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celestie0 · 3 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch3. domestic encounters

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, n have been taking care of your sick mom ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, mild love triangle(s), gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 3/x (probably 10)

ᰔ word count. 14.1k (i like this number)

a/n. hello hellooo my ihm bb's :'') so good to see you all again. so this is actually the first half of an original 26k word chapter 3 that i had written lmfaooo i genuinely entertained the idea of posting a 26k word chapter but like gat damn. idk i thought it would be too much. so there is this first part which is 14k and then the next chapter will be 12k! anywho, this chapter was fun to write, there's still a lot of set-up tho hahah. ihm has been really fun to write for me cuz it's kinda chaotic but chill at the same time lol :0 i really hope you enjoy!! see ya at the bottom!!

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 (pending)

“Soooo…..ready to consummate the marriage?”

You turn fast on your heel, so fast that Gojo almost trips over his own Welcome mat at his doorstep in an attempt to not accidentally topple over you, which you’re sure by the sheer size he has on you would’ve killed you or at the very least paralyzed you from the neck down, so it’s a good thing his hands fly out of his pockets then brace himself on the wood paneling above the door.

“Wha–” you stutter, “what?!”

He stands up straight before leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms, the sleeve fabric of his suit stretching across thick muscle but you refuse to give him the satisfaction of looking. “The marriage technically isn’t valid unless we consummate it.”

You roll your eyes and dig your finger into your heel to take it off and then do the same with your other, relishing in the freedom of your feet from the shackles of constrictive feminine clothing articles, although you’re a solid two and a half inches shorter again. “I would rather make love to one of those inflatable balloon salesmen at car dealerships that flail and flap around in the wind than let you touch me for the purpose of sex.”

“Fuck that’s harsh,” he laughs, like he’s genuinely impressed by the comeback this time, “so a dead bedroom then, huh?”

“Can’t be dead if it was never alive in the first place,” you mumble as you tread into his house and toss the documents envelope you had been holding onto the coffee table. You hear Gojo make his way across the hardwood floor behind you paired with the metal clanking of keys as he throws them into the paper mache bowl on the foyer table.

“By the way,” you hear him say, and you turn your torso slightly to side eye him only to see that he’s casually taking his suit jacket off with a flip of it backwards, “who was that guy in the courtroom that was glaring daggers into my soul?”

Your eyes widen briefly. And then you sigh. “My ex.”

He pulls the jacket off behind him by the sleeves and tosses it onto the loveseat. “Huhhh. You used to date a cop? You don’t seem like the type.”

“What?” you say as you face him fully. He’s loosening his tie now with a tug. “Why not?”

“You’re kinda…delinquent. Figured a cop would like a more ‘docile’ woman,” he says.

“You sound creepy as fuck,” you say, grimacing a little as you narrow your eyes at him.

He sighs before tossing his tie off to the side as well. “I don’t agree with it. I’m just getting into their headspace. Everyone knows how cops are. Y’know, controlling.”

“Choso is different,” you immediately spat back at him, before your head can even run the words through a filter, and you realize it came off as defensive. Your cheeks warm, because now it looks like you’re not over your ex. And you want to be. Why were you still protecting Choso’s dignity?

Gojo blinks at you, a little surprised before he swallows slowly and he holds his hands up in front of him in surrender. “Alright. I believe you.”

You turn away from him and worry your bottom lip between your teeth, feeling awkward before you scratch your elbow and then turn back to face him again. “Well. If you run into him around town,” you say, “can you try to make him feel emasculated and jealous? He did me dirty.”

Gojo runs a hand through his hair. “Uhhh. How?”

“I dunno,” you shrug, “brag about how great our sex life is or something.”

“But we have a sexless marriage.”

“Oh, yes, speaking of this sexless marriage,” you start, jutting your hip out to the side as you cross your arms sternly, “there are some ground rules that need to be set between you and I.” You point between the two of you.

“Ground rules?” he mimics after you as he undoes the top couple buttons of his white dress shirt, “like what?”

You hold a finger up. “Like no touching.” You hold another finger up. “Obviously, no sex.” You hold another finger up. “No sneaking into my room in the middle of the night.” You hold another finger up. “No peeping in on me while I’m showering.” You hold another finger up. “No ogling me around the hou–”

“These rules sound incredibly one-sided,” he snorts.

“Yeah, well, don’t break them, you creep.”

“And if I catch you ogling me around the house?” he asks.

You roll your eyes. “Such a thing will not happen.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” he sarcastically affirms, and he approaches you which makes you flinch a little but you realize he’s just walking past you towards the living room.

“Y–” you stutter, “you heard me, right? Once I start living here, you have to adhere to these rules.”

He waves his hand in the air dismissively with his back facing you. “Yes ma’am.”

Your eye twitches slightly, and you storm towards him only to watch him slump down onto his couch, knees spread wide as he leans forward with a small grunt to grab the remote off the coffee table before settling back again. He lays an arm up and stretched across the backrest of the couch before he turns the TV on and scrolls through news channels.

You make your way in front of him, obstructing the view of the TV, and he leans off to the side to try to catch a glimpse at the screen but you reposition your body so that he still can’t see it. His eyes slowly move to you and he has an irritated look on his face.

“I’m tryna watch CNN,” he says.

“Punishment,” you say, “for breaking any of these rules will be severe.”

He raises an eyebrow, interested all of a sudden as he tosses the remote back onto the coffee table and leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Oh? What’s the punishment?”

Honestly, you don’t know. You just want to threaten him to keep him in line. Forget the fact that he’s the one doing you the favor here with this marital arrangement, and yet you’re threatening him. But it has to be done. “You don’t want to find out,” you say, trying to sound as eerie as possible.

“Not knowing what it is makes me want to find out,” he tells you, his knee swaying side to side like a dog wagging its tail.

You briefly glance down, and for fucks sake why is all of his clothing so perfectly fit and stretched taut whenever he does anything? You try not to eye the shape of his thighs as the black fabric stretches while he’s seated.

You clench your fists at your side, worry your bottom lip under your front teeth, furrow your brow and blink rapidly from not being able to come up with something to say, and Gojo seems to read this as worry before he laughs a little.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not gonna break any of your silly rules, despite how tempting it might sound to me.”

“I don’t believe you,” you mutter as you walk around the couch towards the kitchen, feeling thirsty all of a sudden.

“Seriously. I won’t. You’re not my type,” he says from behind you on the couch, with a tone that tells you he’s trying to sound reassuring but it really just pisses you off even more, “I don’t really go after women with daddy issues.”

“Wha–” you gasp, offended, and you spin on your heel to glare at the back of his head. “Who the fuck said I have daddy issues?!?!”

“No one has to say it, I can feel it,” he says as he continues to clicks through channels.

You pick an avocado up out of the pile of fruits from the bowl at the center of the island, holding it over your shoulder to charge up as much kinetic energy as possible so you can chuck it at him hard enough to knock him unconscious, and it’s like he senses the malice radiating off of your body because he looks over his shoulder at you.

“What’s that in your hand?” he asks.

“A grenade,” you say, “that I’m gonna launch at you.”

“Oh, thank god,” he exhales in relief, “I almost thought it was an avocado for a second.”

You deadpan stare at him. “I don't find you funny.”

“I think I’m pretty funny,” he says mindlessly, like he’s just arguing with you for the sake of arguing.

“No. I have never once laughed at a single thing you’ve ever said. Only grimaced with disgust,” you say.

He sighs. “Look at us. We’ve barely been married for an hour and we’re already fighting.”

You abandon your empty glass on the counter, shuffling around the corner towards the front entrance of the house because you can feel the headache from your pure annoyance starting to creep up on you. You sense Gojo’s eyes on you from the couch as you shove your feet back into the uncomfortableness of your heels.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Back to my house,” you grumble, wobbling a little when you take a step towards the door and place your hand on the handle.

“When are you gonna move in?” he asks suddenly.

You freeze in your tracks at his question. You’ve never heard the question before, because you’ve never had the chance to live anywhere that wasn’t your childhood home next door. So the question is jarring at best, and threatens to make you cry a little at worst.

“Once I get my mom into hospice,” you say, quiet enough to where it’s possible he might not have even been able to hear it over the sound of presidential election updates. And then you make your way out of his house.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

It’s a beautiful sunny spring morning, clouds trailing by across the sky offering momentary relief from the heat reaching the pavement, and you’ve got a good marching band walk going on as you stroll down the sidewalk of your neighborhood for your morning walk. Well, that phrase implies that you go on morning walks often. You really don’t, you very rarely have the time or energy. But today you decided it was time to turn your life around (your running shoes will see you same time next month).

You hear some commotion off at the right side of the street, and when you lift your head up a little to clear the obstructed view of your sun visor, you see a couple of cops standing on a lawn, chatting up your elderly women neighbors with their laughter bolstering in the air. One of the cops turns around, making eye contact with you, and— of fucking course, it’s Choso.

“Oh, fuck me,” you mutter under your breath and try to walk faster down the sidewalk in Korean ahjumma style.

“Hey! y/n! Wait!” you hear him call out and he jogs across the street to catch up with you.

You continue to military march down pavement. “What do you want, Choso? Why are you stalking me?”

He runs up in front of you to stop you in your tracks. You frown at him and cross your arms across your chest. “I’m not stalking you,” he says, “I got a call about a stray dog out here.”

“Oh. Wonderful. So glad to know our officers are keeping us safe from cute street dogs,” you say, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“The dog had rabies. It bit an old man. Had to put it down,” he deadpans.

“O-Oh,” you stutter, cheeks flushing, “well, then, leave? Your job here is done.”

“I just—” he starts, “I want to—” He sighs, looking flustered like he’s trying to gain some sort of courage. And you’re almost entirely certain he didn’t need to garner this much courage to face a rabid dog than he seems to be needing for you. “I, uh, I want to meet your husband.”

“W-What??” you exasperate.

“To say congrats,” he says, but through gritted teeth.

You roll your eyes. “Yeah fucking right. You just wanna abuse your po-po powers to arrest him then throw him into jail then kill him to leave me widowed so that I’ll get back together with you and make a fool out of myself all over again.”

“Your capacity for catastrophization never fails to amaze me,” he says.

You’re pretty sure your therapist said something similar to you last week, too.

“Ahhh!! y/n!!” you hear a familiar feminine voice call from down the street, and both you and Choso turn your heads toward the source of the sound.

Amaya, your neighbor, who is roughly thirty-weeks pregnant at the moment and therefore waddling down the street to get to you, is waving her arms in the air as her husband as well as another one of your neighbors follows after her. She finally reaches you and takes your hands into hers. “I haven’t seen you in forever!! How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s doing well…just getting by,” you say awkwardly, as Choso��s cop partner also approaches this little group that’s forming here, along with the elderly neighbors that he had been talking to.

“Doctors taking good care of her?” Amaya’s husband, Ren, asks you with a twisted expression on his face and arms tightly crossed over his chest like he was gonna beat the doctors up if they weren’t.

“Yes…” you say, “although, I think I’ll be transferring her care to Kaiser.” Oh. Fuck. You should’ve kept that to yourself. Big mouth.

You can feel Choso’s eyes on you as he watches this interaction between you and your neighbors.

“Oh! That’s interesting,” Amaya says, and as her hands soothe over yours, she feels the bump of the ring on your left hand. She glances down. “H-Huh??? Is this a wedding ring?!”

Choso crosses his arms and tucks his hands under his armpits in your periphery.

“Y…yeeeeesss…” you say awkwardly.

“You’ve finally married?” your elderly neighbors chirp out at the same time.

You shoot them a dirty look over the word finally. “Yes.” Please drop the subject, please drop the subject.

But Amaya has always been the gossipy nosy neighbor. “To who??”

Choso snaps his face to you, intently studying your body language. You take a deep breath.

“I-I didn’t tell you?? I married Satoru!!” you chirp, as if it was a normal thing.

“Ehhh?!” you hear multiple of your neighbors’ voices call out.

“You married Satoru??? But you hate him!!” Amaya blurts out, her voice loud and echoing down the street of the neighborhood.

“I—” you stammer, ducking your head a little to hide behind your visor, “um, oh, y’know…those feelings just…snuck up on me!”

“Awwww good for youuu,” Amaya coos, and one of your elderly neighbors comes up to you with a cheeky smile to then rubs your arm approvingly, “he’s sooooo handsome, you’re so lucky!!”

Ren lets out a hmph over his wife’s flattery of another man, and you roll your eyes, wanting to put Gojo in his place even in the face of just your neighbors, but then you remember that a loving wife wouldn’t say something like his personality makes him an ugly rat.

“But when did this happen?” Choso’s partner speaks up, his voice accusatory. Choso hits his partner’s chest vest with the back of his hand, as if to say cut it out.

You feel pissed off at that.

“Oh yeahhh, you and Choso only recently broke up!” Amaya says, pointing between the two of you.

You purse your lips together from the anxiety of this entire conversation. “Three weeks ago. Choso and I broke up three weeks ago,” you say, not even sure why you’re disclosing your personal matters to this group of congregated people, but the peer pressure was damning, and you’re pretty sure silence on this subject in front of your neighbors would only make Choso more suspicious, “and—” you had to get your story straight, “well…within those three weeks, Satoru and I just…got to know each other.”

“Eh?” Ren speaks up. “But he was out of town for two weeks. He only came back a week and a half ago.”

You blink at him.

“Ohhh yes, yes, that’s right, honey,” Amaya agrees with a slow nod in remembrance as she pats her husband's chest, “those chocolates he brought us were from London, right?”

Choso tilts his head at you, giving you a glare with the intent of having you crack under this pressure, because you’ve just been caught in a cold hard lie. More importantly, how the fuck did you not notice that Satoru had been gone for TWO WEEKS??? He was your next door neighbor. You’ve seriously been so damn out of it these days. Also, why the fuck didn’t he get you chocolates from London?!?!?! The fucking snake.

“A marriage within three weeks is a little odd, no?” Choso’s partner speaks up, but with less of a casual conversation tone and more of a I sense something illegal going on here tone.

“Alright, alright, alright,” Choso sighs, taking a step to stand in front of you. “Let’s all get on with our days. She doesn’t have to share any information she doesn’t want to.”

You blink in surprise at Choso’s words, of which all your neighbors acknowledge albeit slightly reluctantly as they wave goodbye to you and start dispersing back to their homes. Choso’s partner gets some notice through his radio, and he pulls it from the velcro of his chest to speak into it before heading back to their cop car with a slight jog. Once everyone is gone and it’s just you and Choso again, he turns around to face you. His arms are still crossed at his chest while he wears a very skeptical and almost reprimanding look on his face.

“What are you up to, y/n?” he immediately asks you, and you feel goosebumps tickle your skin even in the heat. “I really hope it’s not something fishy. Or illegal.”

You swallow hard. You know the U.S. federal codes in the law for marital & insurance fraud like the back of your hand, since you read through them hundreds of times before deciding if your arrangement with Gojo would be worth it. 8 U.S.C. 1033 and 18 U.S.C. 371 provide for a penalty of up to ten years in prison for insurance fraud. And under that statute, you can also be fined up to $250,000. The best case scenario is that you just have to divorce Gojo, and forfeit your chances of ever recovering from your crippling debt. And while it’s hard to prove marital fraud, Choso had reason for a personal vendetta against you, and he has the resources to launch an investigation.

“Why would I do something illegal??” you ask, as if to convince him that the possibility was absurd.

He takes a step closer to you, and your breathing picks up. “People do illegal things all the time,” he says, “for the thrill, out of curiosity,” another step closer, “the most common reason that I’ve seen?” He’s so close to you now that you catch the familiar scent of his skin. “Desperation.”

You catch a small gasp of air from his imposition in your personal space, and finally, your weak legs manage to take you a step back.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about here,” you say with a shaky voice.

He raises an eyebrow at you. And then he sighs. “Stay out of trouble.”

Your eye twitches at him, annoyance resurging but you have to bite your tongue for self preservation. Gojo’s words about cops liking more docile women ring in your ears for a brief moment, and you have to physically shake your head to get his voice out of it.

His partner yells for him from his car, something about a call they got for a robbery downtown, and Choso spares you a warning look before he turns on his heel and jogs back to the car. The sound of police sirens mimic the panic in your beating heart as you watch them speed off down the street and out of sight.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

You pull into your neighborhood at the early hours of the morning, skin feeling dry and eyes feeling heavy with exhaustion as you yank your hospital badge clip off your scrub top to toss onto the passenger seat along with your stethoscope, releasing it from your neck like pulling a noose loose.

Before your shift last night, you had to take your mom to the hospital because she was have shortness of breath, and her oxygen saturation was low on her pulse oximeter. She’s stable now, it was just yet another flare up of her COPD, but given her other risk factors, the hospitalist admitted her to monitor her overnight and through to the evening today if all goes well. Which meant that you could have the house to yourself for once. It might sound selfish to say, because shouldn’t the more dominant feeling be I hope my mom will be okay, but the reality was that there’s only so much of that worry you can have at a time. It doesn’t mean you’re not thinking of her literally every second of the day. It just means you’re human.

The weirdest thing about working the night shift is seeing everyone else’s days start while yours is just ending. There’s a bit of satisfaction with it. Like imagining laughing at their faces ha ha! You have to go to work now at seven in the morning, meanwhile I get to sleep! as if working the night shift doesn’t lead to substantially higher rates of cardiovascular disease and other chronic illness, as well as an early death. So who really got the last laugh? Day shift workers. Literally.

It wasn’t something you did because you liked working the night shift. You do it because you get paid a 20% differential for it. And you need all the money you can get right now.

Your brain seems to be working more than usual if you’re able to think about all these things after a shift. Swiftly pulling into the driveway of your home, around the hull of Gojo’s obnoxious boat in the driveway, you get out of your car with your purse hanging from your shoulder and just before you shut the door, you see one of your elderly neighbors waving at you from across the street. You’re pretty sure her name is Margaret, but you’re awful with names. You do remember that she was in the posse of neighbors that were flocking you yesterday and asking you pushy questions about your marriage in the presence of Choso. And your body stiffens a little.

She tilts her head at you as you stand in your driveway, and you awkwardly glance over at Gojo’s house.

“Oops!” you chirp from across the street, “always forget to pull into the Hubby’s driveway instead! Silly me!!”

You grab your emergency overnight stay bag from the back of your car and hurry over to Gojo’s house, knocking on the door incessantly and ringing the bell so as to not arouse any more suspicion from your neighbors about why two married people aren’t living together. “Forgot my keys!! Hahahhahaha,” you exclaim while your pounding on the door intensifies. You’re sure you're just being paranoid, because why would sweet old lady Margaret (Janice? Patricia?) snitch on you? But you’ve been paranoid all your life. It’s one of your fatal flaws.

The door opens suddenly, right as you were about to pound harshly once again, and you stop the motion in time to not sock Gojo in the abdomen with your fist. He blinks down at you, his face a little puffy from sleep, his hair shooting out in all different directions, and he scratches at his chest through the thin cotton of his shirt, one he clearly threw on last minute before opening the door considering the fact that he put it on backwards. And inside-out.

“Huh? y/n?” he mumbles, his voice deep and kind of raspy with sleep, “what are you doing here?”

“Just let me in,” you hiss at him, glancing over your shoulder to your elderly neighbor's lawn for a second, and then duck under his arm that was holding the door open to get inside the house.

You turn around to see him shrug his shoulders and slowly close the door, clearly too tired to deal with the bullshit this early in the AM, and he turns around to face you before leaning back onto the surface. His eyes close, like he’s trying to preserve the sleepy feeling for when he gets back into bed.

“Can I help you?” he says. His head falls back with a small thump to rest on the door.

“I’m going to sleep here for the night. Er, for the day,” you say. “I will move in starting today.”

“Okay,” he easily agrees.

You blink at him. “Um. Show me to my room.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, scratching the back of his neck as he heads for the stairs with the shuffle of his slippers across the hardwood floor. You note that he is very easily malleable and overall smooth brained when he’s sleepy. You try to ignore the fact that you find it kinda cute.

You follow him up the stairs and he leads you across the loft into a hallway studded with a couple of doors. He opens one of them for you, his head drifting a little like he’s about to fall back asleep. “Here you go,” he says while gesturing inside the bedroom and rubbing his eye with a weakly closed fist, “guest bedroom. Uh, there’s another one near the master too that’s a bit bigger, but this one has a lock on the door. So that I don’t sneak into your room in the middle of the night.”

“Thanks,” you accept and head inside. You set your emergency overnight stay bag on the bed and then turn around to face the door to find Gojo still standing in the frame. He has his hands pushed into the pockets of his pajama pants as he squints at you.

You feel…a little…nervous? Shy? Who the fuck were you to be shy in front of Gojo? You really don’t give a damn what he thinks about you, since a lion does not concern itself with the opinions of a sheep (you’ve been doing reruns of Game of Thrones this past week), but starting today, you’ll be in his territory, and this whole situation is so domestic that you feel vulnerable in front of him. Like the sheep somehow managed to splay the lion open this time, and now the real you is on display for him. You’re suddenly self conscious of the unruly state of your hair and the stains of IV fluid on your black scrubs and the fact that the allegedly flake-proof mascara you put on at the beginning of your shift has long since flaked all over your cheeks.

“Um. Can you leave?” you say in a small voice.

“Huh?” he responds, like he himself forgot that he was still standing there. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He lets out a very long exhale. “Make yourself at home.” And then, still facing you, he walks off to the side veeeeeeery slowly until he’s out of sight.

You walk up to the doorframe and peak your head around to the left to see him still standing there.

“Satoru. Stop treating me like I’m some animal at the zoo. Leave.”

“It’s just so weird seeing you in my house like thi—”

You slam the door on him, your breathing finally slowing down again as your palms lay flat on painted white wood. You move your hand down to the handle, thumb and forefinger lingering on the lock as you look at it for a moment, but ultimately decide against locking it.

The room has a bathroom attached to it which is nice. The bed is a queen size, fitted with light blue and eggshell white sheets, tucked neatly spare for one corner of the bed where the duvet is flipped over. To the left of the bed is a nightstand and to the right is a dresser that looks very new. You take a glance at your reflection in the mirror sitting above it, and let out a small gasp at your less than flattering appearance.

A five minute shower does you wonders, and you pat yourself dry with a towel that matches the shower curtain. You find one of your floor-length vintage nightgowns, with the long frilly sleeves, after rustling through your overnight stay bag, along with a toothbrush and some moisturizer.

As you brush your teeth, you pace around the room. There’s a little staggered rack near the window that is lined with plants and the blinds are angled perfectly for sunlight to get through to them. You poke your finger to one of the plant’s soil and notice that it’s damp. Been watered recently. Gojo is a plant guy? He really doesn’t seem the type. Well, actually, he’s pretty vain about his avocado tree. But houseplants were a different story. A whole different trope of person.

After getting ready for bed, you slip into the sheets and lay stiff despite the comfortable mattress as you stare up at the ceiling with the duvet tucked under your arms. It’s bright in the room. Back home, you have blackout curtains, which help you sleep because it blocks out the morning light. Here, you don’t have that. You don’t have your melatonin either. But you do have the exhaustion in your veins, making you blink slowly and slowly until the water in your eyes feels as thick as oil. You’re so tired to the point that you can’t even sleep.

You force your eyes to close anyway. You’ll pretend you’re a queen in a palace, here in a foreign land she has recently conquered under her empire. A daydream that you find doesn’t really help you drift off to sleep. But counting sheep never fails you.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

You awake in the afternoon with a headache that pounds at your head like the FBI is trying to infiltrate your own mind. And all you can hear now is the FBI OPEN UP!!! meme as you groan and rub at your temples with one hand while leaning over the bed to pet at the nightstand for your go-to bottle of Tylenol just to–

Pet around at nothing.

“Mm?” you mumble, opening your eyes cautiously before harsh light makes you close them again. But even behind the protection of your eyelids, you’re still very keen on the brightness that finds you in this room. Finally, you’re able to blink the sleepiness away and adjust to the light, and when the blur of your vision subsides, you realize that you’re in a bed that is most definitely not your own. And then you remember.

You spent your first night (well, technically morning and early afternoon), at Gojo’s house.

You swing your legs over the edge of the bed, balled up fist rubbing at your eyes ferociously as you sit groggy from the sleep that enveloped you so performatively after your shift last night. You can’t even remember coming to his house, which is concerning, since that could mean you forgot to do a lot of other things when coming home. Like changing your clothes, and scrubbing your make-up off. But it seems like habit and routine has saved you, since you glance down and see yourself in one of your nightgowns and your skin doesn’t feel dry.

A loud thud! noise from directly beneath you startles you, jolting some of the sleepiness out of you, and you finally feel inclined to head out the door.

You make it across the loft and to the top of the staircase so you can peer over the railing to the downstairs floor. But from the top, you can’t see anything except for the entry area and the family room, but you assume the sounds you hear are coming from the kitchen, because it sounds like the closing of a fridge and ceramic on marble paired with footsteps on hardwood. Lifting the hem of your nightgown up so you don’t trip over it, you creep down the stairs, diligent in avoiding the 2nd and 7th step (you’ve since learned that they creak a little), and make steady progress in getting to the bottom of the stairwell to then stealthily peak your head around the rail and peer into the kitchen. You only have a view of one side, the long counter strip with the stove and the fridge, but you freeze when you’re met with the sight of a man standing there shirtless pouring orange juice into a coffee mug.

You’re temporarily shocked, your fight of flight immediately kicking in as you clutch the imaginary pearls around your neck in fear…but then…you slowly…find yourself starting to stare. This man’s back is huge, massive really…with tense and defined muscles, expansive smooth lines with ridges that meet bone. His shoulders are broad, rounding down into strong arms that are split with veins. And your eyes trail the way his waist narrows down to his hips, of which gray sweatpants very loosely hang from. Honestly, if the door in the movie Titanic was as large as this man’s back, then maybe Rose AND Jack could have fit on it and survived. (a/n. basically picture this)

And in the middle of your drooling, you realize. That this man. Is. Gojo.

Which should be a relief to you, because if it wasn’t Gojo, and there was just some random man in the house, then you’d have to start looking for a weapon of sorts. But instead you just continue to watch him silently without coming out of your hiding. Shirtless in his own kitchen (a crime, really) as he pours OJ into a black mug (who the fuck drinks juice from a coffee mug). He suddenly turns around to face the island and a small gasp leaves your lips before you duck your head behind the rail to hide yourself from his line of sight, and when you realize you’re in the clear, you slowly peak your head back out.

The sight of his chest and torso nearly knocks you breathless, because why is his skin so smooth…and taut across the defined muscles of his abs, glistening with a sheen you can only guess is a salty layer of sweat. His fringe is damp, sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face, a droplet of sweat rolling down from his temple towards his chin but he uses his bare shoulder to wipe the sweat off before it can get that far. He brings the mug of OJ to his lips and tips it back with a swallow, the thick muscles of his neck rippling and rolling with the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, a singular droplet of orange juice escaping from the corner of his lips, trailing down the vein on his neck and into the territory of his chest. Okay. You were being creepy as fuck right now. He can’t find out that you’re staring at him like this, you’d literally move to a different country if he ever caught you. And yet, for some reason, you just can’t stop either.

He pulls the mug from his mouth, letting out a large exhale since he literally just gulped it all down in one go. He places his palms flat on the table, slightly distant from one another, as he takes in the sight of his counter, while you take in the sight of the way his biceps bulge and the veins on his thick forearms tense. He looks like he’s contemplating something. And then he shrugs his shoulders slightly before grabbing the carton next to him and chugging straight from it, like whatever he poured himself wasn’t enough to quench the thirst for citrus juice he seems to have after–you can only assume–the workout he just had.

There’s a deep noise that’s muffled in his throat in the second before he pulls the carton away from his mouth and his eyes glance at something on the floor. You can’t see what it is, but you can see the marvelous shape of his ass through his sweatpants– I mean, you can see him furrow his brow a little and then he’s suddenly crouched down on the floor, ducked behind the island and out of sight, before he mutters something that you think sounds like damn fridge…

You stand on your tiptoes on the last step, trying to peer over the obstructing view of the counter, but you trip over the hem of your nightgown, losing balance and–

–fall straight onto the hardwood in front of you, on all fours.

“Ah,” you exclaim blandly, and in your periphery, see Gojo suddenly stand up straight from his crouched position.

“y/n?” he calls out from the kitchen, his tone surprised.

“Sorry!” you chirp as you feel embarrassment creeping up on your cheeks, “just, uh, fell down the stairs!”

“What?!?” he exclaims in a panic, and you forgot that most people would panic if someone said that to them. He rushes over to you and gets down on one of his knees to peer at your face, his hand shooting out to grab your upper arm with little delicacy out of concern, and his eyes roam all across you to assess for injuries. “Are you okay??”

“Just!” you chirp as you yank your arm out of his hold, “Peachy!” You’re not able to make eye contact with him as he remains kneeled next to you, but you can’t find yourself able to move either. So you just relish in the ridiculous feeling of being on all fours in your vintage grandma nightgown in front of your shirtless and, breaking news: very hot, fake husband. God you can smell the musk and sweat from him when he’s this close, and it’s sexy. You have to be careful to not just straight up mount him on the floor right now. Much to your aroused dismay.

“Um,” you squeak out, “can you put a shirt on.”

“Huh?” he looks down at himself, like he forgot he’s half naked. “Oh. Yeah.” He stands up. “Sorry, I’m not really used to having someone in the house anymore,” he says, and his use of the word anymore isn’t lost on you.

He heads over to the coat closet, pulling a gray sweatshirt that’s a shade darker than his sweatpants off of a coat hanger and then pulling it on over his head. He pulls the hood off, and now his hair looks damp with sweat and sexily ruffled up. And he’s also in a comfy-looking sweatshirt. That was way hotter than being shirtless, for fucks sake. You wonder if he’d reconsider being shirtless again. He’s kneeling down beside you once more, and yes you are still on all fours just staring down at the hardwood floor like an animal paralyzed with fear.

“Have some decency, please. Especially since I am to start living here from today onwards. I would appreciate modesty around the house,” you say as a tactic of self preservation. “Take note of my attire–appropriately covering all skin.”

“Are you gonna stand up?” he asks you.

“No. I shan't.”

“What? Why not? And why are you talking like that?”

“It appears I am frozen.”

“Are your knees okay?”

“I believe so.”

He sighs and gets up from his knelt position, then suddenly comes up behind you, bending over to wrap his arms around your waist tightly before picking you up with the same ease in which someone would pick up a plastic lawn chair. You gasp, still retaining your four-legged creature formation, until he shakes it out of you and then sets you back down onto your feet.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he says with a sigh as he heads back towards the kitchen, and he’s back to crouching down somewhere behind the counter.

You shuffle your feet over to the kitchen and peer over the kitchen island to see that he’s examining the floor in front of the fridge.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

He scratches at his eyebrow. “The fridge is leaking again.”

“Oh.”

He clicks something on both sides of the fridge's feet and then grips the corners of its body, pulling it out from the wall with a small grunt leaving his lips. Even with the baggy sweatshirt, you can see the curves of the muscles in his arms as he works.

You place your elbows on the island and hold your face in your hands as you watch him. “How are you gonna fix it?”

He’s dabbing at the wet hardwood with a very worn out rag to get it dry. “I just have to shut the water valve off for a bit.”

“How do you do that?”

He points over his shoulder with his thumb, and you trace the line of it to the cabinet under the sink.

“Really? You’re gonna get under the sink?”

He dusts his hands off and tosses the rug off to the side. “Uh-huh.”

“Are you sure you can fix it?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“How long has this been an issue?”

His gaze flicks to yours briefly before he stands up. “About a week.”

“Don’t you think you should just call someone?”

“What?” He turns to face you and crosses his arms across his chest while raising an eyebrow at you, like you’ve just deeply offended him. “Why the fuck would I call someone for a job I could do myself?”

You tilt your head at him, trying to hide the smirk that threatens to tug at your lips. “Well you said it’s been a whole week.”

“Yeah, I’ve–...I’ve just been busy. So I haven’t had a chance to really take a look at it.”

“Ohhhh okay okay,” you say in a teasingly skeptic tone, poking your tongue to your cheek as it’s getting progressively harder to hide your grin.

“What?” he says to you, impatiently.

“Nothinggg,” you purr, and you watch him with a cheeky look on your face as he glares at you before he disappears off towards the garage.

He comes back with a tool box and you spend some time poking around in it curiously as he grabs a couple of tools before crouching down in front of the sink.

For some reason, you feel shy watching him. Maybe it’s because when he’s laying on his back, the top twenty-percent of him ducked underneath the sink, and he’s working his hands on some pipes that you can’t see, his sweatshirt rides up a little and you can see the very lower part of his torso. And then when he yanks particularly hard on something, it rides up more and you can see his abs tensing and relaxing with almost every breath he takes and every move he makes. You’re just grateful he can’t see you, and the urge to clench your thighs together is almost stronger than your brain’s disposition to convince yourself that he’s not attractive just because you think he’s annoying most of the time.

“y/n,” he calls out to you from under the sink, and you jump a little. He tilts his head a little so he can make eye contact with you from under. “Can you hand me those slip-joint pliers?”

“I have no idea what that is or where to even begin to know what that is.”

“The pliers that have the serrated edges,” he tries.

“Huh?”

“.........shark with sharp teeth.”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, of course,” you grab them and then shuffle over to him before crouching down, balancing on your toes, “here you go.”

“Thanks,” he says in a flat tone, slowly taking them from you.

“You’re welcome!” you chirp. You feel very useful.

His head disappears back to deep underneath the sink again to work on stuff again. Even though this whole thing is probably just his masculine ego wanting to fix things around the house by himself rather than just call a person that is literally paid to fix these sorts of things, you have to admit that you’re not complaining for getting to watch him do something handy.

“I’ve just– gotta–” he grunts a little and you hear the creaking of pipes, “tighten this up a bit–” he lets out another gruff noise, his voice strained with effort, and you’re ashamed to say it sounds hot. “Alright!” He pulls himself out from under the sink and stands up back onto his feet with a bounce in his step as he dusts his hands off. “Fixed. For now.”

The fridge starts making a strange whirring noise. You raise an eyebrow at him. He quickly reaches behind it and clicks some button before the eerie whirring stops.

“Okay. Now it’s fixed.”

You give him a very skeptic look. “Sure, Jan.”

“Don’t sure jan me. Trust. It won’t leak anymore.”

“Whatever you say,” you respond before heading back up the stairs to freshen up.

By the time you go back downstairs, Gojo is nowhere to be found, and you take the opportunity to sit on his couch in the living room to then peruse which streaming services he has on his TV. It isn’t until about ten minutes later that you hear someone coming down the stairs, because he makes no effort to avoid the creaky steps.

You put your elbow up on the couch backrest and twist your torso to look at him. He’s wearing pajama pants and an unmatching black short sleeve cotton T-shirt that’s loose around his torso but tight at the arms. He’s ruffling his hair up with a hand towel, attempting to get it dry from the shower he clearly just took. As he makes his way towards the living room, you catch a waft of the clean soapy aqua fragrance of shampoo lingering in his hair. He stops about four feet behind the couch.

You glance down at his feet. “Why the fuck are you, as a grown ass man, wearing bunny slippers inside the house?”

He opens one eye to glance down at his slippers as he continues to tousle his hair dry, “oh, Juno got them for me for Christmas last year. She wanted me to wear them ‘all the time or else uncle toru’s feet will burn off from the floor lava.”

A small smile makes its way onto your face.

Juno is Gojo’s five-year-old niece, and from the interactions you’ve seen between them, and from the way My Little Pony was the first thing that popped up when you turned the TV on, you know that Gojo absolutely adores her and vice versa. You’ve met her a couple times, even babysat her once in an emergency, and she’s a cute and bright little kid that you certainly have way more fondness for than her obnoxiously annoying uncle who is also now your fake husband. Wait, does that mean that Juno is your niece now, too?

Gojo lets out a sigh before hanging the towel over his shoulder, his hair apparently adequately dry enough for him now. He looks younger when his hair is messy and a little damp, falling over his forehead flatter than usual. It’s kinda boyish and dare-you-say charming.

He looks down at his slippers again with a pleasant reminiscent look on his face before placing his hands on his hips like he’s a baseball dad of three. “Y’know, when I was growing up–”

“Ah yes. During the Great Depression.”

He gives you an annoyed look. “Quit it. When I was a kid–”

“Back in the 1800s.”

“Aren’t you pushing thirty?” he asks you.

“Aren’t you in need of some new dentures?” you ask him.

“Fuckin’ rude,” he mumbles as he walks towards the foyer table to rip open some of the mail that was scattered across it.

“What happened when you were a kid?” you ask.

“Forget it,” he says, tucking some of his bills back into envelopes.

“What!! I wanna know,” you say.

“Yeah well I don’t want to tell you anymore,” he responds.

As you two fully grown adults continue bickering like toddlers for the better part of two minutes, your phone is ringing upstairs unbeknownst to you.

“Wait. Shut up,” Gojo cuts off your next insult as he snaps his head up-right suddenly.

“What?! Did you just tell me to shut u–”

“Shhhhhh,” he hushes you, turning his ear towards the stairs with a concentrated expression on his face.

You silence yourself, and then you hear the ringing coming from upstairs.

“Fuck,” you mumble as you scramble off the couch and jog to the bottom of the staircase, Gojo’s eyes on you the entire time as you run up the steps back to your room.

You hear your phone ringing on the bed somewhere but you can’t find it so you rummage through the sheets before finally spotting it, swiping on the call and bringing it to your ear without even checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” you say.

“Oh! y/n, hi there. It’s Dr. Johnson calling. I was prepared to leave you a voicemail,” he says.

“I’m here,” you say hastily, holding your phone to your ear with both hands as you feel your entire body tense up.

You never knew what to expect with any sort of phone calls these days, especially when you’re at work or when your mom isn’t home, because a phone call could be something as simple as approving a refill on some of her medication, to something much worse than that. Something much more final than that.

“It’s not an emergency,” Dr. Johnson says on the other line, like he can sense your fear and anxiety through the phone, “just wanted to reach out to let you know that I spoke with the hospitalist who admitted your mother to the hospital and she’s doing better now. They’ll likely discharge her by the end of the day.”

You slowly let out the breath you were holding. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I know she needs to come in for chemo tomorrow, so it’s perfect timing.”

“Yes, we’ll see her tomorrow.”

“Uh, Dr. Johnson, I do want to let you know…I’ll be admitting my mom for hospice in a couple of days,” you tell him. You wince a little, because you know it’s probably something that you should’ve discussed with him prior to all of this. “It’s…likely that you won’t have to continue her care anymore, since she’s been approved for Kaiser insurance, I’ll be transferring her care to Kaiser physicians.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other line, the briefest moment of hesitation from a self-assured doctor who always had something to say right away. “Really? That’s–...wow. I can’t say I won’t be extremely sad to not see her anymore.”

“I know…” you say, worrying your bottom lip through your teeth, feeling a sudden wave of guilt overtake your senses, “you’ve been following her progress ever since her diagnosis, even got her into remission…it’s just a little complicated with some insurance stuff and some bills as well. If I could have things my way, I would continue care with you and your team.”

Even though you can’t see it, you can tell he’s nodding on the other line. “I understand, y/n. I know that there’s more to healthcare in this country than just…receiving care. But I don’t have to explain those things to you, since you’re a nurse. Do what’s best for you and your family. Give me the details for the hospice, and I’ll have my MAs send over your mother’s chart.”

“Thank you, Dr. Johnson,” you whisper, your voice cracking slightly. “Really. For everything.”

“You’re most welcome.”

“Oh–” you stutter, in fear he might hang up right as you remembered to ask him something.

“Yes?”

“I know I’ll see you tomorrow so we can discuss it then too, but I was just wondering if the scans were back from my mom’s brain MRI she had done? I know they usually take three weeks to come back but just wanted to check.”

He lets out a low chuckle. “I had a feeling you’d follow up about that. No, there are no scans that have come back. I’ll let you know right away when they do.”

“Okay…” you say.

“I know you’re worried about a possible glioma,” he speaks up, “but let’s just try to stay positive until we see the scans, okay?”

“Yes. Sounds good. Thank you, doctor.”

“Alright. I will see you and your mom tomorrow.”

“Yes. Bye,” you say and hear his word of farewell too before hanging up.

You stare down at the screen of your phone, taking in slow deep breaths to calm down your nerves. You just wanted these scans to come back already so that you could feel at peace knowing that your mom’s worsening neurological condition is due to her Alzheimer’s and not a tumor in her brain. The average survival length of a person with a brain tumor is low, and even worse if it’s a glioblastoma, ranging at around 12-18 months. You can buy her a few years at least with the stage of cancer progression she’s at right now, even with the possibility of remission, but if it becomes severely advanced disease then–

You gasp softly and cover your mouth with your hand, unable to even fathom the thought without feeling a feverish chill run down your entire body. Now's not the time to spiral. Deep breaths. One, two, three. Now is the time to stay positive. Just like Dr. Johnson said.

Putting one step ahead of the other, you leave the room, cross the loft and slowly make your way down the stairs and stop at the very last step when you see Gojo rushing across the foyer with his dress shoes on, wearing a dark blue suit, save for the tie, and he looks like he’s pressed for time.

“Are you going somewhere?” you ask from the last step, your hand curled around the rail still.

“Hey, uh, yeah,” he scrambles, grabbing his keys from the paper mache bowl on the foyer table and then pats at his pockets for his wallet only to notice it’s absent. “Fuck.” He disappears somewhere into the house in a hurry and then returns with his wallet in his hand before shoving it in his pocket with the jingle of his keys too. “I had to push a couple house viewings from this afternoon up, so I need to leave.” He finally turns to face you and exhales slowly to regain his breath. “Small favor?”

“What’s up,” you say.

He rubs the back of his neck a little guiltily. “Well, Sana called a few minutes ago asking if I could watch Juno since she had to pick her up early from school, and I said sure, but I have to leave now, so–”

“I can watch her,” you say.

He claps his hands together in prayer form and holds them up to his face, “I owe you one.”

“Mhmmmmm,” you hum, watching as he resumes his haste to leave the house. And just before he heads out the door, you say— “Collar.”

“Huh?” He turns around to face you. “Oh.” He takes a second to flatten the collar of his shirt. “Thanks.” And then he’s out the door.

You sigh, relishing in the emptiness of the house. Maybe you should raid his pantry, or play porn on the TV super loud so all the neighbors think he’s a creep. But perhaps that is not appropriate, given that his sister will be bringing his niece over very soon.

You quickly head over to your house to change into something more appropriate than your nightgown, just some blue jeans that honestly make you look like a soccer mom, and then a T-shirt. You walk back to Gojo’s house and only get about five minutes to peruse his pantry when the doorbell rings.

When you open the door, you’re met face-to-face with Gojo’s sister, Sana. How would you describe Sana? Well, first of all, she’s beautiful, with all the same features as Gojo except in female form. Striking round blue eyes, silky white hair that shimmers silver underneath sunlight (you would describe Gojo less poetically than this, though). Her hair is pin straight, falling down just past her shoulders. She’s sweet, or at least has been the couple of times that you’ve met her, but she can also be a little serious and strict. The type to not really laugh at the dinner table if you make a pointed joke about the current political state of the country, but maybe it’s because she didn’t even understand the joke to begin with. Either way, she’s very different from the annoying and irritating temperament of her older brother, and how their mother managed to give birth to such two different kids is beyond you.

“Hey,” you greet her at the door with a small smile.

“Hi, y/n,” she returns with a polite smile of her own. She’s holding onto Juno’s scrawny shoulders as the kid stands in front of her, barely to the height of her mother’s hips. Juno was toying with the light pink baseball cap on her head, her hair pulled through the opening in the back and tied up into a ponytail. “I’m so sorry to bother you with her.”

“Oh! No, not a bother at all, I love getting to see her,” you say as you crouch down to get at eye level with her. “Hi Juno!”

Juno has curly white hair rather than the pin straight that her mother possessed, a feature that more closely resembles her father’s hair, along with her hazel eyes. You’ve only met Sana’s husband, Jun, once before. From what you know, he’s some type of businessman, and the first thing you noticed about him was that he was the same height as Sana. But his wife was blessed with supermodel height and was probably taller than most men, so it wasn’t surprising. Jun was hearty, almost suspiciously kind, laughed boisterously loud, and in the small amount of time you met him, it was easy to see that Sana very rarely humored his ill-mannered and awkwardly-placed jokes, but they seemed very in love with each other regardless. Apparently he and Gojo go golfing every other weekend. Information that you seem to know despite any desire to know it.

Juno hugs her water bottle to her chest, shy as she makes eye contact with you. “Hi, auntie y/n.”

“I loooooove your baseball cap! It’s so cute, where did you get it?” you ask her.

She blinks off to the side timidly, her fluffy white lashes fluttering over her bright eyes. “Um. Uncle Toru.”

“Ohhh I see, I see! It suits you.”

Sana nudges her a little with her knee. “What do we say, Juno?”

“Thank you, auntie y/n,” she immediately squeaks out in reflex.

Your eyes catch a glimpse of the white bandage wrapped over her tiny arm and your brow furrows before reaching out to gently hold it. Juno winces a little from the sensation. You stand up straight.

“What happened to her arm?” you ask Sana.

Sana sighs as she tucks some of her hair behind her ear. “She fell on the playground at school today. It’s a pretty large scrape and it’s been hurting her a lot.”

“Did you disinfect it?”

“Oh…I just–...washed it with some water. The school nurse wasn’t there today so I just had to pick her up early.”

“Mm, I see,” you say, “I can take a look at it. I have some neosporin in my purse.”

She lets out a relieved sigh, like she was secretly hoping you would make the offer. “Thank you. Really.” She gently pushes on her daughter’s shoulder. “C’mon Juno. Go inside and set your homework up on the table.”

Juno cranes her neck up to look at her mom. “Mommy, can I have a snack first? Pop-tart!”

“If your uncle has them in the pantry, then sure,” Sana says, and immediately upon hearing those words, Juno rushes inside the house with giggles filling the air. “But only one!!” Sana yells out to her in a strict tone, and you watch with amusement as Juno skips off before returning your attention back to Sana.

“Sooo…” she starts, a small hint of hesitation playing on her usually prim face, “I suppose we’re sisters now. Sisters-in-law.”

Your eyes widen and your shoulders stiffen. It was at least a good thing that Gojo told his family already that you two are married, because it seems that most of his extended family live here in this town. At least, you know that his sister’s family and his parents live here. Better to be heard from him directly than to run into you randomly living at his house all of a sudden when they drop by. You’re sure his family has questions about this extremely sudden marriage to say the least. You’re not sure how much they’ll try to pry, but you hope it’s not much, because you’ve never really been a great actress. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

“Mm,” she hums pleasantly at you, nodding slowly and peering off into the house beyond your shoulder, “say…I’m, um, just a little…surprised by how sudden this all is.”

“Hmm?”

“With you and my brother,” she says straightforwardly. “Obviously, you must know he’s been married before, but it’s…a little odd, it feels like just yesterday when he told us he was…getting a divorce. And now he’s married again.” She trails off when she has some sobering thought that flashes through her head. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m blabbering about this. I’m just–...I’m just thinking out loud. It must be a sore topic.”

“Oh, no, no, not at all. No worries,” you say with an awkward laugh, “I’ve, um, come to terms with it?” You try your best to come up with a believable response.

“That’s good,” she says while she runs soothing circles with her thumb over the skin at her elbow, “well, some love moves faster than others.” She displays a well-meaning smile on her face. “I’m really happy for you two.”

For some reason, your heart warms. Like when the lines of reality and imagination blur, and so you’re left here with a truly comforting feeling. Only it’s fleeting and temporary, like escapism. “Thank you,” you say softly. And after a moment, “by the way, I’m really sorry for…Satoru and I not having a proper wedding. We just wanted something simple.”

She lets out a small scoff. “Oh, gosh, don’t apologize for that. I’m sick of weddings. I was so glad I didn’t have to peruse yet another wedding registry this year. There are only so many toaster ovens I can buy.”

You’re a little surprised by the humor from her, but the two of you let out small laughs in unison at the doorstep.

Sana glances at her watch. “I have to get going. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

You nod. “Sure. Thanks.”

You close the door slowly, watching her briefly through the stained glass window as she heads towards her car and gets inside before promptly driving off.

There’s the sound of ruffling heard and then the sound of things falling off a shelf towards the kitchen. You turn on your heel and head in the direction. “Junooo,” you call out, “where are youuuu?”

“In here!” she chirps from the pantry room. You turn the light on to see her standing in the center with a couple boxes of cereal fallen around her. She’s holding an empty box in her hand. “The pop-tart box is empty,” she says with a pout and sulk of her shoulders as she makes the most :(( face you’ve ever seen a child make.

“Oh no,” you say, grabbing the box from her and inspecting the inside, “your devious uncle must’ve eaten them all in a manic episode.”

“What is a manic mean?” she asks you as she looks up, rubbing her ankle with her other foot.

“Oh, it’s like…crazy? He went crazy?”

She giggles at the thought.

“If you’re hungry, I can make you something,” you offer.

She shyly nods her head but her grin fully rounds her cheeks before she darts off towards the kitchen.

You find her standing near the kitchen island, trying to get up onto one of the bar stools but to no avail. You come up behind her to pick her up then set her down on the seat, adjusting it so it’s a little higher.

“What do you want me to make?” you ask her as you come around to the other side of the island and set your elbows up on the cold marble, leaning over to place your chin in your palm.

“Um…” she brings her index finger up to her bottom lip in thought, “pancakes? Can I have blubbery pancakes?”

“Huh?”

“Um…” she starts again, “last time, when I eated them at your house. Um, when I ated them at your house,” she tries to correct herself, “I really liked them.”

“Oh!” you perch up from your bent over position, “I remember! The blueberry pancakes. Aww, Juno, you remember that? How sweet.”

She becomes a little bashful and glances down at the her lap.

“Okayyy,” you say, placing your hands on your waist as you look around at the kitchen, “well I’ll have to see what ingredients I’m working with here, but hopefully I can make them for you.” You tilt your head at her before pointing a finger. “Have you ever seen the show Chopped?”

She sits up straight with excitement. “Yes yes! Me and mommy love it.”

“Good. Let’s pretend I’m working with a mystery basket here,” you say, and then you turn around to open Gojo’s fridge.

You can learn a lot about a person based on what the inside of their fridge looks like. You’re surprised to find the inside of his looks…sparkly? That was the only way you knew how to describe it. With clean shelves that reflect the bright lighting off the plastic, plastic that looks as mirror sheen as glass. As your eyes take in the contents inside, you notice he has some leftover thai food at the front, most likely leftovers from as recent as last night. One of the produce drawers is filled to the brim while the other is mostly empty, and you notice he separates them by leafy stuff vs. veggies. The leafy stuff is the drawer that’s filled to the brim, and you just know he’s stressed out over how to use all of it up before it starts wilting. Must’ve been on sale, you think to yourself. To the right of the fridge, there are an insane amount of orange juice cartons, and you notice he drinks the same one as you–pulp free with the added vitamins and calcium that’s made for kids. Although maybe he has an excuse for it, since he has a five-year-old niece. There’s a few containers of meal prep stacked up at the back of the fridge that look like some sort of arrangement of quinoa, chicken and Mediterranean vegetables. And then there’s just a bunch of assorted cans of beer throughout the fridge, which you assume are to appease the diverse preferences of his friends whenever he has them over.

You grab a couple of eggs from the egg carton, placing them on the counter along with a stick of butter plus a half-full carton of milk, and peer deep into the fridge past the wall of condiments to eye for any fresh fruit such as berries, but you don’t see any. You try the freezer and are relieved when you see he has some frozen blueberries in there.

“Okay!” you shut the fridge. “Just need to grab a few more things from the pantry room and then I’ll make you your pancakes, okay?”

Juno nods enthusiastically. “Um. Can I get my backpack?”

“Sure.” You pick her up off the bar stool to set her down on the ground and she runs to the coffee table in front of the TV to grab her things as you head to the pantry room.

Flour, sugar, baking powder, all tucked in your elbows as you carry the ingredients back to the kitchen before dropping them onto the counter and picking Juno up to place her on the barstool again. She starts to lay out her glittery pens and pristinely sharpened pencils in front of her as well as a packet of papers.

“I can’t believe they’re giving Kindergarteners homework these days…” you mutter under your breath as you grab a bowl. “Juno, wanna help me crack the eggs?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s go wash our hands then.”

As you mix all your ingredients together and Juno continues to stare at her papers with her face awfully close to them (does she need glasses?), you think to yourself what a nice little life this is. Although you haven’t been able to spend the day at your house like you were hoping you would, since you could finally have it for yourself, it was nice to spend it at Gojo’s. It was something different, something refreshing, something grounding. An escape that you needed.

“Um. Auntie y/n?” Juno calls from behind you as you flip a pancake at the stove.

“Yes sweetheart.”

“How is mommy?”

“Hmm?” you hum. “My mommy?”

“Yes!”

“Oh you are just the sweetest thing. She’s doing okay. She’s just a little sick still.”

“When I’m sick,” Juno speaks up with a childlike enthusiasm in her voice, “my mommy gives me grape soor–...stir–” she struggles with the word, “shrup, ah, syrup! Grape syrup. It makes me better.”

“Ohhh honey, I know,” you coo as you try to match her enthusiasm, placing two little pancakes onto a plate for her. “When you get the sniffles, right?”

“Yes! Maybe your mommy will be better too if I give her some of my grape syoorup?”

You stop in your tracks, staring down at the food you were just plating.

The innocence of a child. It was hard to stay strong in the face of it. When you were younger, you probably would’ve thought that a magical potion would make your mom all better, too.

You turn around to face her. “Well,” you say, clearing your throat a little to fight the knot that you find is twisting it, “I think,” and now you’re blinking away the faint sheer of tears as you press your lips into a thin smile, your soft soft above a whisper, “that that is a wonderful idea.”

Juno gobbles up her blubbery pancakes with the extra maple syrup on them and you watch her take every bite. There was something satisfying about seeing a little kid eat so well. The sight made you feel well-fed on their behalf.

“Alright,” you say with a small grunt as you pick Juno up and set her down onto the ground, then take her hand to lead her over to the carpeted family room. “Let me take a look at this scrape of yours.”

Juno’s hand tugs slightly when you try to pull on it, so you turn around to see that she has stopped in her tracks halfway through the trek to the other room.

“What’s wrong?” you ask her.

“I don’t want you to see it…”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s ugly.”

“Juno,” you tug on her hand a little, “I have to see it so that I can clean it. Otherwise you might get sick. A type of sick that even grape syrup can’t fix.”

She looks up at you with curious eyes, not fearful ones.

“There is sick like that?” she asks you.

“Yes. Now give me your arm.”

Juno follows you to the family room and stands still, the front of her jutting out slightly as she pouts, a display of her remaining disapproval for you taking a look at her scrape. You get down onto your knees and slowly undo the bandages, unwrapping the layers one-by-one before the end falls off and you’re staring at a 4x2cm superficial abrasion on her arm, and when your thumb lightly swipes at the skin underneath it, Juno winces from the pain.

You also notice she has a bruise on her left upper thigh, right below where the hem of her shorts end.

“You…only fell onto your right side, right?” you ask her.

“Mhm,” she nods.

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“How come you have a bruise on your left thigh then?”

Her eyes widen slightly with shock and her head quickly snaps down to look at her thigh. “Um. Um. I don’t know. Um. Um.”

“Juno,” you say, trying to muster up a strict tone, but she refuses to make eye contact with you anymore as she stares at the carpet beneath her. You gently grab a hold of both of her wrists. “Sweetheart. Look at me.” Her eyes slowly lift up to meet yours. “I want to help you, but I can't help you unless you’re honest with me.”

Her big eyes blink at you slowly and her bottom lip quivers slightly.

“How did you really hurt yourself?”

She immediately starts bawling. Full on sobs that echo throughout the room and startle you slightly as the tears freely fall down her cheeks and she struggles to wipe them off with her left arm, but they only drip down her elbow.

“Oh–” you stutter, holding her by her shoulders, “Juno–”

She sniffles. “They–” she hiccups, “they pushed me…they always push me.”

“Who pushed you?? Who always pushes you??”

She sucks in a deep breath as she continues to cry and you struggle to wipe at her tears for her with the pad of your thumb. “The–hic–girls at school. They’re so–hic–...wahhh…they’re so mean.”

“They pushed you on the playground and that’s how you got this scrape and bruise?” you ask her.

She nods as she slowly begins to come down from her outburst, her remnant sniffles and short sharp inhales showing that she was struggling to breath. You run to grab some tissues and then come back, holding them to her nose before she blows into them.

“Oh sweetheart…I’m so sorry,” you say to her.

She suddenly runs into you, hugging you tightly, and you’re momentarily surprised before wrapping an arm around her too and then gently patting at her back.

“How long has this been going on?” you ask her.

“Mm…ever since I–hic–ever since I got on T-ball team…but they couldn’t get on.”

“Oh…” you coo, gently rubbing her back now. You’re not a mom, you’ve got no fucking clue how to navigate this sort of situation. But you can try your best to give some advice. “Juno, you have every right to feel happy and safe at school.” You gently pull her away from the hug so that you can look at her face. “And it’s okay to stand up for yourself and against anyone that is being mean to you. Don’t let them take that power away from you.”

She nods slowly, her lip quivering slightly again.

You sigh slowly before giving her another hug. “And we’ll work out something with your mom too, okay? She can talk to the teachers.”

“No!” Juno shrieks, pulling away from you suddenly. You blink at her. “No. Please don’t tell my mommy.”

“W-Why not??”

“Because–” she stutters, “um…I want to tell her myself. Because I lied, and mommy always says to me to not tell lies. So I have to fix it myself.”

You tilt your head at her, frowning slightly. You’re not exactly sure how much autonomy over such things you should be granting a five-year-old, but you decide to give her the choice. You hold your pinky finger out to her, “you have to promise me you’ll tell her though, okay?”

She nods and wraps her pinky around yours.

After getting her scrape cleaned up and tended to, Juno spends the next hour or so watching My Little Pony on the TV as you clean up the mess you made in the kitchen. And as you’re staring out into the backyard while wiping down the cutting board, the sound of the doorbell ringing makes you jump with a startle and breaks you out of your trance.

You were prepared to open the door to find Sana standing at the entrance, but instead you’re met with the sight of a different woman.

Much older, and with all the same features, it doesn’t really take you long to figure out who she is.

“Ah! There she is!” the woman chirps out. “I’m—”

“Juno’s grandmother,” you finish the statement for her.

“—Satoru’s mother,” she instead says.

You both blink at one another.

“Well,” she chirps, “I’m both!”

Gojo’s mother appears to be a kind woman, and it’s evident that being gorgeous must run in the family. Although she has aged features, they’re still beautiful in a graceful way, where people would take a look at her and think of aging as a privilege and not a curse. Her eyes are somewhat feline, different from the roundness of those you’ve seen in her family, and her hair is a shimmering silver all around with a pretty silk press layered hair style that flatters her frail jaw. She was wearing a French-style button up dress with a rather gaudy belt around her waist, and you catch the scent of her lilac perfume even while she’s standing three feet away.

She puts her hands on her hips and has a forced smile on her face. “My son gets married and he doesn’t even tell me a peep about it, or introduce me to his new wife! I have to come all the way over here myself!” she exclaims, and her tone is like she’s trying to play it off with nonchalance but the stiffness of her features makes it look like she’s losing her mind. “Well,” she clicks her tongue, “he’s always had the penchant for never sharing anything he ever does with me.”

“Ah…I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gojo,” you say to her, unsure why you’re apologizing, but there was this energy to her that made you realize she had a skill for making people feel apologetic in her presence.

“No worries! Not your fault. I’ll deal with him later,” she says, her smile growing to where it almost fully crescents her eyes in a frightening way that almost sends a shiver down your spine, “anywhoooo,” she takes both of your hands into hers, “you’re very beautiful, and you have a very lucky-looking nose!”

“Lucky?”

“Yes, yes. You will bring luck to our family.”

“Thanks?” you say, trying to manage a smile.

She takes a step closer to you. “Tell me, what do your parents do for a living?”

“Oh! Um, well, my mom is retired, but she used to be an art teacher. My dad is in the food business, but uh, I haven’t spoken to him in years ever since my parents got divorced.”

“Ah,” she says curtly, her face blank as if she couldn’t think of a single thing to follow up with after that. She peers past your shoulder. “Where’s the little princess?”

“She’s just inside grabbing her things.” You gently slip your hands out of her hold and turn around to face the inside of the house. “Juno!! Do you need help?”

“No!!” she calls from the kitchen.

“Say, my dear,” Gojo’s mother speaks up, “why don’t you and Satoru come by for dinner this weekend? Jun and Sana apparently have some important news they’d like to share with the family, and I offered that we all hear it together over a meal. This way you can meet your father-in-law too!”

You take a deep breath in, realizing that this fake marriage agreement involves a lot more deceit than you ever thought it would. “Sure. Yes. I’d love that. Let me know if I can bring anything.”

“Wonderful!” she exclaims, just in time for when you feel Juno brush past you towards her grandma, hunching over slightly with her backpack’s weight. Gojo’s mother pulls you in for a hug which entirely startles you and you slowly wrap your arms around her as well. “It’s so lovely to have a daughter-in-law. Oh, I am just so happy to have you in our family.”

She lets go of you but still keeps you close by a delicate hold of your elbows, a gleeful smile on her face as she looks you up and down slowly.

“Bye, auntie y/n!!” Juno squeaks out, hugging your leg, and you pat at the top of her head. Her grandmother finally lets go of you and takes Juno’s tiny hand in her frail one, and you see them off to the car.

By the time you make it back inside the house, you let out a deep slow breath, one that you didn’t know you were holding in, as you lay your weight back on the front door. You feel a pressure in your head from your dwindling social battery and all these tricky encounters.

So, you’re part of a whole other family, now?

That. Is. Frightening.

[end of chapter 3]

a/n. ah!! hope you enjoyed this ihm chapter :’’) sorry if it seemed like a bunch of random scenes lolol i swear it’s all set up for stuff that will happen down the lineee. i just be yappin so the word count ends up kinda high. hope to see you in the next one!! <3 love u all. also it’s my frank ocean anons bday today so i dedicate this chapter to themm 🫶🏼💕 manifesting dilf gojo for u bb for anyone curious about why reader is a bit paranoid w potentially being busted for her fake marriage, i had another reader that was curious about this too so i answered them here if you'd like to check it out :)

➸ take me to chapter four!

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beesspacedotorg · 9 months ago

Text

Romance is Doomed (Lie)

Summary: your parents tumultuous relationship has given you very little hope and expectations for your own. your boyfriend, Seungmin, seems determined to change that ... at least until he forgets an important romantic holiday. 4.2k

Warnings: angst. fluff. Kim Seungmin. porn. insecure reader. edging. no body type or pronouns mentioned. bad (?) parents. I wrote this based on a very sad conversation my parents had, so reader has mommy and daddy issues (double whammy). reader is insecure and at one point starts waxing poetic about being unlovable (????) but Seungmin calls them out on it so dw. This is my first time writing Seungmin so ... he might be a little ooc.

note: I don't really have an explanation for this. my parents made me sad so I wrote a fanfiction about Kim Seungmin to make me feel better. This is incredibly self indulgent, so if you don't like it that's okay. this is literally in my google docs as "This is for me and if you don't like it, sucks" so.

You know that it’s his job, so you can never get mad at him for it, not really. That would be irrational, and crazy, and you are neither of those things- or, not enough of those things to kick up a fuss. Still, when you hear him say it something in your chest pangs and you are left with a weird, hollow emptiness that you have no name for.

“Who’s your valentine?” Everyone is asking him, he’s an idol, it’s his job.

“Stay!” He smiles cutely and it squints his eyes slightly as he does. You can see his perfectly white and perfectly aligned teeth on your phone and you pause the video to switch to a different app instead, but your feed is perfectly curated to show you videos and pictures of your boy and his group, so all you see is him and that damned clip from that damned video.

You’re launched back to a conversation you’d had with your parents. It was in jest, you weren’t serious, but the tone of the day shifted drastically after you’d asked it.

“Mom, who’s your Valentine?” You were drinking the soda you’d just refilled and wincing slightly at the carbonation as you walked towards the car.

“No one, your Dad hasn’t asked me yet.”

“Dad, are you and Mom each other's Valentines?” He’s opening the door as you ask.

“No.” You can see your mom’s face fall, and for the rest of the day there’s a kind of gray cloud hanging over your parents. That moment sticks with you, and every year you think about it.

You and Seungmin are different though, you’re absolutely positive that he loves you. You’re absolutely positive that he cares about you and wants you around, you’re absolutely positive that if he wanted to get rid of you, he would. But he hasn’t, so you trust that he wants you around. But, this is his job. This is his job and you knew what you were getting into when the two of you started dating, so you can’t be mad at him, you won’t be mad at him.

“How are things at home?” You’re on the phone with your mother, you call her once a week. No matter what she’s put you through, she’s still your mother and you still love her, so you call.

“Oh, the usual. Your Dad is being. You know.” She sounds sad as she says it, and the worst part is that you do know. Crotchety and mean and in pain and cruel. So, you do know, and you feel bad for your mom when she says it. She is his wife, and he cannot spare her a drop of kindness.

The call ends, as it always does, with one of you saying something cutting and the other hanging up without responding to the “I love you” at the other end of the line. You look at your calendar. Valentine’s Day is tomorrow and he still hasn’t asked you. Your mom says he might just assume that you two are each other’s Valentine’s because you’re together, you say that it would still be nice if he asked. Your mom tells you not to hold your breath. You tell her that you aren’t planning on it.

It took the two of you a while to get together, longer than it should have, probably. But, as in all things, you are naturally distrustful of the intentions of strangers, or strangers-turned-friends-turned-? so you avoided the topic any time he would try and hint at it.

“I have two tickets to the Giants game tonight!”

“Sick! Those are hard to come by, Seungminnie! I hope you and Jeongin have fun.”

“Well, actually-”

“Hey! Did I ever tell you about this thing I saw the other day?”

When you did finally stop avoiding it, he asked you why, and you told him it was stupid, and he said nothing can be stupider than the time he and Felix managed to over whip the eggs for their souffle pancakes, truly a feat considering the fact that the eggs they were using were cold.

“I like you a lot,” you’d said. “I like you a lot and it feels like the love I have for you is replacing the air that I breathe, and I know, one day, you’ll get tired of me and my sadness and my everything, and I’d rather not have to spend years of my life filling in the hole that you’ll leave with foam that’ll collapse come morning.”

He’d paused for a moment, and you’d looked at the ground.

“I don’t want you to get tired of me and leave. I don’t want to be afraid you’ll leave so I do it first and regret it days later. I don’t want you to get tired of me and stay only to make jabs at me until I am nothing but a pasta strainer masquerading as a person.”

He’d frowned at you.

“Do you really think that little of me?”

“What?”

“Do you think that I would walk away like that? That I wouldn’t put in effort to stay, or to make you stay? That I would hate you so much that I would share a bed with you and hurt you at the same time?”

“No, but-”

“Listen,” he grabs your hands, “I’m not entirely sure why you think the way that you do about these things, and I won’t promise that I won’t hurt you- I’m not that stupid. But I promise that I’ll try not to, that I’ll make it up to you if I do. But you have to promise me something too, okay?”

“What’s the promise?”

“Don’t think of me that way. I’m mean, sure, but I’m not evil.”

“It’s not that I think you’re evil-”

“But I’m the one doing those things to you, right? In your head, it’s me? Whether you deserve it or not, I’m the one doing it.”

“... I see your point.”

“Good, I was running out of emotionally intelligent things to say. If you hadn’t been worn down we would’ve had to rain check this conversation for another day.” You laugh at him and he holds your hand.

“Your whole speech was really poetic, by the way, how long have you been sitting on that?”

“How long have I been alive?” He laughs, because he was supposed to, but he places a kiss on your temple too. And there’s a moment where you think that romance isn’t doomed, and, maybe, neither are you.

The first time you and Seungmin have sex, you spend the whole time worrying if he secretly finds you gross and disgusting. Well, you try to, but at that point, he’s gotten pretty good at telling when you’re writing heavy prose in your head and he then does his absolute best at making you lose your mind with pleasure. He succeeds.

“What were you thinking about?” Is what he says while he’s testing the shower water to make sure it’s hot enough to keep you warm. You’d tried to find a happy middle once, while you were showering together (In the dark, because “your eyes hurt”. You just weren’t ready for him to see you naked.) and goosebumps had broken out across your skin almost immediately, you’d shivered so hard it sent your teeth chattering, and your lips had started turning blue. When the two of you got out and Seungmin noticed, he’d said that you two would just shower together at temperatures comparable to the lakes of hell and he’d get over himself.

You shake your head at him. He won’t like your answer. He asks you this often, when you shrink in on yourself, and when you tell him, he always looks a little sad. But you don’t like to lie, and it’s bad manners to keep things a secret from your partner, so you tell him.

“I was worried you thought I was like, I dunno. Ugly, or something.” He deadpans at you. You worry that he’s mad. He huffs and drags a hand down his face.

“I’ve never come so hard in my life and you think that I’m not attracted to you? I came so hard I nearly blacked out, came so hard I think I told you that I loved you and you think that I think you’re ugly.” You feel slightly chided. He grabs your hand and gently guides you into the shower.

“Just because you feel that way about yourself doesn’t mean that I do.” He’s looking into your eyes as he says it, tucking your hair out of the way because it doesn’t need to be washed yet while he reaches behind you to grab the body wash. You gape at him like a fish.

“Close your mouth,” he nudges your jaw shut gently, “you don’t want to catch flies.”

You have something new to think about.

241302 11:37 am

Seungminnie?

eunming

seunmind

no!

having trouble yoebo?

ah shit

haha! yoebo

-_-

what did you even want

I love uou

yoo

Jesus Christ

YOU

cringe

Your boy isn’t one for romance and displays of affection, you know that. But you’ve had such an awful and weird day that you can’t brush off what he says like you normally would. It’s not even noon and yet everything that could throw you off the wheel emotionally has. Like they all took turns, throwing you off, dragging you back in, and repeating it until you were a nice, buttery consistency.

He’s busy though, work and schedules and being an idol, so you reply with your usual sad face and nothing else and take a nap. Naps always fix things.

241302 11:45am

jagi?

is everything okay?

have fun doing whatever it is then

i enjoy being around you most of the time!

241302 1:27pm

hannie showed me this video

well

he didn’t show me per se

he showed linohyung and i was being nosy

but anyways

it was this cat that was very small

has an outrageous win/loss ratio for hunts

i think you would like it!

it’s called a

sorry i had to ask hannie its name again

the black footed cat he says

241302 4:15pm

hihi

you havent texted all day

are you gaming again kkkk

i was going to come over but i dont want to interrupt

should i just stay and game with yongbokkie???

maybe if we play genshin i’ll see you

we can finally co-op!

241302 5:27 pm

ahh

youre not on genshin :(

are you playing something else

jagi?

hmmm

make sure you eat and use the bathroom kkkkk

you always forget when you get sucked in

You’re jolted awake by a very loud and rough knock on your front door. Also by the sound of your phone ringing incessantly. You answer the phone first.

“Hello?” Your voice is slightly panicked, no one ever calls you save for when it’s an emergency, so you’re half expecting someone to be dying or dead when you pick up. You’re halfway out of bed and scanning your floor for a pair of pants when the banging on your door stops and you register the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Did you change your lock?”

“Did I- Seungmin, what?”

“My key doesn’t work anymore.” He sounds like he’s pouting.

“The building changed it recently. Something about security measures or whatever.”

“Ah. Come open the door.” You’re opening the door as he says it, rubbing your eyes and blinking at him.

“Were you asleep?” He’s toeing his shoes off. He has something behind his back.

“Yeah.”

“Explains why you didn’t answer your texts, then. I got worried.” He kisses the side of your face.

“Seungmin, what on earth is in your hands right now?” He looks down.

“Keys and my phone.” You stare at him.

“The other one, genius.”

“Yes, I like to think I am. Thank you.” You keep staring. He sighs. He hands you a thing of your favorite candy with a note that says “more to follow” attached.

“It’s come to my attention-”

“Was it Chan? Or Changbin, this time?” He glares slightly.

“It’s come to my attention, and I realized this all on my own with no outside help-”

“Sure.”

“With some outside help-”

“Better.”

“That tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and some people enjoy being asked by their partners if they will participate.”

“Is this you asking?”

“I’m getting there!” He takes your hands the best he can while you’re still holding the candy and the note and looks at you again.

“I am sorry I didn’t ask sooner. I will ask sooner next year and the year after that and the year after that and so on and so forth. But!” He gets down on one knee. You kick him slightly with your foot.

“Unless you’re proposing, you better stand back up.” He stands back up.

“Will you be my Valentine?” You can feel your eyes water.

“If I have to.” You roll your eyes for show. Seungmin stands still for a moment.

“Is that how I sound to you?”

“Sometimes.” He raises an eyebrow. “Most of the time.”

“I am hilarious.” You roll your still-wet eyes as you open the candy.

“That’s not the whole gift.”

“I gathered, there’s a note that says so right here.” He huffs at you, giving you that deadpan stare again. He told you once that you’re one of the few people he’s met who can give and take his sarcasm in equal measures, you told him that was the nicest thing he’s ever said to you, he hit you with a pillow.

He doesn’t answer, instead he pulls you closer by the back of your neck and kisses you. Kissing Seungmin is always an experience, it always makes your head slightly fuzzy and makes your heart stutter in your chest. You think that if it was possible to die by kissing, you would’ve done it the first time you and Seungmin made out. As it stands, you just feel a little unsteady on your feet.

Seungmin pulls away and you catch yourself staring at his mouth, wet and pink and swollen just enough that it reminds you of when he had braces and his mouth was always slightly pushed out. He grabs your hand and leads you to your bedroom, placing his gifts for you somewhere on your dresser before he nudges you onto the bed.

“You’re so pretty, you know that?” His hands are winding around your waist, pushing your shirt out of the way, and he’s kissing you again.

“You’ve told me before,” you say it against his mouth, hands coming to tangle in his soft, fluffy, recently dyed hair and you can feel the sigh he emits from where your chests are pressed together.

“Can I compliment you just once?” You smile, cheeky.

“No. Never.” He grumbles something about you being impossible as he tugs your shirt off, leaning down to mouth at your chest. You tug his hair lightly and he shoots a glare up at you.

“What.”

“It’s not fair that I’m not wearing a shirt and you are.”

“‘It’s not fair that-’ Be patient.”

“I thought this was a Valentine’s day gift.”

“It’s about to turn into a Valentine’s day ungift if you don’t stop.”

“What the fuck is an ungift?” He shoves his hand down your pants to shut you up.

“You always have to be so difficult,” you interrupt his sentence with a choked off moan. “Can’t ever just be good for me, can you? Always have to fight me every step of the way.” You shake your head at him, denying it.

“Don’t lie, you’re doing it right now. You’re lucky today is a holiday, or I really would turn this into whatever the opposite of a gift is.”

The tone shift would’ve given you whiplash if you had enough mental facilities left to think, or if this wasn’t so on par with what you expect from him. Seungmin likes to keep you on your toes, sometimes letting you push without any retaliation, sometimes letting you get away with nothing at all. It seems he’s more merciful today, and you pull him close for a “thank you” peck that soon turns into something more.

“Seungmin, please-”

“Desperate. You’re always so desperate.”

“You’re being mean.”

“Am I?” The hand that’s touching you slows down and you whine at him. “Am I being mean to you?” He tilts his head to the side, falsely curious and fully condescending. He adds a fake pout for good measure.

“I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be apologizing after all. I should be nicer to you, shouldn’t I?” He’s cooing slightly at you, and you know he’s not being genuine, but you really just want him to go back to touching you like he was earlier, so you pout back and nod. He gives you a kiss on your downturned mouth and picks his pace back up.

Soon enough, you’re forgetting that he was ever being devious in the first place and then you’re spilling on his fingers. You’re brutally reminded when he keeps going, when he pins down your hands as they try to push him away, when he bullies his stupidly slender hips between your thighs so you can’t close them. It feels like your nerves are on fire, but at the same time you want more. You’re cumming again and tears spring to your eyes at the confusing sensation of too much and not enough and you can vaguely hear Seungmin mumbling empty platitudes at you through the sharp ringing in your ears.

There’s a brief pause where he shoves your bottoms and underwear off, mad about them being in his way, and then the confusing feeling is back again as his hand returns.

“Seungminnie, Seungmin, I can’t, I can’t.” You’re thrashing around hard enough that you’ve accidentally kicked the comforter off the bed.

“You can. I know you can. Just this last one, okay, baby? And then you can have whatever you want.” You know he would stop if you wanted him to, but you don’t really want him to. You want him to make you come a third time on his fingers and then you want to do it on his cock. His stupidly perfect cock.

Sometimes, when you’re busy waxing poetic about love and Seungmin and life, you think about how the two of you were most certainly made for each other. How Seungmin was made to fit you in all the ways that you were made to fit him and that whatever force brought you together made his cock with you in mind. The way it fits inside you and gives you that almost-too-full feeling without ever being too much always makes your head spin and you clench involuntarily at the thought of it even now. It doesn’t escape Seungmin’s notice, because of course it doesn’t, and he laughs a little at you.

He stops laughing when you come on his hand again, and eases you through it until you're twitching away from him and whining and then he’s kissing the space between your eyebrows and shucking off his own clothes.

You spend a minute just staring at him. He’s beautiful. You think he’s the most handsome and perfect man in the world and he has the audacity to walk around saying that he’s just “decent.” It’s moments like these where you finally understand what he gets all pissy about when you say you don’t like the way you look.

You’re drawn back into reality when you see him wrap one of his beautifully huge hands around his dick and you whine at him.

“What now?” The words are meant to be sharp but he’s too out of breath when he says them, so you brush it off.

“You said I could have whatever I wanted and I want your cock!” You sound petulant, even to yourself. “You can’t- Seungmin!” He huffs and drops his hand from himself and you can see his muscles tense with how hard he’s trying to give you what you want.

“Needy and desperate. You came three times and I can’t even come once before you’re begging for more.” He’s sliding into you as he says it, wincing as you tighten in sensitivity and stilling with the effort of not coming too soon. You nod at him anyways, finally agreeing to the things he’s saying. If he asked you to jump out of an airplane with no parachute right now, you’d probably say yes, as long as he would finally start fucking you.

“Mhm. Want you- want you all the time. Need you all the time.”

“Yeah? All the time?” His hips are sloppy and uncoordinated as he fucks into you, but you wouldn’t be able to handle much anyway with how sensitive you are, so you’re grateful that Seungmin has lost his composure.

“All the time.”

“Guess that makes you a slut then, hmm?” You huff, gathering as much of your shot coordination as you can to weakly hit him in the chest.

“No. Only want- I only want you.” He coos, softening.

“Yeah? Only me?” You nod. “Does that make you my slut then?” You shake your head. “No? What are you then, hmm?” You’re not sure, but you know that you love him, and the force of your love for him shakes every atom in your body if you think about it too long.

“I love you.” It’s all you can say, so it’s all that comes out of your mouth and Seungmin kisses your face because he can’t aim for a specific spot with how the two of you are moving and you know that he understands you because he always does.

“I love you, too. Love you so much. I’ll keep saying it until you believe me.” You let out a slight sob against his mouth and he shushes you.

“Pretty, you’re so pretty, baby. I love you so much.” He’s muttering it against your skin, hips meeting yours over and over until you’re tightening around him with an orgasm that’s almost too much to handle and he’s spilling into you too.

There’s a moment where the two of you just sit there, panting and breathing each other’s air, stuck together with sweat and cum and Seungmin’s dick that’s still inside of you and then your lip is wobbling and tears are spilling hot and fresh down the sides of your face.

“Woah, woah what’s wrong? My dick game isn’t that bad, is it?” You shake your head at him and tug him down for a hug. He lets out a noise as he’s flattened against you and his face is smushed against the bed. He has to move his head to the side to avoid suffocating, so his breath is hitting the inside of your ear and you move your head away because it’s very uncomfortable. He wraps his arms around you the best that he can from your position and when his dick slips out, you whine.

“Listen, I would totally love to still be inside you right now, but I think my dick might fall off, so just gimme a minute, yeah? Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I thought you forgot.”

“Forgot- oh. About Valentine’s? I might’ve forgotten to ask you to be my Valentine, but I didn’t forget about the holiday. I was actually strong-arming Channie hyung into letting me skip out on our schedules tomorrow. I was- I am, gonna spend the day with you.” His voice is low because of how close he is to your ear, but yours isn’t when what he says makes you cry harder.

“Everyone always forgets.”

“Not me. Not me, baby. I have to live up to my title of most dedicated boyfriend, I can’t just forget about holidays.”

“Who even,” your breath catches because of your tears as you start to calm down, “who even gave you that title?”

“It’s not important.”

“Seungmin.”

“... it was Hannie.” You let out another cry, but you’ve calmed down enough that this one is for show.

“I can’t believe,” your breath hitches again, “I can’t believe you’re gonna leave me for Han Jisung, ace of Stray Kids.”

“Yeah,” he turns his face flat. “I am, unfortunately. Sorry to break it to you.”

“That’s okay,” you turn your tear-stained face to look at him, smirk stretching across your mouth, “I’ll just go and date Stray Kids’ best vocalist. Bang Christopher Chan.”

“Yah! You said you stopped having a crush on him!”

“And you said you wouldn’t leave me for one of your members!” He huffs and hides a smile in your shoulder as he moves to the side of you to hug you better.

“I love you. I really do,” he says. He’s moved your head to the side so you’re looking into his pretty brown eyes as he says it.

“I love you, too.” You do, you really do. You hope he can feel it from where he’s touching your skin. You hope he can feel it even when he’s nowhere near you. He smiles at you, and you think that he can. You think that he knows how much you love him and he loves you with the same sort of ferocity. You look at him and you think that romance isn’t doomed, and neither are you.

#bee blurbs #happy valentines day losers #ft.seungminnie #kim seungmin x reader #kim seungmin x you #kim seungmin smut #skz x reader #skz x you #skz x y/n #stray kids x reader #stray kids x you #idk what other tags to add so this is all youre getting #seungmin x reader #seungmin smut

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bluesidez · 4 months ago

Note

AHH CMON REQUESTS!! I know the inbox is flooded girl omg.

okay so as a request, i would really love to see a story where black, plus size reader and Miguel take on wedding planning. Reader is happy enjoying cake tastings, dress shopping, venue hunting etc. and groomzilla!miguel is trying to make everything perfect for her. It can be nsfw, but I trust you with whatever the vibe is! Love you down!! ✨✨✨✨

["It’s My Wife’s Day!"]

lab tester: @leoeloo 🩻

pairing: Miguel O’Hara x fem!Reader, black!Reader, PlusSize!reader

summary: No one is going to stop Miguel's fiancé from having the best day of her life, not if Miguel has anything to do with it.

content warning: AAVE (YAY!), sorry to anyone named Elana or Finley, Miguel gets a little mean here (I tried to keep it reasonable but he’s giving Libra Diva DOWN), mentions of food, some cultural (traditional) things from both sides but nothing crazy, there is one scene that could be triggering for my fellow big girls (but it's handled with care I promise), 18+ at the end so MDNI, it's also pretty suggestive throughout

word count: 8,888k EXACTLY (there should be no mistakes for as long as I've been working on it....but hey)

a/n: AHHHH! I was so happy to receive this request! (You have also been very sweet to me since my very first fic and I really appreciate that!!!) I said on my blog that I really love all things weddings, so this was a super fun write. I just love imagining Miguel in this position of making sure that his girl has everything while the girl is in complete bliss. (The mom here was also heavily inspired by my own mom who is much more active than I am in terms of telling people off.) As per our DMs, I did sprinkle in a little GR!Mig mannerisms! And! I added him being super in love with reader…but that’s a given. I do hope you enjoy! Also, I LOVE YOU!

Miguel refers to reader as his wife constantly before they’re actually married.

Also a headcanon for Miguel here that isn’t said explicitly is that his Libra trait of indecisiveness is on at all times.

Miguel could never forget the day you set his heart ablaze when you said those destined words:

“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!”

He was over the moon. Weeks of him getting you to warm up to him, months of him chasing after you, years of him trying to show you that he’s the right one for you, and finally, your hand was adorned in the rock he’s been planning for you for eons. You were truly his lady, now and forever.

The proposal was quiet and intimate, mostly because Miguel was a bit fearful you would say no, a seed of doubt growing the longer he waited. He steadily reminded you to get your nails done and paid for your hair appointments every now and then. Each time he thought he could do it, he chickened out.

Then, one night under the stars after an unnecessary work event, his feelings just overloaded.

You were so ethereal.

He remembers you laughing over something his drunk coworker had said, eyes sparkling as you retold the story. Your curls were parted to the side, earrings dangling past your jaw. Your legs were swinging over the edge of his trunk, not a care in the world as you talked with vigor.

He thought that he couldn’t live without this. He couldn’t have a life without small moments like this with you. He couldn’t imagine a moment where you weren’t by his side.

So, the words spilled out of him like water. He took your hands in his and poured his heart out. Finally, the ring box that had practically melted a shape into his thigh was being freed.

You cried when you noticed what he was doing, emotions doing a complete 180.

“No wonder you kept giving me extra money for my nails,” you let out a watery laugh as you leaned into him.

Now, here you both were, almost a year later in the middle of wedding planning.

The theme and colors were carefully handpicked, the venue was booked, and almost every week, the two of you had something to look forward to.

Miguel was currently prepping ingredients for tonight’s dinner, listening as you chatted about your great wedding dress search of the day.

“We stopped by one store, but the lady behind the desk immediately turned us down. I didn’t want to ruin such a good vibe, so I left it at that. Ma was ready to hurt her though.”

Miguel felt his nerves tighten at the news, “What?”

“Yeah, as soon as me and my entourage walked in, she ran up to us saying something about a short stock, but we knew she was lying-”

“What’s the name?”

You raise your eyebrows at his abruptness.

“Miggy, it’s really ok. Don’t worry over this,” you got closer to him, taking his face into your hand.

“I’m not. What’s the name?”

You pull his face down to yours, “Nuh uh. I’m not giving you the name. We said we weren’t going to be stressed out over this process, remember?”

Miguel closed his eyes and brought his hands down your body, leaning his forehead against yours, “I remember.” He blew out a breath and squeezed your ass in hopes that it would help calm him down.

“Good. Now, you stay right here and I’ll go get ready for dinner. I wanna tell you about this poor girl whose dad didn’t like a single thing she put on.”

You kiss him three times, the last kiss lingering a little longer with Miguel humming into your lips and lean back with a warm smile. Miguel’s hands clinged to you until you were too far to reach and you walked upstairs to change into your house clothes.

Miguel stood next to the island, tapping his fingers against the granite with a tongue poking into his cheek.

The dress shopping process was the one he was the least involved in, opting to be surprised on the day you walked down the aisle. You wouldn’t even let his family pitch in for the dress, saying something about running up your dad’s pockets.

But how does a dress shop conveniently run out of dresses once his fiancé walks in?

Right as Miguel was considering googling every dress shop in the area, his phone buzzed to life.

Just the person he wanted to hear from.

“Hello?” Miguel turned to toss some butter on a skillet, holding the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“Miguel…”

He stopped in his tracks, knowing the exact tone of voice your mother was using.

“What happened?”

“Today was so beautiful!”

“But?”

“But that one shop on James Street? Terrible.”

Miguel would have usually chuckled at the dramatics, but this situation was no laughing matter to him.

“You should have seen the way the people in there turned they nose up at us! One lady was about to jump out of her skin. All of this for some of the ugliest dresses I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Miguel shifted his position and stood up straight, tossing minced garlic in the sizzling butter, “Did they say anything to you?” His hands were gripping the phone enough to leave indents on his skin.

“Other than telling us how she wouldn’t have anything we would like, no. She didn’t even want us taking a seat in the lobby.”

He moved to grab a pen and a notepad from the drawer, “Do you have the name of the shop?”

“Lady Love. They should call it Lady A Lie.”

Miguel smiled, thankful that he could count on his future mother-in-law to be his partner in crime specifically when it came to making sure that no one brought harm to you. The number one thing that he and your mom had in common was their need to spring into action.

“Thank you. She didn’t want to tell me anything.”

“Trust me, if she hadn’t begged me not to act a fool, I would have cussed that heifer out. She was so nasty and so rude. That ol’ cow.”

“They’ll have a notice from my lawyer by the morning.”

Your mother hummed, “Let me get my iPad out and get to rating they store. It was a bleach blonde butched buffoon named Elana at the front desk. She was the one giving my baby a hard time. Nobody in there was trying to stop her either.”

“I’ll remember that,” Miguel could hear you coming down the stairs, fuzzy slides creating a steady tempo against the floor. “Let me call you back later.”

“She must be coming back. Tell her to bring me back my shoes!”

Miguel chuckled, “Yes ma’am.”

You came up behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist.

“Was that Ma?”

“Yeah,” Miguel reached to place some chicken on the hot skillet, satisfied with the simmered ingredients he added. “She said to give her those shoes back.”

“She’ll get them back! I’m using them right now. What else were you two talking about?”

Miguel turns down the boil of the pasta noodles, shoulders tensing, “She was telling me about Lady Love.”

You clicked your teeth, “I thought I told you not to worry about it.”

“I’m not!” He turned the chicken over while you grumbled into his back. “But she called me with very upsetting news. What am I but a good son? I had to listen.”

“You two are gonna work my nerves.”

“Don’t say that. We’re just not going to sit back and let someone disrespect you like that. What kind of man would I be if I just let somebody not treat you right and I have the means to stop it? So, please. Let me do this.”

You huffed and buried your face into his back, fingers pressing into his skin. His words shut you up.

“Fine.”

“Thank you, cariño. Now, can you get the salad and the wine out of the fridge? This is almost ready.”

“What are you making?”

“Marry Me Chicken and Pasta.”

“So funny.”

“Ah, I know. It must really work, huh?”

Miguel walked hand-in-hand with you down the fancy boutiques in the shopping district.

You both had just gotten done wandering aimlessly as you waited for the cake-tasting appointment. Miguel had to be stopped multiple times from buying everything you complimented.

He was extremely happy to see you giddy about the cake tasting. It was something you’ve been looking forward to since the day you both confirmed a wedding date.

He’s studied your Pinterest boards heavily, the notifications dinging with every pin. He knows you want to go all out for the cake. Something large enough to feed both of your huge families and something grand enough to match the venue and the theme.

He arranged for the best of the best to be trying out today and if that didn’t work, he’ll seek someone else. He’ll even bake the cake if he has to, although you’d push him out of the kitchen.

“I hope they have that Biscoff flavor. I heard it was really good,” you turn to him with a hopeful smile.

Miguel smiled back at you, “I’m sure they will.”

He only lets go of your hand to hold the door open for you, eyes enjoying the view of your body in the flowy dress you were wearing. Earlier, he couldn’t stop kissing over the deep Queen Anne neckline of it, claiming that you smelled too good. You two almost didn’t make it out of the house on time.

“Hello! Welcome in!”

The bakery was bright and homey. The desserts on display were placed on light peach stands and risers and the smell of caramel and cinnamon was strong in the air. Square canvases covered the walls with cute paintings of some of the featured desserts.

“Miguel, look!”

You pull him over to some Miffy-shaped buns filled with different flavored custards.

“That is too adorable to even eat.”

“But I do hope you’d still be willing to give it a taste!”

You both look up to the friendly face behind the counter. They were a lanky figure with a glitter tattoo of a unicorn cupcake planted on their arm and pink gauges in their ears

“You two must be the future Mr. & Mrs. O’Hara. Lovely to meet you all.”

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” Miguel reached his hand out to give a firm shake.

“My name is Finley and I’ll be assisting you all today. We have several beautiful flavors for you to try.”

Finely directed you both to a square table booth in the corner of the bakery. Miguel slid next to your right side in order to wrap his arm around with one hand and eat with the other.

“Other than the standard Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry & Cream, Red Velvet, Marble, and ‘Wedding Cake’ flavors that we offer, the samples for you here include Tiramisu, Passionfruit, White Chocolate Raspberry, Lemon Blueberry, Cookies & Cream, aaaand Dulce de Leche!”

Miguel’s eyebrows went up, feeling skeptical but open.

“Woah,” your eyes grew at the neat display of confections before you. “I’m so excited.”

“I’ll be right over here if you guys need me. Enjoy!”

You picked up a fork and dug straight into the Strawberries & Cream.

“That is so freaking good,” you groan out, eyebrows scrunching.

“Let me see,” Miguel turned to you with his mouth open, eyes full of mirth.

“Miguel, please.”

“What? It’s practice for the real deal.”

“When we’re the only ones in here?”

“It’s going to feel like an intimate moment just between us, no?”

You sigh, defeated. He doesn’t even budge when you shove a giant piece of cake in his mouth. He grabs your hand before you can retreat, licking slowly away at the leftover cream.

He focuses on the golden fork, working in between the prongs. Time slows down as you watch the white icing disappear into his mouth. His eyelashes are long and pretty and his lips are plump and a little wet from his tongue.

One more pass of the fork through his mouth and he’s looking up at you with the same fire from this morning.

You clear your throat, “Is that how you’re going to eat the cake?”

“Something like that.”

You two slowly but surely make it through the rest of the flavors with you trying to stay unflustered and Miguel trying to up the ante.

He’s grinning and chuckling at your ruffled state until you get to the Dulce de Leche cake. He harrumphs as you cut into it.

“No, no, you wanna eat cake so bad, so eat it!”

“This isn’t the cake I was talking about-”

“I’m going to shove this fork so far down your throat if you even think of finishing those thoughts out loud.”

“You know I love it when you get that way,” Miguel sighs and reaches to eat from the fork before you can say anything back.

You wait in silence as you watch his face contort from disgusted to neutral to pleased.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah?”

“A little too sweet. Abuela wouldn’t like it.”

“Do you like it, though?”

He paused as he watched you take a bite.

“Maybe.”

“Would you like it as our wedding cake?”

“No….”

You smirked at him, “But you want it as your groom’s cake?”

“…Yes.”

He looks so conflicted about it that you almost feel bad for him.

“Miguel it’s ok if you like it, no one is going hurt you. You know you have a sweet tooth.”

“It is really delicious, like eerily so. It’s not my favorite cake, though.”

“Oh? Was it the Cookies & Cream one?”

“Close.”

You look around the plate, confused as to how fruit flavors have anything to do with sandwich cookies.

Miguel got closer to your ear, lips grazing the top, “My favorite is you.”

You push his face back with your hand while he grins into your palm.

“I see you two lovebirds are enjoying everything,” Finley walks back over to the two of you. “Any standouts?”

Miguel lists off the ones you were enjoying the most with ease.

“We also enjoyed this Dulce de Leche one but we decided it would be best for my cake but before we move on, do you have any Biscoff cake samples that we can try?”

“Of course, let me go get that for you.”

He looks back at you cheesing at him.

“You remembered!”

“Always.”

Finley comes back with a small Biscoff bundt cake.

“Now, unfortunately, we don’t offer this flavor for any tiered cakes.”

You took a bite and almost soared. The flavors were just the right mix of salty and sweet, some caramel coating the top.

Miguel looked from you to Finley, “Can you just do it for one tier?”

“Um, I can ask my boss when she comes back-”

“You can leave her number with me. I would really love to talk with her face-to-face.”

“Y-yes sir.”

“Good,” Miguel reaches over to wipe some salt off of your lips. “My wife wants a pretty grand cake and she has some particular ideas. We want to be really involved in the process for the best result. No surprises.”

“Absolutely. Would you still want to place that order for the groom cake? We have a sale on toppers for them right now.”

They place a pamphlet on the counter with countless toppers of grooms in pure agony. Some are being dragged by their wives and others are running away. Miguel turns his lip up and moves his eyes to Finely without lifting his head up.

“These are very tacky and senseless, so no. We’ll place the order for it at the same time as the main cake.”

Finely moves to remove the pamphlet, face red and eyes wet, “I apologize. A lot of the future husbands enjoy them.”

“Do I look like the other husbands that come through here?”

“N-no sir! Not at all.”

“Tell you what, give me your boss’s number and your business card. We’ll circle back. Thank you for today’s tasting.”

“L-let me at least give you some extra dessert before you leave. Free of charge!”

Miguel helps you stand as Finley hops around the store grabbing any and everything.

“I really hope you consider choosing us for the wedding.”

“The wedding?”

“Your! Your wedding!”

“Hmph.”

Miguel grabs the box from Finley’s shaking hands and promptly leaves the store with you on his arm. You turn back to Finley with an apologetic look and a quiet sorry leaving your lips, though you’re sure they’re still shocked by Miguel’s behavior.

“I’m going to set up more appointments. We need a backup cake,” he says as he guides you back to the car.

“You loved those cakes and you scared that poor person to death.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just me eating these cakes. And those were some of the most horrible toppers I’ve seen yet. Who does that?”

“You would be shocked to know that not every man is willing to celebrate and proudly love their partner.”

Miguel turned the car on and let the cool AC hit his face.

“But, if you still want to look at more bakeries, we can. More cake for me.”

You turn his face to yours and kiss his lips gently.

“Now what’s all this about eating me-flavored cake?”

He shifts the gear into reverse, “Let’s get home and you’ll find out.”

When you said you wanted creative and unique pre-wedding photoshoots, Miguel didn’t hesitate to make sure he could pull it together for you. Now he’s starting to regret it.

You walked out into the studio apartment with an oversized button-down that looked like it could be his, some thigh-high stockings squeezing at your thick thighs, and some black lingerie peeking through the thin shirt material. Your makeup was simple but jaw-dropping with glossy lips and a lovely blush that brought out a glow to your skin. Your hair was in a blowout style, curls bouncing with every step closer to him.

This specific photographer that you had mentioned in awed passing was known for her eye for romantic detail. Her pictures truly captured the love between couples in raw form. When you showed Miguel the pictures on her website, he was quick to get in touch with her to set up a decent amount of photoshoots. What he didn’t expect was for her to have an influx of assistants and protégés to have wandering eyes.

“Are you going to move the lights or are you going to keep gawking at my wife like an idiot?”

The one assistant who clearly didn’t understand what Miguel’s death stares meant jumped at his voice and rushed to move things within the set, the entire back of his neck beet-red.

“Baby, don’t be like that, he might just be nervous,” you slid your hands up his chest, straightening out his “work” shirt. “Don’t fuss at him.”

“He should do his job then,” Miguel shifted his gaze from the scrambling boy to you, voice getting quieter as he peered down at your excited face. “You do look beautiful, though. Can’t blame him.”

“You like it?” There was a spark in your eye. It was something that Miguel knew all too well.

He glided his fingers down your back, feeling the heat of your skin through the shirt. Your eyes never left his lips as he drew closer. You could feel his breath covering your skin.

The flash of a strobe light caused you to jump.

“These are going to make such stunning outtakes,” Xina gasped as she moved her camera back up to her face again. “Sorry to scare you. Please continue this and we can do the original plan in a second.”

You laughed as Miguel pulled you even closer, pressing kisses against your neck to avoid ruining your makeup.

The original idea of the shoot was to have Miguel look like he’s coming home from work and walking in on you dancing around in his clothes. The idea was cute, domestic, a little sexy, and true to life. While it wasn’t the set of photos going out with your wedding invitations, it was something fun for your socials.

As the scene played out, Miguel didn’t expect you to open up your shirt even more as he came back through the entryway. It made for a nice expression when he looked up to see you passionately dancing around the couch.

You urged him toward you with your finger, hips moving to the music blasting over the speakers Xina had behind the equipment. Miguel grinned and headed your way.

With Xina’s direction, the both of you were able to get out lively photos as if it were just a normal day in the soon-to-be O’Hara home.

By the time you all were finished, Miguel was only in a tucked-in tank top with his hair tossed and turned. You still looked perfect on his lap, grinning down at him as he mischievously bit his loose necktie that you placed on your shoulders.

“Perfect!” Xina smiled behind the camera. “Now, one little thing I like to do at the end of each shoot is have the couple face me with their faces together for one final picture.”

You kiss Miguel on the corner of his mouth and lay his tie on top of his head before turning to Xina. Miguel follows with a lazy grin on his face.

It would have all been so well if that same assistant wasn’t still staring at you like he’s never seen a beautiful woman before when Xina started to wrap up.

He met Miguel’s eyes and almost turned blue in the face trying to look busy.

There were so many more photoshoots to go in the near future. He’s not sure how he’ll make it through the next ones without making a scene.

“Miguel! The invitation samples are here,” you knocked on his office door, giddy with excitement.

Miguel rolls back from his desk, glasses perched on his nose, “C’mon, let me see.”

You stride eagerly to his seat and he’s waiting with the same energy, pulling you into his lap once you’re within arms reach. You make a noise of excitement as run your finger under the envelope flap. Miguel leans his head on your shoulder waiting to finally see the design you so meticulously planned.

You slid the cardstock out, gasping as you saw the paperdoll drawings of you and Miguel on the page. The artists did a fantastic job of designing you both in such a stylistic, yet recognizable way.

“Oh my god, look at the little outfits!”

You panned through the cut-out clothes, one with you all’s work outfits, another with casual outfits, and the last one with a wedding dress and a tux. You brought the papers up to cover your mouth as you laughed again. Miguel’s heart soared at the charming way you reacted.

“Look! They even captured your cute nose right!”

“You love my nose, huh?”

“Stop,” you snicker as you pull out the last picture. It’s one from a more recent photoshoot with you both in formal, dressy attire with scissors and measuring tapes in your hands and paper hearts everywhere to match the paperdoll invitation.

Miguel took the invitations from your hands, wanting to get a better look. It really was one of a kind, something you both would be able to look back fondly at.

He ran his thumb across the words, really taking in the fact that you’ll be walking down the aisle right into his arms. He read the words once more.

Save the date…

2025…

Miguel &…

“How the hell did they spell your name wrong?”

You looked up from the picture in your hand with a frown, “What?”

“We waited this long for samples and they spell your name fucking wrong.”

You read over the invitation again and let out a groan, “Of course. Let me call the company-”

“I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure? You looked busy when I knocked, I don’t want you to get sidetracked.”

“Making sure that my wife’s name is spelled correctly on our wedding invitations isn’t getting sidetracked. I’ll handle it.”

You felt your shoulders drop, a tension you didn’t realize you were carrying releasing from your body.

“Thank you so much, baby,” you sent him the number with a small smile on your face.

Miguel gave your lips a peck, “Anything for you. Don’t worry your head about it.”

You stood up to leave, but not before he gave your thighs a squeeze.

When he was sure you rounded the corner, he immediately pressed the number, blowing slowly through his mouth.

He was about to work his way to free invitations and a year's worth of service once he was finished.

Miguel laughed at the video you sent him. You were practically glowing with the turquoise waves in the background and braids in your hair. A giant plumeria was tucked behind your ear and you held a big fruity drink in your hand.

You were out on your bachelorette’s trip, enjoying the waves in the sand as you caught up with your bridesmaids. He hadn’t seen any annoyed texts yet, so he assumed that the trip was not falling to pieces.

He could hear your friends in the background bickering about how they had to take your phone away sometimes to stop you from texting him.

“She got a few more months of being a hoe!”

“Will you shut up?! I’m making a video.”

“It’s true, though! We’re about to go get drunk as fuck. Don’t worry, Miguel, we got her!”

You just rolled your eyes and smiled at their antics before the video ends.

The mood of the video contrasted your texts entirely. They really did get you drunk.

“i miss you alreadyyyyyy”

“I miss you too but you need to have fun”

“I’ll see you soon. I’ll be waiting for you at the airport in just a few days.”

“good”

“you better be waiting for me”

“i wont you”

“shit”

“want you”

“you and your dick”

“gonna sing to him”

“Him?”

“yeah him”

“he’s mine”

“gonna love on him”

“and you”

“miss you so baaaaad”

“the bed is empty without you :((((“

“I hope you remember all of this when you see me baby”

“my name is mrssss oharaaaa”

“idk who baby is”

“Ok well Mrs. O’Hara you need to go to sleep”

“i will go to sleep mr ohara”

“gonna dream of you”

“and my big dick”

“You do that”

“Send me a pic when you wake up”

The night could have ended perfectly. He knew you had fun and crashed safely in your room. There were no problems with the resort or the reservations. You were constantly flooding his phone with pictures without talking because of the “No Miguel” rule he was sure your friends set.

Miguel wanted to close his eyes in peace.

So when his assistant sent him the picture of one of the most crucial parts of your wedding, he could feel his neck tightening. He called Ben instantly.

“What the fuck am I looking at?”

“The broom! They had a lot of them at the store but this one was plain and white, so I feel like it’s perfect for the wedding.”

Miguel pinched his forehead in an attempt to keep his eyebrows from molding together, “Do you have a schedule for when you’re this stupid, or is it only reserved for me?”

Ben was silent for a second, “I don’t understand, I thought you said you needed a broom? Is that not what this is?”

“A broom to jump over Reily. For weddings. I told you to check with Jess about it because I knew you weren’t going to have the slightest idea what I was talking about. Imagine if I brought this home to my wife. She would be offended.”

“W-what’s the difference?”

He might find out the difference once Miguel hits him over the head with it.

“I’m going to fire you.”

Miguel wasn’t really. He was just so tired.

“Return the broom. I’ll take care of this in the morning.”

Ben was stuttering and blubbering as Miguel smacked the red button. He needed to look at the pictures you sent again. He didn’t need to fall asleep in such a bad mood.

Miguel was certain that if he were a celebrity, this would be the wedding of the century with the way the bill was racking up.

Not that it really mattered, because it was his wife’s day. Anything you wanted, he was going to get it.

You both agreed on a buffet-style dinner for the reception with different stations and servers to accommodate your huge families.

Currently, you both were tasting the traditional foods that the caterer had to offer and it was looking less than desirable.

The greens were a bit bland, the catfish was ok, and the mac & cheese was delicious.

The pork was a bit dry, the wedding cookies could have been better, and the mole was missing something.

“I think,” Miguel pushed his food around the plate. “It’s missing banana.”

“Really? I’ve never thought to add that before.”

“For future reference, it’ll really make the difference.”

You wiped your fingers above the plate, “I think this might be a sign to leave the traditional stuff to our dessert table. Some of these are great but I’m sure both of our families will be up in arms with complaints. And maybe this is for the better! Tradition is too on the nose.”

Miguel admires your positivity because this is probably the sixth caterer you both have tested out.

“We know you’re popular from your page, so what is it that you’re most confident in?”

The woman before you all smiled, “Since you're both looking for a pretty ambitious spread, I think things like a pizza bar or build-your-own stations should be the way to go.”

Through another round of dishes, you and Miguel were amazed by the specialties that the chef had to offer from the customization to the endless amount of options.

After a long Q&A trial between the chef and Miguel:

“Do you have simpler options for the kiddos?”

“Is it possible to do this station and this station right next to each other?”

“Should I hire more help for you?”

“Do you sell this mac & cheese separately?”

“Can you try this mole one more time?”

You both settled on five different stations with food ranging from BBQ to fries to candy. No one will be able to say that they went home hungry.

“Are you satisfied?” you rub Miguel’s chest on the way out to the car.

“Completely. I think it’s going to be great.”

The big day was getting closer and closer with finalizations being made and arrangements galore. The cake flavors were chosen, your dress was being edited to perfection, makeup and hair appointments were already made, and Miguel’s suit was tailored like no other. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were all fitted, especially after Miguel’s constant trips to Lyla’s shop. He was there for nearly every snip, tuck, and seam.

The time was really winding down and you both could really feel that as you walked into the reception venue.

Miguel woke up that day to a phone call claiming that the venue had been overbooked and was seeking him out to cancel his event. He’s never called people faster in his life. The threats that were made was not something he was proud of, but he’s glad he didn’t wake you up.

Now he has the pleasure of watching you glide around the tables in awe.

“Miguel! Look at the plates! The silverware! The centerpieces!”

It truly was magical watching your vision come to light.

Miguel followed after you with a grin painting his lips, checking every table for faults. The wedding planner was also next to him, waiting with bated breath for direction from Miguel.

“This should be here,” Miguel pointed to a lone party favor in the middle of a plate.

The planner moves it with ease, used to Miguel’s demands at this point in the process.

Miguel kept walking towards the tables closest to where you and he would be sitting.

“I thought I said that these two weren’t supposed to be next to each other? We don’t have time for arguments that night,” Miguel picks up two placeholders. “I don’t want to have to carry our aunts out of here myself. Fix it.”

The wedding planner grabbed them and made a note on their clipboard.

“And where’s the centerpiece for our table?” Miguel checks his watch. “It was supposed to be here yesterday.”

“There was a delay in the flowers. They were the wrong shade, remember? They should be here first thing tomorrow morning, and we’ll have the final touches to it.”

“And you’ll have the pictures sent to me?”

“Of course.”

“Miguel!” you were on the other side of the hall by the dessert table. “The lights over here are shaped like hearts! How cute is that!”

Miguel’s arms unfolded, demeanor shifting as he watched you get excited by the different labels. His chest rose up and the scowl on his mouth disappeared.

“You really love her.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“This is a toast to everyone who has been with us on this long, long journey.”

Your closest friends and family laughed at Miguel’s words.

Who’s to say that Miguel essentially blacked out making sure that everyone walked down the aisle correctly just a few hours earlier? No one brave enough to bring it to his face.

“You guys have been here from the start. From the moment I decided to pursue this angel of a woman, you guys were right there cheering me on. Now we’re here years later about to take on one of the biggest days of our lives.”

The table was a mix of happiness and nostalgia, excitement and fondness.

“I can’t thank you all enough for being a part of our bridal party. I can’t even thank you guys enough for encouraging us as a couple. The love in this room truly knows no bounds.’

Miguel lifts his glass up with one hand and squeezes your hand with another.

“So here’s to the present and the future. To family and friends. To us, your future O’Hara’s.”

The table clinks their glasses together with a cheer, watching as Miguel kisses you with so much adoration.

Tomorrow was going to be whimsical.

Today was starting out obnoxious.

Anything that could go wrong was going wrong for Miguel.

First, woke up almost an hour late due to playing stupid games all night with his groomsmen. He would have preferred one my night with you before the “I do’s,” but apparently that was bad luck. Instead, he got an extensive game night with a couple of beers. Nothing to have him over the edge, but definitely something to make him feel like he was in college again.

Second, he couldn’t find his cufflinks that he had made specifically for this day. They were custom with your initials and your birthstone on them. The room looked like a whirlwind after he searched top to bottom only for Gabriel to have them the whole time and tell him almost forty minutes later.

He wanted to strangle him.

“Miguel, I have the rings too. There’s no way you think that Peter B. is a better ringkeeper than I am.”

“If you lose them, I swear to god I’m going to-”

“Yeah, yeah. Death, Grim Ripper, stabbing, big whoop. Go calm down.”

Third, for some reason, Peter B. had Mayday in the hotel suite when the only children that were supposed to hit the aisle were his niece and your nephew.

“Why is that baby here?” Miguel tried to keep his voice level because it’s not Mayday who ran in here, it was Peter who’s constantly doing what he wanted. She was walking around and chatting with the groomsmen who were kind enough to keep up her conversations. Four-year-olds had a lot to say.

“Ah, she’s just here until her grandma comes by to pick her up!”

“Peter, if I pass out before I see my wife today, you’re going to be the first reason.”

Lastly, when everything was finally settled and he was ready to go to the ceremony venue, Gabriel came running in and almost gave Miguel a heart attack. Something about you and crying and Miguel almost broke the door down trying to get out.

“Miguel, don’t look at her!” Gabriel ran after him as he made his way to your suite.

“I’m not, damn it, I just need to make sure she’s ok.”

He was on your floor in a flash, your friends waiting outside the door.

“Where is she?”

“She’s inside. We calmed her down for the most part, but her aunt got up here somehow and started to talk shit.”

“Miguel, if Jess and her mom weren't able to remove her, it would have been bad. She kept saying things about how you’re being tricked. She kept telling her that she wasn’t worthy enough to be a bride.”

“What?” Miguel walked towards the door. “Let me in.”

“Let us make sure you can’t see her, first.”

“I really don’t give a-”

“Miguel.”

He turned to Gabriel who pushed his hands down in a pressing motion, “Ya relájate, yeah? She’s not going to be centered if you aren’t centered.”

With that in mind, Miguel waited at the door until he was allowed in. Your friends said you were in the bathroom with the door cracked. He walked over and turned his back to the door, tapping in a light rhythm so as not to startle you.

“You ok, baby?”

He could hear your sniffles and it took everything within him not to take the hinges off the door just to get to you.

“No, not really. I, I’m terrified.”

“Honestly, me too.”

The door moved a bit, and your voice sounded closer, “What if I’m not the woman you need?

He scoffed, “And what if I’m not the man you need?”

You were quiet for just a moment, “You are more than what any man has ever been for me. I don’t think there’s been even a day where I could fix my lips to say that I haven’t felt your love and your heart. You’re…you’re everything to me.”

“So how do you think I feel when someone has convinced you that you aren’t enough for me?” Miguel turned his head to the crack. “No woman has opened my eyes like you have. No person has stolen my heart and cared for it the way that you have. I can’t even begin to describe the ways in which you’ve changed me for the better. You are my world.”

“Miguel,” your voice was watery as you took a deep breath.

“If you want to call this entire thing off and go to the Justice of the Peace, that’s fine with me. We can send our family straight to the reception. I don’t care, as long as I have you.”

“No, I want to still have this ceremony. I still want to present our love. I’m just overwhelmed right now.”

Miguel moves to slide his wrist through the door, “Give me your hand.”

You laugh as you take his hand in yours, careful not to lean on the door and smoosh it.

“You are worthy to me and this is only a new chapter in the foundation that we’ve built. No jealous aunt nor any other family member is taking what we have away. I chose you, you chose me, ok?”

“Ok,” you squeeze his hand as rubs the top of yours with his thumb. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Miguel’s heart was hammering in his chest like a hummingbird fluttering around nectar.

He stood at the end of the aisle with his one hand grasping one wrist and a knot in his throat. The seats were filled with waiting people, but he didn't think anyone was more ready than him. Gabriel had patted him on the back once he was down the aisle, now he stood with his daughter at his side making sure Miguel really didn’t pass out.

Miguel’s tunnel vision shifted as everyone got up to watch you come around the corner. Miguel’s breath stopped.

You really were his world.

Your smile was blinding as you stepped towards him, your father’s arm wrapped tightly around yours. The closer you got, the more Miguel could feel the air coming back into his lungs.

As he waited for your father to put your hands in his, he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. He was so lucky, he couldn’t believe it.

As he held his hands out, he had to will himself to relax.

You stepped closer to him, your warm palms bringing life back to his.

“You’re shaking.”

He looked to his hands and they did have a faint tremor to them, “I’m excited.”

With eyes for only each other, you both made it through your vows. Miguel damn near brought the audience to tears with his imagery of a lost younger version of himself and you finding him in his aimless pursuit of living. How you opened up to him like a waterfall behind thick vines. How you wrapped your arms around him. How you upgraded his life.

You almost brought him to tears when you spoke about how he loved you. How he stood tall between all that was against you and guided you to better days. How he never went a day without showering you in some form of love, even when he was feeling like shit. How he made you want to grow old with him and walk through life together.

To the shock of no one, you both said “I do” with ease, no objection to be heard.

When he kissed you, the world stopped for only a second and came back down with the celebration from your guests. His hands on your jaw brought you closer to him and one swipe of the tongue before he pulled away had you excited for later.

One more kiss and you both turned to the crowd ecstatically. The broom was placed in front of you both and with three taps on your hand you both took a huge jump over it. Your family and friends cheered even louder.

Walking down the aisle to the doors, Miguel could actually pay attention to the crowd. So many people were smiling and wiping tears from their faces. It only solidified the love that he had for you.

You both laugh as flower petals fill the air around you on the way to the car.

It was really a joyous occasion.

Miguel was so happy, he didn’t care what anyone else did.

Ok so, he did stop one of his baby cousins from sticking their entire head in the fondue machine, but other than that, he was so relieved.

The DJ announcing you two as Mr. & Mrs. Miguel O’Hara elevated his mood and the trip to the dance floor for the first dance had his spirits high.

The two of you had a sexy number, with his hands barely leaving your hips and his fingers sliding up the slit of the sparkly dress you changed into.

After that, it was hard for him to keep his hands off of you. He tried to distract himself with catching up with family, grabbing food from each station, having dance competitions, laying sleeping kids more comfortably in chairs, anything to stop himself from just dragging you to your reserved hotel room.

When you two stood near the cake feeding each other bites with hearts in your eyes, he couldn’t help but to lean into your ear and whisper, “Still the second best flavor.”

You hit his chest with one hand and covered your cake-filled mouth with the other.

By the time you drove off with ribbons and flowers trailing the back of the car, Miguel was practically buzzing getting you all to himself.

He made that known by carrying you bridal style to the room without a care in the world and you laughing into his neck.

You kissed his neck as he refused to let you, even for the elevator, “You’re so silly.”

“The better to make you laugh, Mrs. O’Hara.”

“I love it when you call me that. Say it again.”

“Mrs. O’Hara. My beautiful bride today, my beautiful wife for life.”

He passes through the door after you reach to scan the keycard. As soon as he closes it you’re on his face kissing all over.

“My husband,” you say in between the passes of his lips against yours. “Mr. O’Hara. Will you put me down?”

“Nuh uh.”

“Then how will we finish off our night with a bang? C’mon, baby, I have a surprise for you.”

“Fine,” four more kisses and Miguel let you go.

“Just go sit on the bed and I’ll be right back.”

Miguel laid his jacket on a chair and walked over to the bed. He started to unbutton his shirt carefully, not wanting to tear the expensive material. He slid his shoes off carefully too, sliding into the fluffy slippers the hotel provided.

He would say he wishes he could have done more for tonight, but the two of you will be enjoying the fresh air of a foreign country in about two weeks time.

He sat on the bed as he waited for you to come out of the bathroom. There was no telling what you had in store, and he can’t wait to find out.

“Close your eyes!”

Miguel obeyed, curious as to what you had in store. He could hear the padding of your heels on the carpet getting closer.

You took his hands and guided them to your ass and with muscle memory, he took a handful.

“I’m already sold,” he said, feeling some light fabric hit his wrists.

You chuckled at his face, seeing his tongue poked out to the corner and his hands feeling and kneading your body.

“Ok, open ‘em.”

Miguel parted his eyes to see you in beautiful white lingerie. A white open lace see-through babydoll set hugged your tits tight. Panning down, he could see your thin panty with the string pulled over your hips and the curve of your body on display. Going further down, on your left leg, there was a garter digging into your skin that read “Miguel’s Wife” in bold, red cursive letters.

“You like it?”

Miguel looked up to you with a tinier veil adorning your hair.

“This garter might be the only thing that makes it out unscathed.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm hm,” he leans forward to plant kisses along the top of your chest, pulling your thick thighs around him. “We’re gonna get a complaint.”

“Good,” you raked your nails down his nape, earning a groan from Miguel as you continued to his back. “I want you to make love to me.”

You start to grind along him, feeling the bulge in his suit pants grow. Miguel hummed and started to remove your top. It looked gorgeous on you, but it was useless to him at the moment. Your skin was sparkling all the way down to your nipples and it only made Miguel want to devour you more.

You gasp as he smacks your ass and hikes you up, his mouth latching onto your areola like it’s fruit from the chocolate fondue today.

“I’ve been wanting this all night,” Miguel mumbles into your skin. “You looked so amazing today.”

“So did you,” you tilt his chin up to look at his face. “I saw you looking at me all night. You’re not very discreet.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

He got up with you in his arms and flipped you over, “Everybody there should know how I feel about you by now.”

You were a vision. Smooth skin contrasting with the stark white of the panty and garter, veil sprawled out behind you like a halo. Miguel bent down to kiss you again, truly in awe that this was who he had as a spouse.

“I want you to know how I feel about you too,” you whisper against his lips.

You guide his hand from your face to your breast to your panties. You part your legs, thighs shaking in anticipation. Miguel's eyes get wider as he sees your lips through the peek-a-boo hole of your underwear. One swipe and your essence is on his fingertips.

Miguel brings his eyes back to you as he takes his fingers and brings it to his lips, sucking it off with a pop.

You bite your lip watching him lick his fingers and unbuckle his pants.

The air is tight and heated, with you open and waiting and Miguel watching and wanting.

He leans back and pulls his pants down. You look down hoping to see a peek of what’s about to rock your world.

At the sight of your name and “MIC” in bold black letters across the band you bust out in giggles.

You sit up as he comes around to the side of the bed, “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“I’ll never forget it.”

You laugh even more when you see it up close.

“Help me take this off,” he turns around to show your name and “Husband” printed on the back.

You lean into his back in a fit of giggles, shocked but giddy.

“We really are soulmates,” you say as you pull the briefs by the leg. “Meant to be.”

Miguel turns back around, bending to slide your mouth with his, “Forever and ever.”

True to his word, it really felt like you were his favorite flavor with the amount of marks he left on your skin before he got back in between your legs. You were so wound tight that with one lick from your hole to your clit, you were already trapping his head there.

Miguel hummed and hiked your hips up, mouth moving to kiss your lips as if he were making out with the ones on your face. It was absurd how loud it sounded. His tongue kept swirling along your walls while the tip of his nose rubbed against your clit.

You didn’t know where to keep your hands, but it did look good with your ring dazzling on your finger as you brought your hands to his head buried deep in your pussy.

“Don’t stop,” you cried as he started to nod his face along your flower.

Just when you could feel yourself ride to the edge, he took his middle and ring finger and spread you open. You shouted his name as you felt the cool touch of the ring slide in and out alongside the heat of his tongue.

You don’t remember when you came down, but you remember Miguel’s drenched face kissing along your shaking thighs.

“No Dulce de Leche is beating that, Mrs. O’Hara,” he reached to pull the soaking lace off, careful not to move the garter.

“C’mere,” you hold your hands out, wanting to feel him on you. “I’m glad you like it so much.”

Miguel groans into your mouth, grinding his dick along your wet folds. He finds your hands and intertwines his fingers with yours.

“I love you,” he sighs into your mouth. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

One sweet session later, he had you on your stomach, back arched, and yelling into the pillows as he pounded into you.

You could see stars as his hips smacked loudly against your ass. The headboard was knocking against the wall with every push.

Miguel was really feeling the wedding attire as he had one hand gripping your veil by your back and the other pulling at garter.

When you came around his cock, he was diving in right after, letting go into your sea. The shudders of you afterwards had him moving a little more and turning your face to the side to kiss your panting lips.

By the time you two finished, you were sure the sun was soon to rise.

Your hair was a mess, the veil was somewhere across the room, and you both were tangled up in the sheets.

You laid your head on Miguel’s chest, content to listen to his heartbeat to lull you to sleep. He’s rubbing your arm and kissing the top of your head.

“Thank you so much for stepping up and making this day so magical for me,” you look up at him. “Words can’t explain how appreciative I am.”

Miguel looked back at you, eyes warm, “I just want to see you smile. Thank you for giving me space to handle things.”

You pucker your lips and he reaches to comply.

“Now, we need to get some sleep. Gotta regain some energy.”

“You’re absolutely right,” you say as you tilt your eyes down to the sheets. “Because I’ve got a show to put on when we wake up.”

Miguel just laughs as he pulls you onto his chest.

The birds chirping were a nice background noise to you all’s slumber.

I went through several episodes of Kitchen Nightmares in order to finish this. BUT! I am happy with the result. As always, if you enjoyed, please like, reblog, and COMMENT!

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winterrrnight · 6 months ago

Text

there’d better be a mirrorball

PAIRING: soft!rafe cameron x fem!reader

SUMMARY: you couldn’t attend senior prom, so your boyfriend bought the prom to you.

WARNINGS: mentions of puking and food poisoning, sweetheart rafe, usage of nicknames, intentional use of lower case

EDITH SPEAKS: huge huge thank you to miss @zyafics who had to see my poorly edited photo of a terrace and helped me figure out that it’s called a ‘gazebo’, except that picture didn’t actually have a gazebo in it (I’m sorry I’m so bad at explaining shit 😭) but yeah zya you’re a real one ilysm 💙🌟

if you liked reading this please consider reblogging! feedback is always appreciated 🪩

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it was the saddest day of your life.

you went to sleep all excited, your dress laid out, your shoes right next to the dress, your jewelry picked out, a clear image of your make up look in your head; just for you to wake up and do the last thing you’d expect for that day: puke.

your puke was unceremoniously cleaned up by your mom, who when touched her hand to your forehead, claimed that you were burning up. when you tried to speak, your voice barely came out – it was hoarse and heavy. and it was even worse when you couldn’t stand on your own two feet for a few moments before starting to feel an intense body ache that had you flopping back onto your bed.

“I’m sorry darling, but I don’t think you should go to prom today–”

“no!” came out your rough voice, tears starting to blur your vision as you took a look at your perfectly arranged dress and accessories for the coming night. your mom couldn’t bear to see the sight but she had to exercise her never expiring mom card and made you miss the prom.

you were laying in your bed, your curtains drawn and the lights turned off to not let any harsh lighting pulsate your already throbbing headache even more than before. you had called your boyfriend rafe and had given him the unbearing news of you not being able to attend prom because of your horrible health – which was concluded as food poisoning by your mother – and he felt his heart shatter with the news.

rafe, who was never interested in prom before, was looking forward to that night because you were his date. you made his decision regarding proms flip to a total 180 and convinced him on how fun it would actually be, and now what? now, you can’t go, you: the light to the dark side of his moon.

“then that’s simple, I’m not going either,” came his voice through your microphone. you groaned for what felt like the millionth time, and shook your head.

“you are going rafe,” you said, your voice clearing up just a bit thanks to those sharp tasting lozenges your mother dumped into your mouth. “okay? you are going. the rest of our friends are going to be there, and it’s the senior prom! you are going, and that’s final.”

damn. even when you’re lying sick in your bed, you still have your control over him.

rafe reluctantly agreed to go to the prom, but before he went there, he stopped by at your place to check up on you. he brought you some fresh flowers and put them in a vase to sit in your room.

“when I come back, I’m coming straight to you, okay?” he murmured softly as he pressed a kiss to your forehead gently, not listening to your whines on how he shouldn’t kiss you because you were sick.

the hours passed, and you made a quick scroll through your social media – something which you knew you shouldn’t. there were already a gazillion pictures and short videos from the evening, everyone dressed up in fancy fabrics from head to toe, jewelry gleaming on their ears and necks, and familiar pop music played in the background. you sighed, feeling yourself getting more and more sad and left out as you practically threw your phone aside, and decided to just nap to get your mind off of it.

you were woken up by your name spoken by an all too familiar melodious voice, and a soft nudge to your shoulder.

“wake up baby…” you heard in your ear. you opened your eyes and were met with rafe’s bright blue ones. his blazer had come off and was hanging on his shoulder, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows.

“yeah?” you muttered as you rubbed your eyes and sat up.

“come on, I want to take you somewhere,” he said in a hushed tone as he watched you awaken.

“take me where?” you asked and without any questions, you followed rafe’s lead, who helped you to your feet and helped you put on your shoes. he draped his blazer over your shoulders and took your hand, leading you out of your room.

“just come with me, you’ll love it,” he said softly, grinning from ear to ear as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and led you out. you lived only a few doors down from tannyhill, and rafe kept you well tucked under his arm as he kept up with your slower pace of walking than usual and led you to his place.

he led you inside the huge mansion, and when he saw how tired your body had gotten from the walking, he carefully picked you up bridal style and carried you up the stairs, all the way up to the terrace.

“now…” he hummed as he set you down, both of you standing right outside the closed door of the terrace. “i’m going to cover your eyes, okay?” he said softly, and when he saw you didn’t interject, he covered your eyes with his fingers. he opened the door and carefully led you out to the terrace.

“i’ll lift my hands in 3… 2… 1…”

at 1, his hands came off and you were greeted with a sight that made you gasp.

multiple strings of golden fairy lights hung all around the terrace, a record player spun in a corner, a table was covered with drinks, chocolates and other little treats, and to your right, right under the wooden gazebo, was a mirrorball.

a mirrorball hung right from the center of the gazebo, spinning slowly and slowly as it reflected silver light in different directions, producing a complex display. you gasped at the sight, the spherical object rotating and momentarily reflecting across you, the reflections mere spheres that appeared and disappeared on your body at different parts each time.

“rafe…” you muttered, and you felt his arms wrap around your waist from the back, his chin resting on your shoulder.

“this is our prom baby,” you whispered in your ear, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of your neck.

“when… when did you even do this?” you whispered, still in awe from the entire decoration.

“I came back from prom early, it was extremely boring without you,” he murmured. “couldn’t stand being there without my pretty girl,”

you turned around in rafe’s hold to face him. “this… this is so beautiful…” you whispered, looking in his twinkling eyes. you wanted to say more, you really did, but you were falling short of words because you were still trying to recover from the surprise.

“not as beautiful as you baby,” he murmured as he pressed a kiss to your forehead and you broke into a smile. he can be so cheesy.

“now come on, I believe you owe me a dance,” he grinned as he walked up to the record player. he changed the vinyl spinning and you watched him curiously, but all curiosity washed away when you heard the gentle instrumentals of there’d better be a mirrorball fill the space around you.

he walked back to you with a cheeky grin and took your hand in his, leading you to the gazebo where you both stood right under the mirrorball. he took your hands in his and brought you closer to him, placing your arms around his neck and placing his around your waist, and starting to sway you gently to the music.

you rested your head in the crook of his neck and he kept you close in your arms, both of your eyes fluttered shut as you gently swayed to the music, taking in the moment.

“I love you,” you heard the faint sound of rafe’s voice in your ear. you felt your heart thump at his words, a soft smile forming on your face.

“I love you just as much,” you whispered back, burying your face in his neck. he smiled softly at your words, pressing a kiss to your temple as he continued to sway you both.

by the end of the night, you had completely forgotten you had to miss prom.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

TAGLIST: @runningfrom2am @saccharinesammie @maybankslover @totalswag @madelynie @chenslucy @ietss @elle-mp3 @viawritesstuff @wallsdreams @lunalitva @sadfury @sage-burrow @jamesbuckybarneswify @xxxlaura @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @callsignwidow @starkowswife @drewstarkeyswifehoe @jjchaer @f4ll-for-you @wearemadeofstardust0 @drewsmusee @rafegirly @addriaenne @leighbronk @rafesdrew @bejeweledreverie @raf3sgff @aerangi @drewstarkey1bae @moneymaybank @spideysimpossiblegirl @lukey-pookie-hughes43 @rafesgiirl @theoraekenslover @fals3-g0d @personalfavsthatarerandom @b1mb0slvt

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itwasntimethatdidit40 · 3 months ago

Text

On a razor's edge.

Gif credits

Pairing/Au: Joel Miller x F!reader, no outbreak.

Word counts: 3087

Rating: +18, MDNI, NSFW

Summary: Joel helps you shave. there.

Warnings: pov second person, no use of y/n, smut with very little plot, established relationship, soft Joel, Joel helps to shave your pussy (I also wrote it in the fic but I'll repeat it here, I don't mean to judge anyone's habits, I respect everyone's tastes and habits and everyone can do what they prefer with their body. Do you want to shave? Good. Don't you want it? Good too. For me it's enough that you are comfortable in your body and if you aren't I hope you can be soon), mention to reader's mom who is annoying about shaving, use of a razor, mention of a potential razor cut (it doesn't happen, there’s no blood), unprotected p in v (wrap it up IRL!), I didn't mention Joel or reader’s age but in my mind I imagine them both around 30/40, reader has hair, breasts and vagina, no other specific description of her is given, pussy pronouns, references to pussy as a flower, sex in the shower, oral (f receiving), cream pie, pet names (baby, honey), I think that's all, if by chance I realize I forgot something I'll add it right away.

English is not my first language, no beta, no proofreading, I already know I'm going to notice a lot of mistakes as soon as I post this and I will have to edit again and again because I'm like this, what can we do? 💀

Comments, reblogs and interactions are very much appreciated, please be kind.

Thanks to anyone who will read this!

You love Joel.

You really love him with all your heart and soul.

You also love your private time in the bathroom, that little time in your day that you spend alone doing skincare, face masks, tweezers your eyebrows, scrubbing your body and taking a nice shower with your favorite music playing in the background.

You just took off your favorites eye patches and you're ready to shave with your trusted razor when Joel knocks on the door.

“Honey, we’re going to be late, hurry up” His voice is muffled by the closed door but you can clearly hear a certain apprehension.

You hum as you take out your shaving cream and reply, “I’ll be right there”

Your neighbor invited you to his pool party the other day and of course you enthusiastically accepted.

It’s been so hot lately that being able to enjoy his pool for a while seemed like a dream.

Unfortunately, work kept you busy all week so you couldn't make an appointment with the beautician and you've arrived today with a few hairs on your legs and in your bikini area.

You're not particularly concerned when you can't wax and totally respect those who don't, hair removal is a personal choice and everyone should be able to do what they want with their own body.

Joel doesn't care if you have them or not, he's happy to have you either way and is feral with you regardless. In fact, you suspect he especially likes it when you have some down there but still he never stopped you from choosing for yourself and he never made inappropriate comments.

Anyway, today you planned to wear your favorite bikini and you wouldn't feel comfortable with hair sticking out from the sides of your bottoms.

The fact that a woman must necessarily be hairless down there is something that has been instilled in you since you were a teenager and as much as you manage not to care about it most of the time, when you wear a bikini you still have your mother's voice in your ears telling you to make those hairs disappear.

Ugh, your mother.

You shake your head, get in the shower and wash yourself, body and hair.

Then you spread the shaving foam well on your legs. You pass the razor carefully and rinse.

This neighbor is quite wealthy and Joel has heard that he would like to renovate his house so he is fully intent on offering him a quote with his construction company, which is why he is so worried about being late.

He needs some time to approach him until there are not too many people, have a casual chat and throw out the idea.

You also want to make a good impression since his wife is the head of the neighborhood committee and you want to ask her to convince the neighbor next door to cut down some branches that end up right in your yard filling it with annoying leaves. You tried to talk to him yourself but he is a cheap man and doesn’t want to spend money to have a gardener come and do the work. Joel tried too but to no avail.

Joel, on the other side of the door, is still impatient "baby, what are you doing?" you hear him ask after another 10 minutes have passed.

“I’m getting ready,” you say out loud from the shower as you check to make sure there’s no hair left on your ankles.

“You’ve been in there for an hour, what else do you have to do?”

You giggle, Joel will never understand how long it takes to be the way he always sees you. He’s in the bathroom for a maximum of 20 minutes when he decides to trim his beard, otherwise 10 minutes is more than enough for him to take a shower and come out with a towel around his waist looking as beautiful as a God. It’s so unfair.

“I'm making myself beautiful for you” you shout at him smiling at the thought of his answer which in fact comes exactly as you imagined “Love, you're gorgeous, you don't need to do anything, just get out of there”

“I'm almost done,” you reply as you begin to spread the foam on your bikini area.

“You said the same thing 10 minutes ago and yet you're still there,” he grumbles “and I don't hear water running so I don't understand why”

“You don't understand ‘cause you're a man darling, it's not your fault” you grin while you carefully run the razor to the right of your sex, at the point where your leg attaches to your pelvis.

You can clearly see him in your head rolling his eyes, hands on his hips, his weight resting on his right leg while his left leg is slightly jutted forward, his typical pose when he's annoyed.

“Cut me some slack, baby, you know how much I care about getting this job” he replies

“Yeah I know” you say sweetly “but I can’t come around like that, I need to be extra pretty next to you”

At this point he opens the door, just enough to enter and as he does so he replies "no one has a prettier girlfriend than me, I don't know how many more times I have to tell you"

You're all busy shaving so you don't even notice him until you hear his voice closer than before.

You look up and jump, almost cutting yourself with the razor. “Are you crazy?!” you yell at him. “Joel, I almost cut my thigh because of you!”

“And how was I supposed to know?!” his expression is halfway between embarrassed and horny, his eyes scan your body as if it were the first time he's seeing it, his pupils are dilated, his jaw muscles tense and his lips tight on the verge of curling into a smile, you can see it growing at the corners of his mouth.

Seeing you like this, leaning against the shower wall, completely naked and with nipples hardened from the fright he gave you, his nerves are going away.

“So, what? I have to finish, I certainly can’t go around with only a small part of my bikini area shaved, can I?” you rumble at him feigning irritation but oh, you like the way he's looking at you, hungry and feral. And you like that particular dark shade his eyes take on when they're lit up with desire.

He frowns and asks, “Can I help you?” rubbing his neck.

“Doing this?” you ask, raising an eyebrow, moving from the wall to the center of the shower, razor still clutched in your hand “Joel…”

“Let me try,” he murmurs hoarsely

“Joel, if you cut me…” you say feeling a shiver down your spine, your eyes fixed on his, sparkling in anticipation.

“I won’t. I promise” He is deadly serious.

“Okay” you say with a sigh and you immediately regret having said it.

Joel takes the razor from your hands brushing your fingers slightly and then drop to his knees fully dressed on the wet shower floor without even thinking about it, as if in some kind of lascivious trance. At least he’s barefoot.

The deal, the job, the money seem like a distant, faded memory and the neighbor’s tree? You’ll think about it another day.

His heavy breathing crackles on your skin as he brings the razor close to your skin with the most intent look you've ever seen him do.

He starts with small movements from the bottom up and shaves a small portion of the left side of your pubic area, his hand is firm and precise and he doesn't seem to have any hesitation, however he is proceeding with caution and you are grateful for it, you have been holding your breath since he started.

The razor seems so small in his hand, like a child's toy, yet it has sharp blades that could cut you at any moment if his movements were not precise.

He pulls it away from your skin to shake off excess shaving foam and rinse it under the flexible shower head and you catch your breath.

You flinch for a moment as he brings the razor closer again, “stay still” he tells you in a peremptory voice.

There is something deeply erotic in what he is doing, in his calm and dedication, in his deep knowledge of every curve of your body. It seems like he knows exactly how to move his hand so as not to hurt you.

He rinses the part, then proceeds to take more foam and spread it tickling your skin with his calloused fingers. You're even impressed that he didn't put too much on, just a thin layer, so he can see the part and have full control of what he's doing.

His jeans are now soaked and stuck to his legs and you can see a bulge growing in his crotch.

He stretches your skin with his fingers and runs the razor over you, still in small motions, shaking it, finishing the sides of the top of your pubic bone.

“I need you to lay down, baby, I have to do the bottom part” he says tilting his head to one side to look better at what he has just done.

Joel himself wanted this shower to be big enough for two people, it's his job and he knows how to be far-sighted in this.

It is wide enough for you to lie down and for him to sit between your legs without difficulty.

You bend down and lay your back on the floor “spread your legs” he tells you “keep them raised”

The floor is cool and wet against your skin but you still feel heated.

You crane your neck to look at him and his eyes are focused, deciding how to position you to do the job.

He takes your ankles and bends your legs slightly, if it was a moment when you wanted to laugh you would say that you look like a frog but now you feel like a rose of flesh. A bold, cheeky flower that has blossomed for him.

“Stay like this, can you?”

You nod because you can’t do anything else, you don’t know what to say, you’re hypnotized by his deep breathing and his eyes.

You feel a pulse between your legs.

A heat that starts to rise from below.

He smears a thin veil of foam on the inside of your thighs near your pubic area, he runs his fingers almost absentmindedly near your folds, you know that every movement is thought out, he's purposely ignoring your pussy so he doesn't lose his concentration but you can feel desire creeping through the air between you.

It's thick, heavy, and smells of your perfume that invades your nostrils now that you're playing the obscene dancer for him, with your legs bent as if you had to warm up your muscles before a show.

He draws your edges with the razor, rinsing continuously, you feel the blade glide over you, darting across your skin, only slightly resisting to your roughest hairs.

You feel a glimmer of clear drool dripping between your petals, all the way down to the crack of your butt, that gives away your eagerness.

A couple more gentle swipes and he's done.

You can hear him swallowing nervously, your throat is dry too.

“All done” he whispers, running his fingers over your smooth skin.

You sit up, legs at the sides of his body and tug at his shirt to give him a kiss. You suck his bottom lip between yours, tasting his minty flavor.

You dwell on that ecstatic feeling for a while before you let go of his lips and take a breath back into your lungs.

“Do you want me to shave it all off?” Sometimes you do, you like it when you feel just the soft, just that, that tingles every time he runs his tongue over it.

Shiny as egg white, voracious, naked luscious lips ready to salivate and swallow until they’re full.

But now you can't wait and you know he doesn't care, they're short hairs anyway, you keep them trimmed.

It's just a little line that surrounds your flower to browse.

“No baby, I need you”

The razor is lying on the shower floor, you pick it up and place it on the steel shelf that Joel installed for you to put your things on.

“Mmm tell me what you want” He asks, grinning from ear to ear, his eyes sparkling with lust.

He already knows the answer.

“Fuck me” you plead, voice trembling with excitement “fuck me with your tongue and fingers, please. Fuck me with your cock. Fuck me until I see white and I’m a mumbling mess underneath you”

You put your hand over his bulge, running slowly to his zipper strained and you fiddle your fingers on his button.

You feel him squirming, his eyes feral and mesmerized by your touch and your words.

You open his jeans as he takes off his water-spattered shirt and throws it on the floor outside the shower.

Sitting like this, you notice even more the softness of his belly, that little bit of flesh that you love to bite.

He gets up to get rid of his jeans, now soaked, annoying, heavy, he throws them on the floor and they land with a dull thud.

His boxers are damp and have a big stain on the front, but it's not water. It's his pleasure dripping.

He’s rock hard leaking profusely.

He leans down and gives you a long kiss, looking at you. His hands slide slowly over your arms, slipping onto your hips, squeezing your flesh and your body arches towards him, your tongue quivers on his, every fiber of you reacts and bends gently to him.

He brings a hand to your cheek, deepening the kiss, eagerly licking the inside of your mouth, tasting you.

You moan into his lips as you feel his other hand move up and rest on the side of your breast, his long fingers reach your nipple and trace its contours, they move circling it, he does it first with his thumb and then with his index finger. He passes them over your bud, titillating it, making it harden under his fingertip.

He makes space between your knees again, makes you lay down on the floor, caressing your torso, going down to your ribs, he touches the area just below and whispers “you look beautiful here”.

You like that he appreciates everything about your body, even those parts that others ignore, he sees the overall harmony and knows how to notice the details. He knows the map of your scars and every shade of your skin. He goes down, brushing your navel and then unexpectedly goes back up and takes your lips again.

He sucks.

He tastes.

He drinks.

He lowers himself and leans over your opening. He breathes hard as he gives the first lick, with his tongue flat, crawling from bottom to top, lingering on your clit. He spreads your folds a little with his thumbs and looks at you for a moment whispering “God, baby, you have the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever seen” he inhales your scent “and she’s so wet…” and he licks again “so sweet” another lick “and she tastes so good”

You throw your head back, squeezing your eyes shut, wrapping one hand around the back of his neck, pushing him against you.

He keeps his mouth glued to your slit, his tongue seems everywhere, meticulous and insatiable, it seems he can never get enough.

You listen to his movements with your whole body, as if he were speaking to you, using a language unique to yours.

You feel his hand resting on your hip, you grab his wrist and bring him back to your tit, you don't need to ask him to touch it, he silently takes your nipple between his fingers pinching and twisting.

Your ribcage expand for air, you gasp with your mouth wide open and a long moan leaves your lips rising from deep inside you.

You lift your head to see him, looking disheveled and grateful, his beard glisten with your fluids as two of his thick fingers slide into you.

He traces with his tongue that little stripe of hair he left you, which frames your lips, he caresses them, takes them in his mouth, sucking lightly.

His strong aquiline nose is hitting your clit now, fingers curl to find that perfect spot, the one that makes you see white, like you asked.

You moan in disarray “your cock – God – I want your cock, please Joel”

He gives a couple more licks and then moves, towering over you, kissing you with lips that taste of salt and lemon, of you. It’s your taste, all over his mouth.

He lower his boxers and the tip of his cock presses against your hole, slowly making its way in.

You throw your arms around his neck, giving him sloppy kisses on his sultry skin.

He grunts as he thrusts into you, you wrap your legs around his waist as he slides a hand behind your arched back, pushing you, anchoring himself to you so you don't slip on the wet floor, his knee braced on the floor.

You stammer senselessly yes yes yes, you're both close to your peak.

You feel disarmed, completely enveloped by him, by his body, by his scent.

You're sweaty, even though your skin is still wet, your body contracts against his, waves of pleasure modulating your breathing.

Your orgasm explodes in a long sigh, then it goes silent, you bite your lips, you are overwhelmed.

He takes your hands, intertwines them with his and brings them above your head, sinking relentlessly inside you, hitting again and again, deeper and deeper until you feel thick, sticky stems filling you, painting your walls, dripping from inside you onto your thighs.

His hair is plastered to his forehead, his eyes searching yours as he fills his hands with your ass cheeks, giving the last hard thrusts before he pulls out of you and lets himself go on the shower floor next to you.

You take deep breaths, trying to come back to your senses, your bodies completely exhausted.

“Well,” he says after a while, “we’re officially too late to go now.”

“Do you mind?” you ask, rolling onto your side, tracing his broad chest with your fingertips.

“No,” he replies without even thinking.

You burst out laughing together.

No, this is definitely more important.

#pedro pascal #joel miller #joel the last of us #the last of us #fanfic #joel tlou #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction #one shot #joel miller fanfic #joel miller one shot #joel miller au #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader

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berzahoes · 10 months ago

Text

you and me | izzy stradlin

summary: no matter what axl told him, izzy could never stop loving you.

an: it’s about time i wrote something for my man izzy <3 not an exact timeline of how things actually went but hey, that’s fanfiction for ya!

warnings: axl rose that should always be a warning

the moment izzy saw you, he swore he was in love. at the time, you were both in high school. he had long hair and beat up shoes that were years old. on the other hand, you were the nicest clothes and shoes while your hair was perfectly cut and brushed. he noticed that you always wore a locket, maybe a family member had given it to you as a present.

you were known as the nicest girl in school. nobody had anything bad to say about you until a certain lead singer saw how in love his friend was with you.

“she’s a prude. why waste your time on her?”

izzy would immediately defend you. “you don’t know her. stop saying shit if you don’t know her.”

it was after your high school graduation that you and izzy began to talk. your family had thrown you a party. as you were helping your mom bring in decorations from her car, izzy just so happened to walk by since your houses were close to each other. you noticed him and waved for him to come over. he couldn’t believe that the most popular girl from high school was about to talk to him.

“hi, jeffrey.” you said in your sweet voice that izzy loved.

“you know my name?” he asked.

“well, yeah. we went to the same elementary school. remember mrs. smith? she wore those big glasses?” you said.

“i remember now and i remember you doing a project about the ocean and you said your favorite animal was a betta fish and some kid made fun of you for liking a fish.” he realized how much information he remembered. was it normal to remember all that? he probably looked like a creep—

“it still is. it’s a pretty fish.”

izzy only nodded.

“do you want to come over later? i’m having a graduation party and i would love for you to come.”

“yeah, thanks. maybe i’ll drop by. i’ve been busy with my band.”

“you’re in a band? that’s cool! what kind of music do you play?”

izzy wished he didn’t even the band, but at the same time, he wanted to share what he loved with you. “it’s just a . . band. you know, rock, we play that.”

“cool, maybe i can come see you guys perform?” you questioned.

“if you don’t mind sitting on a old couch in a garage.” he joked.

“every band starts somewhere, jeff.”

“izzy, i go by izzy.” he was nervous about what you thought about his name. did you like it? did you hate it so much that it made you not want to talk to him ever again?

“well, izzy, i still mean what i said.”

during the party, you introduced izzy to your parents. izzy thought it was a bad idea since most parents took one look at him and instantly thought he looked like trouble. but your parents weren’t that type.

“mom, dad, this is izzy. we went to the same elementary school. he graduated too.” you said as izzy shook hands with your parents.

“nice to meet you, izzy. congratulations on your graduation. any plans for your future?” your mom immediately asked.

“honey, the boy just got out of school. the last thing he wants to do is think about college,” your dad said. “our daughter says she wants to travel for a bit before she goes to college. we told her that as long as she has the money and she’s with someone we trust, she can travel as much as she can.”

then you whisper something into izzy’s ear that had both of your parents wondering. when you finished, izzy chuckled and nodded.

“he let me say this, izzy is actually in a band.” you blurted out.

“a band? that’s great. you know, i was almost in a band once. . .” your dad spoke.

and that was your cue to take izzy someplace else so you ended up in your old treehouse that your dad built. the party was still going on as you and izzy layed on the wooden floor.

“do you want to go to college?” izzy asked.

you sighed. both your parents went to college so they expected you to go as well. but all of you wanted to do was travel. you were born and raised in lafayette, the only time you went out of state was for your cousin’s wedding in georgia that you didn’t remember because you were five years old.

“I don’t know. you know how our teachers always say you have to go to college to get a good job and good money? i don’t think that. i want to go anywhere, everywhere. i don’t need a math degree or read shakespeare,” you explained. “i want to go to los angeles, i want to experience it so bad.”

“then let’s go.” izzy said casually.

“what?” you turned to him.

“let’s go to los angeles, you and me.” he repeated.

“but what about your band?” you asked.

“we were never going to make it out of the garage anyways. maybe los angeles has something for me.”

so after a few weeks, it was decided. you and izzy were going to the city of angels. when you told your parents, they were hesitant, but you reminded them of your dad’s words. they helped you pack and even gave you extra money so you wouldn’t worry.

back at izzy’s house, axl was trying to talk him out of leaving, especially with ‘the prude’ as he nicknamed you. but izzy wasn’t listening to him. he continued packing as axl listed all the reasons why it was a bad idea.

“she’s not going to survive the streets of los angeles, izzy. look at her! she’s going to break and then she’ll come back crying to mommy and daddy.” axl stated.

“she won’t because she’ll have me.” izzy replied.

“then you’re both dead.”

soon, you and izzy were on your way to los angeles. your parents had payed for your plane tickets. when the plane touched down in lax, you smiled at the feeling of being out of indiana.

“you ready?” izzy asked, grabbing your hand.

you nodded. “ready.”

1982

you and izzy now called los angeles your home. it took months of working and saving up money, but you and izzy found a nice small house in a good neighborhood. your parents often called to make sure you were okay. you would sometimes find izzy on the phone with your dad.

when you and izzy arrived to the city of angels, you immediately started looking for a job. a record store owner hired you since the store had just opened and the way only had two employees. it was definitely a dream job for you.

it was a spring break when izzy’s friend, axl, decided to join you and permanently move to los angeles.

“you’re still here?” axl asked you when he saw you walk through the door of your house. he was sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table. he definitely took the phrase ‘make yourself at home’ too literally.

“yes, axl, i’m still here. this is my home.” you clarified as you walked towards your and izzy’s shared room. you dropped your purse on the floor then threw yourself on the bed. you were exhausted from work and all you wanted to do was sleep, but of course when axl rose is in your house, sleep is not an option.

“hey, you hungry?” you heard izzy ask from the doorway.

you could smell mac and cheese. “not right now, izzy. my feet hurt, i have a headache and i have the opening shift tomorrow.” you groaned.

“you have to eat something.” izzy encouraged.

“she doesn’t want to eat, let her starve i guess.” axl took the pot of mac and cheese from izzy’s hands so he could eat it.

“what is he still doing here?” you had enough and got up from your bed.

“don’t even start with me, bitch!” you heard axl yell as izzy closed the door to your bedroom.

“i’ll make him leave. he’s only here because we were rehearsing. we got a few gigs coming up. i promise he’ll be gone soon.” izzy assured you.

“he just gets in my nerves.” you sighed.

“i know. but he’ll be gone soon and you and i can continue where we left off this morning.” he started kissing you. then axl happened.

“you guys fucking in there?” he pounded his fists on the door.

“i’m going to fucking kill him.”

#izzy stradlin #izzy gnr #izzy stradlin x reader #izzy stradlin imagine #izzy stradlin fanfiction #gnr #guns n roses #guns n roses imagine #band imagines

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lovieku · 3 months ago

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GOOD LUCK, BABE! #3 ⋆ 정국

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

☾ pairing: non idol!jk x fem!oc

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

☾ word count: 9k +

☾ warnings: explicit language. say hi to eunbi!!! and to the friend group!!! its a bit funny until it becomes angsty … ouch. jeongguk is a bitch lowkey. pun unintended (you’ll see). theyre dramatic as hell. like bro it cant be that serious 😭. im sawrry for this. and its not all!!! see you in fourth chapter 🫡

☾ author’s note: hi hi hi!!! this took a bit to fully convince me but in the end it did. i was frustrated because i felt like i couldnt really use my words properly to tell the whole thing but… here we are now!!! thank u!!! enjoy 🫶🏻

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three ⋆ this is me trying

Up to that point, Eunbi’s life has been a constant adjusting to new surroundings, leaving bits and pieces behind, getting attached to new ones, and hoping they wouldn’t be taken away from her. It would always end up as she feared it would, though. From as early as she can remember, Eunbi would live off her blue backpack, where she gathered a toothbrush, a change of clothes and her favourite plushie to help her sleep and adapt faster to the smaller bed at her dad’s house. When her parents had divorced, it had been a rough patch before the both of them could come to a legal agreement; that being, she would spend the weekend with her father, and then stay with her mother again until Friday rolled around.

She rarely looks back at those days now, but when she does — mostly at night, her mind seemingly incapable of putting a stop to her furious flow of thoughts and just sleep — she thinks if it hadn’t happened to her when she was still pliable and mouldable, when she was yet to be met with what ordinariness was supposed to look like for others, she wouldn’t have been ready to wholly face all that followed. Eunbi was young when she learned that love between two people could end so easily, and her innocent self accepted that as the norm.

As a result, what she found harder to accept, more than her own mother and father not even being able to stand next to one another without ending up quarrelling, was having to leave her small black poodle in Gwangju, with her grandma, after moving away to Busan. Curly (little Eunbi had given him that name for obvious reasons, and to this very day she finds it dumb, but it makes her giggle nonetheless) had been a great companion through the inevitable loneliness she had to face as an only child. She was convinced he could understand her better than no other, even when she would force the tiny creature to sit and listen to her ramble on.

Busan was the next big change that was pushed onto Eunbi, only a few years after her mother got engaged to a man that would soon replace her biological father: with time, sleeping over at his house for the weekend was no longer even a contemplated thought on his side, coming up with excuses after excuses as not to, and that slowly led to showing less and less interest in keeping up with her and meeting up. The little girl had always been numb in relation to such negligence, and because of this she could consider herself lucky in some distorted sense; it didn’t affect her as much as it should have.

Part of that was also due to her step-dad being a great father figure during the initial times of his and her mom’s relationship, making sure to adapt to Eunbi’s pace and boundaries, never overstepping while also being able to bring fun into her life by taking the family out to visit places and eat delicious meals. What he couldn’t do for her, however, was live with a dog. When he and her mother decided to finally move together following their wedding, they both agreed on wanting to restart from a brand new place. Busan was their perfect pick for a variety of reasons: her mom got offered a job at a recently established company that seemed promising, and her step-dad could fulfil his deep-rooted dream of expanding his by starting a new branch.

Every single thing about him seemed perfect to her mom’s eyes, even if he was apparently deathly allergic to dog’s fur. And, of course, she picked her husband over Curly. Eunbi couldn’t believe it, nor accept it. The girl cried over the small dog for the two weeks prior to moving, during the trip to Busan, and for the following days there. Her grandmother would keep her updated by sending pictures of Curly through email, and even after the scar had healed, those would never fail to make her tear up.

As shameful as it might be to admit it, after having dried herself from half the water that made up her body because of the constant crying, it didn’t take long for the scar to close. When she first stepped foot in the big city by the seaside, Curly showed up right in front of her. Just in human form. Big eyes, long black hair and puppy manners, her neighbour was definitely sent to her by something greater. Eunbi was obsessed. It didn’t show at first, her pride prevailing. But it was harder and harder to fight against it. Jeongguk was simply too easy to love.

They became inseparable. Wherever he was, better believe she was there too, attached at his hip. And if they showed up alone, people would naturally ask about the other. Because the moon is never seen without its stars, and sunflowers only ever turn to face the sun. Their bond could be perceived by anyone as unbreakable, a friendship to envy and wish for, and every brick that built it had resulted in the creation of their own safe haven that only had space to contain the two of them. Not anybody else could be let in, the bubble exclusively recognised their password. It wasn’t composed of words, or numbers. It was the look of understanding they would share; the white lies used to cover the mischief of the other; their own handshake, accompanied by an original friendship jingle that Eunbi came up with randomly; the assurance that they could reveal their biggest secrets to one another, and they’d be kept like an oath.

There’s many of those that Eunbi shamelessly revealed to Jeongguk, some with intent and others unleashed spontaneously during their many endless talks. But when she thinks of it, she never admitted the single one that really mattered, the one that her best friend in the whole world needed to know, and remember. At all times. In any circumstance. It wasn’t a secret, it was more a result of her pondering; it came to a full reasonable thought only years later, and by then it was too late to tell him.

Eunbi thinks, and she’s sure, Jeongguk was the reason why all that came before the two of them had to happen. If it didn’t, she would have spent her whole life looking for that missing puzzle piece: under the cushions of the couch, in between her bed sheets, accidentally thrown away in the bin. It was as if all the hardships she experienced were justified, because at the end of the tunnel Jeongguk was waiting for her. And everything finally made sense. The puzzle was complete. Jeongguk was the reason himself. He was sent to teach her an important lesson: everything happens for a reason. There’s a cause and an effect, and even if the cause was suffering, at least the effect was her favourite boy.

Then, a gust of wind had wiped the puzzle to the ground, every single piece losing its place. When her best friend was taken away from her, she stopped being so convinced with the thought she herself had harboured, because she suddenly couldn’t find the meaning behind such a cruel fate. If everything really happened for a reason, then what was it? Jeongguk helped her see colours, only to return to black and white. Leaving him behind had marked the death of a version of herself that she would never get back.

Seoul was big, and harder to adjust to, even more with the baggage she was now dragging behind. Unpacking it, she found out all she had brought with her was a shattered trust and a soon to be broken promise to never get attached again. It was hard to be faithful to such an imposition, when Eunbi was born to give out love. It was hidden in that luggage, in between fears and regrets, but surely present.

And it prevailed in the end. Even at a slower pace, love found its way up and helped a lost Eunbi navigate the big capital city, promising new beginnings and healing. She found that in the faces of people that she would then start to recognise as friends, inside warm cafes during the coldest days of winter, and in the certainty that no matter where she is, she is always looking up at the same moon.

What she has built in Seoul so far feels the closest to stability that she has experienced in years. Starting university and meeting Dahye was the last bit of convincing it took to make her consider once again that a reason could exist, and that in the end it would make sense. Maybe not totally. Maybe just partly is enough after all.

Until, seeing a pair of familiar starry eyes in the midst of dull ones was all she needed to firmly believe in what she had been finding hard to accept. It took one shared look for past and present to get blurred together, and the mixture of old with new feelings created a mess. It was nice, nonetheless. Better than the seemingly impossible to get rid of emptiness at the pit of her heart.

Behind her eyes, Eunbi could see the puzzle slowly reaching its final form again, this time with more missing pieces, but the image was at least recognisable. When Jeongguk showed up in front of her again like magic, she contemplated becoming religious. Getting to her knees and starting praying to whatever greater force was shining on her path to please keep doing that. None of that showed on the outside, her smile breaking and mirroring the expression on the boy’s face. Pure sorrow. She knew she was probably the last person on earth Jeongguk wanted to see, and the fact that he wasn’t even trying to mask it didn’t help.

The most rational response she could come up with at that moment was to act as if nothing ever happened. And then, the bricks that a long time ago held together their safe bubble were being used by the boy to raise a high wall between them, making sure accessing his space would be impossible for Eunbi. Who could blame him? Still, the happiness she shamelessly felt when Jeongguk showed up at her 20th birthday party was too consuming, she selfishly wished for the rest of her birthdays to always look like that as she blew the candles. Nonetheless, when he suddenly left sprinting on his bike she knew the gods would need time to grant her desire. Although, this time around she had faith.

She doesn’t know how long it would take for it to break, though. September getting closer and closer only means that Jeongguk’s birthday is just around the corner. As part of his friend group, she had been involved in the process that led to organising the surprise camping trip, even if she didn’t exactly participate. After all, she doesn’t get to say she knows the boy better than anyone, anymore. Jeongguk has evidently changed, and as a consequence she knows way less about him than the others.

For that exact reason, Eunbi had made various attempts to back down from the trip, fearing her presence could significantly ruin it for the celebrated boy. At first, she tried to be casual about it with Dahye, since she’s the only one she’s opened up to about the whole dilemma, “I think it’s better if I don’t come. After all, it’s a friend trip. I’m not really his friend.” To which her roommate only replied with bullshit, proceeding to type away on her keyboard. That did not help whatsoever.

Then, the night she was too tipsy to take a taxi back home and Jeongguk had offered her a ride on his bike, she came home with a smile on her face only to burst out crying in front of a just as drunk Dahye. In between sobs, she begged to be left out of the trip, “Ple- Please, Dahye. He hates me. I can’t stand it.” Her friend tried to shush her whines, pushing Eunbi’s head on her chest and consoling her, “He doesn’t, baby. I’m sure he doesn’t.”

As a result of that night, Dahye had then sat her friend down with the intent of fully convincing her to be present for Jeongguk’s birthday trip for a number of reasons, “It would be rude to not show up after he was there for your birthday. And also, what if you two end up talking about… things! And everything gets solved! That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Bibi?”

Eunbi had just nodded all the way through the motivating speech, not really understanding nor believing her words, but apparently they were enough to lead her to the present moment: awkwardly squished between Dahye and Jimin on the couch of her flat, while they animatedly converse with the others to approve on the trip schedule. She has never felt so out of place before, not only because she doesn’t feel like she has a say in the whole discussion, but also because as time went by the two friends by her side kept shifting to subtly get closer to one another, not realising they were compressing her body in the process. To the point she is forced to get up, the position she was in being too uncomfortable, and sit on the ground under the couch next to Namjoon.

She can feel her movements being followed by a pair of curious eyes, and when she looks up to meet them, she finds out they belong to the origin of all her worries. Before Jeongguk can divert his attention elsewhere, aware he was caught observing, she gives him a quick tight lipped smile. It goes dismissed, as if it hadn’t happened. Ouch. It’s okay, Eunbi can take it. She used the few days prior to this to mentally prepare. She knows she’s not exactly welcomed anywhere near him, that’s why she made a silent secret pact within herself: whatever happens during the trip, don’t be a bother to Jeongguk. Stay away from him as much as possible, and if not possible, then do anything to avoid putting that frown on his face, exactly the one he’s sporting right now. On a second thought, if just looking at her gets him to react like that, maybe it’s best to mentally wipe that off her list of things to keep in mind for Jeongguk’s birthday camping trip.

With there still being a day left before their minibreak takes off, the girl can already tell it’s going to be hard to follow the flow of that list, Jeongguk making it obvious her presence could have been avoided before the vacation has even started. Still, she remains composed and brushes off what had just happened, instead focusing on the main topic of conversation.

The group (Hoseok) has decided to meet to go over the schedule one last time because, “Everything needs to be perfect, guys. We can’t afford to slip!” It’s still Hoseok talking. Eunbi learned that he had always been the one in charge of organising events and little getaways when it came to the friend group, his obsession with keeping everything under control coming in handy in such scenarios.

Not only that, but the reddish haired guy is also amazingly quick on his feet, and in a relatively short amount of time he has managed to find the perfect excursions and experiences to go over during the trip, making sure every day spent together would be filled with fun activities that he knows the birthday boy is going to look forward to. In between what he has arranged there is cycling, canoeing, trekking, and more stuff that Eunbi can’t keep up with. Surviving this is going to be made ten times harder by the amount of energy that is going to be expected out of her. She sighs at the thought, looking down at her manicured nails. She just got them done, and now they would surely break.

It takes a few seconds for her to realise the sudden silence that fell above the room, and when she looks back up she’s met with eleven pairs of eyes staring at her. She straightens her posture, suddenly too aware of being perceived, and she deduces her previous exhale had been released with more energy than intended. Hoseok sweetly smiles at her, “Anything you don’t agree on, Eunbi?”

The panicked girl opens her mouth to justify herself, her eyes getting wider and shinier with embarrassment, but Dahye beats her to it, “Bibi, didn’t you say you, like, hate cycling? I’m sure we had a whole conversation about it.“

Eunbi is mortified. Her eyes jump from Dahye to Jeongguk, trying to get her best friend to shut up while also registering the boy’s scoff and muted roll of his eyes. Oh god. Her whole be-lowkey-and-make-yourself-unnoticed plan just shattered in a matter of seconds. She can feel Jeongguk’s eyes bore flaming holes into her skull, his arms crossed and his legs furtherly stretching out on the armchair. If she still had a small, tiny hope left that he didn’t fully hate her, she just witnessed that shattering in pieces too.

She quickly shifts to sit on her heels, her hands frantically shaking to try and save her face for what she could, “No, what? I love cycling. Seriously, I’d do it everyday if I could.” She chuckles shakily while subtly shoving Dahye’s knee next to her to signal going with the lie. At first, Dahye looks clearly confused: she was so sure of that information about her roommate. She furrows her brows, looking down at a panicky Eunbi widening her eyes. It takes only a few more seconds for her to suddenly get it, shaking herself from her doubts and catching the ball, “Oh, right! You do! I got it confused with, huh… something else.” The girl mutters that last part only to join her friend in a nervous laugh, and an apologetic smile. Best believe Dahye is going to hear about this later.

Hoseok looks just as puzzled as the others, but nonetheless he nods, announcing the schedule has been officially confirmed. A collective acclaim fills the room, only for the boy to stop it with a raise of his pointer finger, “Now, I will assign you guys in your respective cars.” Which is comically followed by a joint groan, and some protests. Hoseok ignores them, and goes on reading off his perfectly planned out Word document.

”Namjoon is the first driver, and he’s travelling with Iseul, Seokjin and Sora,” he looks up to briefly check with the mentioned members to see if there are any complaints, then proceeds. “We’ve got Yoongi with me, Aera and Taehyung. Then…” Hoseok squints his eyes while scrolling down the document, and those few seconds of silence are enough for Eunbi’s thoughts to anticipate what is about to follow. She lowers her head, unwilling to meet Jeongguk’s glare when Hoseok says, “Jeongguk is driving with Jimin, Dahye and Eunbi. All set?”

The positive response is quick, even too rushed and disregardful of what was said, as Namjoon and Taehyung have been impatiently begging for the never-ending organising to be over so they could order food and finally fill their starved stomachs. No one pays any mind to it, but Eunbi and Jeongguk stay quiet, while Jimin and Dahye share a knowing look. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

The evening is spent in the cramped living room of Eunbi and Dahye’s shared flat, eating pizza and letting a random movie play, which soon only functioned as a background noise the moment Taehyung started a game of Would You Rather. Even if Yoongi initially shushed him, everyone eventually became more delighted with Seokjin’s unthinkable suggestions than with the film, “Would you rather be trapped in a small room with 10,000 tarantulas for 10 minutes, or eat 10 tarantulas in 10 minutes?”

Eunbi tries to let herself be distracted by the content smiles on her friends’ faces, even feels less distressed when she notices Jeongguk relaxing as well, but that doesn’t stop her mind from overflowing with all the things that could potentially go wrong. It inevitably shows on her face, and in her unusual quietness. She has been pondering on the last information Hoseok had shared about the confirmed schedule for hours now, worrying it was going to start the trip on the wrong foot. There were all the best intentions to not poke the sleeping bear, but she fears being in the same car as him is going to stir him awake.

After the group leaves the apartment at past 1 a.m., Hoseok checking with everyone that they’ll show up at 8 sharp tomorrow morning in front of the same building they’re now parting ways from, Eunbi releases a long sigh as she closes the door behind her shoulders. Dahye catches the look on her features immediately, taking her pretty face in between her palms, “I’m sorry for earlier. I was trying to help.” She pouts, and it makes the shorter girl chuckle.

Eunbi shakes her head, dismissing her apology with a small it’s okay, and freeing herself from her friend’s hold so as to avoid meeting her eyes, instead busying herself with tidying up the mess in the living room. Her flatmate looks at the strangely silent girl narrowly, “What are you thinking? Please, don’t let it be something stupid like I don’t wanna drive in Jeongguk’s car.”

When all Dahye is met with is silence, she knows that specific something stupid is flowing in the other girl’s head. Eunbi spends the next hour packing and letting Dahye think she’s wholly convincing her distressed roommate nothing could go wrong from just being close to each other, and if anything, it could be a starting point.

For the sake of getting at least three hours of sleep before the long drive ahead, Eunbi fake promises her friend that she won’t let such thoughts haunt her mind and stop her from enjoying the holiday (she was forced to repeat those exact words) knowing she’s going to let them do precisely that. She also ends up staying awake all night either way, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse that she can use to ask Hoseok if a small change would be possible, hoping it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to him and his perfect plan.

When the following morning rolls around, the group gathers in the courtyard of the flat complex as instructed hours earlier by Hoseok, who looks like he’s on the verge of a serious crisis when it’s one minute past 8 a.m. and Taehyung still hasn’t shown up. Eunbi fears for her life when she taps his shoulder as delicately as she can, still unable to avoid a jumpy reaction from the boy, who then relaxes when he sees the girl’s sweet smile. That lasts for about one second, because when Eunbi softly asks him if they can talk he’s back to puffing out panicky breaths.

She hesitates a moment before uttering in one single exhale, “I’d rather not go in Jeongguk’s car.” Faced with Hoseok’s perplexed stare, she goes on explaining in a rushed, messy speech, “It’s nothing personal, really. It’s just- Iseul! Yeah, Iseul begged me to be in the car with Dahye… She doesn’t know Sora that well so she said it would be way too awkward. I can go with Namjoon!” She ends it by trying to sport a convincing grin on her lips, but with the way it looks like she’s being held at gunpoint to smile it’s doing the exact opposite, not helping in hiding her own panic at all.

Hoseok takes a few seconds to process her request and read her expression, but in the end he just shrugs and nods enthusiastically, “That’s okay!” He then claps his hands twice, recalling the others’ attention who comically snap their heads in unison, hanging on the boss’ lips, “Tiny change. Eunbi doesn’t wanna be in Jeongguk’s car, so she’s going with Namjoon.”

For the second time in under 24 hours, Eunbi is so embarrassed she prays the ground to swallow her whole. Hoseok doesn’t seem to be making a big deal out of the way he worded his announcement, busy typing away on his phone, probably updating his Word document with the recent change. The others don’t look too fazed either, accustomed with the two infamously not being too fond of each other for no apparent reason, except for Dahye and Jimin: the former is looking at the girl incredulously; the latter has shifted his attention to his best friend.

Eunbi can feel cold sweat dripping down her forehead, the weight of the world crushing on her shoulders. She’s afraid to follow Jimin’s line of vision, but as she slowly does, it leads her to meet Jeongguk’s intense gaze, a slight pissed scowl hardening his features along with his brows almost meeting at the bridge of his nose. His all black attire composed of an oversized t-shirt, cargo bermuda shorts and chunky sandals matches perfectly with the look on his face. He seems confused, and unnerved. And sad? This is not how things were supposed to unfold.

Under such pressure, the girl impulsively releases a nervous laugh, her whole face red with awkwardness, “It’s not like I didn’t- Okay! I’ll just go wait in the car.” Her head hangs as she distances herself from the group, finding an escape from Jeongguk’s disappointment in Namjoon’s car. She bangs her head on the dashboard a few times, making the most of the last minutes alone she’s getting before departure.

Starring in that shitshow was not on her list of things to keep in mind for Jeongguk’s birthday camping trip in any way. On the contrary, what she has been trying to do is going by the rules of the list itself: stay away from Jeongguk and don’t be a bother. Instead, the opposite seems to be happening every time she attempts to be nice to him so as to not be a hassle during the trip. Releasing a shaky breath, she hopes her intentions wouldn’t be misinterpreted by the boy, as she tries foolishly convincing herself the telepathy between them still exists, at least to a small extent. She was only doing this for him. To make it easier for him. Please, please send this telepathic message to Jeongguk.

Connection probably isn’t working too well, because when they all get to the destination after a fairly long ride, Jeongguk still looks pissed, shutting the car door with more energy than required and unloading the luggages, taking his and Iseul’s to the entrance of the camping site. Eunbi narrows her eyes as she observes the scene, the short haired girl thanking the previously annoyed boy and effortlessly putting a smile on his lips, and she almost doesn’t notice Namjoon urging her to move. She abruptly shakes herself out of that trance, relaxing her hands that had subconsciously closed into fists, and takes her bags out of the car. As she clumsily drags them on both of her shoulders, her Converses do little to protect her soles from the rocky ground, and she groans. It’s not like she was expecting Namjoon to carry her baggage, she can do it herself. But as she keeps watching Jeongguk easily handling all that weight, she huffs.

The campsite looks amazing. The space that the group has at their disposal is huge and wholly surrounded by nature, making it the perfect getaway from the chaos of the city. Not too far, in between trees, a glimpse of the sun reflecting its rays in a large lake can be caught. Eunbi witnesses an excellently carried out jam session, with the lively enthusiasm of her friends on microphone, birds on percussion and cicadas on bass. She smiles, and sighs contentedly. Dahye’s words from last night echo in her head, don’t let this stop you from enjoying the holiday, and today she wants to believe them. She’s glad she chose to wear jeans shorts instead of cargos, the heat slowly but surely rising, and a flowy white top that keeps her fresh, for now.

Hoseok instructs them to get to work, and they do. All their bags are gathered under a big ancient tree as each couple and trio starts (tries) setting their tents. While they’re busy figuring out how to ensure the tent won’t fly away, which Taehyung fears particularly, Jimin and Jeongguk offer themselves to go and fill everyone’s water flask at a nearby drinking fountain they had found. Eunbi kneels down to fish hers out of a blue backpack and goes to hand it out to Jeongguk, who’s collecting Dahye’s bottle. The boy smiles at her friend, but it gets wiped off when he shifts his gaze on Eunbi’s shorter figure. The moment is brief, and awkward: her big unsure eyes stare into his hardened ones, arm extended out to him, wondering if there might be something funny on her face for him to turn so serious; she hesitantly lifts her brows, waiting for something; Jeongguk looks her up and down, only to not acknowledge her water flask, and just walks past her.

Eunbi is dumbfounded, the tip of her ears reddening as she remains paralysed with her hand out, even after Jimin collects her flask, muttering something close to Don’t mind him, please accompanied by an apologetic smile. She regains consciousness of her surroundings only when, beside her, Dahye can’t help the snort coming out of her mouth, trying but failing to save it with her hand. The still shocked girl slowly turns to face her amused friend, mouth slightly agape and left eye clearly twitching, “Did he just… act as if I don’t exist.”

The situation shouldn’t be funny, but to Dahye it’s the peak of comedy as she keeps giggling the more the slow realisation of what has just happened shows on Eunbi’s features. Obviously, the latter can’t find one single reason to laugh about it, whining while the taller girl pats her shoulder, still smiling, “You really need to talk to him.”

The targeted girl ignores that, biting her nails nervously, ”Was he saying anything about… me, in the car?”

Dahye lifts her brows, shaking her head, ”Nothing. He’s probably talking shit about you with Jimin, though.” Eunbi follows her pointed finger and catches Jeongguk animatedly discussing with his flatmate, balancing the bottles in his arms, before they turn a corner. Eunbi fusses, lightly tugging on her braided pigtails, and she feels helpless as even the friend who’s supposed to be supporting her through all of this is chuckling at her. Despite being shorter, when Eunbi shoves Dahye’s shoulder she manages to make her stumble, but that doesn’t stop her laughs, though.

”You’re building the tent on your own.” Arms crossed and pout on, Eunbi isn’t joking as she goes to sit under the tree surrounded by bags and ignores her name being called out. Rather than reacting to it, she spots tiny bugs between the grass and inspects them for a while, pretending it keeps her distracted from what’s plaguing her mind. Soon after, with her knees to her chest, watching those ants working to transfer food from one side to the other inevitably gets her lost in her thoughts. What is she doing wrong? There’s clearly unresolved problems between her and the boy who brutally ignored her existence minutes ago, but she thought maybe if she started seeking for truce, then he would too. His response, instead, makes her realise no matter how much she tries, it’s apparently not enough to mend what happened all those years ago. She messed up worse than imagined.

The constant pondering makes her lose track of time, and she comes back to reality with undesired outcomes that she convinces herself to be true. When she recovers from the (as she has deduced, deserved) humiliation, Dahye has already set up half of the tent and Eunbi walks over to her bashfully, “Sorry for being childish. I’ll finish this, Hye.” The girl just smiles softly and nods, sending her a flying kiss that makes Eunbi chuckle before taking her previous spot under the tree. At least Dahye doesn’t hate her.

It takes her a while to figure out what to do but she soon grasps how hard a seemingly simple task can be, feeling bad for letting Dahye do a great part of it on her own. Still, she needs to work fast as lunch time is approaching, and everybody around her is almost finished. She has been crouching on a particular spot on the ground for a while now, trying to properly secure an angle of the tent unsuccessfully. Until she groans exasperated, puffing her hair out of her vision and lifting her body up to find a solution. She tries stomping on it a few times, but it doesn’t work, and if anything it worsens the situation. Huffing out, with her hands on her hips she looks around for help, and the first person her eyes fall on is Jeongguk.

He was already staring at her, comfortably sitting on a deckchair with his legs spread and sunglasses on. His tent looks perfectly set already, with Jimin seemingly fixing the inside of it. His hand is covering his mouth before he uses it to lift his glasses over his head, and is that a smirk? They both stare at each other in silence, Eunbi still struggling to breathe, and she hesitates slightly until her eagerness to be over with the tent becomes stronger. She speaks up to make herself heard over the small distance, “Can you- help me?”

Jeongguk narrows her eyes at her, initially not answering but not even moving from his relaxed position. The girl is ready to be met with silence again, but it’s something worse when he opens his mouth, “I think Namjoon would be happy to do that.” He’s as stern as ever as he returns the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, furtherly spreading his whole body on the chair and facing the sun. Only then, he releases a content sigh, smiling slightly.

All of this cannot be real. What does that even mean? Eunbi can feel her eye start to twitch again and she needs to clench her jaw to stop it. It’s okay. Breathe. She unexpectedly but successfully manages to hold herself from exploding on him, both overwhelmed with tent building and frustrated with his behaviour. She can’t really decipher what led him to not only act cold, as he usually is with her, which is fine, but also mean! But no problem, she’ll try once again. It costs nothing to be nice. And she tells herself she’ll stay that way, even if she’s met with the opposite, until he breaks.

The storm of negative emotions tormenting her thoughts can be distortedly seen as a good thing on one side, if she considers that the sudden adrenaline flowing in her body gets her through most of the task without any help, even mindlessly, while she keeps reflecting on the interaction and the previous ones. Why the fuck would Namjoon be happy to help her? Well, he would, he’s naturally a helper, but why did Jeongguk say that? Is he really that pissed about her going in his car? She tries to understand, she really does. Keep being nice is what she tells herself instead.

When the tent is finally up, only with Dahye’s finishing touches, and food is finally in her stomach, refilling her energy tank, it’s like there’s a switch going off in her head, making it seem as if nothing bad has ever happened. Eunbi is back to her talkative self with a full tummy and a bashful grin while her best friend teases her for the earlier tantrum she went on about, but at least it’s all smiles again.

The first day at the campsite is spent basking in the slowness that follows after ticking off the only two activities planned for today on Hoseok’s schedule: setting their tents and preparing meals for lunch and dinner. The boss then instructs the group on just getting acquainted with their surroundings, and they don’t need to be told twice, making the most out of those short remaining moments of ease.

The rest of those hours are used to laze by the huge lake, in between swims and sunbathes. Luckily, Eunbi had packed a few bikinis and she chose to wear a black set, its laces meeting at the back with a bow. Sitting back and taking it easy, before all that she will be faced with the next few days, gives her a chance to get closer to the others. During the earlier drive, she had the opportunity to chat with Sora and discover the sweetheart she truly is, and the car was then easily filled with laughter, mostly provided by Namjoon and Seokjin’s terrible jokes. She now sits by Sora on a beach towel, all the other girls in a circle catching up and laying by the sun. In the back of their gossip session, the boys could be heard laughing and squealing, and the sound reminded Eunbi of sweet childhood. She briefly shifts her attention to them and smiles when she observes how they’re doing the most to tire their energy out, from using a rope hanging by the branch of a tree to leap into the water, to initiating a volleyball match using one of their rolled up towels.

Eunbi grows even fonder than before of the people she’s surrounded with, the earlier stress leaving her body and being replaced by serenity, a small sigh released from her lips before she returns to listen to the girls’ chat. She laughs at something Dahye says and jumps on it excitedly, making the others chuckle at the two friends eagerly recounting one of their craziest uni experiences so far.

All of it is short lived when Taehyung and Jimin suddenly drop a water balloon over their heads, a collective gasp filling the space followed by the two boys’ childish giggles and Dahye’s screams, getting up to run after them. They all spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get back at each other with more pranks, bathing in the lake’s cold water and taking silly group pictures to seal the day. As the sun begins to set, they all sit on their towels and silently observe nature, definitely too tired to speak, and preferring to savour the sweet moment.

When the sun finally leaves its place for the moon to rise and the group of friends gets back to their tents, their stomachs growling signal it’s time for dinner. They take turns to shower using the nearby public structure and then help setting a campfire to cook. It also works as a very needed source of heat, given the temperature has significantly dropped and their bodies are still humid from washing up. Eunbi wears the grey cargos she had discarded earlier this morning when deciding on what to put on, and a white tee, her damp hair falling on her shoulders and making her feel slightly chilly. She comes up beside Yoongi to help him with the meat, benefiting from the warmth of the fire.

There’s not much talk between the two, only the older boy advising her to be careful of the flames every two minutes, but it’s comfortable. Eunbi still has a hard time reading through Yoongi, and maybe it’s what she enjoys the most about him: his aura is soothing and it exudes security. He doesn’t exactly show it, but he’s deeply attentive and caring of his friends, and the girl feels safe next to him. She can sense him looking over at her while the meat is cooking, and as she turns to him she meets his eyes with a smile. He ponders, scanning her face “You got sunburnt. You need to wear sunscreen tomorrow, or it’ll get worse.”

Eunbi chuckles, dragging her pointer finger up and down her red nose, “Yeah, I know. It kinda hurts but it looks like I have natural blush now!”

Yoongi shakes his head with a small amused scoff, “That’s stupid, Eunbi. Wait for me here, I’ll go get you an after-sun cream.” And even as he walks off, he reminds her to not stay too close to the fire. She thinks that’s an exact demonstration of what the boy is truly like in her head.

The girl keeps grilling the meat, humming unknown melodies under her breath, and she almost misses a broad figure sitting on one of the chairs surrounding the fire. When she looks up, it’s Jeongguk avoiding her eyes and instead staring at the flames, their light reflecting in his big orbs and making them shinier. He wears his bermudas from earlier, but he now has a grey Stussy hoodie on top of it. His locks are still wet after freshly coming out of a shower, and they curl on his forehead, making him look like a poodle. She smiles. It’s like 15 years old Jeongguk is there with her again, his bare, exhausted face and droopy eyes taking her back to Busan. Without even realising what she’s doing, she extends a cooked piece of meat his way, “You want some?”

Startled, the boy breaks from his spacing-out and registers the request. He looks between Eunbi and the meat, gulping. He licks his lips, and she swears she can also hear his stomach rumbling. When he keeps ogling the food without replying, she wiggles the fork and his eyes follow its every movement, as if hypnotised. Then, he suddenly screws his eyelids shut and breaks from the trance, simply shaking his head no and fishing his phone out of his pocket, mindlessly scrolling on it. Just like that, she’s back to the present, and Jeongguk hates her. Eunbi narrowly glares at him while he can’t see her.

Yoongi comes back soon after with two different creams in his hands, and he gives them to Eunbi with a chuckle. She thanks him and lets him take over the cooking, while she curiously inspects the products, still standing next to the fire. When Yoongi spots his younger friend on the chair, he asks the same exact question as her, forking a piece of meat, “You want some?”

Jeongguk’s attention is back up, this time on Yoongi, and when he sees what his hyung is referring to he eagerly nods. Eunbi interrupts her examination just in time to see the boy hungrily shoving the food in his mouth, brows furrowed and praising noises accompanying his munching, making the older friend by her side chuckle. Instead, the girl is once again in disbelief, even more as he watches Jeongguk patting his knee with force, satisfied with the bite, “Hyung, this shit is so good. I want more.”

Eunbi scoffs imperceptibly, leaving the scene with an annoyed scowl wrecking her pretty features. As she enters her tent, she’s glad Dahye is still showering as she makes the most of that isolating moment. She sighs wearily and whips out her phone. Using its camera, she tries to ignore her tumbling emotions and instead puts on the creams Yoongi had given her, but not even those are enough to distract her. She’s still incredulous at what she’s being put through, her patience wearing thin, and the pact she made with herself before coming here is dangerously close to being broken.

Dinner is spent with good food and even better people, and only then Eunbi visibly untenses again. In between bites and full mouths, they go from discussing random facts to casually engaging in games of Truth or Dare or Never Have I Ever, the beer bottles slowly being emptied while their tummies get filled. When they’re done eating, the relaxed smiles on their faces implicitly communicate how the meal has been the perfect ending to the lovely day spent together. Still, they stay by the fire and keep up an effortless chat. When one of them comments on the limpidity of the sky, its stars being perfectly visible in this zone of Seoul, they all look up and stare in silence at the fullness of the lights.

Even if it’s not too late, the weariness from being out in the sun for multiple consecutive hours is weightening down on most of them, Seokjin and Sora retiring to their tents, soon after being followed by Yoongi and Hoseok.

It’s a little past midnight, and Eunbi starts to feel more and more affected by the cool breeze, its effects showing on her prickled skin. She tries to warm herself up by rubbing her exposed arms with her hands, but it’s to no avail, “God, I’m so cold.”

A collective agreement follows her claim, with Iseul speaking up and curling herself into a ball on the deckchair she’s sitting on by taking her legs up to her chest and hugging them close, “Me too, it’s freezing.”

”Oh, I have a spare hoodie.” Both girls snap their heads at the voice, which belongs to Jeongguk. However, as he quickly gets up to retrieve the sweater from his tent, it’s not clear who between the two he’s referring to, their curious expectant eyes following his every movement. Eunbi has her reasons to feel so eager, given the fact that she has been begging for one nice interaction with the boy, a spark of hope lighting up in her chest at his offer. On the other hand, she doesn’t know why the other girl seems equally excited, twirling her short hair around her fingers as she waits for Jeongguk to come out of the tent again. She huffs, a pout ending on her features.

When the sought-after boy gets back with a blueish crewneck in his arms, both girls hold their breaths, the sudden tension going unnoticed by the others (except for Dahye, she’s like a psychic when it comes to her best friend’s emotions), until Jeongguk lays the piece of clothing on Iseul’s shoulders, coming behind her and then sitting on his chair again.

Iseul bashfully thanks him, the tips of her ears seemingly reddening while a sweet, alluring smile makes its way on her lips. Eunbi scoffs at that, and if looks could kill Iseul would be dead right now. The dirty look she sends her way luckily goes unnoticed, and she keeps hugging her own body trying to provide herself with warmth. When she shifts her attention to Jeongguk, he’s already looking at her, smirking. She can’t be convinced he isn’t doing all this on purpose.

Even with her teeth almost chattering, the neglected girl forces herself to stay with the others until the end, and with Namjoon and Taehyung retiring to sleep only six of them remain. Under a white full moon, the conversation doesn’t really follow a clear direction, steering from existential questions that none really have the answers to, to Jimin’s drunken adventures. Jeongguk giddily joins the recounting and adds many details to it, specifically highlighting the embarrassing parts that his roommate is trying to omit to save face, and making all of his friends laugh with their whole chest, Eunbi included. She simply can’t ignore the fact that he’s naturally charming, and hilarious as well. In the middle of his storytelling, his whole body gets involved and it makes the events seem even more impressive. Eunbi smiles when she compares the Jeongguk in front of her to the beloved one in her past, the one that would sit her down and force her to keep up with his running imagination, constantly up with new ideas for silly scripts.

Then it’s Dahye’s turn to share one of her experiences, and Eunbi inevitably gets thrown into the tale, which had seen the two friends drunkenly sneaking themselves into a concert. It’s like they’re perfectly mirroring Jimin and Jeongguk’s dynamic, because while Dahye is trying to leave out critical parts of the story, Eunbi strongly insists on specifying them with an unseen emphasis for 1 a.m., causing everybody to laugh along. In between chuckles, her eyes fall on Jeongguk, who is mindlessly scrolling on his phone and seemingly not paying attention. Throughout the recounting, she notices Jeongguk distractly listening but never laughing, and if he does it’s only after something said by Dahye. Slowly, the enthusiasm gets wiped off her face as she curls up on the chair, sulkily letting her friend finish telling the story.

Another hour of effortless conversation goes by, and Jeongguk is back to lively chatting again, his animated gestures and witty jokes getting laughter out of his friends, but this time Eunbi doesn’t join. She silently sets on observing the boy, despite being caught a few times. She really wants to understand the reason behind his behaviour, but there’s no factual explanation she can come up with other than the obvious reasons that put them in this situation in the first place. If that’s the case, there’s nothing much she can do other than going up to him and finally talking it out like the mature adults they should be, but with their petty, silent bickering she doesn’t think that’s happening any soon.

While she’s busy squinting her eyes at the boy, in a borderline creepy manner, she doesn’t notice Iseul crouching in half in laughter at something Jeongguk said, until she’s directly referring to her, “Oh god, Eunbi! Why did you never tell me Jeongguk was this funny?” Said girl is startled by the question and by the abrupt interruption that shakes her out of her trance, confusion written on her face and it must be evident with the way Iseul goes on explaining, “Dahye told me you’ve known him for a long time.”

All at once, the atmosphere is tense and maybe Iseul and Aera can’t feel it, but Dahye definitely can as she snaps her head to her friend, who’s staring directly into Jeongguk’s eyes. The two seem to be battling an unnamed war through eye contact, and the intensity of the boy’s gaze ignites something implacable in the girl’s chest, dangerously close to rage, and it has to do with all the feelings she’s had to bottle up in less than 24 hours. She scoffs, referring to Iseul but never breaking the staring contest with the boy, “Oh, is he? Don’t think I’m well acquainted with that side of him yet.”

If the tension wasn’t palpable to everyone before the comment, it surely is now, the only ones that have something left to say being the crickets and owls in the background. Jeongguk only snickers before washing a hand over his face, an unsettling smirk on his lips. He seems to finally acknowledge the other girl’s presence, but it’s not in the way Eunbi initially imagined it would go. Instead, it’s venom spitting out of his mouth, “You would've been if you weren’t so self centred, always wrapped in your own bubble all the fucking time.”

Eunbi's confidence falls as quick as her heart, a sudden force weighing on it and almost crushing it. She’s fast at hiding it, ignoring the slight sting she can sense in the back of her eyelids, her only goal is to shoot harder. She forces the fakest smile she can muster, “Self centred? Are you sure you're talking about me?” The affronted girl scoffs, loud and sarcastic, “Fuck, and I thought you'd know better than that, Jeongguk. You should try getting your head out of your ass and look around. Maybe you'd see how shitty you've been treating all of us-” me “-for these past weeks.”

Jeongguk is visibly taken aback, and it’s his heart falling this time, his face following suit. His broken features do little to hide the doubts plaguing his spiralling mind. Had he pushed it too far? Had he been actually so bad to his own friends? Seeing his contender’s face relaxing with victory makes him snap out of the sudden trance, as he regains consciousness fast. No, he hasn’t. Fuck this. Blinded by anger, he utters the unimaginable, “Speak for yourself when you say shit like that. As far as I'm concerned, I've been treating you fairly seeing the bitch you are.”

His eyes are as pitch as black, the stars in them that Eunbi would love to get lost into are unreachable now, almost as if a dark cloud had obscured them. It must be the pollution that's taking over his heart too.

She’s frozen in place as the cruel words echo in her mind, the force that was keeping her heart underwater had managed to crush it, and it was now coming up her throat, squeezing the air out of her lungs. Her ears ring with the sudden lack of oxygen, and she can only faintly hear Dahye’s raging comments coming in her defence against Jeongguk. She can only seem to focus on the cracking of the fire, though, its thumping noise suddenly unbearable, as she feels more and more engulfed in its flames. She forces all sounds to come back to her, strongly pulling herself out of her own plagued head, the boy in front of her now unrecognisable to her empty eyes.

Looking around, she notices all of her friends — his, after all — had gone extremely quiet, the pressure weighing on them too. She can't stand it, needs to get out. She wishes she had never agreed to this. So much for keeping her peace. Yet, she'll never give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that hurt her. She'll die before crying in front of him.

“Well, if you don't mind, the bitch has had enough now, so with all due respect, she's going to sleep.” With a forced tight lipped smile, she gets up in one fast movement and walks to her tent, leaving the others disoriented, and a still furious Dahye scoffing at Jeongguk. He follows her with his eyes until she disappears in her shelter, clenching his jaw and announcing his departure soon after.

Inside the tent, Eunbi takes several deep breaths trying to calm down, and she feels frail when she can sense her eyes prickle with tears. She tells herself it’s angry ones. Apparently, being nice isn’t enough, and she watches as the seal to her pact shatters with force, signalling no come back. Following suit, the puzzle breaks once again, and she’s left scrambling for the pieces falling, looking for the one that will start it over again. And this time, it’s going to be even harder.

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talenlee · 1 year ago

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Hanamusa, Explained

There is a nonzero chance if you follow me on tumblr, you’ve seen the term ‘Hanamusa’ attached to something I shared. It’s probably also some super cute art of Delia Ketchum and Jessie Teamrocket, and you may wonder what is going on and also, why is there so much good art of this.

Hanamusa as a term derives from the Japanese names of the characters – Hanako and Musashi. If you’re into shipping name structures, Hana-Musa implies that Hanako is the seme and Musashi the uke, but I don’t think that holds for all use cases of the type of terminology. It’s a ship. It’s an AU ship, as in an ‘alternate universe’ ship, where the two characters are presented in a context outside of the normal context of the anime presentation of them.

The Hanamusa ship as I understand it is set at some point after Jessie and James stop chasing Ash around, and Jessie settles down into a relationship with Delia. There’s tension about her history with Ash and the confusion about finding Your Personal Villain dating your mom, but mostly it’s about showing a sweet domestic life between two characters you know very well in a format I kind of see as like, Comedy-Sabot Romantic 4koma. Like, Hanamusa content is funny (and it is VERY funny) but it doesn’t need to be funny, because the main thing it’s about is showing these two characters and their relationship as they do cute things together.

It’s why people watch shows like K-On basically.

As for where this idea comes from, (EDIT: Slightly wonky wording here, I should have phrased 'this current fandom push' - I don't have any reason to believe Mai INVENTED the ship, just that when you go looking you'll wind up at her work) it seems to have its genesis with the work of one Kiana Mai, who developed this ship some time ago. Kiana Mai is also an extremely skilled artist, and one of those skills seems to be focus, creating these extremely clean-line excellently structured scene vignettes with no unnecessary content in them but also no need to rocket along. It’s amazing, engaging work that uses every part of the small format amazingly well. Which makes sense because one of the things Kiana Mai does is storyboarding work for Disney animated TV shows, a task at which I am sure she no doubt excels.

What I think is the most interesting aspect of Hanamusa, to me specifically, is that it manages to combine three things I don’t actually care about, in a way that doesn’t interfere with something I have unexpectedly strong opinions on. I do not watch Pokemon, and I have not shed a tear for Team Rocket and Ash Ketchum wandering into the sunset. That is a show that is not for or about my interests and that is okay. Indeed, imagining that it should be about what interests me is baffling. I think if I stopped watching a show twenty years ago, I have lost all right to act like I’m entitled to expect it remain the way it was all the way back then.

But I do have opinions on Jessie and James’ character voice. Not their voice acting – I mean, I know for a fact they’ve had to change over time and no voice actor should be obligated to kick it in the same role for what could be their entire career. I mean the way they talk about things and the words they use and kind of emphasis they put on words when they talk. About the way they voice their ideas, or the way they express who they are in the way they talk to one another, that stuff. It’s about affordances and persona, about the kind of people you project being by what words you choose to use and the affect when using them.

It’s why when, if a picture of a character is underneath it, you can read some dril posts as being ‘appropriately’ voiced by a character, even if it’s describing a candle situation that Francis Crozier did not have opinions on.

Jessie has a voice.

Jessie, in my head, is someone capable of moments of tenderness and friendship that is normally overwhelmed by an incredible confidence in ability she does not have and mere reality will never be given permission to infringe on it. Jessie is unassailably unstoppably sure of herself, thoughtlessly stupid in a way that doesn’t mean she is stupid, but which exists in a context of someone who has relentlessly pursued excellence in her job which is also the equivalent of being a late night 7/11 manager. She is the Girlboss that is Gaslighting herself into thinking she has something to Gatekeep.

Delia Ketchum by comparison is a very nice piece of wallpaper. Every appearance of her in my mind is someone Very Nice who is Very Patient and Very Supportive and has managed to keep literally all emotionally challenging conversations from happening around Ash, which can be perhaps easier when you remember that he, too, is an idiot. I don’t know how Delia Ketchum talks, but I do know that there are ways that Delia Ketchum does not talk.

This is interesting! It’s interesting because it presents a character where I am very sure I know what she does do when she does it, and a character about whom I can only be sure wouldn’t do some things. It creates a character space, and it creates expectations of affect and performance within that space. Ash and other characters show up as well, but because they get to interact with this already-defined space, you get treated to this really lovely kind of resonance. Would Ash call Jessie ‘dad’? Maybe, to bug her. He was good at being a twerp. Wasn’t he? I mean I remember it that way, he seems to work out that way, but… how would I know?

I know more of this AU where Jessie is studying to be a Pokemon Doctor and Ash wears glasses than I do of the source material any more. And if you’re wondering ‘hey, do Jessie and Delia ever meet in the source material?’ Like, yeah, for a few seconds. What, the point is creating something new.

If you want to check out Hanamusa stuff and read the comics, I recommend going and clicking on the hashtag on tumblr.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Anime #Media

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weebsinstash · 1 year ago

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Ok so tmi (on the tmi blog lol) but the first day of my Cycle I had a dream that I had just given birth and I was holding my baby and I was goddamn euphoric even though the logical part of me was like “???? I am 22 and broke i CANNOT have a baby rn” and I woke up crying and called my friends like I WANNA HAVE A BAAAAAABYYYYY I WANT A BAAAAAAABYYYYYYYY so basically. Imagine. Miguel catches you in a moment of weakness. And he NEVER. FUCKING. FORGETS IT.

Oh wow girlie those period hormones grabbed you by the uterus and absolutely REFUSED to let go

NO BUT FOR REAL don't look at me but I've been thinking of a concerning number of ideas where it's like, "Reader suddenly realizes they may want a baby and is actually putting serious thought into it and Miguel finds out (bet your ass Peter B tells him, i can see him as a "well intentioned" platonic guardian/mentor figure who sells you out to Miguel the second he thinks you're doing something risky or he thinks it's for your own good) and Miguel starts making all these plans and preparations behind your back to have a baby with you" and obviously I like the extra juicy option of "he found out you got extremely depressed and tied your tubes or something because you either see no point in you having a kid/think it's too late, OR, Miguel was the only person you were looking at as a potential father and you either decide it wouldn't work out or he does something to hurt you and you lose trust in him" so like, the double whammy combo of him being hit with the news you basically walled off your fertility that he's kinda fantasizing about AND you blame him for it

You see him chokeslam Miles on the train and having all these serious anger and stress issues and you're like "hmmmm don't like that" and basically make the tubal ligation appointment that week (but, you know, he'll either interfere before you can actually get it or even reverse it later on)

Like. Ugh I'm not sure if I should go super into detail bc I feel like I want to put this scene in the YouTwo fic or in a different idea i have thats more centered around motherhood, but, picture he catches you in his monitor room one day after you've lost your home dimension, you're having a little more than just a small identity crisis, and he catches you having Lyla show you the model for your life, or what the algorithm had predicted your life was supposed to be like before your universe just magically poofed away. You're just staring at these holograms with tears running down your face and he occasionally catches you starting to reach out like you want to touch what you see. He comes to stop you because he already knows all too well where this could lead, you can't become tempted to break canon and go somewhere else, but you beg him to let you watch just a little longer

"I was supposed to get MARRIED! I was supposed to have a BABY! I was supposed to have a family!! It's not fair!!"

And he's in total agreement with you because, who even fucking knows why your universe suddenly destabilized and vanished. He sees you as this person who has so much promise and potential who had their destiny and future literally snatched away from them and now you're lost and confused on what you're supposed to do, like really he totally understands why you feel so aimless. But watching these holograms is like torturing yourself, and he goes to stop you when you just keep crying because this is basically sending you into a critical mental health episode

"Someone was supposed to fall in love with me... we were supposed to have a baby... would I have been a good mom? Would I have had a boy or a girl? Cant you at least let me find out what my daughter's name would have been?"

And it's like NOOOO you can't hit him with the daughter card, don't you see what you've DONE!!! Gets him right in the heart. Now he's got this massive soft spot for you, bigger than it already was anyways, and he can tell over time you're just really starting to, grieve the future you were supposed to have, falling into a depression. Peter B is hanging around with Mayday like he usually does as both men can tell you're really staring at his baby today and he offers to teach you how to hold her. you're standing there misty eyed twirling one of her little curls around your finger as her dad starts volunteering information to you, "you know she's about XYZ months old now, they aren't really talking yet at this age but they're really curious about their surroundings and--"

Miguel watches as you start talking about children and suddenly get this really really tortured expression and just say "it's not meant to happen" and or some combination of "it's too late for me" and gives him his baby back a little too quickly in typical "I am clearly leaving the room to go cry" fashion. Meanwhile Peter B is like 38 wondering why you think you're out of time or it's not supposed to happen

Miguel's working one day and Peter is trying to shove his phone in his face, "you know I think this is one of the BEST photos of Mayday I've ever taken, she's looking so cute here, you just GOTTA see it" and Pete just won't let up and Miguel finally looks just to humor him because the man is being unusually annoying and, it's a photo of Mayday, duh, but being held by you, and you're clearly looking down at her with watering eyes and the smallest little smile that says "I'll die for you" and Peter is just all 😏 as Miguel is 'suddenly' interested in the photo. "That's a really good photo of MAYDAY, right? 😏 I figured you would like it, that photo of MAYDAY 😏" and Miguel is just grumbling and grouchy bc he sees what this guy is tryna do, but he's still like ".... send it to me later, I'm trying to work right now"

It's even worse if you're a member of his strike force because you're constantly around him, Peter B, and Jess. Miguel just, idly wondering where you are and deciding to walk around a little bit and eventually finds that you're having some sort of conversation with Peter B and Jess and he can tell you look really weepy as the other woman invites you to feel her baby kicking, like, you could not more obviously be developing baby fever, and you ARE around that age, and ESPECIALLY if you live in Nueva York because it's like, YEAH you're still a Spider and YEAH you help the Society with stuff but. Your home universe is gone, your canon is gone, you're kind of. Free as a bird really? But you're also scared because, if someone was destined to love you, does that mean it technically isn't meant to be to fall for anyone else? You can't exactly hook up with people at the Spider Society because of canon or them already having relationships, and you don't exactly have identifying documents if you wanted to try and adopt

I think it'd really reach a stressful breaking point if you and the strike force go to another universe to fight an anomaly and Miguel catches you staring out into the crowd of people you just saved and he sees what youre looking at instantly and his heart sinks. Another you, another normal you, never bitten by a Spider, is standing there with her husband and her little sputtering baby, and he has to all but drag you away as you cry "it's not fair, it's not fair, why does SHE get a normal life!!"

Sidebar for a moment, I think that's probably also one thing that would be so INFURIATING about the doppelganger stealing your life story because THEY have a home universe and YOU don't. They take your life, they take literally everything you have left, your friends, your sense of community, your literal purpose. I've already decided on YTs motivations but could you imagine you finding out YouTwo actually has a decent life and maybe even a husband and kid of their own and you're just furious because they're basically abandoning their duties back home not only as a Spider but as a parent/spouse to steal what YOU have? You can't kill them because it would break their canon and kill like countless people but Miguel and the others would def let you beat the shit out of your evil double and get some of your anger out. Like. Jesus could you imagine Miguel kicks you out thinking you're the fake and after you're gone, YouTwo breaks canon and that's what exposes them, or theyre exposed when they eventually take a trip back home and get caught. The Society's regret, the guilt, the anger, just marinate me with the drama

But anyways back to Being Sad and Babycrazy, you go missing one day and Miguel has to decide what to do when he finally tracks your bracelet and you're back in THAT dimension again. He has to physically track you down using your bracelet's signal because you refuse to answer his messages and you're, in the home of the other you while she takes a brief nap, in the nursery, holding her baby. Miguel quietly climbs through the window and you're in a rocking chair and you've got her hugged to your chest and your eyes are closed and you sense him and, obviously cry because you know you have to leave. Unlike with the holograms he doesn't give you any leeway on this, putting his foot down that this has to end here, this cant go on, this is already so dangerous. And, you're good for him and understand, leaving the baby back in its crib as you and Miguel warp away. You're heartbroken but ultimately understanding when he has to disable your watch's ability to visit that specific dimension again, and you're obviously extremely depressed for a while, having multiple Spiders coming to check in on you as word spreads around that you aren't doing well

I can just see Reader becoming kind of desperate because the only options for a baby you really have left is to either 1. get a serious relationship, which you're scared of because you have to trust that person and who can you even pick, you're nervous about breaking canon or something, or 2. Get some random person to impregnate you so you can run off with the baby

Miguel gets a call from Peter B that you went to a bar and you're EXTREMELY wasted as you try to pick someone, ANYONE up and like, you have admirers for sure but there's enough decent people around to keep the creeps in line, clearly you are in a vulnerable state of mind right now, and Miguel gets to tote your drunken ass back home as you drunkenly word vomit all your feelings to him because, unfortunately for you, he has your trust, and you need comfort right now, and you even ask him about what being a parent was like for him. You encouragingly tell him he shouldn't give up if he still wants kids, you trying to be genuinely nice and not trying to imply anything, blubbering about how he deserves to still be happy and he's still got time, and here's Miguel who's practically tracking your cycles at this point, TOTALLY not going to use anything you say to him while you're piss-drunk against you

Especially if you add ABO into the mix and you have a Miguel who's either Alpha/Omega and is already babycrazy af and he sees you literally fucking YEARNING for it, like. You've got a 6'9" Alpha basically looking at you, his poor lil Omega crush, with the big yandere goo goo eyes and how you need all this love and support and stability and how you're in need of a proper husband and of course he's all too willing to volunteer himself for the job. Even if he's too awkward to come right out to you and say it, he'll be thinking in his head and planning behind your back ways to take care of you, keep you away from any drugs/alcohol (no more smoking weed with metro boomin Spiderman, you've gotta detox your body to have a baby! Also, different concept but, Miguel basically keeping you in a bubble to control all your meals and recreational activities and all of that so he can make sure you're perfectly healthy for a baby)

Don't let this man catch you slipping up! Throw you to the Spider Society and you'll come back pregnant 😭 he sees you so depressed and wanting a baby and it's like well, if your life needs new meaning, he can help literally make one for you 😏 he's been feeling protective and nurturing of you anyways, so, it's an extra benefit for him to think of getting to have both you AND a little baby of your very own ❤️

#yandere miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #yandere spidereverse #sinprompts #yandere stuff #godddd listening to light the city up reallt gets me hyped

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milfsloverblog · 1 year ago

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Life Eternal (part 1)

Can you hear me say your name forever?

Larissa Weems x former student fem!reader

A/N: Sapphic Yearning at its finest. Don’t fall for your teachers, kids, it will ruin ya! Might be inspired by real events…Title from one of my favourite Ghost song, which you should really listen to if you want to get the full experience. Thinking of turning this into a multiple chapter fic, let me know! <3

ps: really want to insist on the fact that Larissa and reader’s relationship was platonic. Larissa was nothing more than a mentor to reader.

You had been staring at the letter on your lap for the past twenty minutes. Reading it again and again, as if you had not read it a hundred times since receiving it nearly two weeks ago.

“Dear Miss…” You sighed loudly and pushed the letter away, your eyes falling on the signature at the bottom of the page “Sincerely yours, Larissa Weems.”

You emptied the glass of wine you’d poured yourself hoping to find some courage in it. Of course, you were expecting the invite to arrive at some point, it always arrived around the end of May. At least it had for the past five years.

Class reunions. You hated the mere thought of it. Surely the ones that used to be popular loved those reunions, but you…No, you couldn’t bare the thought of seeing her, not after leaving the way you had.

Would she recognise you, you wondered as you threw your jacket on and took a last look in the mirror. You hadn’t changed much in five years and it seemed like she hadn’t forgotten about you. And you definitely hadn’t forgotten about her.

You didn’t even know what made you change your mind after five years of not attending. Perhaps it was the fact that the letter had been handwritten this time instead of typed, or maybe you had been hypnotised by the scent of her perfume that lingered in your room after you’d opened the envelope.

Now that you thought about it, moving out of Jericho had been both a blessing and a curse. You hadn’t moved very far, only a twenty minutes ride, but it was enough to ensure you wouldn’t accidentally stumble on her while doing your grocery shopping.

It was silly, that need you’d felt to run away from Larissa. You knew it was silly and yet you couldn’t help yourself. You couldn’t have kept acting like she meant nothing more to you than a mentor.

———

“Mom, please…” You had pleaded with your mother, refusing to get out of bed. “I’m telling you I can’t go. I feel too sick.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. You did feel sick, but not physically. Your illness was way more insidious than a simple stomachache or a common cold.

“Principal Weems will be so disappointed not to see you.” Your mother had said, standing with her hands on her hips. “I’m sure the poor woman has been impatiently waiting to see you graduate. And now you will let a little sickness take that away from her?”

She always found a way to rub salt into your wounds, even unknowingly. She had no idea. She had no idea that Larissa was the reason why you were refusing to get out of bed that morning.

“Please.” You had said again “Just go and get my diploma. Tell her I will visit whenever I can.”

Now that was a lie. You knew you would never visit Larissa again. You’d made up your mind a while ago already.

Your mother had eventually given up and attended your graduation ceremony alone. Principal Weems had been nothing but professional, your mom had told you, although she’d noticed that Larissa’s smile had seemed a bit forced when she had explained that you were sick and couldn’t be there to receive your diploma.

—————————

You were snapped out of your memory by a car loudly honking behind you, signaling that the light had been green for a few seconds now. How long had you been zoning out for? You hadn’t been to Nevermore in five years and yet it seemed like your brain still remembered the road as if you had left yesterday.

The car park was already nearly full when you arrived and there was no doubt you would be one of the last invitees to show up.

A shiver ran down your spine when you walked through the gate under the Nevermore sign and entered the yard. You couldn’t help but feel like you’d just walked into the lion’s den, that the trap was closing in on you.

Looking around at the people you recognised a few familiar faces, werewolves, sirens, and gorgons catching up together instead of segregating themselves like they used to.

Someone calling your name made you turn around, your eyes falling on a face you’d recognise anywhere.

“Enid!” Your lips immediately spread into a smile. She hadn’t changed at all, still that bubbly young woman dressed all in pink.

She pulled you in a tight hug and you grimaced a little, locking eyes with Wednesday who gave you a knowing look.

“So, you two…” You asked when Enid eventually let you go.

“Yes!” Enid answered excitedly as she wrapped her arm around Wednesday’s waist, a small blush creeping on the Addams’ cheeks.

And it made sense, you thought, that the gloomy girl would fall for the bubbly one. Isn’t that what had happened to you too, after all?

Enid excused herself, saying she was going to get some drinks for the three of you. A silence fell between Wednesday and you but it didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“I knew you would come someday. Enid kept saying we would never see you at a class reunion, but I knew you’d eventually come.” The Addams girl said. “We can’t run from our feelings forever, can we?”

Wednesday smirked devilishly when you looked at her with wide eyes. If she knew, if she had been able to realise, who else had?

Enid reappeared before you could say anything, handing you a cup of what looked like white wine.

“The handwritten invitation was a nice touch.” You said after taking a sip and letting out a small chuckle. “I do wonder where she found the time to handwrite so many invitations though.”

Enid frowned and looked at her girlfriend before looking back at you.

“You received a handwritten invitation?” She asked. “Because we only got the good old computer typed one…Why would she send you a hand-“ Wednesday gently put her hand on the blonde’s mouth and whispered something in her ear, which had Enid nodding and keeping quiet.

The crowd suddenly fell silent, and all eyes turned towards the entrance door from which Principal Weems had just walked out to step onto the podium.

She didn’t need a podium, she was already towering over everyone there but that’s simply how Larissa was. She wasn’t ashamed of who she was or how she looked, something she had desperately tried to teach you when the two of you were close.

“All your life there will be people trying to push you down.” You remembered her telling you, her fingers holding onto your chin to make sure you were looking at her. “And yes, it will hurt. You may cry if you need to, but you can never give up. And don’t you ever be ashamed of who you are. You are incredible, my darling, don’t you forget that.”

Larissa’s voice resonated through the yard, commanding everyone’s attention. With unwavering poise, she delivered her speech, thanking everyone for coming that day. Every eye in the crowd was fixated on her, hanging onto her words.

The principal’s smile widened a little when she noticed Enid and Wednesday, only to falter for a second when her blue eyes eventually locked with yours.

It felt like time had stopped. Like it was just the two of you and the others had ceased existing. It always felt that way with her. She would look into your eyes and make you feel like you were the most important person in the room.

There was a short pause in Larissa’s speech, so short in fact that you weren’t sure anyone else had even noticed. It only took a split second for the woman to pull herself back together and finish her speech, her eyes falling on you a few more times.

Larissa ended her speech by telling everyone to help themselves with the food and drinks and reminding them that Nevermore would always welcome them if needed.

You were out of the yard as soon as Larissa stepped down from the podium. You needed to get out of there before she decided to come and find you, because you knew she would.

Coming here today hadn’t been a good idea. You should have stayed at home and buried that damn invitation in the drawer of your desk as you had done with the past four ones.

You heard the familiar sound of heels approaching the alcove where you were hiding and barely looked up when the sound stopped right next to you.

“I knew I would find you here.” Larissa spoke softly.

Of course she did. You always used to hide here whenever you needed to be away from everything.

“Your mother said you would visit whenever you’d feel better…I’m glad you finally do” The tall woman added.

It didn’t sound like she was reproaching you, and when you looked up at her face and your eyes met her gentle ones, you knew she wasn’t. Larissa was simply stating a fact. You were here, and she was glad that you were.

She hadn’t changed at all, you thought as you quietly observed her face. You noticed that the lines at the corner of her eyes and around her lips had deepened. She was as beautiful as ever.

“It’s very good to see you, Principal Weems. Thank you for the invitation.” You wished you had the courage to use her name, to call her Larissa like she had allowed you to do when in private. But time had passed and you weren’t sure if you were still allowed to.

“Of course, I’m glad you joined us today. Will you follow me to my office? There’s something I’d like to show you.” The older woman said, not waiting for your answer before spinning around on her heels and walking away.

Stepping into the office felt stranger than you thought it would. You were almost immediately hit with a wave of memories. Sitting down on the sofa by the fireplace, reading a book while Larissa furiously typed some emails on her keyboard. Spending whole evenings debating on the most absurd subject either of you could think of.

You’d fallen asleep there one time when Larissa hadn’t noticed how late it was. You’d woken up the next day still on the sofa but with a blanket covering you and a pillow comfortably tucked under your head. God, you loved her.

“There it is!” Larissa said, pulling you out of your reverie.

She handed you a small rectangular red box tied with a ribbon. You read the tag that was hanging to the bow and felt your stomach drop. Congratulations, darling! You make me so proud. She had bought you a graduation gift and you hadn’t shown up. You didn’t deserve her.

“I kept it all those years. I was hoping that you would visit during the summer after your graduation.” Larissa explained “And when you didn’t…I suppose I kept hoping that you would someday.”

You couldn’t help but wonder if it had been as hard for her as it had been for you. Had she missed you like you had missed her?

You pulled on the ribbon and watched as the bow fell apart, your hands slightly shaking when you lifted the lid to reveal a pair of black leather gloves.

“You always said you loved mine, remember? The beige ones?” Larissa asked.

If you remembered? You couldn’t count how many times you’d watched Larissa put her gloves on, admiring the way her fingers flexed in the leather. You had dreamt of helping her take them off only to kiss her knuckles.

“Do you like them?” The woman whispered, unsure what your silence meant.

“I love them.” You answered almost immediately. I love you, you thought. “Thank you so much, Miss Weems, this means more than you could ever imagine.”

Larissa’s smile widened and her body slightly moved forward, panic rising in your chest when her arms moved from her sides and you realised she was about to embrace you.

Don’t, please don’t. Because if you do I will fall right back in love with you, and I’m not sure I will ever be able to let go again.

But you didn’t say anything. You let her wrap her arms around you and pull you close against her. And it felt so right. You hadn’t felt this alive in years, yet it killed you to know that this meant nothing more to her than a hug between two old friends.

“I’m sorry I didn’t visit you sooner.” You whispered as you embraced her. She still felt the same in your arms. She still smelled the same. She was still her.

“I know.” Larissa whispered back, her body gently swaying from side to side as she held you close.

You felt like you were eighteen again, sobbing in her arms after a particularly rough day. She had never let you down, not once had she refused to help you and you had run away without an explanation.

“Larissa…” You whispered, wanting to explain yourself furthermore, needing to tell her how stupid you had been.

“I know.” She repeated and your ear that was pressed against her chest caught her heart beating faster.

You weren’t sure what she knew exactly, but it didn’t matter. Not now. Not while she was holding you close and shielding you from the world. There would be plenty of time for explanations. But for now, it was just you and her, tightly embracing each other.

#gwendoline christie #larissa weems #larissa weems x reader #larissa weems x y/n #larissa x reader #principal weems #no beta we die like larissa #the yearning is exquisite

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bradshawssugarbaby · 11 months ago

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Home For Christmas - Jake Seresin x OC

A/N: This is my entry for @bellaireland1981's Winter RomCom Writing Challenge, with the trope childhood friends. I was watching a lot of romcoms last night and felt inspired, it's definitely heavily influenced by 13 Going on 30, Just Friends + Sweet Home Alabama. (I realize only one of those is set in the winter, but I digress). I'm debating a part two/epilogue as well, if anyone is interested! Also super proud of this one, because it's the longest fic I've ever written.

pairing: Jake Seresin x OC

warnings/content: none, lots of fluff and pining. Jake's been promoted to Captain. Probably a lot of inaccuracies.

word count: 7.7k (literally my longest one yet, I'm sorry)

tagging anyone who might be interested: @littleenglishfangirl, @floydsmuse, @sailor-aviator, @mamachasesmayhem 🤍

December, 1999

“Jake! Jake, wait up!”

“Run faster then, I gotta get home before the street lights come on or my mama’s gonna be so mad she won’t let you come over tomorrow!”

“Jake, your mama’s not gonna say no to me comin’ over and you know it.”

“Jenna, how you ever gonna keep up with me when I join the navy and start having to run a few miles every day?”

Jake turned around to face you for a moment, running backwards with a grin plastered on his face, his baby-faced cheeks red from the cold, his green eyes full of mischief as he watched you try and keep up with him. His sandy blonde hair stuck out slightly from underneath his Dallas Cowboys baseball cap, a handmedown from his older brother that he rarely left home without since Matt had given it to him. He stopped running, placing his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath, the cold air stinging his throat as he panted. You finally managed to close the distance between the two of you, raising an eyebrow as you panted, your own cheeks ruddy from the combination of cold winter air and physical activity.

You and Jake had been best friends as long as you could remember. In eleven years, you couldn’t name a single time where the two of you had as much as had a disagreement, or went more than a few hours without talking to one another. Your mothers had been best friends in high school, and you two were destined to be best friends since birth - born four days apart in the same hospital, living on the same street and having your first play date at 10 and 7 days old. Jake was four days older than you, and he never let you forget it when it came to matters where age or maturity played a role. However, where Jake had four days more experience in the world, you had multitudes more experience in dealing with hardship than any eleven-year-old child should have.

Where Jake had the picture-perfect family - a mom, a dad, an older sister, an older brother and him, all living in perfect harmonious happiness, never as much as a doubt as to whether or not there was love in his household, you had the opposite. An absent father, an only child, and a mother who worked two jobs to try and make life better for the two of you, you spent almost every waking minute with Jake and his family, not only as an escape to experience the happy, blissfully carefree life he lived, but also, as a favour to your mother, with Mrs. Seresin often volunteering to care for you when your mother had to work late or work on weekends.

You were at the Seresin home almost every night, with Jake’s mother fussing over her best friend’s daughter, helping her lifelong friend however she could in guiding her little girl, you acting as the surrogate daughter that part of her had always wanted. Jake’s father trying to fill in the blanks where your father had lacked - offering to coach sports teams and including you in games of catch with Jake and his brother, taking you and the boys to get new baseball gloves or soccer cleats when needed, taking the three of you for ice cream after a big achievement in life. Jake’s 16 year old sister, Bethany, would take time to do your hair in the mornings before school whenever she had a chance, offering to do it in all the fun styles she and her friends wore, the kind you were often envious of, passing you old tubes of lip gloss she had lingering around in her backpack on your way to school, encouraging you to use them to your hearts content. Even Matt, who at 14, thought his brother and his brother’s friends were the most irritating beings in existence, had offered you old sports jerseys of his that no longer fit, teasing you the same way he’d tease Jake, treating you like the little sister he never had.

Until this past summer, you found yourself wishing most days that Jake’s family would just adopt you, let your mother move in with them and the two of you could just officially be a part of their fun, bustling family that served as your cheerful escape from life. However, when elementary school ended in June with middle school looming around the corner, Bethany had pulled you aside to talk to you about the transition between schools.

“You know, middle school is…different. It’s not bad. It’s just…things change sometimes. You and Jake might start going on dates with people from school, and it might change your relationship. It happens,” She’d said matter of factly, not mincing words as she shrugged her shoulders, fixing her frosted eyeshadow in the mirror before turning to face you again.

“You might even develop feelings for each other.”

At the time, her words didn’t hold meaning for you. You and Jake had been best friends since Jake was four days old. Your moms were best friends. You practically lived in their home. There was no way things could change between you. You could never have a crush on Jake. He was Jake, the boy who would hide under his mama’s kitchen table with you and a flashlight, swapping baseball cards with one another, the boy who, when you were six-years-old, you’d witnessed eat an entire package of Oreos, then laughed at as he proceeded to throw up an hour later from the sheer volume of chocolate-vanilla sandwich cookies he’d consumed that day. Jake could never be someone you’d have a crush on. He was your best friend. That would never change.

It was two weeks later when Jake had been on the baseball diamond, pitching an inning of Little League with you in the stands watching on. His baseball cap had been flipped backwards to mimic one of his favourite major league players, his green eyes narrowing in concentration with every pitch he threw out. His golden blonde hair poked out the front of his baseball cap, much like it was doing today, on this cold January evening. His focus was on nothing but baseball, while yours was on everything but when it came to him. When he happened to look your way during the game, you felt a weird feeling in your stomach - a bubbling sensation, like nerves that couldn’t be settled. Your cheeks flushed, turning a pale pink as they became warm to the touch, reddening slightly as you felt Bethany’s gaze fall on you, a grin forming on her face as you proved her right about how your feelings were evolving for Jake.

Since that day, you’d found yourself continuing to crush on him, each day your feelings grew deeper and more intense than the day before. At this point, you almost swore you could see yourself marrying him one day. You had to admit, you knew everything there was to know about him, you always had fun with him, and he was always happy to see you - you were convinced you two could be as happy and as in love as his parents were someday when you and Jake got older. You’d never tell Jake, you just hoped and prayed that he’d realize one day that he felt the same way about you as you felt about him. You knew there was always the chance that it might not happen, but you didn’t want to think about that. In fact, as far as you were concerned, you hoped that there was never a day where Jake didn’t love you as wholeheartedly as your little eleven year old self loved him.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

Present Day

“Jake, please, come back. I miss you,”

“I miss you too, Jenna, I’m coming home to you. It’s always been you.”

The ear-piercing screech of your phone’s alarm blared from your nightstand, interrupting your dream as it screamed at you. You rolled over in bed, groaning as you clumsily stuck your hand out, feeling around on the wooden side table for your phone to silence it and allow yourself a few more moments of peace and quiet before you had to start your day. The last think you wanted right now was to let this dream slip away on you - it was the closest you’d ever find yourself to Jake professing his love for you after all these years, and you clung to it whenever it cropped up in your mind as you slept.

Jake had always been the one-who-got-away for you. You spent your entire middle school years trying to hide your feelings for him, refusing to break until he said how he felt first. You were 13 when he got his first girlfriend, Tiffany Donaldson, a girl in your class. Tiffany was pretty and popular, something that you couldn’t claim for yourself in either case - growing up with Jake, you were seen as more of a teammate or a sister-figure than anything else, despite his sister’s best efforts to help you shake that connection somewhat. After Tiffany, you two had begun high school, and Jake made the football team, and the baseball team. As the school’s star runningback and starting pitcher for the varsity team, Jake was popular beyond words. No one could hold a candle to him, and as his popularity soared because of his athletic prowess in school, you faded further and further back into obscurity, the limelight falling from you and onto someone new each time Jake began dating another girl. Eventually, by the time graduation rolled around, you and Jake had all but fallen out of touch with each other outside of family get-togethers shared between your mothers.

You had just worked up the courage to tell him your feelings at the graduation party Jake’s parents had thrown for you both, convincing yourself that it was perfect timing - Jake had accepted an offer at the University of Texas at Austin, keeping close to home as he planned to study finance, his secret talent having always been math. You’d accepted an offer to study communications at the same school, and with both of you remaining local, it would be the perfect time to tell him how you felt and attempt a relationship with him, or so you thought.

Before the words could even leave your mouth, Jake was excitedly pulling you aside at the party, stopping outside of his childhood bedroom, the place where the two of you had often played as kids. His green eyes were full of excitement as he looked at you, causing your heart to race as butterflies fluttered in your stomach, making it hard to concentrate on his words. You almost didn’t hear him when he spoke, you were so transfixed on him. If the news had been anything else, you probably wouldn’t have even registered what he’d said the first time. You could still hear the excitement in his voice as he told you his news, and still feel the ache in the pit of your stomach as his words fell on your ears.

“I got accepted! I’m going to the Naval Academy, Jenna, can you believe it? I’m going to serve in the Navy, just like I always wanted. I’m going to be the best aviator they’ve ever seen. Just you watch.”

Jake’s voice was practically buzzing with excitement as he’d told you his news, and it took everything you had in you to not fall apart as he spoke. While you knew he’d always dreamed of being a naval aviator, as long as you could remember, the news hit you like a ton of bricks, unexpected and hard as it rendered you speechless, leaving you nodding your head and smiling like an idiot while inside you wanted nothing more than to scream out how you felt. You knew this could never work out between you now. Your chance was gone, moving away to Maryland and joining the Navy before you’d even had a second to realize what was happening when he spoke.

That was 17 years ago, and the moment still haunted you from time to time, more than you’d like to admit to anyone. At first, you’d kept in touch with Jake and his family, seeing Jake when he came home for holidays and such at first, but then, as you and Jake began entering your first romantic relationships as adults, you found yourselves including each other less and less in your lives. With each boyfriend you had, you realized more and more that you could never love them the way you loved Jake -he’d always be your first love, regardless of how he felt in return. When Jake graduated, he’d been stationed at NAS Lemoore, swapping Maryland for California. You’d still hear the odd update from your mother, who remained in touch with Jake’s parents, but otherwise, you didn’t ask much about Jake’s adult life. You knew he’d never married, that he’d become a Top Gun graduate, and held true to his word about becoming one of the greatest fighter pilots in the United States Navy, but other than that, you knew little about his life now. Last you had heard, last Christmas, he’d been stationed in San Diego.

You sat up in bed, yawning and stretching your body out before heaving a heavy sigh and shaking your head to rid yourself of thoughts of Jake. You were preparing for a trip back home to Texas for the holidays, spending three weeks back with your mother, part of you wishing and longing for Jake to be visiting his family at the same time, while the other part of you prayed he was staying in California or serving a tour so he wouldn’t be able to be there while you were. It had been close to 15 years since you’d seen him, and the last thing you needed was to be reminded of how you strongly you felt. You didn’t need the help from seeing him. The memories of him were more than enough to keep you clinging on.

Your phone rang and with bleary eyes, you picked it up, pressing the green button to answer the call.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” Your mother practically sang out in a voice that was far too cheerful for anyone to have at this hour.

“Hi mama, what’s up? My flight doesn’t land until this evening.”

“Well, I was talking to Mrs. Seresin about Jake, Matt and Bethany…” Your mother’s voice trailed off as she spoke, and you felt your breath hitch in your throat at the mention of Jake.

“Mhmm?” You responded as you stood up, balancing the phone to your ear with your shoulder as you folded a sweatshirt and set it down neatly on the bed, waiting to be packed.

“It turns out both of us are having our kids home for Christmas! Bethany’s coming down from Dallas with her husband and their little ones, and Matt’s coming from Oklahoma City with his fiancee, and Jake’s flying in on leave from California. He’s made his way up to Captain now, you know, Jenna. He’s made quite the career for himself.”

“Mama, I don’t need a sales pitch on why Jake Seresin is the perfect man for me, ok? He hasn’t seen me in years. He probably wouldn’t even recognize me if he saw me.”

“You never know. But I expect you to dress nicely for their Christmas party. You and I have been invited to join them, and I already said you would gladly be attending.”

“Of course you did. So Jake will be there, then?”

“I think his flight lands just before yours does today, actually. His mama and I were actually discussing if we should just carpool together to pick you both up like back when you two were in school together. Remember that? We used to take turns carting you kids back and forth from home to school.”

“I remember, mama. Don’t worry.”

“Anyway…we were talking and it turns out, Jake happens to be single.”

“Mama, why would I care that Jake’s single?” You replied, trying to sound as level-headed as possible.

“Please, Jenna. You really think I don’t know about this crush of yours you’ve been harbourin’ for years?” You could hear the laughter in your mother’s tone as she spoke, and it stung, almost as though your feelings had betrayed you.

“Mama! I haven’t had a crush on Jake in years. Not since he left for the Navy.”

“Of course not…just, do me a favour? Wear something nice for that Christmas party, ok?”

“Sure, Mama, whatever you say.”

You finished the conversation with your mother and let out an exasperated sigh as you tossed your phone onto your bed beside you. You had to be at the airport in three hours, leaving you little time to completely reconfigure your wardrobe for the next few weeks at home in Austin. Peering into your closet, scanning the items as they sat on wire hangers in the tiny space, you frowned, realizing that nothing was worthy of a reunion with Jake after all these years. At the back of the closet, you found a black, form-fitting sweater dress that you hadn’t worn in years, but, as you held it up to yourself in the mirror, you figured it could work. Part of you hoped this reunion could be the thing that’d remind Jake of what he was missing out on for the last 17 years.

As you finished packing your suitcase, you zipped it closed with a sigh, shaking your head as you tried to calm your nerves before getting yourself ready for your flight. There was a chance you could see Jake at the airport, and you knew you had to look your best, just in case.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

The flight from Chicago to Austin was the most painful three hours of your life. You tried to focus your attention on anything but Jake, but every movie saved on your phone, every book on your tablet, and every thought that crossed your mind was filled with him. You tried reminding yourself that he could be a totally different person from who he was when you were 18. That he could look completely different, act completely different - that he may not even know who you are anymore. The thought of Jake forgetting you was suffocating, closing in on you a little bit more every time it creeped into your mind. You took a deep breath as you departed the plane, your eyes scanning the crowd for your mother as you gripped your carry-on. Your face went white as a sheet as you saw her standing with Mrs. Serensin, both of whom waved frantically with excitement as they saw you.

“Jenna! It’s been so long, darlin’, how have you been? Your mama’s told me lots, but I feel like it’s no substitute for getting to see you in person!”

“Hi, Mrs. Serensin! I’ve been ok, how have you guys been? Haven’t seen you in about, 15 years? I think I saw y’all the one visit after Jake shipped out, but I haven’t been home much for the holidays, Mama’s usually up in Chicago visiting me.”

“We’ve been good, Bethany has two boys now, Easton and Dylan, and Matt’s met this girl, Alexis, she’s wonderful, a real sweetheart. He’s gettin’ married next summer. “

“Oh, that’s great news!” You replied cheerfully, fighting the instinct to bite your lip as she failed to mention where Jake was at in life.

“We better get going, Julie, Jake’s plane’s about to land,” Your mother said as she grabbed Mrs. Seresin’s arm excitedly, nodding her head.

“Oh, I thought Jake landed earlier?”

“He was meant to, but his flight got delayed, he’s landing in a few minutes now, I think.”

You nodded your head slowly, reluctantly following behind as your mom and Mrs. Serensin led the way to Jake’s terminal, biting the inside of your cheek as your eyes followed the signage as you walked past. You tried your best to focus on something, anything, but your nerves but so far, your nerves were winning. You were terrified. What if Jake hated you for not staying in touch? What if he forgot all about you? What if you were the last person he wanted to see? What he if came through those doors with a surprise girlfriend on his arm?

“Ma!” You heard a voice call out. You looked up to see a tall, handsome man with neatly combed blonde hair, piercing green eyes and sunkissed skin. His naval uniform was still perfectly pressed without a crease on it somehow after his flight, and he looked perfect. You knew in an instant that it was him.

“Ms. T?” He chuckled as he shook his head, pulling back from his mother’s embrace as he gave your mother a heartfelt hug, before pausing as he looked at you, a warm smile on his lips as he nodded his head, his blonde eyebrow cocked upwards in surprise.

“Jenna?”

“The one and only,” You shrugged with a smile as you tried your best to play it cool, forgetting for a moment that at 35 years old, you shouldn’t be getting tongue-tied and start giggling like a schoolgirl over a crush. The mere fact that you still had a crush on Jake was enough to make you feel like a fool.

“It’s nice to see ya, Jenna,” Jake nodded as he wrapped his arms around you, enveloping you into his embrace. You breathed in the scent of his cologne, notes of whiskey and cedarwood encircling you as his grip remained tight, yet comfortable around you, as if he was hugging his long lost friend, which, he was in a sense.

“Nice to see you too, Jake,” You nodded once as he pulled away, a soft smile on your lips as you looked at him, trying to commit this moment to memory before it drifted away on you.

You swore out of the corner of your eye, you saw your mothers exchange a look with one another, a secret signal to one another, as if a master plan of theirs was underway, and everything was beginning to come together before their eyes.

As the four of you headed out to the car together, you caught yourself repeatedly stealing glances at Jake. He hadn’t changed hardly at all since you saw him last, apart from gaining some muscle, and his cheekbones and jawline becoming a bit more defined as he’d aged. He looked incredible for 35, if you didn’t know him, you likely would have guessed he was barely 30, and you couldn’t help but feel yourself fall deeper with each stolen look at him.

“So, you’re Captain Seresin now then?” You raised an eyebrow as you looked at him, hoping to break the silence brewing between the two of you.

“Yeah, this past April! I didn’t expect to get it, to be honest.”

Jake’s cheeks reddened as he smiled at you, trying to appear modest as he spoke of his accomplishments in the Navy since you’d last seen him. He had always used to have an ego so big that it’d rival some of the aircraft around in size, especially as a teenager - he was good and he knew he was good when it came to sports. It was part of what drove the two of you apart, but around you? He was modest like he always had been before, acting embarrassed by the achievements he’d otherwise never shut up about. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think Jake was nervous around you. Jake Seresin, the only service member on active duty with multiple confirmed kills, the US Naval Air Force Captain who’s served for the last 17 years without as much as a scratch on him, the man who graduated top of his class from the Top Gun program, where only the best of the best are selected to participate. Jake Seresin had no need to be nervous about impressing you. He could have impressed you by simply looking your way - but for some reason, he was nervous around you, reduced to a blushing, modest mess.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

“Jake’s such a lovely boy,” Your mother said as she sipped her morning coffee, eyes fixated on the news program on her television set.

“He’s 35, mama, he’s hardly a boy now.”

“Fine, Jake’s a lovely man, he’s still just as sweet as I remember him being when he was young. He comes back to visit whenever he gets a leave and stays for a few days, and he always stops by to say hello - he even asks about you sometimes.”

“He asks about me?”

“He sure does, he asked Julie about you the other day, in fact. He was asking if you’d be home this time at Christmas. Seems you two always come back to visit on opposite schedules and never run into each other. He was saying he’d like to see you again, Jenna.”

Your mother’s words hung in the air for a moment. You took a sip from your coffee mug and furrowed your brow as you thought it over. You dismissed your mother’s words as nothing more than an attempt to set you and Jake up on a date, one that you figured Jake wasn’t going to be a willing participant of.

“Oh Mama, hush, he probably just said that to be polite because he figured I’d be coming home for the holidays anyway.”

“Jenna, why are you always so stubborn?” Your mother frowned, shaking her head as she let out an exasperated sigh.

“I’m not stubborn, I’m just…practical. I’m the only one who seems to realize the fact that Jake and I haven’t seen each other in 17 years, Mama. We’re not the same people we were when we were 18. He could be a serial womanizer with a series of broken hearts left behind waiting for him in California for all I know. He could have 17 kids by different women, or be a serial killer, Mama. I literally know nothing about him anymore.”

“Jenna Elizabeth Taylor, you’re just being ridiculous now,” Your mother frowned as she shook her head, sighing, “I think Julie would have mentioned it if Jake was a father, and do you really think he’s the type to go around breaking hearts for fun? Besides, how could he be a serial killer if he’s busy flying around on missions all the time?”

“You’re missing my point, Ma.”

“No, Jenna, I think you’re missing mine,” She sighed, setting her mug down on the table as she pursed her lips, “My point is, I know you’ve been holding out for him for years. He’s asked his mama about you, he’s been asking if you were coming home, he stops in to see me whenever he comes home - do you really think he’d do all that if he didn’t still feel something for you?”

“Mama, I’m not going to make a fool of myself and throw myself at him, contrary to what you think would work.”

You heard the sound of someone clearing their throat, and when you turned on your heel, you stood face to face with Jake, now sporting a fitted pair of acid-washed light denim jeans and a burnt orange Texas Longhorns football jersey and a brown corduroy bomber jacket shrugged on over top. His blonde hair peaked out from behind his beloved baseball cap, you’d swear it was the same one he’d been wearing since he was 15 if you didn’t know any better, this hat looked like it had been through hell and back.

He’d let himself in through the unlocked front door, almost certainly at your mother’s previous insistence or invitation. His cheeks were blushing again, his green eyes darting between the two of you, a blonde eyebrow cocked upwards as his gaze landed on you.

“Throw yourself at who?” He chuckled, flashing a set of perfect white teeth your way as gave you that same grin that he always did when you were kids. It was the kind of smile that always got him out of trouble, and sometimes, into trouble, depending on the situation.

“No one,” You said quickly, shooting your mother a warning glance as you shook your head, a few strands of light brown hair falling free from your half-assed ponytail that you’d thrown it up into the night before for bed. You realized that Jake was now standing in your mother’s living room while you were sporting an oversized old Texas Longhorns tee and a pair of sweatpants - not ideal attire for seeing a man you were attracted to in, regardless of your protests about your feelings to your mother.

“Right,” Jake nodded his head, but the tone in his voice told you he didn’t quite believe a word you were saying, “I know this isn’t a great time, but Ma wanted me to check and see if you and Ms. T were still able to make it tonight, she wanted me to ask in person, and she wanted me to see if you needed my help bringing anything over, she said you were bringing your famous taco dip, Ms. T? I can bring the dish over now for you if you’d like, Ma’s cleared out the fridge of anything that isn’t a necessity for the party so there’s tons of room.”

“Sure, Jake, honey, it’s in the fridge, Jenna can show you where, I just have to run upstairs and grab something to send to your mama’s with you,” Your mother said as she stood up, heading off up the stairs quicker than you could say a word, leaving you and Jake alone in an awkward stance, nothing but the sound of the morning news to fill the silent void between you, until Jake cleared his throat again before pointing his index finger towards the kitchen.

“In here? I’m sure I can find it if you need to go upstairs and get changed.”

“I’m fine, not like you haven’t seen me in pajamas before, Jake.”

“Well, in my defense, last time we were like, 12.”

“I’m sure you’ve seen a woman in an oversized tee and sweatpants before,” You shrugged nonchalantly, pretending to be completely unbothered by the fact you felt like you were dressed like an absolute slob right now.

“Alright, lead the way then,” Jake nodded as he followed behind you.

You felt his eyes make their way down your body, and you swore you could hear him muttering something under his breath as he sauntered into the kitchen after you. You couldn’t make out what he had said, but it sounded almost like a “Jesus Christ” before he coughed and averted his gaze as you turned to face him. You opened the fridge and grabbed the dish containing your mom’s taco dip before setting it on the counter for Jake to take home. You raised an eyebrow at Jake as you caught him staring in your direction, a look of bewilderment on his face.

“You good, Hangman?”

“Hmm?” Jake said as he shook his head, an awkward laugh escaping his lips as he raised an eyebrow at you, “How did you know my callsign?”

“Because it’s on the back of your jersey, genius.”

Jake raised an eyebrow as he looked down, as if he’d forgotten what shirt he was wearing today. He nodded his head and laughed as he ran a hand through the back of his hair, scratching the back of his neck as he looked back up at you.

“Yeah, yeah I’m good. Just, uh, jet-lagged, I think.”

“Jet-lagged? Isn’t only two hours behind us in San Diego?”

“You can still feel jet-lag with a two hour difference, Jenna.”

“I’m not stupid, Jake, I know that, but you seem…distracted? Not tired.”

“I’m fine, honest,” He nodded as he shoved his hands into his front pockets, looking around the kitchen as you checked the fridge for the extra shredded cheese and green onions your mother had prepared the night before to top the dip she’d made.

“Suit yourself, Jake,” You laughed as you set everything out on the counter for him and nodded, “If you give me five minutes to get dressed, I’ll help you bring it over.”

“Five minutes? God, I remember you taking 30 minutes to get ready when we were kids.”

“I was 12, it was 2000, I needed more time to perfect my lip gloss routine. Now I just have to put something warmer and nicer on than a t-shirt and sweatpants.”

“Fair enough, I can wait here. Your mama said she’d back down in a minute with something for Ma anyways.”

“Right, I’ll be back down in five.”

You turned around and headed back up the stairs, sighing softly to yourself as you entered your childhood bedroom, opening your suitcase as you grabbed out a pair of jeans and a vintage crewneck sweatshirt. You tidied your hair up into a neat ponytail before heading back down the stairs to meet Jake, who was currently talking to your mother in the kitchen, his body leaning against the counter as he spoke. Jake looked up at you, straightening his posture as he saw you. He picked the taco dip up from the counter, along with the reusable shopping bag your mother had packed up of the extra ingredients. Sitting on the counter next to the food was a gift, perfectly wrapped with a gold bow and a tag written out in your mother’s sleek handwriting. Jake’s mother and yours had always exchanged gifts with one another, and it warmed your heart in a sense to see the tradition still carrying on for them.

“So, you enjoy living in Chicago?” Jake asked, watching you as the two of you headed back from your childhood home, Jake having insisted on walking you back so you could spend some time catching up, even if just for a few minutes. .

“Yeah, it’s a change of scenery. It’s different from Austin for sure. How’s San Diego treating you?”

“It’s pretty good, I like being on the beach. I do miss home sometimes though,” He laughed softly, giving his shoulders a gentle shrug as he looked around at the street you grew up on, just a couple of blocks away from his own childhood home.

“I mean, yeah, I miss my mom sometimes when I’m in Chicago, but, I know it’s easier for me to come home and see her than for you to come home and see your family.”

“Jenna? Can I ask you something?”

“Mhmm?”

“Do you…do you regret leaving for Chicago?”

“No, I wouldn’t be where I’m at now if I hadn’t left. I have a really good career in public relations, and I’m happy with where I’m at professionally. I wouldn’t have gotten that if I stayed in Austin, just like you wouldn’t have gotten as far in the Navy if you hadn’t gone to Annapolis.”

Jake stayed silent for a minute, his eyes looking everywhere but at you, avoiding your gaze. You could sense tension between the two of you. The Jake you knew growing up was never awkward, and never stopped talking - had he really changed that much since he’d left? You couldn’t see the Navy taming him to the point where he became reserved, Jake had always been so outgoing, so full of self-pride that it often came off as cocksure arrogance, but most of the time, it was out of sheer disbelief that he’d made it that far. You looked to him, his hands firmly in his pockets as he let out a huff, his breath turning to vapor in the cool December air.

“I should really get going,” Jake nodded slowly, checking his watch as he looked back towards the street, “I promised Ma I’d help her set up.”

“Right, right, I’ll see you in a couple hours? Mama and I’ll be there.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you then,” Jake nodded, a warm smile on his features as he turned to start heading back.

You let out a heavy sigh, mentally kicking yourself as you realized you’d just let another opportunity to tell Jake how you felt slip away from you. As you headed up to your bedroom to get ready, moving quickly to dodge any questions from your mother, who was probably desperate to hear how your alone time with Jake had gone.

You shut the door behind you, sighing again as you sat at your old vanity table, brushing through your hair and sectioning it with a claw clip as you began straightening it, trying your best to calm your nerves and make a decision on how you were going to approach Jake. You wanted to tell him, desperately, how you felt, but, part of you couldn’t help but cling to the fact you might regret it. That you might be disappointed and find out that Jake never felt the same about you, and that he never would. Or that he’d be in a relationship with someone else back in San Diego, someone prettier, younger, smarter, better.

On the other hand, did you really want to commit yourself to never telling him how you felt? Letting the door shut on the one man you’d loved the longest, the most, and the hardest in your lifetime? Could you really be happy with anyone else? What if something happened to Jake while he was serving and you never got the chance to share how you felt? What if, somehow, there was the off chance he felt the same way about you?

As you finished your makeup, taking a deep breath as you looked yourself over in the mirror, you nodded your head. You had to tell him. There was no way you could let him go back to San Diego without knowing. You couldn’t let this go unsaid any longer, if for no other reason than to give yourself closure. If he rejected you, you could move on - or at least, try to. You could finally let go of your feelings and meet someone, and try your hardest to love them with the same enthusiastic, all-consuming love you felt for Jake. If he felt the same way, you’d apply for a job transfer to Los Angeles as soon as possible, because a three-hour drive was much more manageable of a commute to see him than a flight from Chicago to San Diego.

This was it, you were going to finally do it. You just needed to get Jake alone.

❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆ ❆

“Oh, Jenna! It’s been so long, how are you?”

Bethany’s voice was sweet as honey as she spoke, wrapping her arms around you in a warm embrace, as if she’d been missing you for years and the sight of you reminded her of just how much.

“I’m great thanks, Beth, how are you? Your mama said you have two boys now? Easton and Dylan?”

“Yeah, they’re 6 and 4, they’re little handfuls like their uncles, but I guess that’s to be expected when you’ve got Jake and Matt as influences for you. My husband’s not much better.”

Bethany laughed as she gestured towards Jake playing with Easton? Or was it Dylan? Jake’s unmistakeable toothy grin plastered on his face, his green eyes alight with joy as he lifted his young nephew up, tickling him, the young boy’s laughter filling the air as Jake continued to make him laugh. Jake looked up to see you with his sister, smiling as he set the boy down on the floor, ruffling his hair with his fingers before making his way over to you.

“Jenna! Hey, I’m glad you came.”

“Told you I would, didn’t I?” You laughed, shrugging your shoulders as effortlessly as possible as you tried to play it cool, praying no one saw through the front you were putting up.

“Hey, Jenna, can I…can I talk to you for a sec?” Jake asked sheepishly.

You couldn’t mistake the look on Bethany’s face, biting her lip to hold back a grin. You caught Jake giving her a stare that could make any person stop dead in their tracks, his green eyes practically piercing through his older sister as she tried not to laugh. As you nodded your head, raising your eyebrow at the scene unfolding before you. You followed behind Jake as he led you upstairs to his old childhood bedroom. When he opened the door, you were confronted with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Old pictures adorned the wall, some including you and Jake as children, with ice cream covered smiles and skinned knees, baseball uniforms and halloween costumes, missing teeth and messy curls.

“Ma hasn’t changed anything since I left home, I don’t even think she’s bought new bedding for this room.” He chuckled as he looked around the room, his large hands placed firmly on his hips as he stood in the doorway.

“Still sleeping with those baseball player sheets you had as a kid?” You teased, eyeing the comforter on the bed, neatly made and pulled together, a sign of Jake’s time in the navy.

“You know it, I’m still a big kid, really,” He laughed, nodding his head as he pointed to a picture on the wall before looking over at you, “Remember this one? Your 7th birthday party, I think I snuck an extra little bit of frosting off your birthday cake and my mama almost killed me. She told me I had the table manners of a barn animal.”

“You did, you used to chew with your mouth full too.”

“I grew out of it at least. I’m a little more civilized now.” Jake replied with a smirk, shrugging his shoulders as he turned to face you, his chest rising and falling as he took a deep breath before exhaling sharply. You could see Jake chewing at the inside of his cheek, nodding his head as his eyes met yours.

“I have to tell you something, ok?” He finally said, sighing heavily.

“I’m listening, Jake.”

“I should have told you this a long time ago, but…I love you.”

You sputtered for a moment, eyes wide in shock as he spoke. He frowned, clearly expecting a better reaction than what you’d given him. Jake shook his head and took your hand in his, stroking the back of your hand gently with his fingers, which were almost surprisingly soft and smooth to the touch.

“I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way. I don’t care if you just wanna be friends after hearing this, because even though the truth is, I'm scared to be your friend, I would rather have you in my life as a friend than not have you in my life at all. The last 17 years have been spent missing you and wishing I’d said something before I left. That I’d kissed you or held you, or said something, anything to you.” He frowned, nodding his head as he looked to the ground before continuing to speak, his voice beginning to tremble with emotion.

“I was stupid to just go and leave things there, but I’ve been paying for it ever since. No other woman has ever compared to you.”

Without another word, you gripped the front of Jake’s football jersey, using it to give you leverage to pull him in closer, your lips crashing into his just as he looked up at you to see what you were doing. Any initial hesitation either of you felt melted away into the kiss, your lips moving together passionately, Jake’s hands trailing their way down your sides to rest on your hips, pulling your body in closer to his. When he finally pulled away to catch his breath, he maintained a small distance between the two of you, speaking in a low whisper as he watched you bite your now puffy, kiss-bitten bottom lip.

“Is that your way of telling me you feel the same way? Because if you do, I want to take you on a date. And I don't care if it's in the day, or at night, or whenever, as long as it's a real date. And I wanna sit there and tell you how beautiful I think you are, Inside and out. How you’ve always been the most beautiful girl in the world to me, without a doubt. And I wanna have babies with you, and I wanna marry you, and I wanna tell you every day that I love you and I always have." Jake nodded, his cheeks blushing as he scratched the back of his neck again, waiting for your response to his rambling feelings.

“Jake, I’ve spent the last 17 years of my life waiting to hear you say that.”

“I know, I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m so sorry I made you wait.”

“Promise me something, Jake?”

“Anything you want, pretty girl.”

“Promise me you won’t make me wait that long again? I’m not sure I can wait another 17 years for you to ask me to marry you.”

“Jenna, I swear to you, I’m not making you wait for anything ever again. I’d marry you tomorrow if I didn’t think my mama would have me committed for running off to get married three days after our reunion.”

“You’d marry me tomorrow?”

“With bells on, babe. With bells on. I’d marry you right here, right now, in my beat up Longhorns jersey, and drive off into the sunset with you in my truck if you wanted.”

“I don’t know about that, Captain Seresin,” You smirked, raising an eyebrow at him as you felt his hands caress your sides, “As tempting as that sounds, we do have 17 years of lost time to make up for.”

“And I intend to make up for every single second of that with you, Jenna. Here, Chicago, San Diego, I don’t care. I just want you. All of you, completely and totally.”

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graciegoeskrazy · 10 months ago

Text

mine

matty healy + teen!daughter!reader

cw: mommy issues, lil yelling, crying, cursing, family secrets

an: i’m back. my b. the beginning is mid but the rest is not bad it gets better basically lol. ty to the anon who requested this. hope u enjoy :)))))

“Can I ask you something?” You asked George in the car.

“Anything.” He said.

You turned down the music and faced George over the armrest. “Who is my mother?”

“Anything but that,” he said, turning the music back up.

“George!” You said, stopping his hand. “C’mon. Just a name?”

“I should not be the one telling you who she is.”

“So you do know who she is…”

He looked at you for a second, knowing you caught him. He sighed and replied. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Ask your father.”

You sighed. “I’ve done that my whole life! He’s never given me anything. Not even a name.”

“Then what makes you think I would.”

He thought then turned to him. “Because you love me and I’m your favorite?”

“No.” He said too quickly.

He reached a red light and you reached over the armrests closer to him, trying to get him to answer and to annoy him.

“George, I’m turning 16 next week. I'm going to have a big party with all my friends over and have the time of my life, and I’m going to plan it all without my mom there.”

“Not the sob story.” He said, hands over his eyes.

“Yes, the sob story! Next year I’m gonna go to prom, and she's not gonna be there to help pick out my dress. Same for when I get married. She’s not gonna be there. I’m going to go through all of these milestones and she's not gonna be there and I will never know why. I don’t even know if she’s alive! I’ve spent the past nearly 16 years of my life wondering what she's like. Is she alive? Is she dead? Did she die during childbirth? Did she kill herself? Does she live back home? Have I met her? Is it someone that I know? I don’t fucking know because my overprotective father won't tell me shit!”

He looked at you for a minute then back at the road. You could tell you were about to break him.

“If she's alive and she doesn’t want to be a part of all those things, then at least I know that she's a bitch who didn't want to be there, instead of lying awake at night wondering.”

He sighed, and you grew hopeful.

“I don’t know much about her-”

“But you know some things…”

He looked at you, “Yeah.”

“Well?”

He pulled over. “You, my dear sweet girl, were unexpected.”

“I figured.”

“Your father had been dating someone during the end of school. We had met her a couple of times, he brought her around. It was whatever. One night, he showed up at my house, it was late. He was a sobbing mess. He told me she was pregnant and he was the father. No one knew except me and the boys. He eventually told your grandparents but they didn’t even know he had a girlfriend so that was a funny conversation.”

You held onto every word.

“She wanted to get rid of the pregnancy but she was already nearly halfway through the whole term before she found out so it was already too late. She said she wanted nothing to do with the baby so it was up to your dad to make a decision.”

“Was he gonna get rid of me?”

“He was torn. He wanted to keep going and do what he could but he also didn’t know if he could give you what you truly deserved then.”

He sighed.

“Your mother left right after she gave birth.”

Tears started forming in your eyes as you looked at George.

“Oh, bubs-”

“I’m fine- keep going.”

He sighed again. “Meanwhile, your dad took one look at his girl and fell in love. He vowed to give you everything he had and more.”

You gave him a suggesting look. He looked outside the window and the roof of the car. Anywhere but at you.

“Her name is Ayla. That’s all I know about her I swear. She never mentioned a job or a family or anything.”

You did it…

He turned to you with a serious look. “Promise me - you won’t go and look her up or cause any trouble.”

You held out your pinky.

“I promise.”

…

It’s crazy what a teenager can do with a name, the internet, and some time. It only took 15 minutes before you found her. Ayla Anderson. Age 33. Born in Manchester, lives in New York City. You were fully aware that George told you to do the exact opposite of what you were currently doing. You were also fully aware that your dad was playing Madison Square Garden in a couple of weeks and you would be in NYC along with him for 2 weeks. It was too perfect. You kept the info in tabs on your computer, occasionally looking over at it whenever you were bored. When the day came a mixture of adrenaline and anxiety took over you, not sure how to feel. Your breathing became incredibly shaky. The freezing New York City air combined with your uncontrollable anxiety became a recipe for unease once you got off the subway in Brooklyn. The 10-minute walk to the unfamiliar address was filled with emotions and questions. What if I got the person and place wrong? What if she recognizes my face instantly? What if she has kids? What if she pulls a gun on me before I speak? What if she just slams the door in my face? In a way, it made the walk seem to go by faster, but you couldn't tell if it was a good or bad thing.

The entire apartment building was filthy. Nasty floors that were covered with dirt that hadn’t been cleaned in years, walls that were filled head to toe with writings, graffiti, dirt, and even some spots of blood. The lights that were supposed to fill the hallway either had burnt-out bulbs or had broken pieces on the floor. When you arrived at the door and prepared to knock you heard the sound of cries that only could’ve been coming from a young child. You took a deep breath, closed your eyes, and knocked on the door, hoping that whatever came next would give you some answers.

“Coming.” A man’s voice answered. The door swung open and revealed a man who appeared to be in his forties wearing khakis, some band tee shirt, with a flask in hand.

You stood in shock. You had no idea who this man was. After a moment of not answering and just staring at his face, he spoke. “Can I help you?” He asked harshly.

“Um- yeah. Hi. I’m looking for Ayla Anderson.”

He nodded and walked back inside, slightly closing the door while doing so. “BABE! DOOR!”

As he disappeared from your eyesight, a woman came into view. You knew instantly. It was her.

You and your dad always looked like twins so to speak. You were the epitome of a mini Matty, but there were always some things that never made sense in terms of you inheriting them from your dad. For instance, your face shape and bone structure were completely different, your nose had a slightly different shape, and your skin tone was completely different than Matty’s. Those 3 things imparticular were staring right back at you when she opened the door.

She looked at you and spoke, obviously not recognizing who you were.

“Hi. Can I help you?”

You swallowed. “Um. Yes- are you Ayla Anderson?”

She tilted her head. “Depends.”

You smiled. Hopeful. Then spoke. “My name is y/n Healy.”

Her eyes widened when she realized your last name. You noticed the change on her face then hesitantly continued.

“Are you-“

“Please go away.” She said cutting you off.

“Are you my mom?” You said it quite loudly but you didn’t think anything of it until she shushed you and spoke in a hushed tone.

“My husband doesn’t know-“ She said, closing the door a little more as she stepped outside, hoping the man in the other room wouldn’t hear anything.

“Are you?” You asked again. Your eyes were glued to her.

“Listen, kid, you need to leave.” She went to reach for the door but you helped it open with a firm grasp.

“Are you my mother?” Your eyes and voice were full of tension.

She sighed, “Biologically…yes.” You softened just a bit. It was her. No more daydreams or fantasies of what she is or could be. It was her.

“But, in every other way shape, or form, I am nothing to you.” Her tone grew serious as she caught you off guard.

Before you could even think of how to respond, a cry coming from inside the apartment cut you off. She sighed and turned back to you. “That’s my kid, listen I-“

“You have a kid?” You asked, cutting her off.

She gave a very sad smile. She felt a wave of sadness when she realized she was handing you life-changing news. “I have 2. Yeah.” She gave a weak smile. “2 Boys.”

You slowly nodded while trying to peek inside the door. “So they’re-“

“And they don’t know you exist.” She said, cutting you off. She got serious again. “And as far as I’m concerned, they never will.”

She crossed her arms and whispered. “I’ve done so good at reshaping my past, the last thing I need is some kid coming and fucking it up.”

You stood in disbelief. How could she be this cruel?

“Why are you even here anyway? Money? You think I got money?”

“I’m not here for money.” Your voice was hoarse with tears.

“Then why are you here?”

You shrugged while continuing to cry. “To see you.” You whipped the tears and straightened up. “I wanted to see you.”

She sighed. “Yeah, well, that makes one of us.”

You were heartbroken.

She looked back into the apartment and then back to you, sighing. “Listen, kid, uh…what was your name?”

She doesn’t even know my name.

“Y/n.” You said, sadly.

“Y/n! Right. Listen, y/n. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing. I’m sorry I can’t be the mother of your dreams or whatever the fuck you had planned in the little head of yours. Whatever you want, I can’t be that for you. Frankly, I don’t want to be.” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m being honest when I say I wish you the best of luck in life. But I truly don’t want any part in that.”

You swallowed and nodded, not having the courage to look up at her.

“Get home safely.” She said, slamming the door.

…

In the thousands of ways you pictured your mom since you were little, it sure wasn’t like this. The ride back to your and your dad’s Airbnb was faster than the ride over there. Time seems to always go faster when you are in your head. Some gave you looks as you sat quietly on the subway back, either of concern or confusion. It was New York City after all so seeing a young woman like you in your state is nothing new for some of these people. You got to your place sooner than expected and quickly wiped your tears before stepping inside. You were hopping to walk in quietly so no one would notice you but that goal was shot down when Mayhem loudly greeted you at the door. Like always, your father and George were sat at the kitchen table doing work. They said hi, not noticing your fragile state at first,

“Hey, bubs!” George said.

You mumbled a weak “Hey.” after getting up from petting the pup.

Your father took notice of your tone, as well as the dried tear stains of your cheeks. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine. I’m gonna go take a nap.” You said, as nonchalantly as possible. It didn't fool your dad and uncle though.

“What’s up with her?” George asked.

“I don’t know?” he furrowed his brows before adding, “I’ll go talk to her.”

…

As soon as you got upstairs you put your backpack down and jumped on your bed, letting out a plethora of tears you didn't know were there. You couldn't get her words out of your head, they just kept repeating in your mind. So much so that you never hear the footsteps your dad made while walking up the stairs and to your room. His knocking on the door took you out of your trance.

“Darling?” he asked.

“One sec.” You grabbed a tissue and wiped your tears quickly before going to the door and unlocking it.

He smiled at you, not saying a word.

You let out a small confused smirk. “What’s up?”

He sighed and leaned against the door frame. “How was your adventure?”

“Fine.” You replied. You held the door slightly closed, not wanting to let him in, Also giving short answers in the hope of this conversation ending quickly. You couldn't hold your emotions sin for that long.

“Fine?” He asked.

You swallowed “Yeah. Fine.”

He hummed before asking, “Where’d you go?”

“Brooklyn.” You said.

“Hm. What’s there?”

“Boring stuff. I just walked around, you know?”

He knew you were full of shit, but this felt different. He could push you the same way he was used to. This felt different. You felt…fragile. “Hm. You okay?”

“Yeah. Peachy,” you said, with a small, obviously fake, smile.

He straightened up and asked again. “You sure?”

You swallowed and slammed the door.

Matty’s suspensions were correct. “Darling, open the door.”

You were already sobbing. You locked the door and slid down it, sitting on the other side. “I can’t.”

His voice got sweet, laced with concern. “Why, love? What happened?”

At this point, George started heading up the stairs. They just heard your weeping and grew even more worried. “Please tell me, love.”

No answer.

“Darling, whatever it is, we'll figure it out. I won’t be mad I promise.”

Still, no answer.

“Are you safe? Are you hurt?”

Matty was now fearing every terrible scenario. “Y/n, please just-“

“I found her.”

He took a breath and thought before speaking, already connecting some dots.

He sighed, “Found who?” He asked, pretty confident he already knew the answer.

“Ayla.” You said, through tears,

“Y/n Healy-“

“I’m sorry! George told me her name-”

“George Daniel!”

George started to turn away but Matty grabbed him by the collar.

You spoke before he had a chance to get mad at your uncle. “She’s 33. Moved to the U.S. right after she gave birth. She lives on 1924 Larklin Street Apartment 4C in Brooklyn, New York where she lives with her two sons and husband.”

He sighed. “Oh my god-“

“George only told me her name. Don't get mad at him. I’m the one who did the research.”

He glared at George as he dropped his grip. “Did you visit her?” He asked.

“Yeah.” You hesitantly said.

“And what happened?”

The tears you thought were starting to disappear came back again at the thought of her words. “She told me to leave. Told me she doesn’t want any part in my life.”

“Fuck.” He knocked his head on the door, sighing.”

Your tears were now at a full 10 and you were slightly struggling to catch your breath. “Why was I not good enough, Dad?”

“Baby-”

“Why does she hate me?”

He sighed.

“What did I do?”

“You did nothing wrong, y/n-”

“Then why don't I have a mom?”

Matty thought then continued. “Because you don’t need her. The universe or whoever is up there knew that I and your entire family were more than capable of raising the best girl known to mankind. They knew that you were exactly what I needed, so they sent you my way with the help of some bitch named Ayla.”

“You don’t believe that do you?”

“The point is, you were sent my way for a reason, and that reason never involved Ayla.”

“You were meant for me. No one else.”

“You thought about those words for a bit and eventually your cries turned into sniffles.

“Can you open the door now?” He asked hesitantly.

You moved next to the door reached up and turned the handle, opening and unlocking it.

His heart winced when he saw you in your crying state. “Oh, my baby.”

He reached his arms out and you fell into his embrace immediately. Your head falls onto his chest. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise you.”

He pressed a kiss on your forehead.

You sat up after catching your breath. “Thank you for being mom and dad.”

He smiled and took you into another tight hug.

George appeared from around the corner and your dad playfully frowned at him.

“Never trusting your ass with family secrets again.”

You and George smiled. “Sorry mate.”

#matty healy #matty healy x reader #matty healy x daughter!reader #matty the 1975 #x daughter!reader #matty x reader #the 1975

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