thinking about moving into. You had a few alternatives, each one having their own strengths and weaknesses. ”This one’s in good condition, but it’s a bit pricey…” you said with a slight pout, furrowing your eyebrows.

”And this one’s really small, but it looks cute, right?” you looked over at Wooyoung, who looked deep in thought. ”What?” you asked, seeing his small frown.

”Do you really think that this is necessary?” he asked, making you pause. ”What do you mean?” you questioned.

”Well, you could just stay here…” he said quietly, eyes glued the floor. You tried to find words, but didn’t really know what to reply. His hands held yours, caressing them slowly. ”I feel like I love you more and more for every moment we spend together and—” Wooyoung’s voice was almost shaky, filled with emotion. ”I want you to stay with me here, okay?” he proposed.

You pressed your lips into a line, meeting Ten’s gaze as he lifted it from the floor. ”I—I don’t,” you tried to find your words. ”Listen, I would love to move in with you too,” you said, making Wooyoung’s eyes light up, a smile already starting to coat his lips. ”B—But, it feels different like this. Y’know, with Mingi and everything—”

”Oh don’t worry about him, he really won’t mind!” he tried to reassure you. You avoided his gaze. ”But what if—” you stammered. ”What if I mind?”

There was a pause, a loud silence that filled the air between you. ”What I mean is just—”, ”You don’t like him? Did he do anything to upset you? Did he hurt you baby?” Wooyoung stressed, worry lacing his tone. ”No, it’s just that he.. well we,” you sighed. ”It just feels weird for me to keep staying here, and whether you agree with me or not, I still feel like I’m intruding,” you said. Maybe that wasn’t the only reason, but there was no need for Wooyoung to know that.

He was about to protest, but you spoke first. ”I really want to find a new place, and I’ll gladly have you move with me if that’s what you want, but I know you love living here with Mingi.”

You watched his expression slowly contort into a large frown, his bottom lip starting to loll out. He took a shaky breath before finally giving you a reply. ”I get it baby,” Wooyoung sighed. ”But can you just think about it for a moment? You can pause your apartment hunting for now, and just consider staying, right?”

His eyes were glimmering with hope, making you feel like a villain for even thinking about denying him. ”…Okay,” you finally said, to which Wooyoung squealed in excitement, squeezing your hands tightly in his. ”I knew I would be able to change your mind!” he smiled. You smiled, but when he wrapped his arms around you, your smile completely dropped.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

When you had finally managed to get rid of the flu that had haunted you for two miserable weeks, you decided that you wanted to celebrate it by going out with some of your friends.

It had been way too long since you went to the club, even since you met your friend group. Your best friend squeaked in excitement when you called her and asked if she was up for a night out.

You hummed happily while applying your makeup, finally feeling really pretty again after being sick for such a long time. You heard the sound of Wooyoung and Mingi’s voices as they entered the apartment, having gone shopping for the last few hours.

With how much money Mingi seemed to have, you never really understood why he chose to live in this small flat with your boyfriend. Wooyoung always told you about how Mingi always payed for their food, how he suggested going on luxurious trips, and how the man seemed to have an unlimited supply of money.

Maybe their years-long friendship is what kept them together, even in such a small place.

”Baby? What are you doing?” Wooyoung asked with a smile on his face, but a hint of worry in his tone. ”I’m getting ready! I’m going out with the girls tonight!” you said in excitement, going up to give him a hug.

”Oh, okay,” he replied, voice void of emotion. You backed away from him, eyebrows furrowed. ”Why? What’s up?” you asked. ”No, it’s just..” he avoided your gaze. ”Can’t you stay here tonight? We were thinking of having dinner together,” he pouted. Your mouth opened slightly.

”I’m sorry, but I’ve already made plans with them,” you said, your hand meeting the back of his head. ”You know it’s been a while since i hung out with them.”

Wooyoung almost looked angry, his gaze still refusing to meet yours. ”Have I done something to upset you or something?” he asked. You almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. ”What? No, why would you think that?”

He cleared his throat. ”It’s like you don’t want to spend time with me anymore,” he spat. ”First the apartment now this…”

You huffed at his words. ”I’ve basically been with you every second of every day for this past month?” you said, letting go of him. For the first time, he looked at you, and you couldn’t help but feel bad.

”You love me, right?” he asked, hands raising to meet your shoulders. You blinked, not understanding hid thought process at all. ”Of course I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spend time with my friends as well,” you stated.

Wooyoung came closer to you, holding you in a tight embrace. ”I’m sorry baby,” he sniffled. ”I just don’t want to lose you, that’s all.”

You swallowed, feeling his arms almost crush you. ”Of course you won’t,” you reassured. You would’ve probably understood his motives more if you saw the satisfied smirk on his face as you uttered those words.

”Thank you baby,” he said, leaving a small kiss on your neck before letting you go. ”I’ll go help Mingi with the groceries,” he said before leaving the room, and also leaving you almsot speechless. What on earth was that?

Thirty minutes later, you found yourself in such a stressful state, trying to find the dress that you had mentally picked out for tonight. You stood on chairs to look where you couldn’t reach, searched every single corner of the room, got on all fours to search under all of the furniture, and of course, that’s how Mingi found you.

”Oh,” he said when he found you, digging under the bed to find it. You turned around in shame, immediately standing up. A thing to take into consideration, was that you were only in your underwear. ”I don’t have time for this,” you sighed before closing the door in his face.

You quickly put on a robe to cover yourself before opening the door, meeting Mingi again, who was stuck in the same spot you found him in. ”What?” you said, seeing the teasing look in his eye.

”Nothing,” he said, starting to walk away. ”It’s just not everyday that you find a prudish girl like you in such a state,” he said in the distance, making you run after him.

”Shut up, you! At least I’m not a slut like you!” you pointed at him, making him raise his eyebrows in amusement. ”You know what, you’re probably the one responsible for all of these disappearing clothes!” you said, darting towards his room. You missed the way his smile dropped before his long legs followed you.

You threw the door open, entering the dark and messy room. You had never seen Mingi’s room before. You always followed the ’DO NOT ENTER’ sign on it, but today was a different day.

You turned on the light, scanning the room for any of your things, but only saw his own huge supply of clothes coating the floor. ”Y/n,” Mingi warned when you walked towards his closet.

His legs scrambled towards you in a matter of seconds, his voice yelling your name again, but this time, in such an alarming way that you actually believed something was seriously wrong.

But it seemed he was just a second too late, because when he stood behind you, you had already opened the closet door to see what was inside.

You stared into it in silence, your jaw having dropped ever so slightly.

There they were. All of your lost things, maybe even more than you knew you had lost. Underwear, trash you threw away, makeup products, and the thing that made you feel instantly sick: pictures.

A pile of pictures, either printed or polaroids, and they were all of you. Pictures of you in your old apartment, pictures of you when you were younger, pictures of you and Wooyoung, pictures of you when you were asleep.

You flinched when Mingi harshly slammed the door closed from behind you. His arm caged you in between him and the door, and you didn’t dare to turn around. You heard his heavy breathing, you felt his hot breath against your neck, and worst of all, you could feel him against you. His erection against your body, as he inched closer. You felt your instincts take over.

”Wooyoung!—”, ”Shut up,” Mingi put his big hand over your mouth, making you squirm even more in the tight space between him and the closet door. ”Stop squirming,” Mingi warned, making you hold your breath.

His hand slowly left your mouth, causing a small whimper of fear to be heard from your now parted lips. Mingi turned you around, making you face him. He leaned down until you could feel his breath fan your face. He still wore that same smirk that he more almost all the time, but his eyes had this newfound glow, this unknown width and fire. It made you fear him even more.

”Please, I promise I won’t tell Wooyoung if you just—” you started, before Mingi hushed you, his eyes closing shut. You gasped when he crouched down, positioning himself to pick you up. ”No, please—”, ”I said shut up.”

Your breathing quickened when he walked over to the bedroom door, still with you in his arms. You watched as he shut the door carefully, twisting the lock before walking over to his bed.

He dropped you down rather harshly, positioning himself right on top of you. As if trying to make yourself small, your body scrunched up, arms caging themselves around your form.

”Don’t hide from me baby,” Mingi said in a giggle, his strong hands pinning yours above your head. ”I’ve already seen everything.”

You shivered, eyes avoiding his. You could feel yourself starting to tear up, to which Mingi’s fingers wiped your eyes. ”I might’ve even seen more than your precious Wooyoung,” he smiled menacingly. ”And you’ve had no idea this whole time.”

You clenched your eyes shut, not even wanting to adress that the situation was actually happening. ”He’ll never forgive you,” you spat, finally looking into his eyes. ”Aww, you think so, huh?” he said with faux concern. Your wide eyes following his head as he leaned down, growing wider for every inch closer he came towards you.

You squealed when his lips met your neck, your hands meeting his shoulders, slightly pushing him away. ”Mingi—”, ”Don’t lie,” he interrupted once again, making you blink in confusion.

”Don’t act like you don’t enjoy this,” he smiled, his kisses traveling further and further down your neck. His hand moved your silk robe to the side, revealing your shoulders. ”I know you do.” You gasped when his teeth sunk into the flesh of your now exposed shoulder.

”I’d bet you’re so turned on right now,” he whispered. You squirmed, a newfound energy making you fight back finally. You pushed him off, sitting up to get away from him. It wasn’t long until he wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you back down into the bed with him.

”Please, just let me go out with my friends tonight, I won’t tell him—” you stopped yourself this time, realizing how weak you sounded. How utterly pitiful and pathetic your tone rang in your ears. ”You really don’t understand, do you?” Mingi said in amusement.

He stood up, unlocking and opening the door. You watched as he pointed towards the open door with his hand. ”Why don’t you go ahead and tell Wooyoung, hm?” Mingi said, waiting for you do dart towards the door, which you did a second later.

You ran to the kitchen, looking back at Mingi, who slowly exited his room, his arms crossed and a look in his eye that you could only describe as evil.

You found Wooyoung in the kitchen, preparing dinner for him and Mingi. ”Hey babe—woah,” his eyes widened when he saw your panicked and disheveled state, the thin robe almost falling off of your body.

”What’s going on?” he asked with urgency. ”It’s Mingi, he— he—” your breath caught in your throat, the panic catching up to you. You looked back, seeing Mingi enter the kitchen with slow steps, looking deep into not your eyes, but Wooyoung’s. You looked back at Wooyoung, wrapping your arms around him as if it would keep you safe from the man behind you. Wooyoung smirked without you seeing it, his eyes still stuck on Mingi’s.

”What’s wrong baby?” he asked, rubbing your back soothingly. You sniffled into his shoulder, and finally felt your shoulders starting to relax at Wooyoung’s next words. ”Mingi, why don’t you leave us for a minute?”

You heard the tall man’s footsteps slowly fade away, making your fear dial down just a tiny bit. Wooyoung sat you down by the table, his warm hands slowly leaving your shoulders. ”I’ll get you a glass of water,” he stated. ”Tell me what happened.”

You took a deep breath. ”I was just looking for my dress for tonight, oh shoot— I almost forgot that I’m going out,” you looked around, searching for a clock somewhere. Finally finding one, you realized that you were going to be late. ”Shit, I have to—”, ”No, shh baby,” Wooyoung came back with your water. ”I’m sure they’ll be fine with you being a little late,” he reassured you, pulling out a chair to sit down next to you.

You sighed, taking a big sip of water. ”Anyway I entered Mingi’s room, and well— In his closet,” your voice was shaky, brimming with fear. Wooyoung pushed the glass towards you, to which you took another big sip. ”Woo, I found my things, and— and I found pictures and—”, ”Shh, shh,” he hushed you, inching closer to you and placing his warm hand on the backside of your neck, rubbing soothing circles into it.

”Let’s just calm down,” Wooyoung said. Your looked at him, blinking in confusion. ”You’re really worked up right now, and—”, ”Of course I’m worked up! Do you have any idea of how scared I was—”

”Calm down, please.” Wooyoung interrupted, his grip on your neck tightening ever so slightly. ”Have some more water, and then we can talk about this.”

You were about to question him, but finally obeyed his wish, finishing the glass. ”Do you want to go to my room instead?” Wooyoung asked and you immediately nodded, following him into the room with hurried steps, but as soon as you were on your feet, you felt an odd sensation. Your vision was slightly blurry, but you figured it was nothing.

When you were finally positioned on Wooyoung’s bed, you noticed how the moments you experienced seemed to blur together. You blinked, trying to gather your senses.

”Baby? You alright?” he asked, wrapping his arms around you once again. You felt your eyelids starting to close together, small whines escaping your lips in confusion. ”Let’s lie down,” you heard Wooyoung’s voice, but as if in the distance. The last thing you saw before you finally lost consciousness was the sight of Mingi standing in the doorway, just like you imagined that night you had prayed to forget.

⊹ ࣪ ˖

”I can’t believe you’re such an idiot,” Wooyoung laughed, resting his head in Mingi’s lap. Mingi’s fingers slowly ran through your boyfriend’s dark locks. ”Oh come on, we were going to do this sooner or later,” Mingi argued, eyes lingering on Wooyoung’s.

You heard the two’s voices, but it was as if you couldn’t grasp reality. You couldn’t fully reach your senses quite yet, you could just hear and feel slight sensations, but not enough to know if you were truly awake.

”Imagine her cute little face when she sees that you’re responsible for this,” Mingi said, interrupted by his own giggles. ”Turns out her sweet little boyfriend wasn’t so sweet after all.”

Right after Mingi uttered those words, Wooyoung seemed to pick up on something, his head twisting around towards you. He slowly crawled towards where you lay on the floor. ”Baby?” he smiled, hand meeting your cold cheek.

Your eyes slowly opened up, laying themselves on Wooyoung’s wide smile, his anticipating eyes. As your senses came back, you noticed something rough against your skin, slithered around your legs and arms.

You let out a small involuntary moan of discomfort, eyes searching the room. You saw the thick rope around your body, and you felt as if your heart stopped.

”She awake?” a voice said from behind Wooyoung - who was carefully examined your face. ”Mm-hmm, but still a little confused,” Wooyoung said, his smile creeping back onto his face. ”How are you feeling baby?” he said, both thumbs stroking your cheeks.

You tried to speak, but couldn’t utter a single word. ”Hmm, not quite aware yet,” he frowned, backing away from you. Who now entered your field of view made your eyes go wide instantly.

You grew more confused by the second, but also more aware. The slow realization that was happening inside your brain made your heartbeat quicken, as you started struggling in your restraints.

”None of that,” Mingi said, making your head snap towards him.

”What’s going on?” you finally managed to say, now that you were almost completely aware. The two men looked at each other for a second, before Mingi nodded towards your boyfriend.

”Don’t be scared baby, everything’s just fine, okay?” Wooyoung said, coming closer to you again. ”We just thought that you might need some safety precautions,” he said, as if that would clear anything up for you. ”Why am I tied up!?”

Wooyoung took a deep breath. ”We didn’t want you to get scared and try to run off, okay?” he said, trying to grab your face again, to which you immediately flinched from his touch.

”Baby, just listen okay?” you heard Mingi. You almost gasped at his familiarity, when you started to remember the events that occurred before this.

”You creep!” you spat out at Mingi, seeing that annoyingly amused face on him. ”How dare you? What about my poor feelings?” Mingi made fun of you, a childish pout on his lips.

”You’re a stalker!” you said, ”and you!” you directed towards Wooyoung, tears starting to seep out of your eyes. ”You don’t even care?” your volume lowered for every word you said. You couldn’t even keep his eyes opened any more, not wanting to look either of them in the face.

”Listen baby—” Wooyoung tried, but you immediately shut him down. ”Let me go.”

The silence that followed gave you the answer you had been expecting. ”You don’t have to pretend anymore, baby,” Wooyoung said lowly. ”I know you’ve been into Mingi for a while now,” you opened your mouth in disbelief.

”Oh, come on,” Wooyoung rolled his eyes playfully. ”I’ve seen the way you look at him,” he inched closer. ”The way you react when he looks at you.”

”That’s not true—” you said, voice cracking as tears continued to flow down your face. Wooyoung’s fingers wiped them away as he hummed. ”Then why haven’t you told me about how he’s been acting?”

Your eyes shot open again. ”Why haven’t you told me about that night when he touched you like that? When he looked at you like that?” Wooyoung’s breath fanned your face, his lips almost touching yours as he spoke. As much as you tried to inch away from him, his strong hand holding your head in place made it impossible.

”It’s okay to be attracted to him,” he smiled. ”But pretending that you don’t, is not.”

You gasped when Wooyoung’s lips crashed against yours, his tongue exploring your mouth without your consent. When he finally disconnected from you, his face wore an unreadable expression.

”What’s the point of lying anymore, hm? Why don’t we all share our little secrets?” Mingi proposed, standing up, making Wooyoung turn his head before also raising to stand.

You watched as Wooyoung’s arms snaked around Mingi’s waist from behind him. ”You think it’s a coincidence that you had to move? Have you ever really thought about why your roommate started acting like that out of the blue?” Mingi asked. Wooyoung laughed into Mingi’s shoulder.

You took your eyes off of the two, slowly shaking your head as you started to realize what he was implying. ”That’s right,” Wooyoung sang. ”Think it was just a coincidence that you just had to move out so suddenly?” Mingi mocked. ”If it weren’t for Mingi and his incredible blackmailing abilities, you wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Wooyoung informed.

You felt yourself starting to hyperventilate, the information crashing down on you. ”No,” you sobbed.

”Oh yes,” Mingi said, crouching down to look you in the eyes. ”We both love you, and we would never let anything get in the way of that.”

”Let me go!” you thrashed around in the rope, feeling them burn and tighten against your skin, but you didn’t care. ”Please,” you begged, feeling Mingi come closer and closer to you until he was eventually on top of you on all fours.

”Now you’re all ours baby,” Mingi said with satisfaction, tilting his head to the side before leaning in and whispering. ”And we’ll never let you go.”

a/n: I’VE HEARD YOUR PRAYERS! And yes this was originally a Ten and Johnny x reader fic, but I hope you enjoy this instead!!! Tell me if you want a part two, and thank you all for your support!! I always appreciate your asks/comments!

masterlist

[m-ayo-o]

call me !

ft. 21+ bf Toge Inumaki

Thinking of 21+ Toge Inumaki who calls you up at work just to make you...

"come"

Not here, no no no no--

Your body struggles to resist his power, but after a few seconds you're squirming in your office chair.

Bringing your hand to cover your flushed face, you start telling him that it's not funny and that his lunch break check ups were really sweet..

Until this started.

It's not as if you two can talk much anyway, it's just nice to hear him on the other side of the phone; even his breath, or his laugh.

But when he gets into this mischievous mood you know he won't stop.

"Toge, I'm hanging up I have to--"

"stay on the phone"

"Ah- Toge--!!!" You scream, alerting your co-workers who start looking over their desks.

"Toge.." you shout whisper, cupping the phone to your face, "you can't keep me on the phone all day- I have to work!!"

You hear him giggling from the other side, making you wonder what the hell he's planning next.

"go to the bathroom"

For fuck's sake.

You groan and your body gets up by itself, taking you to a private bathroom stall where your arm rises and opens the door.

Having your body move like this was very unusual the first few times, but you're getting used to the feeling of being completely controlled, and realistically you do trust him.

"lock the door"

You can't help but think he's wasting his power, messing with you like this.

"touch yourself"

"Toge..."

Your face heats up immediately as your free hand starts roaming around your body, undoing your blouse, feeling under your bra.

It's like he's actually here, touching you himself.

"touch your clit"

"ah.. Toge.."

He wants you to feel it.

Making you come on command is fun and all, but it's over so quickly and he really loves to build you up.

He wishes he could tell you so many things.

But right now he would love to tell you what a good girl you are and that he's imagining how pretty you look.

And with your skirt pushed up and your blouse undone, looking all hot and bothered.. he isn't wrong.

"take a picture of yourself"

"Oh~ Toge.. really?" You're moaning and complaining about the matter but you've already opened the camera on your phone.

Your finger presses the screen and a series of cute, filthy pictures are taken. Between your hand down your panties, rubbing yourself, and your boobs spilling out of your top, you do make a very pretty picture.

He doesn't have to tell you the next part.

You send them to him immediately and hear him moan from the other side.

"Ohh.." fuck, he wishes he could thank you for those.

But instead he just pushes his hands down his shorts and starts stroking himself.

You can hear him starting to breathe heavier and you know exactly what he's doing.

"Toge.. I.. have to.. get back t--"

"Uuhh.." another moan comes through the phone and you know you're staying on the line till you're both done.

You know what he wants.

"Toge.. will you help me come?"

You can hear his breathy panting from the other side but not a word in a reply.

But he's focusing on your voice, the way you're whimpering his name, the shortness of your breath. The precum is just dripping out of him at the sight of your pictures and he needs to hear you a little more.

"Toge.. I wanna come.. now.." your finger is circling around your wet clit, just like you would do if you were alone. But you haven't been alone in so long, having such an attentive partner as Toge. He would never let you do this by yourself normally. And now you're here, locked in the bathroom at work, fingering yourself weakly, you're having trouble.

"Toge.. I need.. help.."

You admit, you sound pathetic.

But it's getting him harder.

"Ugh.." you hear him grunt and he's biting his lip on the other side, gripping his phone to his ear so he can hear your every breath.

He needs more, though.

"beg"

Your thighs start trembling now, your head rushes with the feeling of his power, once again, and your mouth opens automatically-

"Please.. please let me, let me come, Toge?" you plead down the phone, afraid that any second the bathroom door could open and one of your hapless colleagues could walk into you whimpering to yourself.

"Toge.. I'm begging, please, please tell me to come..."

The embarrassment overwhelms you with the words spilling out of your mouth, but he has got exactly what he wanted.

Oh, how he wishes he could stroke your hair and give you a kiss for begging him so nicely.

But instead he will reward you with pleasure.

"come"

"I-- ahh-- Toge.. th- thank you.."

Your relieved and happy moans take him over the edge, as he gets his own release, sighing down the phone as he finishes with a grin on his face.

A few seconds pass as you both catch your breath and regain your senses.

"Toge, you're a menace," you roll your eyes, buttoning up your shirt and pulling your skirt back into place.

You laugh together over the phone and you hang up, getting a text shortly after-

see you later for round two ^^

toge

[fear-is-truth]

PLAYER 124 / NAM-GYU as your boyfriend

warnings — kinda toxic. mention of drug use. a/n — who should i write for next…

남규

nam-gyu is the kind of partner who constantly needs to feel in control. he has a fragile ego, so he’d want to prove he’s the one in charge in the relationship, even if it means belittling you in arguments. he’s not the type to openly apologise; instead, he’d try to “make it up” by buying you gifts or doing something overly performative to smooth things over.

wouldn’t outright say “i love you” (saranghae; 사랑해) unless it’s in the middle of an argument or you’re threatening to leave. it wouldn’t be the “romantic” type of “i love you”; it’d be desperate, like, “fine, i love you, okay? is that what you want to hear?” then he’d get mad at himself for even saying it lol.

he’d have a complicated way of showing affection—instead of saying something sweet, he’d tell you, “that hoodie looks ugly as hell, but you somehow make it work.” or, “you’re lucky you’ve got me looking out for you.” it’s almost backhanded, like he’s scared of being too soft.

when it comes to physical touch, he’d only be comfortable initiating it when he’s in control. he’d sling an arm over your shoulder in public to make sure everyone knows you’re his, but in private, he’d sit stiffly until you coaxed him to relax. if you tried to cuddle him or play with his hair, he’d grumble, “stop being clingy,” but wouldn’t pull away—and if you did stop, he’d be like, “what, now you’re ignoring me?”

he’d NEVER let you see him cry. he’d bottle up everything until it spills over in a way that’s either pure rage or self-destructive. but maybe, just maybe, he’d have a mini breakdown and choke out something like, “i’m so fucking tired,” and let you hold him for a minute before he shuts it all down again and pretends it didn’t happen.

his jealousy would be off the charts. if he even suspects someone else is catching your attention, he’d immediately become aggressive and violent toward the perceived “threat.” then he’d accuse you of flirting or not appreciating him enough, even if you’ve done nothing wrong.

he’d have this really toxic habit of trying to “test” your loyalty. like, he’d say something purposely cruel just to see how much you’d put up with, and if you didn’t take the bait, he’d either feel validated or spiral into self-loathing because he’s scared you’ll leave. he’s the kind of guy who pushes people away but gets furious when they actually go.

he’s manipulative and would use your vulnerabilities against you during fights, twisting your words to make himself seem like the victim. he thrives on power dynamics, so if you’re someone with a soft heart, he’d use that to his advantage to get his way. he’s not above emotional blackmail.

obsesses over how others perceive him, so he’d put a lot of energy into making sure you’re impressed by him. even if he’s not doing well, he’d brag about some minor victory just to hear you say you’re proud of him. if you ever criticised him—like genuinely, not jokingly—it’d eat him alive. he’d act like it didn’t bother him, but he’d bring it up days later in a passive-aggressive comment like, “guess i’m just not good enough for you, huh?”

he strikes me as the guy who’d buy you expensive gifts, to prove he’s capable of taking care of you. he’d probably get something super flashy and impractical, and then get annoyed if you fawn over it immediately. “what, you don’t like it? i spent a lot of money on that shit.”

deep down, i feel like he’s terrified of being alone. he doesn’t know how to show it in a healthy way, so it comes out as possessiveness. like, he’d constantly ask where you’re going, who you’re with, and what you’re doing—not because he genuinely doesn’t trust you, but because he doesn’t trust himself to be worth staying for. if you ever left him on read, even for a little while, he’d overthink it to the point of spiraling, doing drugs etc.

has zero tolerance when it comes to anyone disrespecting you. if someone said something rude or crossed a line, he wouldn’t hesitate to fight them to defend your honour.

definitely not the type to plan cute dates or do anything traditionally romantic. instead, he’d drag you along to things he already likes—bars, shady clubs—and expect you to have fun. but sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, he might surprise you by doing something actually thoughtful, like showing up at your door with your favourite street snack or insisting on watching a movie he secretly hates just because he knows it makes you happy.

his love language would probably be acts of service, but only in an effed-up way where it feeds his own need for validation. he’d show his love by offering to “solve” your problems, but he’d expect endless praise for it. he’d remind you constantly of how lucky you are to have him.

feels completely out of his depth when you’re sad, but he can’t stand seeing you like that. instead of asking what’s wrong (because vulnerability makes him squirm), he’d focus on practical things. if you haven’t eaten, he’d come back with takeout—probably ordering your favourite without even asking because he’s memorised it by now. he wouldn’t outright express his concern, though. instead, he’d shove the food at you with a gruff, “here. eat this before you waste away or something.”

despite his flaws, when you’re sad or feeling low, there’s a small part of him that genuinely wants to help, even if he doesn’t know how. he’d sit awkwardly next to you, fidgeting with his rings, and mutter, “you’re stronger than this, you know. don’t let whatever’s bothering you win.” …. the closest thing to a pep talk he can manage.

nam-gyu is FAR from an ideal boyfriend—he’s moody, defensive, and often toxic in the way he handles his emotions. his need for control and his inability to communicate openly make him exhausting to deal with at times, especially when his insecurities get the better of him. but underneath all that mess, he knows he’s piece of work, and a part of him feels like you’ll wake up one day and realise you deserve better. this fear makes him hold on too tightly, sometimes suffocatingly so, but it also drives him to try—clumsily, imperfectly, but genuinely for you. he doesn’t know how to love in a healthy way, but he does love, and he loves deeply.

 fear-is-truth 2025 — all rights reserved. do not modify, repost, translate, or plagiarise my content.

[arabella0001]

my maladaptive dreaming kicking in

cn: just fluff, marriage&kids

you and satoru have only been apart for two days while he’s away on a mission with his students, but you already feel the weight of his absence. you reassured him multiple times that it was okay for him to go, even though he tends to overreact when it comes to how you’re feeling after delivering your second baby. and while you’re so grateful for all the love and support he’s given you, today was a rough day.

your two-month-old baby has been feeling worse than usual, crying inconsolably because of stomach pain. you’d hoped your seven-year-old daughter—who adores the baby—would be her usual patient self. but today, she threw a tantrum, refusing to listen to anything you said. all the while, the baby cried endlessly, and you didn’t even have a second to take care of yourself—your face was still unwashed, and the postnatal pain was nagging at you. your emotions felt completely out of control.

when satoru finally came home that evening, he called out softly, “sweetheart?” raising an eyebrow as he looked over at your daughter, his expression playful but concerned.

you didn’t greet him, didn’t kiss him, didn’t say a word. instead, you rushed to the bathroom, locking the door behind you and leaning against it as you tried to steady your breathing.

“baby, what’s going on?” he asked, his tone gentle.

“just... leave me alone for a second, satoru,” you managed to say through the door.

there was a brief pause before you heard his dramatic surrender, raising his hands “of course, my lovely wife. take all the time you need.”

he turned his attention to your daughter, crouching in front of her and noticing her pouty expression—one that reminded him so much of yours.

“hey, my little one,” he said softly, brushing her hair out of her face. “remember what i told you? let’s not make mommy sad, okay? when mommy’s sad, daddy gets sad too. she’s working so hard, so why don’t we work together to cheer her up, yeah?”

meanwhile, you sat on the cold bathroom floor, fighting back tears and guilt. you’d convinced yourself today would be easier—that your baby’s discomfort would ease up, that your daughter would be more patient, that everything would go smoothly. instead, nothing had gone right, and the pressure felt suffocating.

in the living room, satoru stayed busy. he played with your daughter, making her laugh again, or checked on the baby, gently rocking him in his tiny bed. but he couldn’t help glancing at the bathroom door, his usual playful expression fading into something more serious. he drummed his fingers against the couch, bit his nails as he stared beneath the rim of his glasses.

the second you stepped out of the bathroom, he was on his feet. his worried expression softened into a small smile as he walked up to you.

“my pretty wife,” he murmured, placing a hand on your back and pulling you close. “what happened? talk to me.”

“it’s okay, satoru. i’m sorry. let’s just—”

“no, no, no,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “we don’t do that here.” he led you to the bed, sitting down and pulling you onto his lap.

“talk to me,” he said again, his voice so gentle as you hesitated, looking anywhere but at him, but the moment your eyes met his, the tears started to fall, making his eyes widen a little.

“i’m so sorry, satoru,” you whispered, voice cracking. “i don’t want you to think i’m too dependent on you. i know how much i wanted you to keep working, and—”

“hey, stop,” he said softly, his hand cupping your cheek as his thumb brushed away your tears. “do you really think i’d ever feel that way about you having a bad day? i know how much you’re dealing with. and our feisty little girl?” he chuckled. “she’s not easy to handle, especially when you’re on your own. what can i say? she’s both of us combined.”

you let out a weak laugh, tears still slipping down your face.

“and listen to me,” he continued, his voice serious. “you’re not less of a mother if you call the babysitter to help out when i’m away, okay? you’re an amazing, strong, intelligent woman—and, might i add, incredibly beautiful,” he teased, a playful smirk tugging at his lips.

you rolled your eyes but couldn’t help smiling faintly.

“but i need you to take care of yourself too. your body’s still healing, and you need time to breathe, especially when i’m not here to remind you. promise me you’ll let someone help next time?”

you nodded slowly. “i know, but—”

“no ‘buts.’” he pressed a finger to your lips. “don’t talk about my wife like that. have a little faith in her, like i do, yeah?” he kissed your temple, the warmth of his touch calming you.

“okay,” you whispered, sniffing.

“good.” he stood suddenly, scooping you into his arms and starting to walk.

“now,” he said with a grin, “let’s relax for a bit. i’m running you a bath.”

you wrapped your arms around his neck, leaning into his chest with a content sigh. “i love you so much, you don’t even understand.”

he chuckled softly, pressing another kiss to your temple. “oh, sweetheart, believe me—I do. because i love you just as much.”

[lucygraysboy]

“who says that’s where they belong, hm? they’d argue they belong at your sides,” he playfully counters, thinking she really does, to a certain extent, remind him of his ma when she gets down to lecturing and scolding. it has him beaming at her, slipping his other foot into the boot. “maybe i’m just fishin’ for compliments, wantin’ to hear how smart i really am.” walking up to her, he extends his hand slowly in sundance’s direction, palm down, to let the horse get familiar with his scent and feel more comfortable with his presence. his other hand finds the small of lucy gray’s back, his voice soft but teasing, “who could possibly doubt the strength of these mighty arms? only a fool.” though, he has to refrain from rolling his eyes upon hearing shamus doesn’t hold grudges. yeah, right, and she glares at him every time he’s near because she adores him so much. “if you don’t want none of your friends fightin’, you gotta tell her to behave, tell her i’m not a bad man.” though, now that he’s thinking about it, maybe the goat’s been able to sense he’s an outlaw. maybe if he just gives her some time… “she better. i’ll put some effort into smoothin’ things over with her, but i ain’t makin’ no promises ‘cause she can be very stubborn.” just like lucy gray, but billy bites his tongue and just smiles to himself in amusement. pale blue eyes watching sundance’s body language, the ears remain relaxed and so he lays his hand on the horse’s neck, offering a gentle pat.

“ain’t nothin’ to it, doll. as easy as breathin’.” he makes sure the reins are secured properly, not causing the gentle creature any discomfort, before turning his attention to the songstress. “i’ve got you.” he rests his calloused hands on lucy gray’s hips, kissing the top of her head before lifting her effortlessly onto sundance’s back, as if she was weightless. part of him wishes they had brought a saddle with them as they provide more stability and control, but riding bareback, although more physically demanding and somewhat less comfortable, is better when there’s two riders. their journey will be fairly short, he reminds himself. looking up, his hand resting on her knee now, he sweetly asks, “you okay? everythin’ alright?” his other hand stroking sundance’s neck in silent praise. what good, patient horse. he swings up behind her, his strong arms circling around to hold the reins. “just lean into me, i won’t let you fall,” he whispers close to her ear, keeping his voice calm and hoping it’s as steadying as his hold. he guides her dainty hands to the reins, his large ones atop them, making sure she has the illusion of control. “so, lesson one, what we don’t do when we want the horse to start movin’. we don’t jerk on the reins, it can confuse ‘im, make ‘im stop or back up. and we don’t kick hard, we don’t want to startle ‘im and get thrown off, right? so, we just sit with our back straight but relaxed, we can lean a little bit forward but not too much, and we talk to ‘im and give a gentle squeeze with our legs. like this. vamos, sundance. camina.” feeling the cue, sundance begins to walk forward, somewhat lazily but that’s better, billy thinks. “look at you, lucy gray, you’re doin’ so good.”

"by keepin' your fingers over there where they belong." lucy gray playfully scolds like a mother. "you know good as i do, that ain't the truth. don't make a mine out of a molehill." might as well say she's still scolding him like a mother to drop the silly pouting. "you're a very smart fellow and i'd never call you a rotten word like that, like i said." reminding him once again, but starting to become confused..is he really meanin' all that? or playin' with her? brows gently furrow momentarily until she gets it... he is playin' with her. "alright, you better be." smiling in amusement, has to admit to it being funny at least. "well, you know a thing or two about tricks too." how impressive, he's smart and knows how to pull a few tricks of his own... makes her very impressed. "they ARE and none of you better be doubtin' it." hand gently smacks his hand squeezing her big bicep. "shamus don't hold no grudges." that can't be the truth, when she's definitely a stubborn little goat. "and i'm not takin' up for her, i'm tryin' to be optimistic cause i don't want either of my friends fightin'." him and shamus, which causes her to giggle talking about shamus like she's a person too. "oh, that'd be a sweet idea of you to do. shamus will have to forgive if you bring her dandelions." one of her favorite snacks. watching him come over, looking to him then towards sundance, a smile resting on her lips at how sweet he sounds talking to her horse. "i guess i'll have to be. hm? i got no choice but get up on here." smiling shyly, despite it definitely making her a little nervous.

[hyunjins-orange-slice-too]

a kiss between clothes

pairing: daddy!chan x princess reader

genre: fluff?

warnings: daddy / princess dynamics, soo many kisses, pet names, reader is called baby- princess- little one, reader is pretty “baby” in this one. this is your warning! if you don’t like this content, if you don’t like reader being babied, or acting like a baby, then pls just skip! i don’t need your negativity.

an: tomorrow is my birthday and ive had this idea in my drafts for a while. i’m having some pretty big feelings when it comes to my birthday this year, and i’m scared to post this but.. let’s be brave.

masterlist

“i know baby..” he frowned. “i don’t want to go but i have to. this is a really important schedule and i can’t miss it.”

you sat on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, bottom lip jutting out, staring at the floor.

“are you mad at daddy?” he asked, opening the closet door. he had just finished with his shower. he was wrapped in a towel, his hair freshly washed and dried, but he left it natural, which you liked.

“your hair is fluffy.” you giggled. the tips of his ears went hot.

“uh.. yeah.” he smiled, running his fingers through his curls. “they’re gonna do stuff to it at the shoot anyways.”

he grabbed a hanger and pulled it out, holding it up for your approval. it was a black hoodie with a teddy bear on the front. you smiled and nodded. “i like that one.”

he walked over and laid the hoodie on the bed next to you. “i thought you might.” he smiled, before walking back to the closet to grab some pants. some plain black jeans would do, though you knew he preferred sweats. he grabbed a black t shirt, some boxers, and some socks from one of his drawers and brought everything over to the bed, tossing it down next to you.

“you never answered my question.” he said, reaching for the boxers.

you still had your arms crossed, still pouting. you looked up at him, trying your hardest to put on your best angry face. but he just thought you were cute.

“are you mad at daddy?” he dropped his towel around his ankles. “for leaving you alone today?” he gracefully stepped into his boxers and pulled them up, but your face was already flushed. he leaned down, chuckling, and pressed a gentle kiss to your lips.

“it’s just..” you started, trying to find the words. “today is special..” you frowned again, feeling truly sad that he was leaving you today. but you understood why. he had important schedules. the group was important. you never wanted to stand in the way of that.

he grabbed his jeans, stepping into them and pulling them up, buttoning them and securing the zipper. “i know baby..” he sounded sad. “i wish it was on any other day. but i have no control over it.” he leaned down again, placing another gentle kiss on your pouty lips. you knew what he was doing. he always did this when you were upset about him leaving. he would shower you with love, kissing you between each piece of clothing until he was fully dressed. he really hated leaving you alone.

“but it shouldn’t take all day.” he said, reaching for his shirt. “daddy will only be gone for a few hours.”

you looked at him, you knew he was lying.

he chuckled. “okay.. maybe like 5 or 6 hours.”

you made a noise of disappointment, going back to pouting.

“i know it’s your special day, princess. today is all about you and im sorry i have to leave.” you watched his muscles flex as he pulled his shirt over his head.

he looked down at you, smiling a sad smile. “you’re so pretty baby.” he brought his plush lips to yours. “daddy’s sorry.” he mumbled against them.

“i’m not mad..” you said, finally answering his question. “i know it’s important that you go. i’m just.. sad i guess.”

he pulled the teddy bear hoodie over his head, straightening it at his hips. “my poor baby..” he cooed, crouching down in front of you. he cupped your face in his palms. “i promise, when i get home, we will celebrate your birthday. okay, little one?” he quickly kissed your lips. “we’ll cuddle..” he quickly kissed your left cheek. “we’ll watch a movie..” he kissed your right cheek. “i was thinking.. despicable me. but we can watch whatever you want, princess.” he kissed the tip of your nose.

“can we watch Howl’s?” you asked, hopeful.

“of course we can.” he squished your cheeks in his hands, causing your face to scrunch up. “i’ll even do my Calcifer impression.” you giggled, grabbing at his hands to pull them away from your face.

he smiled up at you from his place on the floor, his dimple poking out, his eyes practically sparkling. “does that sound okay, princess?” he gently rubbed his thumb across your knee.

you nodded. “yeah. that sounds good, daddy.”

“thank you, baby.” he kissed your lips again. “daddy will make it up to you, i promise.” and with one more kiss to you lips, he stood.

he grabbed his socks and his favorite black beanie and headed for the door. you padded behind him in your slippered feet. he pulled his socks and shoes on and then reached for the door handle.

“i love you, baby.” he said. “i’ll be home before you know it, okay?”

you nodded, sadly. and he opened the door and then he was gone.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

♡ pls reblog if you liked it! it truly helps a lot and makes me smile :) ♡

©hyunjins-orange-slice-too i do not give permission for this work or any of my work to be translated, copied, or reposted.

[wordsmeetwbb]

One shot/drabble of p being obsessed with azzi's body (is p a boob or ass girl..)

Inspired by this post of p just straight up looking 😩

https://www.tumblr.com/paigebucketss/773164320108445696/lmaooo-paige-been-on-that?source=share

Stare

Word count: 770

Content: Fluff, kind of suggestive

Pairing: Pazzi

Notes: Just a short little something for y'all today :)

________

Paige couldn’t stop staring at Azzi’s ass, and everyone except for the woman in question had noticed. KK had already hit Paige twice when she saw her eyes wandering in not-so-family-friendly directions.

“Dude, please get a grip. I don’t need to see you look at my mom like that,” KK complained as she forcefully turned Paige away from Azzi.

“What’s your problem? I’m not allowed to look at my girlfriend?” Paige protested. KK scoffed.

“You call that ‘looking’? I call that eye-fucking. control yourself and have some respect for your children.” Paige could feel her cheeks warm. She pushed KK away. Even as she did, her eyes slid back to Azzi. They first dragged over her face, skin glowing as always, and a soft smile settled on her full lips. Then her eyes wandered right back down to her ass.

Azzi was wearing simple black leggings today, which was pretty typical, but she had paired them with a cropped shirt so no curve of her body was hidden from view. The slight arch of her back, the curve of her hips, the swell of her ass in those tight black pants… Paige swallowed. She was so fucked.

Azzi glanced over at Paige from where she was talking to Carol in the kitchen. Paige wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the shift of her body that drew her eyes back up to her girlfriend’s face. Azzi raised her eyebrows as if to ask “What?” Paige smirked back at her. Azzi’s face scrunched in confusion, eyes flicking over to look at KK for answers.

“Girl, don’t look at me! Ask Paigey why she can’t stop staring at you!” KK exclaimed. This drew the attention of their other teammates. Azzi’s eyebrows arched once again and Paige wanted to bury her face in her hands just to avoid the embarrassment. She didn’t, though, as much as it would have been nice to not have all of her teammates see the blush on her face.

“What is everybody’s problem with me appreciating how good my girl looks, huh?” Paige asked defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. Azzi’s mouth broke into a grin.

“Because none of us want to see that! Y’all need to be gross in private!” KK said petulantly.

“Yeah, Paige, the way you look at her is really not appropriate for us all to see,” Aubrey agreed. Paige’s eyes darted around at the rest of her team, feeling absolutely betrayed.

“Okay, but she looks good!” Paige argued.

“I don’t have a problem with you looking at me,” Azzi supplied helpfully.

“Thank you!” Paige exclaimed, completely exasperated.

“None of us care what you think, Azzi,” Ice cut in. Paige groaned.

“My own children are betraying me,” she whined. Her eyes flicked up to Azzi and found that soft smile back on her lips. Paige pushed herself off the couch and marched over to Azzi, grabbing her hand and leading her to the door of the apartment.

“If y’all are just gonna bully us, we’re leaving,” she announced, pulling the door open and turning in the direction of Azzi’s apartment.

“We’re just bullying you, not Azzi!” Jana called after them as the door shut. Paige’s grip tightened on Azzi’s hand.

“They’re right,” Azzi said softly as Paige pushed the door to the apartment open.

“So what? I’m allowed to look at my girl, especially when you look as good as you do today!” Paige defended. Azzi tugged her hands free from Paige’s and brought them up to cup her face. The warmth of her skin immediately calmed Paige.

“I know, honey, but the girls don’t wanna see you stare at my ass,” Azzi soothed, fingers brushing over Paige’s jawline.

“But you have such a nice ass,” Paige whined, hands drifting down Azzi’s back to settle right on the curve of her hips, squeezing the flesh slightly. Azzi let out a soft breath.

“How about this- we’re gonna go lay on the couch and watch a movie, and you can touch my ass the whole time, and then you’re gonna agree to keep your staring to private occasions only, okay?” Azzi bargained, pushing her hips further into Paige’s grip. Paige let her hands drift a little bit lower, trying to get as much of the supple flesh in her palms as she could.

“Okay,” she mumbled, thoroughly distracted. Azzi smiled.

“Does that sound like a deal to you?” She asked. Paige’s brain was already so far out of her body from the feel of Azzi’s body in her hands that she just let her head drop to Azzi’s neck.

“Mhmm. Yeah, deal.”

[lolana101]

can you do a whiny sub ekko getting head from a gn reader? :3

WET KISSES

— feat. ekko (arcane league of legends)

— cw: 18+, saliva, whining, begging, panting, edging

“..don’t tease.”

ekko’s voice is quite, pliant as his eyes adjust in the dark. his breath is shaky, he can feel your lips pressing soft kisses against the tent beneath his boxers.

his breath hitches feeling your lips all over, pressing soft kisses against his achy length, especially at his tip through the growing slickness of his arousal. the fabric grows darker as his pleasure seeps through the fabric.

your fingers slip under the elastic band, tugging down the thin, comfortable, fabric. it pools around his ankles on the floor. you can hear him let out a audible sigh, the bed creaking as he leans back a little.

you giggle slightly, watching his member twitch and leak with his arousal. slowly you lean in slowly, nipping at the base of his heat before dragging your tongue alone the pulsing vain of his shaft. stopping at the plush mushroom bud of his tip

only taking in the head, your plush lips suck as your tongue licks and prods around him.

“…shit.”

he wisps, her thighs already trembling as he reaches to move some hair out your face. he keeps his hand on your hair, softly bunching the strands up a little before letting go. he really wants to fuck your mouth, but the way your eyes fluttered towards him tells him you want to lead this time.

slowly, painstakingly, your mouth swallows his achy length. your breath is shaky, gagging a little as you slowly rise back up and take him again. his hands are supporting his weight as he leans back watching you, his hips innocently rutting up once or twice to meet the roof of your mouth yet your hand push’s him back down.

ekko’s mouth is in a soft O, his eyes hooded as the soft brown iris watch your head bob up and down on his throbbing length. pulling away you kiss down at the base and taking his balls in the wet, enclosed space of your lips.

your fingers are massaging his head, swiping up the clear sticky pre-cum to massage it back on his tip and base, slowly fucking him with your palm.

his moans are so sweet, sugary, a wet pop echoing through the air as you release him to focus back on where he wanted you the most.

“…fuck- please.. i let me finish in your mouth.”

you simply grin up at him, your mouth taking him about halfway, your hand massaging his balls as he raises his left hand to rest it on your head, not controlling you just.. leaving the weight there.

he’s close, the hand supporting his weight tightening on the sheets, the fabric bunching under his fingers as he hisses.

your eyes are watering, your lashes wet as he slids easily down your throat, every gag has him leaking a soft mewl from his lips. spit dribbling down your chin and onto his stomach.

it doesn’t take long for him to cum, the hand once resting on your head pushing you further down as you can feel his hot release periodically shooting down your throat.

it’s quick, sweet, pulling you up to place a sugary slow kiss on your wet swollen lips. his hand warm and cradling your cheek. he can taste himself still on your tongue, and he can feel your body heat.

heyy so i kinda forgot abt this 😇 didn’t expect to become a ekko writer but you ask and i shall receive… slowly

thanks for reading and so sorry for the people waiting as i can see the requests

tag list: @alonia-olivia @shiroisotto64 @sunny023idk @bbybubbles @throwmeawayyyyy @keeiiiozz @willowcxmilee @redvleanli @st-444-rgirl @sonaya101 @fullcreatorbeard @moonymuses @archdonaldson @jaymiwrld @mitsuki3123 @hobieeeloverrr @napbatata @brova @bellybuttonbooks @girln1ghtm4re @zmbiecvntlala @appalachianwitchneva @luvcexe @gremlinartstudio @maliyuhh @afrospider @anartssw @moonlight-dreamer04

[mayapapaya33]

Well, I haven't read the origins comic yet, so I'll take your word for that. Some of the comic stuff is a bit wibbly on canon so I'm not sure if I do take it as campaign canon really, but I'll just go with it for the purposes of this conversation. (The fact that she never once mentions being run out of town by Yeza in the campaign makes that a little weird but sure ok. It also feels a little retconny to brush over her major fear that her family would reject her even if they DID know it was her under the curse, which was what was implied to be a big reason she stayed away in the campaign, in favor of it being because they DID chase her away based purely on what she looked like before she could say anything. It feels...strange. I'm not sure how I feel about it, I'll have to think about it. It just feels like after the fact justification of her staying away from them to me, but oh well. LET WOMEN BE FLAWED 2025! lol I am eventually going to get my hands on all of the origins comics, I just haven't done so yet.)

My point wasn't really a moral argument about Veth and Lilliana having done equally bad things in the world, obviously that's not true. I could have said It better, but I guess I just thought that was obvious and I was tired? lol, silly me. So to make it clearer: Veth is a hero who helped save the world, and Liliana fell in with a cult and did terrible things under the woefully misguided belief she was doing the right thing. I'm more saying I could see Veth turning out like Liliana if things went differently and their initial act of abandonment is fundamentally similar. Also, it's not just the hag thing btw, that was just the most obvious and memorable example I could reference and know everyone would know what I was talking about without writing a 5 page essay and hunting down obscure time stamps lol.

Another example was her stance in that discussion about justice and vengeance from ep 98 (26:26) with Caduceus. Cad basically said: Hey, going after criminals in the Empire sounds great if you can be smart about it, but if you're just doing it to make yourself feel better, I don't really see the point of that, so maybe don't because you'll probably restart the war if you aren't extremely careful. And Veth's response was very understandable from her characters pov, but makes me think that, yeah, in the right circumstances, she'll do what she wants, when she wants, and damn the consequences and it won't be about justice, it'll be about making herself feel good and she'll find the internal justification she needs to. "You can stand by -You can just watch bad people get away with it?" If the price of stopping one bad person is reigniting a WAR, um yeah, I can Veth. He's basically saying, don't cause more problems than you are going to fix by your actions, and interrogate your motivations and she wasn't having it. I think he might have gotten through to her in the end but I'm not sure because they "dissolved" using mouth sounds and hand waving into the next scene of Jester finding Marion.

There are many things that make me think this about her. Anger and desperation can cause people to make poor decisions. (I think you might have misconstrued the one bit where I was debating whether letting your family think you were dead and staying gone or just saying goodbye and abandoning them was actually worse or not, I personally vote dead being worse but I'm genuinely not sure, like I said. So, in that one aspect I think Veth's worse, but not for everything lol. The misguided hope left behind from what Liliana did might be worse.)

My point was that they both abandoned their families in order to solve a problem. Yes, Liliana left "voluntarily" right from the start in the sense that she wasn't kidnapped by goblins and transformed against her will, her "against her will change" was foisted upon her by a God Eater trapped in moon jail instead. She was essentially kidnapped by her own powers, she couldn't control them and needed to figure out what they were and how to deal with them. So yes, it was a choice for her to leave as you so aptly pointed out, just not quite as voluntary a choice as people keep presenting it as. I suppose it's more accurate for me to say it was Liliana's choice to leave, and Veth's choice to STAY gone (yes, even with the addition of the comic lore).

Don't you remember early campaign Imogen constantly having to be careful and worried about her telepathy? How it hurt her to be in large crowds? How her town DID treat her like garbage, like a pariah, "like an outright monster" even. It's not like Liliana left for fun. She was scared she was going to hurt someone if she didn't learn how to control herself, and worried that Imogen would develop those powers too. (That was her initial reasoning, and then things devolved of course). You said it yourself; The Grim Verity was taking too long, and she wanted to go home so she fell in with Ludinus and co because he promised answers and a solution.

Veth's initial separation from her family OBVIOUSLY wasn't her fault, and apparently in the comics she tried to go home and was run off for looking like a goblin. Well, that truly sucks for Comic Book Veth and she has my sympathy. There are still a variety of things she could have done, including once she befriended Caleb enough where she trusted him, have him go to Yeza in person and explain the curse and everything while she hid at the outskirts of town. She could have told Caleb a bunch of things only Veth would know to help convince Yeza, Etc.

At a certain point, Veth's Choice to stay away from her family was just as voluntary as Liliana's. She could have tried (or tried again if comics are canon) at any time, and she didn't. The problem wasn't solved so they "couldn't" go home and then events spiraled. Again, they aren't the same, I just think their situations parallel each other interestingly. Becoming "not a goblin" was not the only way for Veth to reunite with her family. It's perfectly understandable that she thought that it was considering all of her trauma and her shame and her fear, but that doesn't make it true. It was still an active choice that she made to not try to reunite with her family until she looked "normal" again, even once her circumstances had changed and she could have had help. She didn't try because she didn't want her family seeing her like that and because she was scared of what they would think. (Again, very understandable, but still a choice). What if Caleb couldn't find a way to change her back into a halfling? Would she never have gone home, continuing to look for a solution?

Liliana "couldn't" go home until she understood and could control her powers, a reasonable yet tragic decision, which then spiraled into it being that she "couldn't" go home until she helped "save" the world from the tyranny of the Gods, etc. Somewhat less reasonable I think you'll agree. How long does Veth's decision to not try (or not try again) to reunite with her family until she's no longer a goblin remain reasonable? One year? Five years? Ten years? It was a combination of luck and hard work that got her a new body as relatively fast as she did. Caleb and Essek meeting and becoming magic bffs might never have happened without Caleb's "I'm never going back to jail" moment in the Bright Queen's throne room for example lol.

More than all of that though, I'm not a huge fan of Veth's parenting while she IS present in Luc's life but seeing as Liliana hasn't really been present in Imogen's life for more than like a month, that's about where any parallels or comparisons stop lmfao. A lot of Veth's bad parenting once she's back in Luc's life is also due to the fact that Sam Riegel is a comedian first and an actor second so if he sees an opportunity to be funny, he'll pounce. Which unfortunately for poor Veth, does mean that if you look at her with a sober eye she comes across as a dreadful parent. Hilarious of course, but I did end up feeling bad for Yeza whenever I saw him futilely trying to be responsible whenever the M9 came trampling through their lives being bad influences. Honestly, she wonders why teenage Luc is like that! I learned it from watching you mom!

If the Good Moms of Critical Role ever learn about the shit Liliana's pulled it's on sight 😤