#my time has been very inconsistent lately

[mad-hunts]

alright, i have come here to discuss something tonight and that topic is: barton still killing every single police officer that bothers him at the docks (except for jim, but i swear that's just for plot purposes. okay... nah 🫠 it's not lmao BUT moving on) and hating law enforcement in general + vigilantes, BUT with the new added context that he has a partner who he found out is a vigilante? well... i'm just here to say that it makes me think that doing mental gymnastics is just a daily practice for barton at this point LOL

but that's okay, because his vigilante partner is genuinely slay in his eyes + worth it. and thus, anyone who dares try to call him a hypocrite for being with her will be smacked halfway to tuesday so ❤️ (the heart essentially means don't do it JSJSJ ☠️ not to say that i would expect that anyone here would do it OFC though y'all know what i mean (,,: and oh, the mun who portrays the vigilante character that i'm talking about knows who they are tehe MUAH ilyyy)

[hoziersong]

do you mind if i ramble in the tags about my weird relationship with making art in fandom for a second

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 8

it's the morning after. spencer reid suspects you’re left with some doubts after losing your virginity to him. he has to figure out why—which is hard when you're keeping secrets.

series masterlist

this series is 18+ warnings/tags: fem!reader, blood related to losing virginity (dramatized for the drama duh), super vague allusions to the BAU being hungover, mild blasphemy if anyone even cares, pondering god bc am I really a fanfic writer if I don’t get a little religious w it, emily AND hotch are here and nobody knows why pls don't pay attention to that bc we are imagining like season 11/12 spencer and I'm inconsistent w who is unit chief in this series apparently, spencer slut lore, spencer emotional wounds lore, Spencer is a traumatic situationship survivor a/n: DADDYS HOMEEEEE (me and dybmn not spencer) anyway missed these little guys and am happy to be writing for them again!! idk what my upload schedule will becoming back to this but pls lmk what u think of this part, I have no idea how you will respond but I'm being brave and ily

Friday morning Spencer comes into the office fifteen minutes late (he tried his best), in yesterday’s suit (everything in his go-bag had been too wrinkled), hair messy (no doubt from your fingers), coffee cold (he’s exhausted) and overall, in an excellent mood.

The rest of the team isn’t faring quite as well—Spencer gathers they stayed at the bar celebrating Derek’s birthday a lot later than he had. It shows through sallow skin and dark circles and the grimaces he receives on the way to his desk that are probably supposed to approximate good morning’s. 

Honestly, he doesn’t mind the dull mood—he doesn’t need the teasing and the prying questions that would be sure to come if his co-workers were at peak performance and were able to put together his unusually perky demeanor and disheveled appearance. At least Prentiss doesn’t appear to be paying him any mind. She’s always the one who can read him like an open book and has no shame in doing so aloud. Echoes from years of, ‘so who was the lucky girl, last night, Reid?’ Still ring through his mind and it’s like he can feel her finger prodding at his side. 

The Emily of it all makes him smile, though the rest of the memory leaves a metal tang in his mouth. Back in those days, there were sometimes a lot of girls, but even then he was consciously aware he wasn’t necessarily doing something he enjoyed. He spent a lot of time, actually, staring at his bedroom ceiling, psychoanalyzing himself. Repetition compulsion. The insatiable desire to repeat or reenact emotionally painful experiences. Maybe he thought if he could teach himself to subsist off of emotionless hookups, he could in some way heal from his experience with Elle. Though, he’s hesitant to think of it now as healing—it’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing when a few nights after she said I don’t feel the same I’m sorry he opened up his front door for her. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing every time after that. So, maybe heal isn’t the right word, when one doesn’t have the right to be injured. Or when the injuries are, in a manner of speaking, self-inflicted. At the very least he could tell himself that this time around, meaningless sex was a choice he was making for himself. Spencer hates when things just happen to him. 

But you—you’re different. You were a complete surprise. At first, a cute and unexpected complication. After a few painful and short-lived attempts at real relationships, Spencer decided he was simply not to be trusted with emotional intimacy of any kind, including that which inevitably develops from physical intimacy, and would resign himself to a life of celibacy. He tried not to like you, but you were just so damn likable. Magnetic, to use a trite and perfectly honest turn of phrase. All that to say: he doesn’t regret you at all. There is no filter of putrid shame or anguish over his memories of last night. 

Just you. Perfect. Starlit. Glowing softly around the edges like you’re not even real. 

I love you I love you I love you. A hymn with no melody. You, always reminding him exactly why he is decidedly not a man of faith. At least, not in the typical sense of the word. 

How God became the idol and not Mary is lost on him. That’s why, Spencer supposes, tapping an eraser on his desk, marriage and sex were forbidden for so many ecclesiastics. After all, if they knew what it was to love a woman, specifically to love you, he doubts they’d feel like spending much time in the pulpit. Love. Humans had that long before they had any gods. It’s primeval. It’s the most natural manifestation of devotion and worship. It will always have come first. Isn’t it a better kind of religion when a man realizes he can kneel in front of a woman rather than an altar?

A heavy hand falling on his shoulder jolts him from his theological musings—which are in all practicality useless. What’s that saying about blasphemous thinking on the FBI’s dime? Right. There isn’t one. 

“I’m scared to ask,” Morgan says as Spencer jumps slightly in his chair. 

“What?” He mumbles, looking up from the document he’d only sort of been reading.

Morgan just looks at him, strong brows furrowed and a ditch between them, angles his head and glances to the side as if Spencer is missing the obvious. He almost follows Derek’s eye-line. When that doesn’t work, Derek just says your name. Like your status is somehow in question. 

“Did you two work things out, or not? It looked pretty bad when you guys were leaving last night.”

People often misunderstand an eidetic memory. It’s not like things can’t slip his mind—Spencer can actually be quite forgetful. It’s made worse by the fact that last night at the bar feels like months ago. For a moment, he has no idea what Derek is referring to. 

“Oh. Oh! Right, we—right. Yeah, we, uh—we worked it out.” Before Derek has a chance to read his face, no doubt as incriminating as his fumbled speech and an ill-timed throat clearing, he turns back to his paperwork. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her at the bar. I appreciate that.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Spencer’s lips twist as he can feel the incoming inappropriate comment. 

“Is that the same suit you were wearing last night?” Morgan quips, his wide grin audible. Spencer can practically hear the cartoon gleam of his friend’s bleached teeth. 

“No.”

“You dog.” Derek is still smiling as he claps Spencer’s shoulder again. “What did you say to her that worked so well?”

Spencer clears his throat again and tries to look extremely involved in logging onto his computer, speaking quickly as if he’s beyond disinterested and can’t wait for the exchange to be over. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m actually trying to work so if you wouldn’t mind going back to your desk that would be great.” 

“Uh-huh. I’ll let you work. But I see you, pretty boy.”

Spencer tries not to blush like a teenager as he refuses to look up. 

Naturally the rest of the day is a slow descent into dread and madness as all those good feelings with which Spencer had started his morning begin to harden into something much worse, chilled by your lack of response to the text he sent you earlier. Which was essentially a rehashing of the note he left on your bedside table. 

Maybe it was too much. It should’ve been one or the other, but not both. He’s overwhelmed you. 

Okay, so maybe this is what religion is for. A last ditch effort when you can’t talk to your girlfriend so you have to try talking to God. 

But Spencer knows you, and he knows something is wrong. You wouldn’t just ice him out so blatantly if everything was okay. He catches himself glancing up toward Hotch’s window to see if the blinds are drawn, and considers faking an illness to get out of work early and go check on you. But he powers through the remaining hour and a half that he is obligated to stay at work, he bounces a pencil between his fingers, drums at his desk, and gets nothing else done. As soon as 4:59 rolls around, he’s out. 

Spencer can hear shuffling on the other side of your door as he stands in the hallway. A pot clatters. The walls hum with the rush of water through the pipes to your sink. He knocks, relieved that you’re okay and at the same time struggling with that weight on his chest—something cold that leans over his shoulders and whispers into his ear—so she just didn’t want to talk to you. 

Suddenly all sound from inside your unit ceases. For a few long seconds, Spencer’s confusion only grows exponentially. 

“Who is it?” You finally call, voice wavering. Also odd. Usually you just open the door. 

“Um… Spencer?”

“As in my boyfriend Spencer?”

He frowns, bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly as he tries to decipher your sudden paranoia. “I hope so?”

The click and jingle of several locks precipitates your much-anticipated reveal. 

“Come in,” you say breathlessly, more harried than usual and not giving him the tender greeting he’s selfishly become accustomed to—barely even giving him a second to look at you. But he steps inside, watching on in concern as you do up every single lock—the one on the knob, the deadbolt, even the chain. Is this really all because of his little comment last night about anyone being able to get in? He certainly hopes not. He didn’t mean to terrify you. 

When you finally turn, he takes stock of your appearance. Big hoodie, pajama pants patterned in little hearts. Hair pulled back hastily. Your skin is sort of dull where you normally glow. But you’re beautiful, like always. It always aches just a little bit to look at you. Spencer’s always been like that. Going breathless at a particularly good piece of art or pretty girl. Like yourself. Mostly you. 

You quickly turn to hurry back into the kitchen. “I was trying to make dinner, I—”

“Hold on,” he interrupts, stopping you with a hand on your stomach that is so non-demanding it’s really mostly a suggestion. He tries to clear his head, though you make it hard. “You didn’t talk to me all day. Not that you have to, but… I was worried.”

You glance at the floor and mumble, “I lost my phone,” with so much embarrassment he believes you’re telling the truth. “Did you, um—did you text me?”

Insecurity. Spencer knows well what it looks like on you. He softens. You weren’t ignoring him—but you’d been left in a vulnerable state without any ability to contact him or anyone. That couldn’t have been comfortable. 

“Of course I did.” He pauses to observe you. Still anxious. Still prepared to run at any second. Something, and he’s not sure what, did a number on you today. Maybe it’s sheer exhaustion, maybe it was the anxiety of not having your phone. But he has to figure out what it is so he can undo it. “What? What’s wrong?”

He watches your breathing pause—watches your eyes gloss over with tears and a frown contort your features. Oh, god. He’s done something terribly wrong. It’s been thirty seconds and he’s done something wrong. 

“Can we sit down? I don’t feel very good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can. Whatever you need.”

You cast a baleful look at him and now he has to wonder what that means. Spencer sets his bag on a pulled out dining chair and follows you to the couch where you settle on opposite sides—you’re curled up in the far corner, hugging a pillow to your chest with your legs folded in front of you. Spencer’s heart is beating fast. He doesn’t know what’s going on with you and he can’t figure it out just by looking and you don’t seem eager to tell him. 

He’s exhausted all his typical ways of collecting information, and now he’s at a loss. 

Eventually, the anxiety comes bubbling up. 

“Please talk to me,” he pleads. And you do. Almost instantly, like he stepped on some sort of landmine. 

“I know it’s my own fault for not having my phone on me and not being able to see your texts, but it really sucks that I had to find out from my creepy neighbor that you snuck out in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.”

The whiplash is so strong it’s almost a broken neck. Spencer reels, frowning deeply as he tries to process your impromptu speech, the sudden confrontation. What creepy neighbor?

“I… didn’t. I went to grab my stuff from the car around one, but I came right back. I left at 7:30. You don’t remember me saying goodbye?”

Your brow furrows, and your eyes dart over the design on the rug like you’re watching memories go by. He sees it in your eyes when you recall some hazy image of him holding your face, kissing your cheek more times than was necessary and whispering sweet things against your lips before he had to go. You shrink into the couch, clearly struggling under the combined weight of relief and embarrassment. 

“I forgot. I thought… he said…”

A moment passes and it’s clear you’ve abandoned the sentence. Spencer is concerned about this shadowy male figure who put malicious untruths into your head. He slides his hand under yours and twines your fingers together. Finally, finally you meet his gaze. 

“Someone made you believe I left without saying goodbye.”

And he almost wishes you weren’t looking at him as more tears pool before falling down your cheeks. You nod, and don’t make a sound. 

“No, honey. I didn’t do that. I’m sorry that’s what you’ve been thinking all day.”

“I was worried that you… or that I wasn’t…”

His chest aches. You’d woken up alone, no recollection of his goodbye, and without the comfort of even a text. 

“You didn’t see my note?”

The way you look at him then is heartbreaking. Eyes wide and wet and sad, lip trembling. 

“You left a note?”

Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will. 

It must’ve fallen off the bedside table, or maybe he just hadn’t positioned it obviously enough. 

A lost phone, a missed note, and not even a memory of his departure. While none of these things are verifiably Spencer’s fault, he feels so, so guilty. 

“I did,” Spencer says gently, scooting closer and pulling you into him, head pressed to his shoulder as you try not to cry, and he rubs your back slowly. 

Your sulky words are muffled by his shirt. “I didn’t see it. What did it say?”

“A lot of very nice things about you,” he whispers. Spencer thought maybe he could get away with giving you all the sincere compliments you can’t accept face to face through a note you could read while he wasn’t around. That way you couldn’t refute them or stop him. It was a good plan. 

He feels the sigh of relief leaving your body against his neck. 

“I didn’t know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. That’s not… I should’ve just stayed. This is my fault.”

You keep your cheek pressed to his shoulder as you speak. 

“It’s not. You have a job. A really important job. You can’t just call out whenever I want you around.”

Logically he knows you’re right, but he doesn’t always think logically around you. 

“I could’ve made it work. I could’ve come in late, or the team could’ve called me if there was a case, which there wasn’t—”

“Spencer, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it.”

He pulls back slightly, frowning at your tone. You do look relieved, much less plagued than you’d been when he arrived minutes ago, but something heavy still weighs you down. The burden of it darkens your eyes and dulls your expression. When he cups your cheek, you glance up at him, and then away once more. 

He speaks softly. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” 

Again he earns a moment of your eye contact, but it’s fleeting. He watches the words spin around your head as you try to figure out what to do with them—and then choose to remain silent. 

There is in fact something you’re keeping from him. 

Spencer hates to use work tactics on you, but he doesn’t speak either, hoping that you’ll feel compelled to fill the silence with the truth. Knowing how you’re not entirely comfortable with quiet. 

And you try, lips parting and the sound delayed as you wrestle with something you clearly don’t know how to talk about. 

“I… my neighbor,” you say, frowning like you don’t quite know why you’re speaking. “The one who told me he saw you leaving in the middle of the night. He also—he said…”

Spencer brushes hair away from your cheek with a thumb, stroking the high point in gentle passes as your words taper off. Now that he’s thinking about it, he did encounter a man in a dumpy robe standing in the courtyard and smoking a cigarette when he left you tangled in sheets and dozing contentedly to get his bag from the car. In fact, they rode back up to your floor in the elevator in mostly awkward silence. Spencer was sure his outfit told a story—shirt untucked and hastily buttoned only partway, no belt, shoes barely tied, duffel slung over his shoulder—he wasn’t really expecting to run into anyone at such an hour, to be honest, but he hadn’t particularly cared what this man thought of him, so it didn’t cross his mind again.

Now he remembers. 

Long night, huh? I remember those days. 

It was an inappropriate comment, but given his job he’s used to ignoring those. Mostly his mind had been preoccupied with the idea of returning to you, who gave him such a warm and sleepy welcome when he climbed carefully back into your arms several minutes later that it was like he’d never known anyone else at all. 

Now he resents that he hadn’t said anything, he hates the idea that you spoke to this man and he said something to upset you and Spencer wasn’t there. Usually he tries not a judge a book by its cover (metaphorically, of course) but he’s been around enough bad men to know when he’s looking at one. Last night he hadn’t even been cognizant enough to realize they got off on the same floor. 

“What did he say, angel?” Spencer whispers, incapable of being anything but soft with you at the moment. Even though he senses something a lot like a tide of preemptive anger rising in his chest, painted over with layers of anxiety and guilt. He should’ve found a way to stay with you this morning. 

You sniffle and let your head fall again, forehead resting against his collar. Instinctively his hand slides to the back of your neck and even at the awkward angle he finds a way to press his lips to yours hair. “Can we talk about it later? I don’t feel good.”

If it’s making you this uncomfortable, Spencer really wants to know what passed between you and this neighbor. In fact, he’d be willing to bet a lot of your strange behavior this evening stems from something that occurred which you don’t feel comfortable telling him yet. But he manages to bite back anymore questions. He doesn’t want to make you feel interrogated. 

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” he says eventually, kindly, hand tracing down the length of your back and up again. “Why don’t you feel good?”

He doesn’t miss the way you reach up to discreetly wipe your cheek. But he won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to talk about until you’re ready, and it seems like you’re already having a rough day. Which is not what he wanted. This is so far from what he wanted for you. He’s cursing himself for how he handled this whole situation. 

“Um, I just… I don’t know. I feel… bad. I’m sorry I’m being so weird.”

“You’re not being weird, honey. You had a hard day. You’re having a normal reaction to an abnormal set of circumstances.”

You sit up, sniffing and wiping your tears like you can just make the whole thing go away. 

“No, I am. I am. It’s all okay now, right? So I don’t know why I feel like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

He watches helplessly. “Nothing is wrong with you. We’ve… it’s been a big couple of days. Mostly good, but I think you’re probably really tired. Emotionally and physically.” 

You bury your face in your hands and nod silently. He still feels like he’s shooting in the dark, but you’re not entirely comforted yet, and it’s killing him. 

“Whatever you’re feeling is okay. If this is… about last night, or this morning, or something entirely different—regardless of what it’s about, you’re not going to be… in trouble with me if you’re having complicated feelings. And you can talk to me. But it doesn’t have to be right now. We don’t have to figure it out all at once, okay?”

You press the heels of your palms into your eyes, and for a moment, his words sink into silence. When you do raise your head, nodding, the evidence of your discomfort is all over your face—reddened eyes, cheeks polished with wiped tears. But you take a deep breath and try to project whatever it is you think he wants to see. 

The back of your hand is soft under his thumb as he sweeps it, as if he could draw forth more information that way. People speak when they’re ready.

“Is there anything I can do?” He tries, all ramped brow and soft spoken. 

You’re looking at where he’s tracing swirls on your hand as you swallow and blink the last of your tears away. 

“Um… you can say no, but—do you think it would be okay for you to maybe stay again tonight?”

Spencer sucks in a breath, painfully aware that he’s about to let you down. 

“I… I haven’t been home in a week. I’ve been wearing this suit for two days straight and I don’t think I would want to share a bed with me again until I shower.” He watches you wilt and lifts a hand to stroke your hair. “But I do want to spend time with you… do you maybe want to come stay with me instead? No pressure—”

“Okay. Yes. Is that okay?”

Spencer’s brow knits. You seem even more enthused about the idea of going to his apartment, like now that the opportunity has presented itself you can’t wait to get out. Maybe you have some sort of black mold problem. 

“Of course. Do you wanna grab a few things and then we can go?”

“Um—I also haven’t showered today. Do you mind waiting?”

“Sure. Or you could use mine. With supervision, this time.”

Spencer is attempting to make a joke about your unplanned (and unmoderated) stay at his apartment last week after he left—but looking at your face now he’s wondering if he touched a nerve. 

“Like… one at a time? Or…”

He thought maybe you’d be more comfortable around him after last night—and it’s not like he hadn’t seen you naked before then, either.

“Do you wanna do it one at a time?” He asks gently. 

There’s this sparkly sort of longing in your eyes that he’s seen before, but you tamp it down like always. You’re so cautious. About everything. Even the things you’re curious about. It’s sweet and a little sad. 

“I’ve never… showered with anyone.”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitches as he pushes hair over your shoulder. “I know. You don’t have to. We could save like 100 gallons of water depending on how long your showers typically last, but—”

“Spencer—”

“Sorry, sorry—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to pressure you. You absolutely can take your own shower. You can go first so you get the hot water.”

“No,” you laugh, and it’s like a sparkling cloud of gold has settled around you, fractals bouncing off the shine of your cheeks and eyes—the sound of your laughter, the look of it, is such beautiful relief he can’t believe how good it feels, but it fades from you quickly. “It sounds… I think I want to, I just… I don’t wanna, like… do… anything.”

For a split second your veiled language mystifies him and then he realizes what you’re trying to say without saying. Something has changed since yesterday, when you brazenly referred to it as fucking, and today, when you can’t even say sex. He’s gotten as far as it being something your creepy neighbor said. Maybe. He needs to know what. 

But that’s not the topic at hand. 

“We don’t have to. I didn’t mean to imply that we would do anything like that. I don’t expect anything from you.”

You swallow. 

“Okay. I wasn’t sure.”

About what?

He says your name. No response. 

“Can you look at me, please?”

It takes you a moment, and your head raises like you might need some oil in your hinges, but eventually you manage. Spencer hopes the way he’s rubbing your leg is comforting. 

“You know I’m never, ever going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

To his horror, your answer isn’t an immediate and resounding yes. Instead you look back down and cover his hand with your own, fiddling nervously with his fingers. 

Eventually, you reply, “Yeah… I know. I just thought… I’m not sure. Maybe it’s supposed to be different now.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Nothing has to be different. We’re still doing everything on your schedule, okay? And as for the next few days, at least—I think it might be a good idea to take sex off the table altogether.”

Your eyes narrow and you hesitate. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want you worrying about it. And I don’t think it would feel good for you right now. I think there are things we need to talk about, but… we’ve probably tried enough for a while, hm?”

You give him a shy nod and hum your agreement. For a moment he lets his hand linger on your leg and then pulls it back. 

“Okay. Do you want my help packing a bag, or should I wait out here?”

“You can wait. It should only take a minute.” You pause, halfway up to look pensive. “Um, Spencer—do you think it would be okay if maybe I… if I stayed tonight and tomorrow? I just—I wanna get out of here, for a bit.”

He frowns but doesn’t hesitate. “Of course. Can I ask why?”

“It’s just… suffocating sometimes,” you call as you turn and hurry down the hallway to the bedroom. “Feels like my neighbors are on top of me, like they’re… breathing down my neck, half the time.”

Sure, bigger apartments exist—but it’s not like you’re in a studio. And you’ve never mentioned feeling that way before. That bad feeling is starting to come back—like you’re not telling him something he needs to know. But is it worse to let you deal with it yourself until you’re ready to talk or to force it from you?

A few minutes later you return, a duffel of your own over your shoulder and full to bursting. 

“So I’m an idiot. My phone was literally in the pocket of my jeans on the floor.” You drop the bag as you bend down by the door to pull on your favorite slippers. “Oh—I think I forgot my charger, can you grab it? It’s by my bed.”

Spencer of course obliges, and is secretly pleased to be in your room again, in the light this time, so he can see better. It’s sweet. The pictures on the walls, the plants and the knickknacks and the sticky notes scrawled with messy reminders on every surface and the sweater hanging over the back of a chair—the one you’d been wearing at the cafe all those months ago—it all feels so you. He wonders why the two of you don’t spend more time here. 

He lets himself linger for only a minute before remembering his task, but as he reaches down to unplug your charger, whatever dopey smile he’d been wearing evaporates. The sheets have been stripped from your bed, and he can see why—there’s a striking stain of dried blood, and several surrounding dots, soaked into the mattress. Not much, but enough to make him feel horrendously guilty. He cringes, imagining what it must’ve been like to wake up all alone to nothing but your own blood. Poor girl. Of course he’d noticed some, last night when he was doing his best at cleaning you up, but it had been dark, and he was exhausted, and he hadn’t done enough. 

“Where’d your sheets go, baby?” He asks once back by the front door with his own bag on his shoulder, setting a gentle hand on your lower back and holding out your charger for you. You jump slightly, and he makes circles on your back, wishing there was something he could do to settle you. 

“Oh! They—they got ruined. I threw them out. It’s fine. I have others.”

So you didn’t have enough energy this morning to walk a few feet to your shower, but stripping your bed, getting dressed, and walking down to the trash chute at the end of the hall had been top of your priority list. 

You swallow as he undoes the locks and holds the door open for you, and pretend like you’re not doing surveillance to either side as you stand in the hallway, locking your door again like you can’t get out of here fast enough. 

Spencer casts a sidelong glance at you and wonders if you’re intentionally avoiding eye contact. He tries not to think like a profiler. He tries not to assign meaning to your actions, but he can’t help it. He can’t not notice. 

He can’t not worry. 

And he can’t not wonder what you’re not telling him. 

-

part nine

[awrkive]

COLD NIGHTS & BLURRED LINES (m) — JJK

jungkook and you have been in a sexual relationship with each other for four months now, and it’s casual for the most part. but as time passes, you can’t help but feel that some of the lines suddenly got blurred in the process. is it a cliché to blur the lines with your fuck buddy? it definitely is. will you do something about it? both of your emotional constipation have a hard time saying yes.

PAIRING jungkook x (fem) reader

GENRE r18+ (explicit smut, fluff, light angst) MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

WORD COUNT 26.6k

WARNINGS/MISC fwb!au, college!au, basketball player!jk, kinda secret relationship(?)!au, nerdy!oc but not really she’s just very school-oriented, jk is tatted up here and is very yummy especially in his jersey sighs, hes also rich lol, school journalist!reader, jk calls oc a lot of petnames, basketball stuff im not sure are accurate t-t. multiple sex scenes honestly idek where all of these came from but they include: unprotected sex (this is a fanfiction everything tends to be crazy around these areas don’t do it irl pls omg lol), penetrative sex, creampie, cumplay, car sex, jk’s silver chain hehe, slight cockwarming, oral sex (f and m receiving), jk wears those curvy headbands thing (they look so cute on guys in fact he wore it once), shower sex. if there is anything i left out, pls tell me so that i can add them here. jungkooks visual is jungkook at jitb listening party . 

NOTES if u have been following me you'll know this is a repost haha! i decided to publish this again so you can read it on tumblr if u dont like to read on ao3! also, please pleasssseee send me guys your feedbacks after reading it even a keyboard smash goes a long way anyway ill shut up now i hope you guys enjoy this monster!! last note, pls be gentle with my cn&bl babies <33

[ CN&BL MOODBOARD ] 

The late March weather has been cold these days, so when Jungkook – in his real fuckboy fashion – texted you that his nose could use a heater and he could offer to warm you up in return, you agreed for him to come over even though you pretended to be disgusted by his offer. 

“Hurry,” you whimper as aforementioned man manhandles you to get you off his lap, making you bounce on the mattress.

Just like that, the warmth from being pressed against his body was gone, exchanged by the cold immediately spreading goosebumps through your skin as Jungkook makes quick work of spreading your legs, eliciting a bit of an uncomfortable feeling from you as you feel your cum leaking out.

Jungkook swipes a hand through his sweaty hairline as he kneels inside your spread legs, and you have to fight a moan at the sight. You still feel a little delirious from when he made you cum the second time just a minute ago, still lightheaded from the high of it. But you can’t deny that he always looks so good in all his natural, naked form; chest heaving, toned stomach coated in sheer sweat, his biceps – especially the tatted one – bulging as he reaches for your hips to pull you down so he could enter you once again.

It tears a cry from your vocal chords, him thrusting in and out of your wet pussy, his pace frantic and inconsistent, a tell-tale sign of his impending orgasm. His grunts, together with your pathetic little moans at the feel of his cock touching every part of your pussy filled the room.

“Fuck, I’m close,” he groans, leaning down, and as a result, reaching deeper into you, mouth reaching for your breast to your mouth. The kiss is a sloppy act of both of you just breathing in each other’s mouths, as Jungkook drills your pussy faster, his fingers tightening around your waist. A particular hard thrust got you drawing out a loud mewl and that’s what tips Jungkook over the edge. “F-fuck – shit, where do I cum baby? Tell me, tell me.”

“Inside– fuck. Please cum inside me,”

He lets out a sharp breath and after a few more erratic strokes, you feel his hot release painting your inner walls.

“Shit,” Jungkook hissed as he fell on top of you. You can feel the way he’s heaving as his skin touches yours, but you let yourself relax on the mattress, breathing shallow breaths.

Since he’s way more athletic than you, he got over it soon and you feel him picking himself up to hover over you, beginning to plant kisses all over your chest and the mole in between them; your nipples, your shoulders, your collarbones.

“Kook,” you call softly, your limp hand patting his ass to get his attention. He always gets so preoccupied with kissing your body after sex.

Jungkook hums, but he looks at you. “Yeah?”

You grunt. “I jwashed my sheets two days ago and I don’t want cum stains on them.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he leans down, and even though you were complaining just now, you let out quite a joyful hum when he kisses you. “Let me see first.”

You don’t need to ask what he’s referring to.

Pushing your body back up, Jungkook takes it upon himself to get his body off of you only to watch as you slide two fingers over your pussy, spreading the lips so he can see the combination of your and his cum all over it.

“You need to hurry, Nayeon is coming home in a few minutes.”

He doesn’t even try to look like he’s concerned about the urgency of that matter, just hums absentmindedly and gets his own finger to run over your exposed heat. You shiver at the contrast of the hot feeling of your pussy and the cold feeling of his finger, but it soon turns into pleasure when he gathers your cum and pushes it back into you.

“Are you going to keep it in for me?” He whispers, a thumb now caressing your hip.

“Depends.”

Jungkook looks back up at you, a sly grin spreading on his lips. “On what?”

“If you’re going to be good and say please when you want something.” You grin at him, feeling pretty proud of yourself for catching him off guard. It doesn’t last long very much though as he smirks, but as soon as he opens his mouth, you hear a series of knocks and your eyes widen at that.

You hissed. “Shit, that’s Nayeon.”

You sit up from the bed. Jungkook mirrors your haste, scrambling to find his clothes on the floor and putting them on quickly. You have your robe just nearby so you put just that on, ignoring the tingling sensation of cum trickling down your legs.

“I have to go.” Jungkook whispers, and you nod, walking towards the window on the far end of the room and opening it up widely.

Like usual, Jungkook steps on the frame and easily hauls himself outside. It’s the backside of the building of your complex, and it’s mostly and usually quiet, so it was pretty safe for him to just go out of there without anyone noticing, and most especially at times like this. Because Nayeon can’t know. No one can.

“I’ll see you later, pretty.”

Jungkook winks at you and you playfully roll your eyes, waving him off which earns a laugh from him. He easily saunters through the perimeter though and you find it quite unfair how he still carries a certain graceful energy to him even though he literally just did an exhausting cardio exercise with you for about thirty minutes. Ugh, him and his athletic body.

Nayeon’s voice can be heard across the flat, but before you let her in, you sprayed an unhealthy amount of air freshener on your body and around the room (just in case she enters) and shoved your discarded clothes from earlier in the laundry basket. After that, you finally run towards the door, welcoming Nayeon with a smile as you open it.

“Hi!” You greet rather cheerfully. She immediately hugs you briefly, groaning as she steps back and enters your little abode.

“Class sucked today,” she throws herself on the couch and you give her a sympathetic smile, walking towards the fridge to get water.

“Well, wish me luck. I’m headed out to one.”

“God, I can’t wait ‘til we graduate, I’m tired of this bullshit.” She says, but she’s opening up her laptop for what you could guess as for finishing up an assigned work. “I wish I was having bomb sex like you. Hey, do you want to go to this party on Friday?”

“I – what?”

“Party on Friday? Finals season for basketball starts on Friday and they’re planning a party. We could use free booze and stress-free night.” Nayeon repeats, but you weren’t asking for the party. You tried to ignore it, but you have the tendency to overexpplain yourself so that you do not get misunderstood.

“I’m not having bomb sex.” You say, and that makes her look at you. At that, you realized you shouldn't have taken the bait. Stupid, stupid, stupid you. You could've swerved this topic if you weren't so quick to react at the word sex.

You stare at each other for a solid few seconds until she rolls her eyes.

“Girl, your hair looks like a bird’s nest and your lips are swollen as hell. I might not be having bomb sex in the current moment but I know what I look like after I do the deed,” She wore her eyeglasses and perched it on her nose. “And you kinda smelled like sex when you opened the door.”

“No!” You feel heat coming and spreading through your cheeks. You thought the damn Febreeze would hold up!

Nayeon waves you off. “It’s fine, it’s not like you haven’t caught me before like that.”

“It’s embarrassing.” You insist, stuffing your face with a bread you took from the counter and purposefully not meeting Nayeon’s gaze so you don’t see the teasing smiles you’re sure she’s sending your way.

“That you’re having sex in college?!” Her playful scandalous tone makes you laugh though and that’s when you look at her.

“No, ugh. Just. Sorry. If I smelled like sex. I tried spraying a lot of air freshener earlier.”

She wiggles her brows. “Oh, is that why you took a long time opening the door? Was your sneaky link here just now?”

“Sneaky what?” You say, laughing.

“Sneaky link. You know, a hook up. Wait, is it a boyfriend? Please say no, because I would be extremely offended if you haven’t introduced your boyfriend to me all this time.”

You could swear you felt goosebumps on your nape when you heard the word boyfriend and saw images of Jungkook in your head immediately, as if you were used to associating him to the word.

“It’s definitely not a boyfriend. Just… someone I hook up with sometimes.���

“Interesting. Do I know him?”

The question makes you nervous. She definitely knows. No one not knows who Jungkook is at your campus.

With a shake of your head, you tell her, straight-faced, “Nope.”

“Okay, which department? Does he go to our Uni?” She asks, now seemingly fully invested in this conversation rather than the assignment before her. You’re happy to be a bit of a help to lessen her sour mood from earlier but you shake your head and let out playful tsk-ing sounds,

“Too many questions, babe,” You teased. “My class is starting in twenty minutes.”

You heard her laughing as you carried your clothes to the bathroom to change and to clean up the mess in your nether region. Damn. Jungkook cums a lot these days… he needs to masturbate or something.

“Fine, fine! You don’t want me to know but I’m gonna find out about the mystery guy one way or another!”

Shutting the door to the bathroom, your face contorts at Nayeon’s words.

Yeah, absolutely not. Jungkook and you made an agreement in the first place that everyone should be oblivious of your situationship, and it’s worked for almost four months now.

You can’t fuck it up now.

As soon as you fixed yourself, you bid your goodbye to Nayeon who went ahead and busied herself by hacking away on her laptop, grabbing your bag and heading out and finally walking to your Uni that was just a few minutes away from your complex. Your apartment is almost like a dorm, to be honest. 

The hallway is a little crowded, but you don’t miss a certain brunette in a familiar gray hoodie you’ve had in your closet before. 

You meet Jungkook’s eyes but you quickly change your gaze to his friend, Taehyung, who’s walking beside him as he greets you cheerfully. 

"Hey, ___!” You return his smile, waving. You had a Philo class with Kim Taehyung at one point and found out that despite your preassumptions about him for being a varsity guy, he was a pretty interesting person to talk with. You’re not super close per se, just acquainted enough to acknowledge each other when you meet somewhere like the campus hallways.

You don’t like the attention it draws, though. So you walk straight to your destination.

Varsity guys tend to be famous, and you’ve chosen to steer yourself away from them. Ironic, though, considering that you’re fucking one. Obviously, you’re not doing a very good job at “steering yourself away from them”.

Maybe it’s the sole reason why it’s a secret. Jungkook is the star player of the basketball team together with Taehyung and a few other guys. You know their usual gist. Famous circle, lavish lifestyle, attractive guys who (unfortunately) know it, skillful at the sports they do, too many people fawning over them. And well… not to be that person but you’re just someone dutifully studying here. Someone in the background. And you love that mostly, but sometimes you think that maybe… it’s why Jungkook seems to never entertain the idea of making your relationship public. Not that you would like that yourself. You took part in the secrecy agreement, suggested it yourself, in fact. You would never admit to anyone you’re fucking him. But, well. It’s just weird. 

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Someone’s going to end it eventually and you’re gonna make sure it’s you… just so it’s established that you aren’t the one who’s more willing in the relationship. Yeah, that. Just not now. School is stressful. You like sex with him. 

When you arrive at the lecture hall, your phone vibrates. A text from Jungkook is plastered all over your lock screen.

[1:15pm] Jeon: hi pretty [1:15pm] Jeon: nice skirt :) 

You internally roll your eyes. Him and his literal and figurative skirt chaser tendencies.

[1:20pm] You: Hi.

You get a reply immediately.

[1:20pm] Jeon: wanna grab dinner later

You stare at his text, a little taken aback. 

That’s new. Sure, you had grabbed lunch with him at his stupid fancy Benz like, once. After he fucked you in it to ease your nerves about a class presentation you did earlier that day. He didn’t offer, he just bought you Chinese because you passed by a resto as he drove you to your place. 

Anyway. You don’t know why he would do this all of a sudden. You fucked three days ago, then the day after that, then earlier this day. You’re not complaining but you never predicted your sex life would be so active like this. 

[1:22pm] You: Pass. Studying later

Which is true. You have a Tech Writing quiz tomorrow, though not necessarily hard. Whatever. Your thoughts in the hallway awhile ago are making you feel kind of weird about him right now.

[1:23pm] Jeon: boring [1:23pm] You: ):< [1:23pm] Jeon: cute :) do u want me to order boba ill deliver it to ur place after ur class

Well, that is definitely not new. Jungkook delivers you food, like, every single time.

[1:24pm] You: :))) Yess. Thank you [1:24pm] You: I’m going to venmo you [1:25pm] Jeon: lol yk im just gonna venmo it back to u

True. There’s been a lot of back and forth in that app. One time, he “jokingly” sent you a hundred dollars (a hundred dollars!) after you kept on insisting you pay for the takoyaki he made delivered to you, and that horrified you so much that of course you sent the money back to him, but he made you promise to stop trying to argue with him about the payment thing. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel bad about it still though…

[1:25pm] You: 😤😠 [1:27pm] Jeon: do u also want anything besides boba [1:27pm] You: Noppee, I think Nayeon is going to cook something for us later [1:28pm] Jeon: alright [1:28pm] You: Are you sure you don’t want me to pay you back? [1:28pm] Jeon: nahh it’s alright [1:28pm] Jeon: besides I can think of other ways for u to pay me back without money involved.. ;) 

Ah, there he is. He really couldn’t go on a day without sexual innuendos.

[1:29pm] You: You are infuriating and I’m turning off mh phone  [1:29pm] You: *my [1:29pm] Jeon: you like when I annoy you so .. [1:29pm] You: No I don’t and Im so sore i feel like my brain will leak out of my ears from so much sex  [1:29pm] You: Also please stop using ellipsis in texts [1:29pm] Jeon: hmm [1:29pm] Jeon: who said anything about sex? [1:30pm] Jeon: not me🤔 do u think i just think about sex all the time [1:30pm] Jeon: what’s worng with ellipsis…? [1:32pm] You: Yes you do think about sex all the time 

He reacted to that message with the HAHA emoticon, and you felt yourself having a hard time fighting an eyeroll.

[1:32pm] Jeon: you know me so well [1:32pm] You: Also, nothing wrong with ellipsis they just remind me of how my dad texts  [1:32pm] Jeon: ummmmm im sure ur dad is great so im flattered

You snorted at that.

[1:33pm] You: you do NOT know that  [1:33pm] Jeon: i thought you were turning off your phone [1:34pm] You: I am right now so don’t reply prof is walking to the lecture hall now [1:35pm] Jeon: good luck baby ;)

Nayeon didn’t convince you enough to join her at the party she mentioned before come Friday night. In a weird parallelism, Jungkook also texted you about a party you could come to, and eventually, you’ve come to realize that it was his party. Their party.

Your Uni’s basketball team held a celebratory one because they won the first game of Finals. You only knew when you went to the school’s publication office earlier. The freshman sports journalist, Ryujin, came to you to ask you some questions about her rough draft about said game.

You see, this is one of those times when you are reminded that Jungkook and you really only have a relationship through sex. Sure, you know some stuff about each other. Like how you are an English major, he’s taking Computer Science, you’re the managing director of the school’s publication, he’s a star player in the basketball team; he knows about your favorite takoyaki flavor (it’s smoked bacon) and your boba order, and you know he likes food that you dislike, namely cheese cake and mint chocolate flavored stuff. He also likes Marvel a lot. He knows you’re obsessed with films from the golden age of Hongkong cinema because you mentioned it in passing. (He doesn’t know you particularly love the Wong Kar-wai ones though…)

But somehow, he never really tells you about his basketball games. Sure, he’d mentioned practices before but it’s something he doesn’t bother to include you in. Not that it would matter to you. It’s not like you tell him all about your stuff in school, either.

Your attention is caught by a ping from your phone. 

[12:05am] Jeon: hey you still up? 

The text reads. You type a reply. 

[12:07am] You: Yes, why? [12:07am] Jeon: let’s facetime [12:07am] You: Why [12:08am] Jeon: i want to see your pretty face

Spoken like a true fuckboy. Really?

Before you could respond, his face is taking up your whole screen, asking to facetime you. Without thinking about it too much, you accepted the call, falling back to your bed. 

From the screen, you could see that he’s wearing a black shirt with a long silver chain around his neck. He smiles that adorable smile when you finally make your whole face visible to the camera. 

“What is it?”

The audio from his end is a little distorted, probably from the loud music from where he’s at. That after-game party, most likely. He texted you about it awhile ago. Nayeon is probably there, too. 

“Hi, pretty girl.”

Again with the nickname and the slight way his eyes are hooded as he said it. If you squint enough, maybe you could tell if he’s drunk or not. You’re not sure. But the way that’s his instant words upon seeing you is making you feel a little weird in your stomach. He’s got to stop calling you that. 

“Are you drunk-calling me right now…?" 

He shakes his head and says something, but you don’t hear it, so you informed him so. The screen shows you dark, pixelated images, making you think he’s probably moving his camera around, and you could make out that he’s walking away from the party as the loud music fades out eventually. 

"I’m not drunk.” He says after he settles on a spot. 

“Oh, okay.” You nod. You shifted on your side. “Why did you call me?" 

He laughs at that. "I can’t call you?" 

His laughter intensifies when he sees you roll your eyes. "No. I’m just wondering… aren’t you at a party?" 

Jungkook nods his head. "Yes, but it’s getting boring here." 

"Oh.”

Another beat of silence, but Jungkook is the one to say another word. 

“Hey, do you wanna go out for a drive?" 

Well… that sounds good. You just finished a write-up and did some studying a little earlier and you also planned to order food but forgot about it.

"Sure.”

Jungkook smiles at that.

“I’ve been wanting to show you something. I think you’ll like it." 

Your eyebrow arched at that. This is getting a little too new. He’s driven you around before but it always involved fucking, not done with the intention to show you something. Not that you aren’t expecting sex tonight, though. You would actually appreciate that.

"What is it?" 

You could make out a smirk from Jungkook’s face on the slightly pixelated screen. "I’m going to show you the real me.” The glint of mischief in his tone cracks you up, so you played right into it,

“Ohhh, does it involve dead bodies?" 

He nods with a serious face. "Yes, but you have to promise me you won’t freak out." 

"Yeah, and don’t you freak out if I tell the police about it.” You squint your eyes, trying to give him a scolding look. 

“Ah,” Jungkook leans back. “You would do that, wouldn’t you? You’re always such a good girl." 

It wouldn’t have meant anything if it wasn’t for the way his voice drops, giving you a meaningful look again. You could feel the heat in your cheeks but you shrug it off. 

"I am a good girl, I pride myself for it." 

Jungkook finally laughs this time, finding this conversation hilarious just as you do. "I know, I like it most especially—" 

After all this time, you developed a sort of a Spidey sense for when Jungkook is about to say perverted things, so before he could make such remarks, you cut him off.

"If you’re gonna say something sexual I’m going to end this call.” But even you could tell it was an empty threat.

Jungkook thinks so, too, you know that, but he decides to step back. “I was just going to say that I like it most especially because it does good to the world." 

The mirth in his eyes tells you otherwise. 

"You do not think that.” You say, rolling your eyes. 

He laughs once more, throwing his head back as if you said the funniest joke in the world. Weirdo. 

“Alright, alright. So I’m coming to your place in five minutes to pick you up. How does that sound?" 

"Good. Nayeon’s currently out… just text me if you get here." 

He told you to end the call – which you argued you were just planning to do so and he didn’t need to tell you and it earned a laugh from him, how stubborn you were about such simple things. You just gave him a baleful look.

Just as you pick out a sweatshirt and some sweats in exchange for your pajama dress, you receive a text from Jungkook that he’s arrived and so you grab your wallet and keys and your phone, heading out. 

You spot his car and knock on the passenger’s seat window and Jungkook immediately opens it for you. 

"Hi, gorgeous.” He greets you. “You want to keep the window open?" 

"Hello. Yes, please.” You say, fixing your seat belt. 

He hums and you press on a button to slide the window open. 

“You want to pick up some food?" 

You perked up. "Yeah, I was planning to get some but I was too lazy to order in earlier." 

Jungkook pressed some buttons again you don’t really understand but it got music to start playing, lights in the car moving into the same beat of the tune (his car was really fancy…). Some mellow ones you kind of liked during this drive on a cold night. He saw a food place from around a corner and you both agreed to get food from the shop. 

He parked somewhere for you guys to open up the take-out. There’s some steamed tofu there so you pick it up and start eating. 

"I’ve been obsessed with tofu these days,” you shared absentmindedly, chewing on said food. 

Jungkook looks at the tofu you were eating. “Really? I remember when you said you dislike it." 

"Yeah, but that’s because I cooked it one time and it sucked." 

"I should teach you to cook one of these days…” you refused to acknowledge what that entails and laughed instead.

“You know how?” You said to tease, but you also genuinely can’t believe he knows how.

Jungkook clicks his tongue, a faux offended look on his face, saying, “Why do I always get that reaction? Of course I know how to cook." 

"Huh,” you pondered. “Wouldn’t have expected it from you." 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But I have this friend who’s a really good cook and I kinda learned through him." 

"That’s cute. Nayeon knows how to cook and I never learned shit from it.” You laugh at your own words, so does Jungkook. “But hey," 

"Hm?" 

"Do you think my boobs got bigger? I think they got bigger.” You put your food down your lap and caress your breasts through your clothes. 

You’ve been thinking about it since last week. Earlier, you saw yourself naked in your mirror and noticed a change in their size. You almost thought you were pregnant but your period literally just ended yesterday. But can that happen with pregnancies? But… you’re very diligent with your pills… so it can’t be. Right? 

You made a mental note to buy a test tomorrow.

“Look the same to me.” Jungkook says, looking at your chest. 

You grab his free hand and put it over a boob. He squeezes it promptly, and you hear an almost dramatic gasp. 

“Oh, they are bigger." 

You remove his hand over you and nod. "Yeah. But I think it’s just due to some hormonal changes. Also I think I’m putting on weight, I’ve been eating a lot these days… but… it’s stupid but I also think my obsession with tofu has something to do with it," 

Jungkook looks over at you curiously. 

"Yeah, they say tofu makes your boobs bigger." You added.

He arches a brow at that. "Really?" 

"Don’t look so excited." 

Jungkook can’t help but huff out a laugh. "I do not!” You roll your eyes. He insists, “I love your boobs the way they are." 

"Geez, thanks." 

You finished your food and Jungkook drove around again. It’s still in the vicinity of your town. The music in his car serves as a lulling noise in the otherwise quiet night. There’s still a lot of cars on the streets, some occasional honking sounds, but you feel really, really nice, most especially when the wind blows a little harsher and it makes your hair go crazy. Jungkook laughs at that too. 

It’s later in the night when Jungkook slowed down somewhere, and soon, he was parking at an abandoned house.

As if on cue, you looked at him and said, "So you really are going to show me your literal skeletons." 

He laughed at that. 

"Nope, sorry to disappoint, princess." 

Jungkook gets out of the car and you follow, immediately shivering at the wind. You wished you wore a hoodie instead of this thin, knitted sweatshirt, but you didn’t expect it would be this cold. It was nearing summer and the weather has been inconsistent for the last month. 

You look at the abandoned house once again. There were wooden planks nailed on the door, plastic covers draped over the windows, and overall, it just looks really old. Kind of creepy, if you were to be honest. 

In your assessment of the house, you don’t notice Jungkook coming to you with two bottles of soju. He brings them up slightly, a grin on his face.

"Drinks?”

“Okay…” you squint your eyes. “Where are we going to do that?" 

He gives you a knowing smirk. "Inside." 

Jungkook went over the fence with ease and you followed his direction but didn’t do the same thing. He looks back at you. "Hey." 

"Are you sure it’s safe?” You ask, looking around, wrapping your arms around your middle because of the cold. 

Jungkook probably notes the genuine concern in your tone, that’s why he sets the soju down and comes forward to you, the fence serving as some kind of dramatic border. 

“Baby, it’s fine. No one comes around here.” He says but you don’t really feel assured just yet. 

“What if someone comes here now? I don’t want to be arrested…" 

"No one’s getting arrested,” Jungkook insists. You still look hesitant. “Come on. Really. I’ve been here lotta times, haven’t ever seen anyone here since then." 

You look at him. He seems to be telling that truth and well, maybe you’re stupid for believing him but he seemed to know this place well and had been going here for a long time and as far as you know, he doesn’t have criminal records, so… 

"Okay, fine.” You give in. 

Jungkook immediately grins. “Nice. Here, let me help you.” He leans forward and takes a hold of your hips as you go over the fence. It’s not that high, really, but you let him carry you over it until you both entered the abandoned property. 

When he puts you down, you tug at his shirt.

���Wait, your car.” you gasp.

“Oh, it’s fine. I parked it at that green house, someone’s just gonna assume it’s theirs.” He says, completely nonchalant about it.

You think he’s being careless about his fucking Benz but whatever. 

Jungkook leads you to the back of the creepy house and the eerie place immediately gives you goosebumps. The cold of the night does not help, either, so you cling to him until he sits on the ground. 

“Jungkook, that’s dirty.” You tell him, trying to tug him up. 

He chuckles. “It’s fine, princess. Come here, I’ll take my jacket off. Sit beside me.” Indeed, he takes off his jacket, and you worry he might be cold with his t-shirt only now but you also really don’t want to sit on the ground… 

“You’re not cold?” You make sure as you sit beside him. Jungkook opens one of the soju and offers it to you. You take it as he opens another one for himself. 

“Nah, it’s fine.” Jungkook starts drinking but even though you have one in your hand, you don’t. He must’ve noticed it as he says, “Hey. Relax.”

“Aside from my fear of getting arrested, it’s also really fucking creepy here.” You retort, scooting closer to him. You got to be honest and admit that you’re more scared of the place than scared of getting arrested. 

Jungkook throws his head back to laugh at that. “Again, we’re not getting arrested. And what do you mean creepy? You don’t like it here?" 

You look around the place more. "Eh, it’s okay. I just can’t help but think what if there are lost souls around here…” you trailed off, giving him a baleful look when that only made him laugh more. They were quiet laughter, though. Probably to not disrupt said souls. 

“You believe those?" 

You roll your eyes. "Okay, cool macho guy." 

"No, no, I’m sorry,” Jungkook still laughs in between his words and you whisked his hand away in an act of lighthearted sulking when it tried to reach you.

Okay. You don’t exactly believe in ghosts but it’s hard not to when it’s in the middle of the night and quiet and cold and you’re in an abandoned house. You avoid horror movies for a valid reason. 

“Alright, let’s cuddle so you don’t get scared.” Jungkook says, but there’s a teasing sound to it.

“Don’t make fun.” You glared at him. 

“I’m serious, come here.” He opens his arms wide and you roll your eyes, not moving to come closer. He laughs when even after seconds passed you still didn’t give in. You thought he was giving up but instead he twisted to your direction and let both his legs crowd you so that you’re in between them. 

“You’re annoying,” you say but you kind of feel oddly comforted by being close to him like that, and Jungkook must’ve known as well because he just gives you a smug smile, chugging on his soju after.

You did the same. You try to throw away your nerves and scary thoughts, letting yourself relax as he said. When you kind of did a moment later, you find that it’s kind of nice, actually. 

“What do you think?” Jungkook suddenly speaks. 

“Hm?" 

"It’s nice here, right?” He arched his brow at you. “Just try not to think about ghosts." 

You pinch his shin through his cargo pants and he gives you a very ingenuine, "Ouch!" 

"Except for the ugly house, it’s nice here.” You reply. As you look up, you see stars scattered across the dark skies. It was quite a view, honestly. Makes you a little surprised because it was so beautiful. You almost missed Jungkook’s words. 

“Yeah. It’s not exactly beautiful here but it’s a great place to think." 

"Think?" 

Jungkook sees your teasing smile and shakes his head. "Yes, baby, I do a lot of those." 

You chuckle at that and drink more of your alcohol.

You don’t exchange more words after that but you find that it wasn’t awkward. It was just… a nice silence. A comfortable one. With Jungkook crowding you with his legs, you feel like you might be the most relaxed you’ve ever been in the past few months. 

You twist yourself so now you’re not facing forward anymore, but to Jungkook. You realize if he’d been looking forward he just had a view of your side profile. You try not to think too much if he just stared at you, although you did feel him do that for a few minutes a while ago. 

"Hey, congrats on the game.” You tell him with a soft smile on your face, placing your drink on the ground. It’s still filled in half. You could finish it but you doubt you wouldn’t be drunk by that time. Your alcohol tolerance is not at all exemplary. 

“Thanks.” Jungkook sheepishly smiles at you. “You watched it?" 

"Ah, no. I just heard about it. I don’t really know anything about basketball so…” you trail off, noting the way he nods at your words. 

“Right. I’ve never seen you watch us before.”

You try to joke, “That’s because you never invite me to any of your games." 

But it looks like that caught him off guard. "I– huh?” The look on his eyes tells you that he was genuinely surprised at your words, those eyes of him looking like a deer’s when it’s caught in the headlights. 

You laugh. “I’m just kidding. I don’t usually watch sports games. Too crowded for my liking." 

Jungkook nodded at that, but he still looked taken aback from your words earlier. You really were just kidding. You hope he didn’t take it seriously. But he agrees with you, anyway. "Yeah, it can get crowded sometimes." 

Silence and then after a few beats, Jungkook speaks again. 

"Hey, let’s make out." 

You arched a brow but didn’t really find any reason to oppose it, so you went ahead and kissed him. 

Jungkook immediately holds your hips. On the other hand, you snake your arms around his neck, kneeling in between his spread legs. The kiss starts slow but he holds the back of your neck and deepens it.

You whimpered when he nudged your legs with his free hand, and your shock made you break away from the kiss. Jungkook took it as an opportunity to start pecking your neck, though, his hand seemingly coaxing you to open your legs. You got the message and finally straddled his waist, Jungkook groaning and you moaning when you feel your crotches connecting at the action.

He was already sporting a semi, and you also feel your panties getting slick from the way he kissed and bit and licked and soothed your neck. 

"Jungkook,” you moaned, searching for his mouth. 

He kissed you again, all tongue and so sloppy, his hand reaching for the hem of your sweatshirt and creeping inside it to find you not wearing a bra. He did think you weren't wearing one when you put his hand on your boob in the car earlier.

“Ah, fuck,” he squeezed your tit in his hand, you whine. “They really are bigger. Can I see them, baby?" 

You nodded, not even giving it a solid thought as Jungkook immediately hiked up your top until your perky breasts were all bare for him to see. 

And devour, eventually.

Jungkook went straight to sucking your boob and squeezing the other to tend to it, massaging it in his huge palm. He licked a nipple and bit at it slightly, making you sigh at his action. Your arms went to his head to fist his hair in your hands. 

His ministrations on your chest encouraged you to roll your hips against his pelvis, and that elicited a grunt from him. Smiling a little at that, you experimented on doing it a little harder, and as a result, Jungkook tugged at your nipple, making you whine a little too loud.

"Behave." 

You pout. "I want to fuck." 

"It’s not so creepy here anymore?” He had the audacity to tease, but his hands were still on your breasts, fondling them. 

“I didn’t say we can fuck here. Just…” you looked around, not really specifically looking for something. 

Now that Jungkook mentioned it again, you get reminded that it really is creepy as fuck here. And you still didn’t trust the ground. There was no way you could stand fucking in this property. And what if something scary happens while you’re in the middle of doing it… 

Just as you were thinking it, a strange sound catches both of your attention.

“I think we should get back in your car.” You decided. 

Probably seeing the flash of fear in your eyes, Jungkook laughs. “Are you thinking of ghosts again?" 

You slap his chest. "No. But I want to cum." 

"So demanding,” he playfully scolds but you just roll your eyes and let your sweatshirt fall to cover you up once again. You immediately cling to him the moment he stands up and help him pick up the soju bottles, anxiously praying you guys hurry up to get out of here. 

“It was just the wind.” Jungkook comforts you once you were on your way to his car. 

As far as you’re concerned, it’s never just the wind. At least those shitty horror movies you and your cousins watched during sleepovers tell you so. 

Jungkook opens the door to the backseat and you go in and he follows after you. 

You immediately straddle him once he’s seated, earning a chuckle from him. 

“Wow, you’re really eager for me to fuck the fear out of you, huh?” He says, sounding smug about the way you reach for the hem of your shirt and removing it from yourself. 

“Hm. Your dirty talk these days have been subpar.” you slide his jacket off of him and he lets you remove his shirt as well, laughing more at your impatience. 

“Can’t think straight when a pretty girl is on my lap." 

Before you could say something about that, he gripped your waist and got you off his lap, manhandling you to lay on the backseat. Your back is against the car door as Jungkook twisted in his seat, hauling himself backwards to pull your sweats down and take off your birkens. Leaning down, Jungkook pressed open-mouthed kisses up your thighs, teasing his mouth on where you need him the most. 

But you didn’t want to feel anything there other than his cock, and you tell him so. 

"Jungkook,” you whine, catching his attention. When he looks up at you, you whine some more, “Just fuck me. I’m so wet already." 

He cursed, caressing the sides of your thighs. "Baby, I need to prep you.”

“There’s no need for that, come on, please. I need your cock." 

Jungkook groans. But then he makes quick work of unzipping his pants, pulling it down with his boxers until his dick is out. It’s plenty hard already, the shiny tip catching your attention. 

You let out another cry at the sight of him gripping his base, pumping it for a few seconds and finally pushing your panties to the side and slipped inside you. True to your words, it was quite an easy slide, but the burn still stings a little bit. His size was on the little above average spectrum and you’ve always found a hard time taking it in smoothly. 

"Oh, god,” you mewl, grasping his bicep while your other hand grips the back seat. 

Jungkook tightened his fingers on your waist, a hand coming up to one of your thighs to wrap it around his middle. You follow his silent command, welcoming the hot kiss he gives you. 

“Should I move now?” He whispers in your mouth, and you nod frantically, throwing your head back with a moan when he does as told. 

His cock was not even pulled out completely before he slipped it in again, slowly, in agonizing deep strokes. Like he wants to feel every corner of your warm hole. 

“So good…” you moaned, tightening your thigh around his body. 

“You like when I fuck you slow, baby?” Jungkook pressed kisses on your chest this time, and you could only nod your head mindlessly as he repeated thrusting out again. 

“I – ah… so good, Kook. I love it," 

The car is cramped and all you could hear are your heavy breaths and the lewd squelching sound of his cock going in and out of your pussy, his chain dangling in between your bodies feels cold when it momentarily touches your chest.

You would tell him to go faster, harder, but the way he was planting fairy kisses on your skin and his tattooed arm popping veins on the side of your head as if he was finding it hard to not fuck you stupid, you found that his deep and precise albeit slow strokes great.

"So pretty,” he says, moving the strands of hair that stuck everywhere on your face. 

“K-kook,” you whimper. 

“Hm? Baby? What is it?” Jungkook looks at you with an uncharacteristically soft gaze, his dick still continuing its slow pace in your cunt. 

“M-my back hurts like this,” you say. 

His eyes look softer at your words, expression gentle. “Sorry, angel.” He caresses your face and kisses you which you welcomed with a sob when his dick hits deeper after he leaned down. “Here, I’ll sit here. Straddle me.” But he doesn’t even wait for you to move as he hauls you to his lap himself, his cock still inside you, feeling it twitching when you sit on it outright. 

“Good girl,” Jungkook squeezes your breasts and laps at them, only to look up at you again. “You okay?" 

You nod, pushing him slightly so that he relaxes his back against the seat. You brace yourself on his chest and begin to bounce on his cock.

Jungkook throws his head back, letting you on your own pace, hands gripping your hips to help you move. 

"So fucking good for me,” he hissed just as when you mewled when his cock hits a particular spot in you. “Take it easy, baby, nice and slow, okay?” He said, taking a hold on the back of your head and pulling you in for a slow kiss.

You followed his words and planted your knees on either side of him, going down steadily, crying out at the way you feel every ridge of his huge cock inside you like this. 

It was so pleasurable, the way he groaned in your ears, squeezing your breasts, tugging at your sensitive nipples, murmuring stupid, sweet nothings, his cock seemingly growing larger in your heat each second passed, and soon, you feel that knot in your stomach ready to burst. 

“I-I’m cumming, Kook, I’m cumming–" 

Jungkook hummed, and when he felt your movements stuttering, he took it upon himself to press his thumb to your clit, rubbing the bundle of nerves and fucking his dick up into you, your eyes rolling to the back of your head as your orgasm snap. 

"So good for me, baby, fuck, you’re such a good girl for me.” He kept rubbing delicious shapes on your clit, and you had to bite back a pathetic sob as the pleasure started to become too much. 

But he was still chasing his high, and you leaned forward to kiss him through it, letting him do whatever he wanted to get himself there. 

And when he did cum, you feel yourself cumming a second time too, Jungkook letting out strings of curses and nonsense as he feels you dripping more juices down onto his cock. 

Your head falls on the crook of his neck, Jungkook caressing your back as he relaxes on the seat. 

For a while, words were not spoken. He kept kissing your hair while you felt him twitching in your pussy. 

“I’m so tired,” you wearily peeled your face from his neck, looking at him. He has his eyes shut close, but there’s a content smile on his face that you leaned down to kiss. You didn’t know what for, you just felt like kissing him. 

Jungkook hums. The mess in your crotch starts to feel sticky and cold and uncomfortable. 

“Let’s stay like this for a while.” He says, as if he could read that you were about to get off his lap. 

You chuckle. “I can literally feel you going soft." 

"Ignore my dick. I wanna feel you a little more." 

"Okay." 

Jungkook does an unexpected thing of kissing your forehead. You choose to ignore the weird tingling feeling in your stomach and the way your cheeks feel hot at the action, just let him slip his fingers through your hair and rest your cheek on his naked chest. 

You eventually got off of each other after a few minutes, and you both were quiet as you dressed yourselves back. Jungkook and you got out of his car so he could drive and you could enter the passenger’s seat. 

The drive to your place was quiet but the silence was nice and comfortable, just like when you were at the back of that creepy old house. Jungkook occasionally sang along to some of the songs playing from a random playlist he pulled up on Spotify, and his voice sounded kind of nice. You wanted to say something about it but decided not to, in slight fear that he would stop.

When he pulled over in front of your complex, there was a soft, gentle smile on his face when he told you, "Sweet dreams." 

Your face mirrored his as you wished him good night. 

You locked the door to your apartment, ignoring the strange feeling in your stomach. 

You found yourselves at that abandoned house again the next night and Jungkook forewent the booze and brought junk food from Wendy’s. You had a swell time just sitting with each other at the back of the house, talking about the most random things you could talk about like some silly childhood memories. You almost shared your joy upon finding out that you weren’t actually pregnant after taking the test earlier that day just like you said you would the other night, but you found it better to keep that to yourself.

Additionally, you ranted to him about Professor Kang for giving you a C+ on a project you thought you deserved a higher grade for. Jungkook showed blind support by roasting your professor’s haircut. You didn’t fuck that night but did it the next night after a few drinks. 

When the day of their second game of Finals hit, your Uni won again and Jungkook ditched the after-game party, picking you up and driving you to that place. Almost like it became tradition. 

This time, you think you went overboard with the drinks, but it was probably just your shitty alcohol tolerance because Jungkook was standing still with his third bottle – which you childishly argued was unfair. 

Jungkook carried you like a sack of potatoes on your way to his car, ignoring how you slapped his ass. But you were all giggles and hushed whispers in the backseat as Jungkook guided your hips, bouncing you on his cock, just like the other night.

"How does it feel, baby?” Jungkook whispered against your mouth while you gripped his shoulders hard to slide up and down his cock, the tops of your feet resting on his thighs.

“S-so good,” you whimpered, speeding up, feeling yourself getting close to your edge. 

Jungkook tightened his hands on your waist but didn’t really do anything to control your movements or pace like he usually would. Like he was just enjoying you on top of him, using his cock to get off. 

You leaned down to kiss him, your moan upon feeling him deeper getting swallowed by the way he immediately reciprocated your touch.

You opened your eyes but then you suddenly caught a glimpse of a car. You pulled away from the kiss, but Jungkook took it as an opportunity to kiss your neck instead. While he was busy lapping up your skin, you narrowed your eyes to see clearer, only to realize that the car you saw was a fucking police cruiser. 

“Jungkook,” you called him, stopping your movements on his lap. 

“Baby,” Jungkook’s voice nearly sounded like a whine, understandably confused at your action– or lack thereof. 

But you only tapped his shoulder a little harder. 

“There’s a damn cruiser in front of us." 

Well, it wasn’t actually in front of you. It was more like, parked across from you, beside that abandoned house. 

Jungkook seemed to realize your panic though. His car wasn’t lit because you immediately got into it the moment he put you in the backseat. It was a little inconvenient especially when you were slipping him in but it turned to be a blessing in disguise because whoever owned that cruiser wouldn't have noticed what you were doing in his car.

"Shit." 

You hastily climbed off of him, quickly finding your shorts on the floor of the car and sliding it on while seated. Meanwhile, Jungkook just tucked his dick in his boxers and zipped up his pants. It was pure luck that you didn’t completely strip each other off earlier because it made for a fast dress up.

"Wait.” Jungkook leaned over the center part of the car and stayed a few seconds hunched over the console. You were just about to ask him what he was doing when the passenger’s seat suddenly reclined back. 

“Oh." 

"We can climb over here so that we don’t have to go out and have a cop seeing us. It would be suspicious.” He suggested, and you quickly nodded and did what he told you with a little bit of his help.

Jungkook pressed a button once again that had the driver’s seat this time leaning back, just like yours did. He climbed over it just as fast, putting on his seatbelt that you remember you needed to do as well so you followed. 

He lit on the car and started the engine. But before he could drive, a knock on his window made you both look at it.

“Fuck.”

You held your breath as you watched his window slowly sliding down, revealing a police decked in his uniform hunching down to see the inside of the car. 

“Evening, officer.” Jungkook greets casually. You didn’t know what to do. You reached for the phone in your pocket and turn it on, ducking down as much as you could so as to hide your face, trying to seem busy and casual.

“Oh, it’s just some kids, Hwang,” The cop turned to the side, and that’s when you heard another set of footsteps coming towards you. “You kids live here?" 

"Yeah. It’s my parents’ house, I’m just about to drive my girlfriend home.” Jungkook answered, referring to the green house he parked at, not a hint of hesitation or even an ounce of nervousness in his demeanor. 

You were too frozen to react to the way he called you his girlfriend. 

The other cop nodded. “Apologies. We were just roaming. Be careful, kid, you got a sleek car. There’s some thief on the loose around the street." 

Jungkook nodded as well, even did a little salute as he said, "You got it, sir." 

The cop patted the top of his car and Jungkook bid them a final goodbye before closing his window again and driving away. 

You felt like your soul just went right back inside you after it got out for a moment there. 

"Holy shit, that was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Really?”

“Yes!” 

And then suddenly, you giggled. Actually, like, giggled. Because realizing what just happened, you found every single thing fucking hilarious. You got away from cops!

“Oh my god, Jungkook. That was insane!” You said in between your laughter. 

Jungkook looked over at you before training his attention to the road and finally laughing with you, seemingly finding what happened just as hilarious. “Yeah. It was, it was.”

“And they really believed you! I can’t believe it,” you covered your face with both of your hands, your belly starting to hurt with how much you found the whole thing incredulous that it was funny.

“It’s not like we did anything wrong…” Jungkook said but he had a hint of playful tone when he spoke the words.

You snorted. “Well, in between public indecency and trespassing, which do you think they would most likely arrest us for?" 

That got Jungkook to laugh again. 

During the ride to your place, you complained about feeling too cold at one point. Jungkook asked if you wanted him to turn the A/C down but you shook your head and so he offered his jacket instead because you only wore a shirt. In your defense, when he picked you up, the weather was humid even though it was late at night.

You didn’t stop talking and laughing about what happened earlier, though. You found it hard to let go of it just like that.

"You are so drunk,” Jungkook chuckled as he pulled over. “You’re going to regret it tomorrow." 

"It’s Saturday tom–” you cut yourself off with a yawn. 

“You’re cute when you’re drunk.” Jungkook commented, pulling over, indicating that you were near your apartment. You didn’t even notice. 

“Not drunk, just tipsy.” You said, starting to unbuckle your seat belt but you kept on failing. Your tipsiness was starting to kick in again and everything was a little too hazy in your head.

You still definitely are aware about your surroundings, so aware that you felt Jungkook hunching over your side to unbuckle your seat belt for you, so close that you felt his breath fanning your face.

“Thanks.” You smiled, he returned it.

You opened the door yourself this time, though, and was only a little surprised to see Jungkook getting out of his car too.

“Let me walk you to your door."

And honestly, you should be worried about the possibility of Nayeon being at the apartment and seeing you together, but you couldn’t really bring yourself to care when all you could feel was odd content in feeling Jungkook’s presence as you walked towards your place. 

It was quiet but it was comfortable. You noticed how it’s always been like that with him, especially these days.

When you reached your door, you turned to Jungkook who was a little behind you, probably slowed his steps when you neared your place.

“Thanks for walking me." 

"No biggies,” Jungkook grins and then he stares at you for a while.

“What?” You asked. 

He leans down, holds your hip and presses his mouth against your own. 

Surprisingly, you didn’t really make a big deal out of it in your head when you were supposed to because this has never happened before: Jungkook walking you to your door and kissing you before he leaves has never occurred before. 

And yet, it felt so normal. Like it was just something that happens on the daily. Like you were so used to feeling his casual and soft kisses instead of the passionate and hard ones that often led to something. 

“See you next week?" 

You nod, biting your lip as he lets you go. "Yeah." 

Jungkook gives you a one, last small smile before he turns around and goes to his car, entering it and driving away from your complex. 

What a crazy night. 

You did not want to admit it, but maybe the strange feeling in your stomach the other night was goddamn butterflies.

You really weren’t supposed to come with.

But Juyeon, your editor in chief, told you to accompany Ryujin as she goes to interview the basketball team for their second win at the Finals season today. Your responsibility told you that it was fine, which, really is fine because you were used to monitoring freshmen in the club and that was actually one of your official jobs as the managing director but!

You were basically gonna do a babysitting job because Ryujin apparently fucked a guy from the team after she interviewed them the first time and it resulted to a poor article, and as a result, Juyeon is afraid she’s gonna fuck up her future write-ups so you’re the collateral damage of the whole situation. 

Juyeon didn’t tell you that herself, though. Keeping things professional and decent. You heard it from the other members of the club. 

Right now, you have to be at the gymnasium to meet people you’ve never really bothered meeting before and have always avoided for obvious reasons. 

But it was fine.

You checked Ryujin’s questions on the way there and when you arrived, she immediately tried to spot the team’s coach to talk to him about the interview she was gonna conduct. 

Instantly, you felt a prickling sensation on your arms and the back of your neck as the varsity players stopped on their tracks to look at the newcomers. At this hour, you can see no one at the gym seats. You and Ryujin were the only civilians and they noticed that immediately. 

It’s as if you couldn’t help it, but you spotted Jungkook on one of the benches drinking water. As if on cue, he met your gaze, and you could see the little surprise he had on his face seeing you. However, you quickly looked away and walked towards where the coach and Ryujin were.

"I’m here with our managing director, too. She’s here to help me with the interview.” Ryujin told the coach, all smiles. 

“Good day, sir.” You greeted him. He nodded at you in acknowledgement and turned to look at his team. 

“Alright,” The coach loudly said, which got the players to transfix their attention to him instead. You tried not to notice Jungkook looking at you as he walked towards your direction, the other members doing the same. Coach stood straight and elaborated, “The school’s publication is here to interview you about the previous game you’ve had. Practice ends here–” he was cut off by the collective loud cheers from the guys. He shook his head. “But put on your best behavior." 

"Guaranteed, coach.” Someone said but you saw how he sent a wink to Ryujin’s way.

Jesus Christ, where even was the subtlety? It was such a boy-ish thing to do. If you could, you would roll your eyes. Wait – was it the guy she fucked on that interview? Ugh. You couldn’t really bring yourself to care. It was her sex life… just maybe she shouldn’t mix it with her journalism activities… 

“Careful, Kang. I’m gonna make you do ten laps if you don’t give these writers some good material,” The coach warned and some of them snorted. He then turned to both of you and Ryujin. “These guys are very rowdy but you guys will be fine." 

You try to smile at him as he bids his goodbye and leaves the gym. Taejun, the senior sports journalist had already interviewed him so Ryujin only had to do it with the players themselves so they could collaborate on the article. 

Ryujin enthusiastically greeted the team and introduced herself, as well as you. You offered them a small smile and was only a little taken aback when Taehyung chirped your name.

"Hi, Taehyung.” you return his greeting.

He grins at you.

Ryujin looks at you immediately. “Oh, you know someone here?" 

Yeah, technically you knew of some people here. You knew Taehyung though, and you knew Jungkook. But you chose to just nod instead of saying anything. 

Ryujin lets out a happy noise. "That’s so cool!" 

Yeah…

"Hey, surprised to see you here,” Taehyung walked up to you. “I thought you weren’t in the sports section?”

You were surprised to know that Taehyung even remembers what you told him a long time ago. You got to know each other that much during the time you were constantly talking. 

“Well, yes. Ryujin is a freshman, though. I take care of them sometimes, you can say.” You replied. 

Taehyung nodded in understanding. “You’re gonna be here for a while?" 

"We’ll see. But I think the interview will be a quick one." 

Someone from the team called Taehyung and he looked at you apologetically. You nodded with a smile. 

"We always seem so busy whenever we see each other,” Taehyung shakes his head with a laugh. You find that quite funny too. “Hey, do you wanna catch up? Get some coffee around." 

"Oh, yeah, sure. But I bet your sched is crazy these days.” you said, alluding to their constant practices for Finals season. 

“Nah, I can make time. Unless you have a crazy sched too?” He gave you a playful smile. 

You cocked your head to the side, squinting your eyes at him. “Not all of us are trying to get our school a big trophy." 

Taehyung laughed at that and his teammates called for him again, this time it was Jungkook. You both looked at him. He had a strange look on his face but you shrugged it off. 

"Well, I better get going. Ryujin’s starting.” He said and pointed back with his thumb. 

The boys were kind of rowdy in the start, but they eventually scattered around the benches doing their own thing as Ryujin talked to them individually, especially the ones who usually play in court. 

You offered to take some of your own notes, too, were kind of bothered that you didn’t really understand some of the terms used and that this was very unusual territory for you to get a material at for writing an article. You never really dabbled on sports writing. 

Eventually, you felt your bladder looking for relief so you told Ryujin that you would be back in a minute. 

It was a little difficult to find the comfort room but you did see it in the far corner of the hallway, a few steps away from the gymnasium. 

You were washing your hands on the communal sink after peeing when the door suddenly opened, revealing Jungkook in his jersey. 

Hand clutching your chest, you looked at him with a scandalized expression. 

“Jesus,” you squint your eyes. “Why are you here?”

Jungkook closes the door and saunters towards the room. “No greetings or anything?" 

You give him an eyeroll and come back to washing your hands as soon as you get over the initial shock of seeing him. 

You simply shrug.

In a second, Jungkook was beside you.

"We haven’t seen each other in a while,” he said, giving you a playful nudge. 

You whisk your hands, ridding the wetness out of your hands. 

“It’s only been three days." 

You see him smile at you through the mirror, and he has that soft look again on his face. You get reminded of your last night together. When he kissed you good night as he dropped you home. 

"I was surprised to see you there,” Jungkook says, turning around and leaning back on the counter. 

You think he’s referring to seeing you at the gym and that makes you chuckle. Why was everyone surprised to see you at the gym? “Why, you think you guys own the gym or something?" 

Jungkook found your sass amusing, though. 

"Come on, you know what I mean." 

You playfully narrowed your eyes at him but ended up laughing for no reason other than he also laughed. 

"Eh, duty calls. Our EIC had me accompany Ryujin, so...” you see Jungkook nodding. You swerve the topic to the next one. “Your big game starts in, like, five days from now.” You mirror his stance and also lean back on the counter. 

Jungkook watched as you did so. “Yeah.”

His eyes are trained on yours, and you hold a weird, intense stare until he finally peels himself off from the counter and walks to you. You’re surprised that you’ve never thought about him in his jersey but you were able to see him earlier like this before and right now, in your close up view, damn. He looked good. Especially with his tattoos all out like that. You really like them. They looked pretty.

“It’s probably gonna be the last game,” you said, referring to the fact that they’ve won the last two games and if they win this one, it would be the concluding point of the Finals season. “You’re going to make the Uni proud?” You arched a brow at him. 

He shrugged. And finally, he crossed the small distance between you and held your hips. You think you unintentionally let out a happy hum at the contact. You’ve been wanting him to touch you as soon as you saw him earlier. For some weird reason. 

“Sure, but only if you’re there for me to give me my personal reward,” The lewd undertone was not lost on you and it made you giggle. Somehow, he’d gotten even closer, fingers caressing your hips in soothing circles. “You look good, by the way. This skirt is new?" 

It is new. You try not to think too much about what it says about you that you kind of thought of him when you placed the order a week ago. It was just a blip of thought, anyway. You swear. 

"Yes. And you’re kinda sweaty,” He really is. But it doesn’t stop you from looping your arms around his neck and Jungkook is only visibly satisfied at the close proximity. 

“Hard at work,” he leans down, but he only nudges your nose. “Can I see your panties?" 

You would have scolded yourself for giggling like a school girl at that question, but Jungkook must’ve realized how stupid that sounded too as he laughed together with you. 

"I don’t know, you’re gonna have to do it yourself. I think.” You whispered, playing into the joke. 

You saw his smirk before he finally closed the hairsbreadth gap between you and touched your mouth against his. He prodded at the seam of your lips with his tongue and you let him access, his tongue swirling with your own as you shared a rather passionate kiss in the sink.

There was a string of saliva between your mouths when he broke free.

“God, I missed your taste.”

It was his last words before he dove in again, kissing you way deeper now, more frantic as well, as he started getting handsy. At some point, his hands on your hips lifted you up until you were seated on the counter, Jungkook kissing you like it hasn’t only been three days since he had you like this. He squeezed your bare thighs that got you whimpering, your hips, waist. Up, up, and up until he was copping a feel on your boobs through your clothes. 

He was kissing your neck when you suddenly felt him untucking your shirt from your skirt. 

“Wait, no,” You tried to get your head out of your previous headspace and took a hold of his wrists. 

“No?” Jungkook stops, looking at you curiously, lips plump, hair a little wild. And with his stupid basketball uniform, it was extremely hard to discourage his advances. 

But…

“Someone might come in,” you say with genuine worry in your voice, pushing him away slightly. 

“There’s not really a lot of people who come to this bathroom,” he tells you. Which, you think, kind of makes sense. Him and his teammates have their locker rooms and their own comfort room that was an extension of the gym (which you pointedly didn’t go to for obvious reasons) and this part of the campus was a little quiet. 

But then again, you did tell Ryujin you would be back in a minute. And it would be quite ironic if Juyeon told you to monitor her because she fucked someone in the team while you go ahead and fail to do that job because you were fooling around with another someone from the same team. 

Jesus. That’s enough crisis for today. 

“Ryujin’s probably going to interview you soon,” you said, tucking your shirt back into your skirt.

You jump slightly to step on the floor, turning around to fix your hair, seeing Jungkook stepping back through the mirror. “Why did you leave the gym, by the way?" 

Jungkook invades your personal space again and presses himself to your back. "I got excited when I saw you…” he whispers in your ear and your whimper betrays your resistance from literally a few seconds ago as you feel something hard on your ass. 

But at the same time, you look at him incredulously through the mirror. He just shrugs as he sees it, gripping your hips again and burrowing his face on the crook of your neck.

“Kook,” you whine.

Jungkook chuckled and before you can do something stupid like give in to his touch, he leaned back and held his hands up. 

“Fine, fine,” he says, still laughing when you turn around to glare at him. “Can I see you later?" 

You jab at his chest lightly. "For being annoying just right now, you can’t " 

His face contorts and pouts. "Aw, come on," 

You roll your eyes at his dramatic antics. 

"We can’t get into anything tonight. Nayeon is staying at home and I’m nervous about her seeing your car if you pick me up,” you tell him. “Also, we can’t go to that place. That cruiser might be back again." 

"Yeah, yeah,” Jungkook agrees. “We can just go together to my place after this, though? It would be late by the time your friend is finished with the interview."  

You look at him funny. 

He sighs. "Damn, I thought I could finally convince you to fuck at my place." 

You shake your head. "Never.”

From the start, you both agreed to only fuck at your place (whenever Nayeon is not around, of course) per your request. Jungkook lives quite far from the campus, at least far compared to yours, and it was a high complex building. As far as you know, most of the big shots at school live there and he’s neighbors with Taehyung. You don’t want to risk it. 

“Never is a long time..” Jungkook wiggles his brows at you and that breaks you from your thoughts. 

Laughing, you push at him playfully. 

“Gee. You should go. They’re probably now wondering why you’re taking so long." 

"They’re probably thinking I’m taking a shit.” he shrugs. “I think I told Taehyung that before I left.”

“Oh no, is that what they’re going to think about me, too?” You gave him an animated concerned look, making your voice purposely higher in pitch. 

“Wait, what? You take a shit?” Jungkook playing into the joke caused you to laugh and you punched his bicep that he just took with a grin. 

When the laughter died down, Jungkook looked at you seriously.

“When can I see you again?" 

"I don’t know. Sometime this week, maybe? Don’t be whiny.” You smile as you see his pout. “Hey, you really should go now." 

He looked a little hesitant but he didn’t really have a choice. And you were also growing more concerned that someone from the gym might think maliciously about you and Jungkook disappearing at the same time for a long time. Hopefully, no one cared enough to think about it. 

"Alright.” Jungkook says finally and starts to step out. Before he leaves, though, he asks, “Wait, are you going to the game?" 

You hope Jungkook doesn’t see the surprise if it showed on your face. You didn’t expect him to ask that. 

But you try to play it cool, pondering on it. It’s Wednesday, next week, and as far as you knew, there was nothing major in your schedule. You still don’t know about that, though. Maybe some of your profs would drop a big project on your heads come Monday. 

It’s why you were surprised to hear yourself say, "I’ll try." 

Jungkook gave you a wide grin before he left completely.

When you got back to the gym, Ryujin was already talking to him.

Jungkook looked at the door when you entered and did a poor job of hiding a smile to himself, and for what reason, you simply didn’t know. But so as you did not know the reason for why you looked too closely at him to even notice that tiny gesture. 

For someone who was adamant to see you last week, Jungkook wasn’t really able to snuck in time to do so. You shared texts here and there, but he mentioned that they’ve been practicing nonstop since the past few days because they are preparing for a big game, after all. Might be the last one if they come through and win it. 

Come Wednesday, the day of the third game, Jungkook texted you that he got a reserved seat for you at the venue. Your weird giddiness over that was clouded by the worry at the thought of how he managed to do that without anyone suspecting anything about your relationship. You mentally noted to tell him about it later. 

When Nayeon came home after classes, she told you she got two tickets for the game if you wanted to come with. You didn’t really need tickets, though, you could just use your journalist card and they would let you in.

See, you had all these resources to go to the game but the thing is, you have a book review and another assignment due tonight and you needed to get some studying done for a test tomorrow. The game starts at 3 pm and will probably end around 6 or even later than that. It’s not that you never procrastinated in your life but you’ve learned over the years to prioritize more important things over the ones that didn’t really need urgency. And this is why you told Nayeon that you couldn’t come with her because of your packed schedule today. 

But worry looms over you as you remember how excited Jungkook seemed over your texts earlier when you asked him what you should expect at the game. He told you about how it could be chaotic and noisy and crowded but it was gonna be fun and worth your while, especially if – he jokingly said – he scores a shot for you if you were to be there. 

Looking back, you made it sound like you were gonna come but in your defense, you really were going to but these school activities came to you unexpectedly and you didn’t have the luxury of time to set them aside to watch a basketball game first. 

And anyway, was it really a big deal if you didn’t come? You don’t think Jungkook would really mind. Maybe his texts went over your head that you thought he was excited at the prospect of you going to his game. You would tell yourself it didn’t matter, and if Jungkook was going to be shit about it (which you doubt, ‘cause he seemed casual about inviting you) then he was weird for being (hypothetically) weird about it. It wasn’t like this was normal for you both, anyway; you going to his games, that is. 

So around 2 pm, you messaged him. 

[2:06pm] You: Hey, I’m really sorry I can’t go to your game. Swamped with school works, but I wish you good luck :) Go break a leg but hopefully not literally! 

It was hard to focus on writing your book review because you couldn’t help but be agitated as you remembered that they air these Finals games on television and you could literally just turn it on and watch it from there. But the empty document on your laptop was glaring at you, like it was daring you to watch TV instead of finishing it. 

Of course, you chose to tend to the intimidating clean white MS word page instead. As if you really had a choice in the first place. 

At 10 pm, your book review was mostly done and only needed a few touch-ups. You also finished your other assignment so you finally had some time to eat.

You just reheated a leftover pizza from your fridge when you received a text from Nayeon.

[10:11pm] Im Nayeonie: babe im sleeping over at a friend’s so the place is all yours for tonight. don’t forget to lock up ok  [10:11pm] You: Ok! You’ll be back tomorrow morning?  [10:14pm] Im Nayeonie: eh probably around 10am but I’ll see 

You remember that she was at the game earlier. It actually slipped off your mind eventually when you got your head in too deep with finishing your assignments, but now that you’re reminded of it again, you wanted to know how it was.

[10:16pm] You: Hey how was the game?  [10:16pm] Im Nayeonie: oh my ur interested in bb now??  [10:17pm] You: Don’t tease! I just wanted to know if you had fun  [10:17pm] Im Nayeonie: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

You snort at the ridiculous emoticon. 

[10:17pm] You: What the hell does that mean?!  [10:17pm] Im Nayeonie: nothing lmaoooo [10:18pm] Im Nayeonie: but the game was fine! it was kinda intense but our uni lost unfortunately): they had a three point difference 

Oh. You usually didn’t care about any sports games that your Uni has but the news deflated you for some reason.

[10:19pm] You: Ah, thats unfortunate

You replied, finding that you didn’t really know what to say. Should you message Jungkook? But what were you going to say? 

[10:19pm] Im Nayeonie: yeah it is it was supposed to be the last game 😖😖 but there’s still 2 more to go anyway im not too worried about it finals went like this last season too [10:20pm] Im Nayeonie: but jungkook’s buzzer beater at game 4 was really insane it’s like all over on twt IK you proly won’t care about it but ill still send you a link HAHAHAH 

Nayeon did send you a link and thankfully you were able to see it even though you didn’t have Twitter, but you looked up "buzzer beater” on Google first. You didn’t understand it completely but slowly did when you played the video she was talking about. 

The camera was a bit shaky and the background was expectedly noisy. The angle shifted to the timer on top of the ring and you could see that there was only ten seconds left. When the lens panned to the court, you saw a player wearing your Uni’s colors and you couldn’t have mistaken Jungkook for anyone when you spotted the tattoo sleeve. He was a bit far from the ring, at that curved line – the three-point line, you learned through the replies – but he successfully shot the ball quite gracefully into the ring and everyone just lost it. Even the person behind the video was cheering exuberantly. You could also make out that Jungkook pumped the air at his own shot in triumph as a buzzing sound overtook the screams before the clip ended. 

Apparently, they were losing in the fourth game, but Jungkook managed to make a three-point shot in the very literal end which got them a chance to play through the fifth.

You scrolled through the comments and found out that it was indeed a tight game and the other team only had a three-point difference with your Uni’s team, like Nayeon said.

It was amazing, in your opinion, but people online could really be shitty.

Some were mocking Jungkook’s buzzer beater in game 4, saying how it was useless and how he could’ve done it again in game 5 but wasn’t able to. You didn’t know shit about basketball but you were very certain it was a rare thing to do in court so the people who were complaining about it could go fuck themselves.

This is why you avoid social media as much as possible. You hope Jungkook doesn’t see those comments. 

You were frowning as you texted Nayeon back. 

[10:26pm] You: That was cool [10:26pm] You: Hey I’ll talk to you soon I’m gonna go eat dinner. Have fun on your sleepover

You weren’t able to see her reply when Jungkook’s name is suddenly plastered all over your screen. You accepted his call on the third ring.

“Hi,” you say. You can’t help but think about the negative comments on Twitter but Jungkook sounded fine when he answered. 

“Hi, baby,” he greeted on his end. “Can I see you?" 

"Sure,” you answer almost immediately. You composed yourself before continuing. “Nayeon will be out until morning. Come over?" 

You can feel his smile through the line as he says, "Nice. Be there in five." 

Per his words, Jungkook did arrive in five minutes and when you heard a knock from your front door, you quickly opened it and ushered him inside. 

"Hey,” you greet him as he removes his stompers off. He slides on your extra fluffy home slippers, your old one that you have been lending him whenever he would come over. You think it’s kind of funny on his feet because the sliders were too small. “I just finished my leftover pizza for dinner so I don’t have any food right now. Do you want me to order in?" 

Jungkook shakes his head. "Nah, I’m not really hungry. Unless you are? Wait, nevermind, I’ll do that." 

He takes out his phone but you stop him. 

"No, no, it’s fine. I actually ordered Chinese while you were on your way so I could beat you to it.” You tease. But you kind of meant it, honestly. He needs to stop paying for everything. But also, the pizza didn’t cut your hunger and you needed to eat rice, anyway, so you ordered in right after your call with him ended.

Jungkook frowned but then shook his head. “Alright." 

"Water?” You asked, going towards the kitchen. 

“Yes, please." 

He followed you on your way there and when you turned around to give him the glass, he snaked an arm around your waist and kissed you. 

It took you by surprise, but you reciprocated immediately. You mirrored his smile when he broke the kiss. He gazed at you, a fond look on his face, and leaned down to press his forehead to yours and said, "Hi." 

You giggle. "Hi." 

Jungkook presses his mouth on you again and you kiss some more for a little while. It was weird because your kisses usually lead to fucking, but this time it didn’t mean anything other than plain kissing, just for the sake of it. You were reminded of that time in high school when you and your first boyfriend often made out (sloppily) in your room because it was all you were ready to do. Jungkook was far more skilled than said first boyfriend, though. And it felt way nicer with him. 

You were the one to pull away, licking your lips and biting the bottom one.

"Do you wanna watch something?" 

"Hm. Hopefully you aren’t going to make me watch Legally Blonde again." 

Your frown is instant. "I thought you liked that movie?" 

Jungkook chuckles and pecks your lips again but you sulk, especially after hearing his next words, "I do, baby. It’s just I’m getting tired of it…” When he sees your frown deepening, he says, “I’m kidding. We can watch it." 

"No, I feel betrayed now.” You break free from his hold and down another glass of water. 

He laughed and was about to say more when your doorbell rang, indicating the food delivery just arrived. Jungkook was the one to volunteer. 

“I’ll go get it." 

You turned on the TV in the living room and sat on the couch.

Jungkook followed almost as quickly after you, placing the bags of Chinese food on the coffee table. 

"Oh, I think we should watch an Adam Sandlers movie. Just something not so serious.” you said just as when Jungkook sat beside you, remembering about his game earlier. You noted that he seemed to be in a good mood when he came in but you never know, maybe he was good at hiding his real emotions or whatever. And, well, maybe you were a little happy to see him laughing like that with you, despite losing an important game.

“I thought you hated him and his movies?" 

You shrug, appreciating that he even remembers that.

"Eh, it’s fine. It's... camp, you know? Sometimes shitty movies are funny because they’re shitty." 

After a while, you get reminded why you don’t watch Adam Sandlers movies. Even Jungkook who laughs at the most stupid jokes didn’t find the supposed punchlines of the movie you were watching funny. But somehow, you found yourselves eventually laughing at how unfunny the film was and only a little surprised when you went through the whole Chinese take-outs not even 30 minutes in the movie. 

"His movies always make my film maker dreams die.” You comment absentmindedly, drinking your water. 

Jungkook looks at you with a surprised expression. “Filmmaker?" 

You try to remember if you mentioned it to him in passing before. By the look on his face, it was probably his first time hearing it.

"Yep." 

"Oh,” Jungkook nods in thought. “I see you didn’t pursue it." 

"Eh, film school is expensive. Also, it’s not a very generous industry for women, so.” You shrug nonchalantly.

It’s a dormant dream for the most part. Sometimes, you want it a lot, but most of the time, not really. Fresh out of high school, you were supposed to major in it but it was way more you could afford, and your family didn't exactly support it. So study education it is. Besides, teaching was a secondary dream that you decided you could pursue, and well, you were doing well with it. These days though, you were planning to go to law school but it's still something you aren't very sure yet.

It’s a drama you don’t want to bother Jungkook with, though. You never had a discussion like this before… and you weren’t really sure if you were ready to open up to someone like that. 

“I did videography in first year,” he shares. You arch your brow at that. Obviously you didn’t know. “I liked it and I was going to major in multimedia arts but dad said it was either be a lawyer or a doctor if I don’t do tech." 

Ah. An overachiever family, you think. His dad owns a really huge tech company – he didn’t tell you that himself, you just heard it from other people in your school. He probably doesn’t even know you knew that. But you wouldn’t be surprised if he told you right now that his family was full of successful professionals. 

"You went with tech.” You say. 

Jungkook chuckles. “I did. But I made a bargain and said I would only take it if he lets me play basketball. He did let me, but he only tolerates it because I’m passing my classes." 

You nodded, relating a bit. you wouldn't say your parents were particularly strict – but they were extremely practical people who wanted practical lives for their children. They weren’t over-controlling that they smother you with decisions you could make yourself. 

"He really hates it, though.” Jungkook continues. 

“Basketball?” You ask. 

He nods. “Yeah. He thinks I’m thinking of going professional after I graduate, he doesn’t want me to do it." 

"Are you?” You ask, curious. “Going professional, I mean.”

Jungkook shrugs. “I don’t know yet. I love playing. I'd also like to do tech after college, but it feels like I’m just following in his footsteps if I do that," And as if you didn't know already, he humbly adds, "My father’s in tech, by the way.” -- as if his dad was just a regular guy in the field.

He didn’t say it directly, but you feel like he’s probably being pressured by his dad to do this and that. And that makes you feel bad. Jungkook was always so easy-going, so laidback in a way that you would think he was just some varsity casanova asshole with zero care about their future because they think their looks could get them by through their lives, but he really wasn’t anything like that at all. He joined basketball because he loves it, maybe he gets a high from people admiring him for it but you could say he does it mostly for himself. That’s why he trains so hard and plays so hard in court. Aside from that, he was also really smart – which gets overlooked quite often because of his jock persona, and you know that because you were one of those who did overlook his intelligence before because he was a varsity. But he was smart, alright. He takes his studies seriously just as basketball. 

Jungkook is admittedly a lot of great things. And it was sad that his family seemed to not support him, the way you see it.

But… 

You didn’t really know what to tell him. Is he opening up? It’s just that… you never really talked about these things before and what he’s saying right now is so far from your usual lighthearted and casual conversations and interactions. You drew a conclusion that he probably has a tight relationship with his dad, but you don’t know what to do with that entirely new information. 

“Uhm, you’re good at it, basketball,” And his studies, too. You wanted to say but didn’t. You add, “I saw your beater buzzer from the game earlier. It was really cool." 

"It’s buzzer beater– hey, how did you know about that?” He says with an amused smile. You feel slightly embarrassed at how you mixed up the term but it was kind of complicated, alright! And you were kind of nervous. You find it comforting that he doesn’t tease you about it, though.

“Oh, well. Nayeon texted me about it. Also, you’re like, trending on Twitter.” You just told what Nayeon said. You actually didn’t know if he was trending because you didn’t have an account in the first place. “But don’t go look there, though, you’ll have a migraine." 

Jungkook chuckles and leans back on the couch, relaxed in that position. "Yeah. People on the net can be real assholes."

That comment makes you frown. That probably meant he saw the negative feedback, right? Was he used to it? That would be… upsetting if he was. You knew about the local popularity of the athletes in your school, especially the football and volleyball and basketball players. Jungkook is obviously included in that circle but you feel bad that he has to deal with unnecessary hate. Jobs really are needed for chronically online people, you think bitterly.

Before you could say anything, Jungkook’s phone rang and you didn’t mean to look at his screen but you saw "Dad”. He declined the call. 

“He’s talking my ear off about the game earlier,” Jungkook shakes his head. “He acts real concerned over my loss for someone who’s very unsupportive of my basketball career.” He was grinning while he said it but you could hear the annoyance in his tone, how he shut down his phone to probably dodge future calls from his father.

You turned to the movie in front of you.

“Hey, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to go.” You said, effectively changing the subject.

“Hm?” You meet Jungkook’s gaze. He smiles a little. “Ah, I read your text earlier, it’s fine." 

You nodded and tried to focus on the movie again, but you haven’t been following the plot and so you had no idea what they’re showing you now. 

Jungkook suddenly speaks. 

"So are you planning to teach once you graduate? Or take law? You mentioned it before."

Oh. Is he…? 

You could feel his genuine curiosity in that question. But you find yourself hesitating to engage in any more deep conversation with him. It’s not that you didn’t want to share… you’re just not that kind of person. Is he expecting you to lay out your personal drama? 

You choose not to.

"Not sure. I don't want to talk about it."

You didn't mean for it to come out the way it did; clipped and annoyed. As if you didn't want to talk to him. And you could see that he was taken aback, surprised at the sudden change of your tone. But why? You didn’t feel like sharing. And anyway, you were only fuck buddies, right? Are you suddenly becoming bestfriends who tell each other about everything? 

You awkwardly shifted in your seat, eyes trained on the screen in front of you but you felt Jungkook’s stare even while you weren’t looking at him, his eyes boring holes in your side profile. 

You decided to not think too much about the awkward silence throughout the next few minutes, but Jungkook suddenly stood up, looking at his phone.

“I... should get going,” Jungkook announces. 

And you didn’t expect to feel so bummed about it. But somehow, you were relieved. There was suddenly a certain strange energy around and you didn’t know if you could take any more of it.

“Ah, yeah, it’s kind of late…” you trail off. 

Jungkook smiles at you but it doesn’t reach his eyes. You delude yourself into thinking it was not fake. He’s never faked a smile with you before. 

“Thanks for the food and for inviting me over.”

“No biggies.” You say as you follow him towards the door. 

It’s silent again when he wears his shoes, and once he was set and ready to go, you could feel that your smile was hesitant as he bid his goodbye. 

“See you around." 

He didn’t offer anything more – he would usually tease you as he goes out, just to rile you up before you part ways. Jungkook just gave a final wave and went on his way.

You had a hard time sleeping that night.

It wasn’t hard to avoid Jungkook all week when he himself seemed to be outdoing you in it.

For the record, you weren’t actually avoiding him for all sense of the word. You needed your space to collect your thoughts from that night and were trying to recover from the awkwardness of the situation because Jungkook and you might not be the best of friends but you’ve never been awkward with each other like that before.

But maybe you should be a little relieved that he hasn’t been texting, or that you haven’t heard from him. Because you weren’t sure if you were able to manage getting out of your shell so soon.

It didn’t mean that it didn’t sting a bit when he didn’t even spare you a glance the other day as you passed each other in the hallways and perhaps you should be celebrating, because yey, he finally did not acknowledge you in some way like meet your gaze and give you a small smile with so many people around that might notice and make a big deal out of it? 

But you wore the black skirt he liked so much! He was supposed to text you something stupid like "nice skirt :) i wanna see it pooled around my lap” by the end of the day but no! No such thing happened. 

Was he mad at you, is that it? Why would he be mad though? Did he seem mad that night? Did you do something that guaranteed this... Whatever this is? As far as you knew, you did not say anything that warranted a silent treatment from him. Did you? Wait, is he actually giving you the silent treatment? 

Ugh. 

When Thursday came, you found yourself watching their fourth game on TV together with Nayeon. You got a slight whiplash because it felt like your first time seeing Jungkook’s face in a long while. Somehow, he looked even better on TV, and he was so serious whenever the camera caught him. You supposed he ought to be, but you’ve never seen him that serious before. He would smile whenever they scored, and maybe it was a little embarrassing for your heart to do a little jump when you saw that toothy grin again, after so long.

You were slow to understand shit about the game, but you got the whole gist of it eventually. 

Unfortunately, though, the tight game resulted to your university losing in the end.

You wanted so badly to text him something, anything, but you felt like you weren’t on texting terms, so you went to your Instagram and sent Jungkook a direct message. 

[11:58pm] ynblips: Hi! I watched the game on TV and it was really tight and you did so well :)

You were mostly not expecting a reply, so you were only a little disappointed when you indeed didn’t get one even after a day passed. But he liked it, only liked it. Which kind of pissed you off.

What was his deal? You’ve gathered that you, apparently, weren’t on speaking terms, for some reason. But this was ridiculous. If he had a problem with you, he should be upfront about it. Not make you guess with this stupid giving-you-the-cold-shoulder thing when you didn’t even deserve it. For god’s sake, you knew that last meeting was awkward but you both usually do a good job of swerving those situations and moving on and acting casual! You’ve been casual for four months! This relationship was supposed to be easy. Smooth-sailing. So what changed now? 

Nayeon noticed your crankiness earlier this day, and it concerned you, how much this whole thing was affecting you.

But you’ve grown tired of not knowing anything. You were tired of guessing why Jungkook was being like this. 

So you were a woman with a mission today. You planned to talk to Jungkook so he could finally be a big boy and talk to you about his obvious problems with you. Because it had to be that, right? He wouldn’t talk to you because he had issues with you. 

Later that day, your quest was made easy when you saw him at the library. 

You’re only a little surprised with yourself when you walk towards his direction with the presence of many people around. Yeah, whatever. 

“Hey,” you called. 

You could see Jungkook’s eyes widening a little as he turns around to see you, his hand stopping from taking notes on his iPad as he looks up at you. 

“Oh, hey,” he greets you, but you can see he is a little confused as he takes out his airpods. You never talked to him on school grounds whenever people were around. He neither did, though. It was a mutual agreement. 

“We need to talk." 

Jungkook looks in between you and the book and notes he was doing, and you would understand if he tells you to fuck off because he was busy – maybe not with those exact words because you’d probably take it to heart and cry about it, but he’s taken you by surprise when he says, 

"Okay. Let me just fix this.” Jungkook closes his book and his iPad, stuffing them in his bag. 

You anxiously tap your shoe on the floor, though not with sound, aware of the people looking at your interaction with the school’s basketball star player. 

“Where to?” He asks as he slings his bag over his shoulder. 

“Just, uh, follow me." 

He surprisingly does without further questions, and you begin to second-guess yourself about being kind of mad at him for seemingly being mad at you. Maybe you were reading too much into these past few days? Maybe he really wasn’t mad at you and you just assumed so because he suddenly stopped texting you? It’s not that you needed an explanation for why he wasn’t talking to you suddenly. He had a life outside having a friends with benefits situation with you and you know that. 

Jungkook stopped when you halted your steps at the far end of the library. It was the old theology section and no one really comes around here anymore so it was quiet and free of lingering, poorly hidden stares from other strangers, who you prefer to not be included in this conversation you are about to have.

Shit, should you have just texted him and told him to come over so you could talk more in private? But you doubted he would reply, and anyway, Nayeon would be home so you had no private space to do that. 

"Okay,” you start. “Let’s talk." 

Jungkook quirks a brow, leaning back on a cabinet. 

You look at him one more time and sigh. 

"You’ve been avoiding me.” You didn’t really mean to say it in such a heavy tone, but it came out that way and you couldn’t take it back. 

Jungkook is caught off guard. 

“Huh?"

You frown. "You’re avoiding me. And I don’t know why and I couldn't care less, usually, but I'm confused and I don’t want to guess anything with you so just say it now." 

There, you’ve blurted it all out. 

Jungkook took a long time, but you feel yourself getting angry when he only says, "I’m not upset with you." 

Really? Really?! Is he really planning to to do this right now? What’s next, is he going to call you crazy for thinking that he was mad at you because he suddenly stopped talking to you altogether? Un-fucking-believable. 

"I know you are, just say it.” You say, trying to balance your emotions. He really is gonna call you crazy if you lash out. 

“I’m just busy with practice.” but the way he said it so dismissively, like he wanted to be anywhere but here right now, makes you frown even harder. 

“You can’t even text me?” You called out. You didn’t know why you said that, because you did just tell yourself it wasn’t a big deal if he didn’t text you. But it doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt when he confirmed it.

“I don’t owe you an explanation."

You bite back your tongue. Wow, is he going for asshole today? But it hurt, because it was true. He didn’t need to give you an explanation. You weren’t anything important, and nor was he in your life, in any way, so why are you genuinely hurt by this?

When Jungkook noticed your silence, a flash of conflict in his expression, he decided to add, "Look…” he trailed off, as if not really having any idea what to say next. When he gave you that placating look, you knew he was about to say something that will completely piss you off.

“Is it about the sex? I’m sorry we haven’t been able to do that the past few days. Do you want to have sex today?”

You felt anger boiling in your chest as soon as he said that.

He really is going for asshole today.

What in the actual fuck? He thinks you’re confronting him because you haven’t been having sex? Why would he say that like you were just some desperate whore frothing in the mouth to bed him? Does he think of you so low like that? Did he not consider that maybe you were just genuinely concerned of feeling so distant to him right now? 

You swallow the lump in your throat and scowl at him. 

“You know what, fuck you. I asked you nicely what’s your problem with me.”

Jungkook was visibly surprised with your outburst, and you were disappointed in yourself to even show an ounce of reaction to that bullshit he just said.

But he just looks away, eager to avoid the look on your face. “You didn’t ask that, you went ahead and accused me of avoiding you when you’ve been doing the same thing." 

"Oh, so you are admitting to avoiding me. What’s the issue? Say it.” You demanded. But Jungkook wasn’t having any of it. 

“I don’t have a problem. What’s your problem? Why are you acting so upset about all of this?" 

To even throw that on your face was cruel, and you think you saw a flash of hesitation on his face when he said that, but it was blank after a split second. It’s blank until now, like he doesn’t really give a shit. 

Great. 

"I just want you to talk to me if you’re upset with me about something.” You say, even though that wasn’t really what you intended to say. It felt like defeat.

You feel pathetic all of a sudden, remembering his words. Why are you so upset about all of this? Because clearly, you care. And apparently, he did not. He didn’t have to put that to words. He didn’t have the right to hurt you like this. 

“Talk?” Jungkook repeats. “The last time we did that, you didn't seem to want to." 

His words have a bite to them, like he means more than that. And that night flashes in your head. When he was opening up to you, and you chose to disengage by being cagey and avoiding it all together because you felt weird about it. 

When you don’t answer, Jungkook sighs. 

"I have practice in five minutes. I’ll see you around." 

He doesn’t even say goodbye or spare you a last glance when he walks away. 

You are a turtle. 

Obviously, not literally. But turtles, when bombarded, reflexively duck their heads inside their shells to protect themselves before any damage could be done to them. And the same could be said about you. 

You avoid problems like a champ. It’s the only sport that you’re really great at. 

Growing up, you’ve never really had a lot of friends. You had a small circle in high school but you didn’t see a significant value in your connection. Maybe because you grew up in an environment where love was non-existent and the relationships in your house were transactional at best, still are. Until now, you have no idea if your parents loved each other at one point or if they were always like that; like two different strangers working jobs during the day that just happen to have the same house to go to at night so you and Jini have some people to call "mom” and “dad”. You guessed you’ll never know, but it was hard not to think that their relationship has always been the latter. Your relationship with your sister mirrors that of your parents’, though, so you can’t really criticize them for not acting like partners enough.

When you were young, you hated the way you approached friendship or any sort of relationships a lot. You hated how it was so easy for others to befriend one another, how it was easy for girls your age to have a life outside of studying. You hated how easy it was for other people to not build these sturdy walls whenever someone approached them. But you just kind of grew into it along the way… 

Social networking is important for college, though, and you were forced to have friends but you did make friends willingly along the way. It was not that you are a total sociopath, nor do you think you are one. Nayeon was a sweetheart who was very likeable and you’ve had the pleasure of being roommates with her for two years now. You are close to a certain point, but it wasn’t like you were best friends. She was two years older than you and was on her last year of college and had her own close circle of friends. The closeness was a result of living a domesticated life with each other because you lived in the same house. But you genuinely like her.

And you’ve actually met more people you genuinely liked when you went to college, not just her. Like Taehyung. He was a fun conversationalist, and you feel like you could totally hit it off only if you weren’t too hesitant to befriend him. Juyeon is probably the most hardworking woman you’ve ever met, and most of your liking towards her has a lot to do with the respect and admiration you have for her. And then there was Namjoon. A guy two years your senior during your sophomore year who you've had a short fling with. He was a great guy whom you actually saw yourself dating, but it was a bit complicated. And then Jungkook…

Well… he was everything you imagined him not to be.

You still remember the first time you saw him during orientation day. He wore this huge white sweatshirt and light-washed cargo pants with some stomper boots, hair curly and so fluffy as he slung his bag over his shoulder, talking animatedly with a friend. You’ve had crushes in high school (like that one senior guy from the debate team who turned out to be an asshole so you got over it pretty quickly) but it was the first time you’ve ever felt so strongly like that. Your crush faded eventually though when you learned he was a jock.

However, the universe made different plans. You both had the same code for your first term Philo class and got partnered on a project, and unexpectedly, he turned out to be smart, kind, witty, so unbelievably handsome and attractive and actually wasn’t an asshole like you thought he was when you found out he played in the varsity team. That was the start of your pathetic minor pining over the guy and then four months ago happened.

You hit it off at a random party Nayeon told you to come with her to. Had enjoyable sex. And then another. Until you both talked about the agreement – the stupid agreement that you have now still. 

You like him a lot. Always have. In more ways than one. 

You were an expert at hiding your feelings so it never really got in the way. And anyway, you aren’t ready for a relationship so the arrangement has always been perfect for you. 

But you hated that. Because, really? This part of your life feels like some pages taken out of a shitty young adult fiction book. Falling for the popular jock at school at the same time your fuck buddy. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. You weren’t supposed to like him more than you already have because you were both clear at what you wanted when you started it. But it happened and all those fun times with him at the abandoned lot and the soft kisses and gentle smiles and fond gazes and funny conversations and his stupid teasing are most likely going down the drain because you hurt him with your inability to face your feelings. 

You aren’t stupid. You know Jungkook likes you too. You know the past few weeks have been dangerously teetering outside the line of being fuck buddies but you went along with it because who wouldn’t? What were you to do, anyway? Confront it? You’ve never been confrontational. 

So when Jungkook tried to get to know more than your outer surface by opening up to you about things that probably no one other than you knew, you cowered. 

You cowered because you were afraid of what that would entail.

You’ve never done it, opening up to people. You’ve never known anyone to a point like that. You just weren’t the type to get too close to others, them letting them you in their lives just as you let them in yours. That wasn’t who you were and you’ve always been contented with that for most of your life.

But it wasn’t fair to Jungkook and it wasn’t fair to you. It wasn’t fair to Jungkook because he deserved to know that you care. He deserves to know that you want to know him, too. You want to be close to him more than just the physical, sexual aspect of your relationship. You want to know his intentions behind the overly kind, almost special way he treats you, his caring words, the meaning behind his soft kisses after sex, the purpose behind those kisses that didn’t lead to sex.

And lastly, you want him to know that you were sorry for the other night.

So when another Friday rolled, you finally mustered up the courage to go to his game. It was the last one, after all. You wanted to show up. 

The venue was crowded and chaotic and you wanted to ditch but you decided it was fine. You were gonna endure it if it meant you finally got to see Jungkook physically in court. 

And saw him, you did. Even though you were in the middle row seats and wearing a cap because you oddly felt unwelcomed and didn’t want to be seen by him – as if he would even want to see you. But it was whatever. 

Jungkook was… amazing. That was really the only adjective you could use to describe how he was. Maybe you were a little biased but he was the greatest out of all the ten people running around the court. He just stood out, even when someone else did the good job of scoring. 

And people around you seemed to think so too because whenever he did get to score or was the one holding the ball or his face got shown on the huge screen, everyone just lost it.

The match was tight again so it bled into five games. Your Uni just needed to win the last one and they would successfully bring the trophy home.

You found yourself silently cheering for your team, specifically Jungkook, though it felt strange to you because this was your first sports game, after all. But it felt good to do it. It also felt good to see other people so passionate at cheering him on as well as his team, especially after you read all that hate against him on the internet the other week.

And it felt especially great when they did win in the end of it all. 

The stands went wild as the game finished with your Uni scoring a solid 105 and 96 for the other. 

You’ve stayed long to see Jungkook being awarded the MVP title, but not long enough to find it difficult to get an Uber as you went home. 

Nayeon got to your place later than you, but you learned that she wasn’t at the game earlier but was in a study group instead.

You ordered dinner for the both of you, just some Chinese that you quickly finished up. 

By 11 pm, you were panicking. 

You had a solid plan yesterday. You were supposed to go to Jungkook and apologize to him and whatever but how the hell were you going to do that when you had no idea where he was now? Ugh. You should’ve approached him after the games earlier! But you didn’t feel comfortable doing that with so many people around… 

You saw your phone on your night stand and got an idea to just text him. But you didn’t know if he was going to respond. If he was going to tell you to fuck off, you at least didn’t want to receive that through text. 

So you opted for the last and craziest option you’ve got. 

[11:08pm] You: Hello, Taehyung! I know we haven’t talked in a while and I’m sorry for texting you now, I just have some questions if you don’t mind :) Congrats on winning Finals by the way, it was a great game.

You anxiously wait for his reply that you received not even a minute after you sent your text. 

[11:08pm] K. Taehyung: hi __ HAHAHHA im a bit surprised to see your name on my phone!! we’ve never gotten around having that coffee 😅 but thank you for the congrats! hit me with those questions i don’t mind  [11:09pm] You: It’s a real bummer that we’ve both been so busy ):  [11:10pm] You: But I was wondering if you know where Jungkook is? Last week he lent me a jacket when he saw me pour a drink on myself at some cafe, haha. So I was thinking I should give it to him now but I have no idea how to

Listen, it wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a complete lie either. You indeed needed to find Jungkook, and he lent you a jacket weeks ago which you needed to return but you forgot about it and conveniently remembered it just earlier when you were trying to conjure up an excuse to see him.

[11:10pm] K. Taehyung: oh i was actually just talking to him awhile ago. he wouldn’t go to the after-game party. said he was gonna stay up all night to play overwatch or something  [11:10pm] K. Taehyung: I can text you his address if you want to come over like right now

You feel like you aren’t supposed to just give your friends’ addresses away like that but it is flattering to think that Taehyung must trust you enough to not assume you were a psychopath serial killer or something. 

[11:11pm] You: Yes, please. Thank you so much, Taehyung. Catch up on that coffee hang another time

You got an Uber to drive to his place. You tried not to think too much about the fancy complex and how there were elevators instead of just stairs like yours but you managed to get to Jungkook’s place through Taehyung’s text. 

You pressed a button upside the knob. It created a loud buzz and you tighten your fingers around the ribbon handles of the paper bag that got his jacket inside. 

It was the perfect excuse. You did need to return it to him. And if you got too flustered or scared to talk to him further, you were just going to leave right after he takes it from you and just accept the fact that he probably really hates you now because you were mean and—

The door opens, revealing Jungkook. A shirtless, wet Jungkook. 

“Oh." 

Jungkook has a hint of shock in his eyes when he comes face to face with you. You’ve never been here, for the record. And he was probably wondering how the hell you got his address.

"Uh,” you start. You thrust the paper bag towards him. “Here. It’s your jacket from weeks ago. I washed it already. Thanks for lending me it.”

You see his hesitation when he takes it from you, and it makes your nerves go haywire. 

Jungkook mumbled a little thanks. He stood there for a moment, probably still not getting the shock out of his system. As each second passed, you felt the need and the urge to go, but his voice cut that idea in your head.

“Uh. Do you wanna come in?" 

"Yes.” Maybe it was too much of an immediate answer, but you needed to. If you were to stand outside much longer, your courage will wear down and you might miss an opportunity to talk to him. 

Jungkook stepped aside and further invited you in. Your steps were a little shy as you followed him inside, watching as he took a pair of Nike sliders and offered it to you as you removed your birkens off your feet.

“Thank you.” You tell him, sliding your feet on the slippers that were definitely too big for you. 

He gave you a small smile in return. That gave you a bit of hope that it would go well tonight. 

“I’m just gonna go and change into something. You can sit here,” You followed behind him into the living room of his rather huge flat. Really, this was more of a condo unit than an apartment. “There's– sorry. I wasn't– it’s kind of messy here right now but I was busy the past few days. It’s not usually like this here." 

Jungkook hastily arranged the scattered throw pillows on the couch. You even hear him hissed as he picked up a bowl and some take-out trash on the coffee table. He reached for something in the tight corner of the couch, holding up a remote awkwardly for you.

He quickly looked away from you though, turning to his huge TV (it was literally a jumbotron) and making it light up. It showed some kind of game on pause.

"I’m sorry, I was playing something earlier. Uh, do you want to play anything? I have a lot of games.” He continued to say.

And you realized Jungkook was panicking. He was rambling, talking words over his own words, jumping from one thing to another and hastily cleaning up the space in the living room.  

It was… adorable. The way he was kind of scrambling… to accommodate you? Eh. But it was nice. Nice to know that you aren’t the only one panicking.

“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t really play anything.” You say honestly. You don’t like gaming. It’s stressful. 

“Oh…” Jungkook trails off then his eyes set on the kitchen. “Oh shit wait, do you want water? Tea? I don’t think I have tea but I think I can look for something?" 

You couldn’t help the laugh that came out from your mouth but you quickly cut yourself off. 

"Sorry. Uhm. No. I don’t want anything.” Truthfully, you wanted water but Jungkook needed to change into something immediately. You may not exactly be talking talking right now but his body and tattoos were nice to look at and you didn’t want it to distract you too much. It felt wrong to admire him like that when you were not exactly in great terms. 

“You sure?” When you nodded, Jungkook did the same too, but more like to himself. “Okay. I’ll just get to my room." 

You sat on his nice leather couch and looked around as Jungkook changed.

It was such a nice place. You could see that it was indeed expensive. The space was definitely, like, three times larger than your own and it even seemed to have another room on the far end. You didn’t know if Jungkook lived alone, he never mentioned anything about it. 

You still didn’t find yourself completely relaxed as Jungkook emerged from his room. 

The fringe of his bangs are still wet from his shower, but he’s now changed into a grey hoodie with matching shorts. 

"Hey,” he said as he walked towards you and sat on the couch. The distance was far but not totally that you end up being on the opposite sides. 

“Hi,” you greeted him back. “You have a nice place." 

He smiles. "Thank you." 

The atmosphere was incredibly awkward, you could feel that. But you pushed yourself to go through it. 

"Congrats on the game earlier.” You tell him sincerely. 

“Ah… thanks." 

"I went there." 

"Really?” You could see the understandable surprise in his face after hearing your words. “I didn’t see you." 

You chuckle lightly. "Hm. You were too serious and busy in the court to see me.”

Jungkook shyly looks away. 

“I– well. You should have told me. I could’ve gotten you a nice seat. Did you get a nice seat?” The sentiment was cute but surprising at the same time. After that time in the library, you wouldn’t have expected him to get you a nice seat. 

“It was okay." 

It didn’t look like he would say anything more, but you were a little relieved to have a break from the atmosphere when the door buzzed again, indicating someone coming. 

You feel your heart jump.

You didn’t know why your mind went to such dark places like him having someone over to do– what? Ugh. Jungkook wouldn’t do that, would he? Honesty was what you agreed on when you started this agreement. You promised to tell each other right away if you start sleeping with other people because of health reasons. 

"That must be the pizza.” Jungkook murmurs as he stands up.

You almost sigh in relief.

Okay. So no other women coming over. 

Jungkook comes back a moment later with three boxes. 

“I thought we could eat something,” he said as he sat on the couch again, this time a little closer than earlier. He looked at the TV, still on that game he was playing. He placed the pizza on the table and took the remote to exit out of his game, pressing some buttons on it and eventually the screen loaded to Netflix. “You wanna watch something?" 

That would be nice, actually. 

"Yep." 

"Okay… uh. Legally Blonde?" 

You couldn’t help your eyebrow from raising. 

Jungkook laughs a little. You’re a little surprised to hear it. It felt like eons ago since you’ve heard it.

"I like it a lot.” He shrugged and then looked it up on Netflix, clicked the movie poster and pressed play.

You start eating the pizza on the couch. You were obsessed with Legally Blonde probably an abnormal amount but this time, its entertainment didn’t affect you full force because at the back of your head, you’re still trying to figure out how to speak up the words you really wanted to say to Jungkook. 

“Hey…” you suddenly speak. You hesitate for a while but then let out a heavy breath. Jungkook looks at you because of that. “I’m sorry." 

His confusion was anticipated. He face looks like he was ready to ask, but you continue, 

"About the other night. Uh. When you went over. I’m sorry. I made you feel like I didn’t care but…” you train your gaze to the remote on the corner of the couch. “But I do, Jungkook. I care about you. It’s just that, it freaked me out, you know? People never felt comfortable enough with me to share such personal things and I’ve always been okay with that because I’m not exactly—” you cut yourself off, trying to organize your thoughts. But you give up because there was no use in doing such. You wanted to be honest as much as possible. “I know I don’t exactly strike people as someone who can care. And, well, that’s true, you know? People always tell me that I almost function like a robot. So, uh, I freaked out, because I thought you trusted me enough to do that and I felt like I didn’t deserve it, your trust I mean. And so I acted like that because I didn’t know what—”

“Hey,” Jungkook stopped you before you could go on a full spiral. You didn’t notice because of your rambling earlier but he was closer this time. “Breathe. It’s fine. I have all the time to listen to you." 

It was such a sweet sentiment, paired with his charming smile. You feel your heart jump and look away from his gaze. 

"Baby," 

There. He’s calling you that name again. Has he forgiven you? Were you both on that terms again? But he couldn’t have forgiven you that fast! 

"Baby, look at me,” you did, because he held your face in his warm hands, making you look at him. You could feel your cheeks tingle in his hold. “I’m actually so glad you came here tonight. I appreciate your apology, and I accept it.” He says, voice sounding so sincere.

You looked down, feeling like you don’t deserve it at all. 

“I’ve been thinking, you know?” Jungkook lifts your chin up with his fingers, smiling, such mirth behind it that you think he was probably thinking you were going to tease him about his words. But you didn’t feel like joking with him right now. “I totally didn’t think things through that night. I shouldn’t have told you all about my personal drama—"

Oh, no. That’s exactly what you thought you made him feel that night, and for him to verbalize it, it hurts you. Because you knew you truly made him feel that way. It wasn’t your intention but you knew your reaction –or lack thereof– threw him off. 

"No, no. I should have—" 

"No, ___, I shouldn’t have dumped all of that onto you expecting you to have a say about it and be disappointed and extremely hurt when you didn’t. We don’t know each other a lot, I know that." He gives you a sheepish smile. "I guess I just... I wanted us to know each other a little better you know? But I must’ve freaked you out instead and made you uncomfortable with me telling you all about those when we made it clear that this relationship was never going to be like that, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for dumping. I kind of… realized that... maybe you just wanted some lazy time with me that night. So I’m sorry. I believe you're also apologetic about it, but I’m saying don’t be. It was all on me." 

Jungkook’s words were a jumbled mess in your head that you were surprised to even get them. 

"I–no, no. Kook– I… told you, I care about you. I—” you felt a metaphorical block in your head, and it made you cut yourself off. But then you remember his words and so you continue, “I didn’t just– look. It was unexpected, and I told you I just freaked out because I didn’t know where we stood and I just felt like I wasn’t deserving to know you like that. But I care a lot about you.”

Jungkook was quiet for a while, and you feared he was contemplating and thinking you were just lying to get over everything with. But then his face softens at your words. “I care a lot about you, too,” He says, and then it contorts a little, as if he remembered something. “That’s why I’m also… I’m also sorry about that time at the library. I was a complete asshole to you. I wanted to be mean because I was hurt but none of it was your fault. I really am sorry." 

Your head takes you back to that time in the library. He did hurt you with the harsh words he’d spoken, but his apology sounded sincere and you believe it. 

"Yeah. Uhm. I’m sorry about cornering you there. I should’ve texted you that I wanted to talk but I wasn’t sure if you were going to reply." 

Jungkook looked a little shameful for reasons that you couldn’t think of. 

"I’m sorry about that. I acted like such a boy about the whole thing. You don’t deserve to be ghosted suddenly because you hurt my feelings without you even really knowing why. I should’ve talked to you properly." 

You bite your lip, feeling like you were suddenly going to cry.

You know it was the bare minimum, and even though he said you had nothing to be sorry about, you still feel oddly emotional about someone apologizing to you. You’d never been apologized to sincerely even when a lot of people have done you wrong and hurt you before. They always thought you didn’t care or just got over things quickly because apparently, people had the impression that you weren’t the type to feel anything. 

"I like you a lot.” You blurt out. 

It was stupid. It was so stupid to say that in the middle of this conversation, but your mouth was running faster than your brain and you couldn’t help it. 

“Really?” Jungkook grins, and it was quite big. Your heart beats faster in your chest. “I really like you, too. Like, a lot. Probably more than you do.”

You meet his eyes finally. They hold such fondness for you, and you’ve always noticed. But you brush it away just as it shows. Regular, old, __. Always pushing away people who like her.

Right now, you’re berating yourself for pointedly ignoring that before, but his dark eyes serve as a distraction. They were so ominous and so big and looked like they had the stars in them. And he was so handsome. Suddenly, your gaze falls to his lips and quickly trains to the mole under the bottom one. You’ve always wanted to kiss it but never did so because… because, well. It would be weird, right? But then you remember that Jungkook always kisses that mole in between your chest... 

You blush at the thought and look away. 

“That’s nice.” You said, not really knowing how to respond. 

Jungkook chuckled and twisted himself to look forward again, at the TV playing Legally Blonde. 

It was like that for a while and you found that the weight you’ve been carrying all week on your back felt like it’s been lifted, finally. 

This night was going really, really well. 

And so well it went.

Legally Blonde ended and you and Jungkook somehow ended up being closer. So close that his arm just found its way around your shoulders, your leg across his, his other arm wrapped around that leg to pull you impossibly closer to him onto the next film. 

It’s been half an hour into the new movie but if you were honest, your brain wasn’t really on it. It was on how Jungkook held you delicately, his mouth pressing kisses on the crown of your head occasionally, almost absentmindedly. Your thoughts were filled with the soft, gentle caresses of his hand on your leg, and how you would feel his eyes even when you weren’t looking. It was all so tender and just so, so incredibly nice. 

When you yawned, Jungkook immediately checked on you with a light chuckle. 

“Sleepy?” He asks. 

You shake your head but another yawn forced its way out of your mouth again. You let your head fall dramatically on his chest as he laughed. 

“I gotta go…” you said, thinking that it’s probably late as hell and dark outside. But you found that you really didn’t want to. The material of his hoodie was so soft and his presence was so calming and it sounded undeniably cheesy but you wanted to be held by him a little more. 

“You could stay." 

That made you look up at him. 

"Huh?" 

"You can stay here, if you want. Sleep over." 

"Oh." 

A flash of hesitation on his beautiful face.

"Only if you want to, of course. I’ll drive you home if you wanna go.” He offers quickly, as if embarrassed to even suggest the thing he said earlier. 

But you did want to stay. But… he never stayed over at your place. You didn’t let him and he never expressed a little bit of desire to do so, anyway. Would it be unfair if he never slept over at yours but you would at his now? What did your conversation today change? When he said “I like you”, did that mean it was okay for you to stay the night? 

“Uhm, I’d like to stay here, if it’s okay with you.” You said, throwing your inhibitions away. There was no room for more denials in your heart. 

Jungkook’s bright grin made your worries subside. He definitely wants you to stay as much as you do. 

“Okay." 

"It’s okay for you? Sorry, I don’t have a lot of pillows…” Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck and looked at you sheepishly. 

You waved him off. “It’s fine. Hey, come here now." 

Jungkook did a poor job of hiding a big grin again as he slid on the bed with you.

When you twisted yourself so your back was facing him, about to reach for your phone on the night stand to see if Nayeon replied to your text telling her you wouldn’t be home until morning, Jungkook also did the same and wrapped his arm around your waist, basically spooning you. 

And you realized that oh, he’d mistaken you for wanting to be a little spoon… 

But it was cute. And you really like him holding you, so you pretended it was your intention all along and mentally noted to check your phone tomorrow morning.

"You smell good.” He said against your ear. You smiled at the way it tickled a bit.

“I don’t think I do anymore, but thanks.”

You showered right after coming home as the game ended but that was many hours ago, so surely Jungkook must just be speaking nonsense. And anyway, he was the one who smelled nice because he did just get out of the shower. He smelled like that certain apple scent he always did. 

“No, really. Like flowers. I always liked that about you." 

"Eh, it’s probably just my bath and body works body wash." 

"Really?” You felt him sniff up your arm and you giggled. That reaction encouraged him to do it more until his nose reached your armpit. It tickled so much that you thrashed and turned and bit his arm. His laughter got louder as you did so, but you only pouted at him. 

“Okay, sorry, sorry,” Jungkook said but he didn’t look like it. You didn’t expect it but he suddenly kissed your forehead. Your eyes reflexively closed at the feel of his lips on your skin. 

You open them once again only to see Jungkook staring into your eyes again, quite intensely that you feel like he was there looking right into your soul. 

“I missed you.” He whispered, his hand that was around your waist tightening, the other clearing up your face from stray hairs. 

“I really missed you too.” you said as sincerely as you could. Because you really did, and you hope he could feel it and believe it just like you did his words. 

A few seconds after and then his lips finally touched yours and it was such a relief that you sighed against them. It was a slow kiss. Sweet and too short but you didn’t really mind when Jungkook looked at you again like you hung the stars in the sky. 

“Let’s sleep baby, turn around for me again.” He said and you wanted to reprimand him for ordering you around but you didn’t really feel like you needed to. You didn’t really have complaints about being the little spoon in this cuddling session, anyway.

It was only about a minute of silence when Jungkook suddenly spoke.

“Babe, I know I’m probably going to ruin this wholesome moment but can I hold your boob while we try to sleep?" 

And you couldn’t help but laugh because who wouldn’t. 

"Go for it.” You said, settling against his chest, getting more comfortable. Jungkook was only too happy to let you, letting out a low happy hum as he held you tighter, another hand wandering inside the worn out shirt you were wearing that he lent you for the night. 

The contact was cold to the touch at first, but when he gave you a squeeze and finally rested his hand over there, it got warm eventually.

Having a weight on top of your boob while sleeping was definitely a new concept for you, but you found that it was oddly comforting.

There was nothing sexual to it, not really. And you thought Jungkook didn’t really have any sexual intentions to begin with. 

It was just nice to have his hand on your breast. 

“So soft,” Jungkook whispered at some point and you just chuckled in between putting yourself in slumber.

It’s been hard to settle in bed peacefully the previous nights after that debacle weeks ago, but that moment, you slid to dreamland quite easily; and you were certain it was due to Jungkook’s warm body all over yours.

EPILOGUE

( ONE MONTH LATER )

You have awoken in a feverish feeling brought by the dream of a certain man drawing all kinds of shapes on your clit with his skillful tongue. At first, the sensation felt far away, like it was just a distant memory, but you suddenly feel a seemingly too real grip on your thighs and a tentative swipe over the length of your nether region. 

When you blearily open your eyes, the sunlight intruding through the seams of your room, you caught a sight of a very real man’s head in between your legs, his dark hair pulled by a headband as he determinedly pleasures your pussy.  

“Jungkook,” you sigh, blindingly reaching for his head. 

He hums in your pussy, and it sends a jolt right up your spine. He felt you jumping a little, and that earned a chuckle from him. The vibration of it in your aching heat made your legs quiver. 

“Good morning, baby." 

It was a little disorienting to wake up to Jungkook eating you out so early in the morning, but the pleasure overrode it as you throw your head back on your soft pillows, twisting your face to the side and burying it on the fluffy material as Jungkook sucks on your clit, his finger teasing over the lips of your pussy. 

”Ah, that feels so good…" you moan, thrashing on the bed at the delight brought by his tongue. But Jungkook’s strong hold kept your legs wide for him to have complete access to your wet cunt which he’s licking like it was a meal he’s always wanted to have. 

“Wanna make you feel good,” he said, beginning to place open mouthed kisses on your pussy that delivered delirious shivers all over your body. He emphasized his sentiment by bringing two fingers in your hole, sliding them in and out quite easily as you felt yourself gushing every second from his actions. “So wet. You love this, angel? You like what I’m doing?" 

All you could give him was a pathetic little whimper that you hope he understood as he didn’t bother to wait for your response and proceeded to wrap his mouth on your clit again, his tongue flicking the sensitive bud with the steady way his fingers slipped in and out of you, lewd squelches filling the otherwise quiet room except for the chirping bird outside.

And it sounded oddly poetic. 

So peaceful. Oh, to wake up like this everyday. 

Your grasp on his hair tightened, bringing his face closer to your pussy that you even got a hold of his headband, but you didn’t care. All you could think about was how delicious Jungkook is speeding his fingers in your entrance, long and bony digits touching every ridge of your pussy, slowly but surely sending you to your edge. Your breath quickened every second passed, and now you could say you were fully awake. 

Jungkook broke away from you and you were just about to reprimand him about it when he suddenly licked a long, slow stripe over the wet length of your entrance and you cried out.

You were nearly brought to tears when he dove in your core again to repeat his actions from earlier, but this time, he went for messy. So sloppy; his head moving around your pussy, sucking your juices with enthusiasm and making your arch your back on the mattress, his finger rubbing your clit to bring you to your orgasm. 

And he did successfully bring you to it. He did with what seemed to sound like a painful groan of your name from his throat, a husky sound that made your pussy and legs quiver. But that didn’t stop Jungkook from lapping at the cum that dripped out. 

You let out a big breath, making yourself bounce on the bed as you fell to it. Exhausted. Spent. 

"Kook,” you nudged Jungkook with your foot to his bicep because he was doing that thing again. 

“Wanna clean you up." 

You roll your eyes. It was so counterproductive but you let him be for awhile, relaxing on your back as he quite literally slurped the gush that came and is still coming out from you. That was why him "cleaning you up” was useless. 

“Let me suck your cock.” You said, nudging him again. Jungkook peeled his head from between your legs and looked at you, and you nearly moaned at finally seeing his face. He looked insanely hot with his hair around his sweaty hearline pulled by that head band, but the sheen gloss all over his mouth to his chin made you feel just a little shy. 

“Really?” Jungkook asked again, eyes wide, like he was a kid about to receive his gifts from Santa on Christmas morning.

You only hummed, bringing your body in a sitting position. Jungkook grabbed your waist, about to kiss you, but you pushed him on the bed and slid your leg over his thighs, leaning down to make quick work of pulling his boxers down that had a little wet patch on the front and a huge boner that was just begging to be freed. 

Jungkook sighed when you get a hold of his length, not wasting time to tease because as much as you wanted to, you were impatient to taste him and make him cum. 

“F-fuck,” Jungkook curses as you pumped his cock, your thumb pressing on his leaking tip. “You’re so pretty, baby."

His groan is elongated as you finally put him in your mouth. You make yourself comfortable by kneeling inside his spread legs, leaning down closer to his crotch and twisting your head to the side so that you could gather your hair in one side. It was always hard to reach deep, but you make do of your hand, twisting your fingers around the remaining length that your mouth could not take. 

It didn’t take too long for Jungkook to shake and start speaking sweet nonsense in the wake of his impending orgasm, probably because he had been holding back since he ate you out. But you worked as hard, sucking on his tip, brushing your fingers over his balls here and there, pumping his wet cock in your hand, ignoring the tears that’s forming in the corners of your eyes. 

“Baby, I’m cumming,” he warned, holding the back of your head to try and get you off but you insisted and let him release in your mouth. 

Jungkook hissed, and you leaned back to jerk his cock for any more cum, swallowing the one in your mouth that you felt had gotten to some parts of your face so you try to lick over your mouth, tasting cum there. He was still cumming, though, just a little, it spurting on your chest and chin. 

You giggled as Jungkook groaned. When you were sure you milked him dry, you let yourself flop on his naked body, draping yourself over it even though he was kind of sweaty and sticky… but you don’t really mind. You were just gonna shower later. 

“You’re a minx.” He said, chuckling, his arm going around your waist and the other resting over one bare ass cheek. 

“I live to make you suffer.” you replied, rubbing your cheek against his chest then pressing kisses to it. 

“You’re winning." 

That made you laugh. 

After a while, you remove your head on his chest and look down on him. He arches a brow, waiting. And then you dropped your mouth to the mole under his bottom lip. You giggled because Jungkook wasn’t expecting it, shown by the confusion on his face. Before he could say anything, you lock your lips with his, sighing when he reciprocated your kiss right away. 

The kiss takes a U-turn as Jungkook flipped you over so he was the one hovering over you now, hands roaming around your body sending tingles all over your spine to your toes and heat between your legs as he squeezed your breasts. 

He squished the both of them in his huge palms, and you feel his cock twitch against your thigh when he did so, so as the gush of wetness coming from your pussy as he finally dropped his mouth to suck on your pebbled nipples. 

”___, are you—oh my god I’m so sorry!“

Jungkook and you quickly looked over your door, catching Nayeon just as she scrambled to close it. 

"Shit.” You hissed.

Jungkook looked at you. And then you both get off of each other, him going for the sweats he’d folded on a swivel chair in your room, and you putting on your robe and messily tying your hair in a bun with a hair tie. 

“I’m just gonna go outside and talk to her…” you trail off, watching as Jungkook puts his pants on. 

“Okay,” he went over to you, holding your face and leaning down to kiss you. “Sorry." 

You licked your lips as he broke the kiss, couldn’t help but smile.

"It’s fine." 

When you went out, Nayeon is at the kitchen drinking water. When she saw you, you gave her an awkward smile. 

She frowned. "I’m really so, so sorry, ___. I swear I didn’t know you had someone over. I just got back from the overnight study group I texted you about last night and it’s 8 am so I thought I could wake you up for class." 

You find yourself smiling genuinely at her explanation. You wave her off and went over to grab a drink of water as well. 

"It’s fine. Our prof actually emailed us last night that our 8 am class was gonna be cancelled today so technically my first class is gonna be at 10. But I’m also supposed to be getting ready, so…" 

Nayeon hummed and drank more of her water.

You were just waiting for it. You knew she was so gonna ask you about it. You were kind of nervous but you found that you actually didn’t care that much to tell her all about Jungkook. 

So when she finally did ask, you only looked sheepish. 

"So, Jeon Jungkook, huh?" 

You nod.

"I should’ve known!” Nayeon exclaimed. “You were suddenly interested about basketball and– no, I’m not gonna lie. I did not expect that." 

You bit your lip as you hid half of your face behind the rim of the glass. "Yeah…" 

Nayeon suddenly narrowed her eyes at you, and you hold yourself to prepare for what’s next. 

"He was your sneaky link all this time?" 

Your eyes widened. "No!” But then you quickly remembered that, technically, he was. But… “but not really. I mean, not anymore?" 

You weren’t sure, though. Your relationship with Jungkook for the past month had undergone a shift. You were purely fuck buddies before, and now you fuck and see each other for more than that. You sleep over almost twice a week at his place, have movie nights. He let you know about this game Animal Crossing and you’ve been obsessed since so sometimes you really just go over his place to play it. (Your island was seriously becoming pretty.) Also, you started grabbing lunch regularly these days in his car and go on what you can call dates if both your schedule aligned and it’s not that you were actively keeping other people from knowing about this sudden change in your relationship, including Nayeon, it was just — your time together was really just spent for pure enjoyment with each other. It was just like: if people saw, then they do. 

Despite that, a label still wasn’t put to it. 

You don't mind.

"Oh, so–your boyfriend?!” Nayeon’s tone is laced with surprise, and you flinched at hearing the word boyfriend but you shrugged it off. 

“Uhm, it’s very new.” Was what you replied. It was the only thing you could offer, honestly. 

Your friend looked at you for a few seconds and then nods, as if understanding – what? you have no idea – and then turned to the direction to your room. 

You see Jungkook popping out from your door when you looked over. 

“Hi, Nayeon." 

When he emerged, he’s fully dressed and it was a bummer that he’d taken out his head band. Whatever, you’d make him wear it later. It was really cute when he wore it. 

"Ohh, here comes the sexy man." 

The casualty of it threw you off a bit but then you suddenly feel grateful to Nayeon for not making a big deal about the whole thing.

So you laughed and joked, "Don’t say that! You’re going to stroke his ego." 

Nayeon’s right eyebrow raised. "Oh, his ego is definitely getting stroked, alright." 

Even Jungkook burst out laughing at the crude implications of her words, and you found the whole thing atrocious. Nayeon only shook her head, but she was smiling. 

"Sorry for interrupting your time together, lovebirds. I brought something for breakfast but I don’t think it’ll be enough for two people.” She said, pointing towards a take-out bag on the kitchen counter. 

“It’s fine, thanks Nayeon." 

She waved you off. "I’ll just be in my room. Eat first before you do cardio, guys." 

You huff out a laugh at her words again, and so did Jungkook. He walked towards you as Nayeon disappeared in her room, and you smiled at him as he did so. 

Jungkook held your waist and pressed you a little to the refrigerator, but you have no complaints in the way he leaned down to share a slow and soft kiss with you. 

"Breakfast?” He whispered, kissing your cheek. And then your nose. 

You giggled, circling your arms around his neck. He hummed at the contact, like he’s always so content and peaceful whenever you touch him.

“I think I’ll just get coffee on my way to Uni.” you told him. 

That made him frown, though. “That’s really not…” you arched your brow as you wait for him to finish his words. He sighed. “Okay. But at least eat some toast? I’ll make it for you." 

You nod. "Okay. I’m gonna go shower first, though. I stink." 

As if prompted, Jungkook quickly buried his face to the crook of your neck and whiffed out your scent, dramatically smelling you and then peeling his face away, saying, "Nope, still smell like flowers to me. But I agree, we need a shower." 

"We?" 

He gives you a serious look. "Yes. Water conservation is one of my goals this year." 

You jab on his chest lightly. So stupid. But so handsome and cute that you can’t help but pull him close to you and kiss him again. 

Suddenly, Jungkook grabbed your thighs and make you hold on to him as he carried you across the living room. You stopped your own squeal before you could scare Nayeon with it. Jungkook laughed at that and you slap his chest in retaliation.

He went straight to the bathroom and put you on the counter with all the intentions to keep making out with you by the way he was swirling his tongue deliciously against yours, hands squeezing your sides. 

But you really had to shower. 

He whined when you put your hands on his shoulders and broke free from his kiss, pushing him away a little. 

"Don’t be a baby. Let’s shower,” you said, giving him a stern look. He looked petulant for a while, but then suddenly smirked. You narrowed your eyes, pretty sure he had dirty things in his head right now. “No funny business. You literally have class in an hour." 

"I could make you cum in less than that." 

"Jungkook!" 

He laughed, kissing you. "I’m kidding.”

“Behave. Nayeon is here." 

He only nodded and began taking his clothes off. You also removed your robe from your body, going over to the towel rack to hang it there. Jungkook stopped in his tracks and shamelessly ogled your naked form and you rolled your eyes, not waiting for him as you stepped in the shower first. He followed right after, smiling at you as he offered to wash your body. 

Jungkook assured you he had no funny business in mind, but you didn’t really mind when his hands suddenly got grabby, when he told you that his hands could lather your body wash more effectively than your loofah just so he could massage your boobs in his soapy palms, staying a little too long over there. But you didn’t complain when his finger ghosted over your pussy, and you absolutely weren’t mad when he kissed you hotly as the shower ran and water soaked the soap suds out of your body. 

In fact, you enjoyed it a lot when he pressed you against the wall while his strong arms held you tight as he fucked you open, gasping in your mouth, grunting about how pretty you were and how much you were such a good girl for him. 

He spoke more nonsense in your ear when he turned you around, an arm tight around your breasts, his other hand gripping your waist as he slid his engorged cock in and out of you from behind while you tried to minimize the sound of your cries until you both came. 

You know Jungkook knew his goal to conserve water was doomed from the very start, especially when you ended up taking a second shower because you felt sticky and just unclean. 

But it felt great to come out of the bathroom and have Jungkook dressed the same time as you with the clothes he left in your closet from the other times he’s spent over here. 

"I’ll see you later.” He pressed a quick kiss on your mouth. 

“Okay,” he smiled and you failed to resist the urge to kiss him again for the last time. “I’m coming over to play Animal Crossing." 

"You only like me for my Nintendo…” Jungkook jokingly narrowed his eyes at you and you laughed. 

“It took you a long time to figure out?”

Jungkook pouts. “As long as you curl up in my lap while you play it, I can accept that.”

“You’re cute, baby. But you’re late to class, go scram.” You shooed him and he chuckled. 

“Okay, kiss me again?” You did. Jungkook smiled and kissed you but on the forehead this time. “Bye, pretty." 

You leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed as you watched him slowly disappear from your pathway with (certainly) a fond look on your face. 

Blurring the lines with your fuck buddy might be cliche, and confronting it might have been hard, but you did it. And he was just as willing and honest with you about his feelings.

And it was worth it.

all right reserved © awrkive, 2023. no reposts, modification, and copying allowed. if you enjoy my work and have the extra means, please consider supporting me on ko-fi <3

[innerfare]

Kisses - Part 2 

Summary: How do they kiss you?

Characters: Shanks, Beckman, Crocodile, Mihawk, Corazon, Smoker, Marco

Genre: Fluff, Slight Smut

CW: Slight Smut so I'll say NSFW // messy kisses, hickies, brief implication of oral sex

——— 

Shanks:

You’d better like the taste of liquor, weed, and cigarettes because that’s what this man tastes like. And you know that’s what this man tastes like because his tongue is always in your mouth, his scruff pushing against your cheeks. He has no sense of propriety, and you’ve probably made out in front of the crew more times than you haven’t. You’ve also made out on the beach, in countless dark alleyways, and just about anywhere else he can convince you to have him. He’s the type to shove his tongue down your throat, but what he really wants is for you to shove yours down his throat. 

Beckman:

Doesn’t kiss you in public (or show any affection in public, really). You’re the type of couple that nobody can tell is together. But when you’re behind closed doors, you’ll receive quite a few different types of kisses: the deep and sensual kisses that always lead to something more, the slow kisses down your neck when he’s tired but wants you so bad, the lingering kisses he places on either your cheek or hand when his mind is elsewhere, the sweet kisses on your forehead before he rolls out of bed in the morning. And when his mind is elsewhere, the best way to get him out of his head is to kiss up his biceps and across his broad shoulders. 

Crocodile:

His kisses are hot and heavy with the expectation of something more. He’s rough about it, too, grabbing your face in his hand and squeezing your cheeks as he steers your lips onto his. He rarely kisses you outside of the bedroom. Doesn’t do sweet pecks on the lips, doesn’t kiss anything better. Although, on a few occasions (you can count them on one hand over the course of more than a decade), he has slipped into bed late at night and pressed a warm kiss onto your shoulder. It doesn’t sound like much, but by Crocodile’s standards, a kiss on the shoulder is a marriage proposal. Will also allow you to kiss anywhere on his body. 

Mihawk:

So sensual when he kisses you. Mihawk is an incredible kisser, thanks to a lot of practice in his youth, though these days he’s far more picky about who he chooses to kiss. Almost always has his hands on your face when he does it. Often runs his tongue across your lips before pushing it into your mouth. Will talk to you between kisses, telling you how much he missed you and calling you, “my love,” or, “my little bird.” Very into hickies, particularly in private places. Goes a little crazy if you kiss his hands, especially if you play with them first (foreplay is important). 

Corazon:

A very energetic kisser in that he just gets so excited to be able to kiss you that he can hardly contain himself, his body practically vibrating with eagerness. He always grins into it, and he never misses an opportunity to pick you up while his lips are on yours. He’s kind of inconsistent about tongue because he doesn’t want to come on too strong but he’s also just so overwhelmed by the fact that he’s kissing you and you’re kissing him back that he can’t keep his tongue out of your mouth. 

Smoker:

He’s actually such a sweet kisser- sweet in general, not that the world knows. When he comes home from work, he leaves his weapons at the door, and that includes the tough guy persona (he’s still tough as nails, sure, but he’ll make dinner with you and sit in the bathtub). He always places a sweet kiss on your lips when he walks through the door, though it definitely escalates if he’s been away for more than a week (so basically, it always escalates). He places a sweet kiss on your lips basically every fifteen minutes you’re alone together. When it is heavier, he’s measured in his use of tongue. And the way to his heart is to kiss your way down his muscular chest.  

Marco:

It always starts small. He doesn’t intend to escalate, just sees that you’re walking away and wants to give you a quick kiss before you’re parted. But then he’s pushing you into the wall and you’re running your hands up and down his chest and he’s moaning into the kiss and- well, it never ends small. If he gives you a peck on the lips, within just a few seconds, he is groping you. His kisses often feel desperate, as if he’s worried he won’t be able to do it again, and have a way of lingering on your lips long after they’re finished. 

———

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want more, you can check out my masterlist here!

[choccy-milky]

Im here to confess that my brain has a genuine reaction each time I see a drawing of Sebastian with anything black around his wrist. Idk why but I love it when he has a watch or when he’s wearing those black bracelet things

LMAOO SAME ANON...idk why this is, but it just is😩 (i blame rodrick heffley)

@writingsoftarnishedsilver aw THANK YOUU!! im glad you like my art and that you've joined the collective brainrot here on tumblr BAHAH🥰 ik theres been some hubbub lately but the fandom is rly nice and welcoming i promise!!🙏i hope u have a good time here and dont feel intimidated or scared or anything!🥹💖

@kaviary-blog THANK YOU MY SWEETIE DARLING😭💖💖ILL KEEP BEING UR BUDDY AS LONG AS I BREATHE😤u couldnt get rid of me if u wanted to.... but ty again for the positivity and support this was so sweet and i am sending all of that energy back at u!!🫵🫵🫵🫵💖💖💖

@fulminare-within-her-soul aw THANK YOUUU that means so much especially coming from another writer!!🥹💖 AND YES OF COURSE CLORA WOULD LOVE TO AND ID BE HONOURED!!! nobody has to ask permission to draw clora EVER. im fr, yall could seriously draw her doing ANYTHING and id be like... hell yea, thats my girl, look at her😎👍 bahaha THANK YOU AGAIN AND YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL NIGHT/DAY AS WELL💖💖💖

THANK YOU ALL IM GLAD U LIKE MY ART!!🥹😭💖 @dariliondar-blog the program i use is clip studio paint and the brush i use (for lineart) is a clumsy pen from the assets store! ive been using this pen since the very beginning/for all of my lineart, i just love it idk, its easy to control and i like the texture, tho it can be a bit rough/messy. though another lineart pen i started dabbling with recently that i really like is bulky g-pen, i used it for my 9 page comic and really like it!! for colouring though i use different brushes literally EVERY time bc im so inconsistent/indecisive 😭so i cant help you there im sorry BAHAH 🙏

[chipistrate]

Welcome to the Grand Opening of Freddy Fazbears Balloon Circus!

After an array of previous undisclosed incidents at the Mega Pizzaplex, ending with the sudden collapsing of the building due to an unexpected earthquake, Fazbear Enterprise has demolished the old mall and rebuilt a new and improved carnival on the property! But just because the attractions above ground have been overhauled, doesn't mean the secrets beneath the surface have magically disappeared.

Reblogs appreciated!

MANY more rambles about this AU under the cut: would much appreciate if you read them, but there's no obligations!

EVERYTHING HERE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE!! This AU has just been pieced together by my insane ramblings to my friend over the past few days, so everything in it's early stages of development, and this post is being written VERY late while I'm very sleep deprived and just trying to finish it in time to schedule it! If some things are a bit weird or inconsistent then please keep that in mind! Thank you! :D

Gregory, Vanessa, and Freddy all return to the now renovated lot where the Pizzaplex once stood, having been called back two years after their last failed visit too save a long lost friend, too repair their old creation known at the M.X.E.S after it was suddenly and unexplainably shut down again. Upon entering the new-ish carnival, they'll quickly find it hard to safely look for the entrance to the layers below as the friendly mascot suits above chase after them for being unwanted guests.

Above ground, they're hunted by the mascots- new suits built for both performers and endoskeletons to be able to wear. This night, controlled by corrupted endoskeletons, they've been ordered to chase after the intruders by someone lurking below the carnivals ground. As well as finding the littler animatronics, known as Balloon Babies, to be quite the inconvenience.

Below ground, they're hunted by the old Glamrocks, still functional after all this time, and now under a new threats command that's also trying to keep the 3 star family from reaching M.X.E.S; Vannie. Aka, Cassie. Still here in the ruins of it all, waiting for the her perfect moment to lure the family back in and get her revenge for what they did to her all those years ago.

The mascots are the new faces of the Freddy Fazbears Balloon Circus, their costumes built to be worn by both endoskeletons and actors- but in a safer way than the springlock suits. The actors are used during the day for greeting and interacting with guests, putting on performances, etc etc. While the endoskeletons are used at night as a replacement for security guards and STAFF bots, kindly, but forcefully, escorting any intruders off the premises. Under Vannie's control they, of course, are much less kind and gentle with how they "escort" the 3 star fam out of the carnival.

Balloon Babies are smaller, almost Helpy-like animatronics in appearance, built to keep lost and lonely children happy and entertained while waiting for their guardian to arrive. They can't speak, but they can play song, games, sound effects, blow up balloons with their fingertips, etc etc. They found Gregory after he had been forcefully split up from Vanessa and Freddy by the mascots, and upon the family reuniting, the Balloon Babies more annoying feature kicked in: The Emergency Alert System. Whenever a child they are playing with is approached by an odd looking adult or other figure that seems like they could be a potential threat to the child's safety, whether that be a kidnapper, unfit guardian, bully, etc. the Balloon Babies will use their emergency alert system to call one of the mascots over and deal with the threat, kindly guiding the threat away and bringing the kid to a safer area away from potential danger where they can stay with staff until a proper guardian arrives. The Balloon Babies had decided in their time with Gregory that Vanessa and Freddy were unfit guardians for leaving Gregory scared and alone this late at night, and any time Vanessa and/or Freddy is nearby, their alert system will sound off and call a mascot to their location. The problem, other than the obvious, is that the Balloon Babies are fixated on Gregory. They will always be attracted to him and find their way back to him no matter what, with the only exception being when he's under ground. Which means that, until they can find a way to deactivate or otherwise get rid of these guys, Gregory is forced to be split up from Vanessa and Freddy above ground, and regroup underground.

The only exception is Goldie, a soft yellow version of the Freddy Balloon Baby that doesn't follow the others. Goldie is the only one of the Balloon Babies that can go underground, Vannie specifically programming him to be able to do so. He follows Vannie around and provides her with much needed company, being her only real friend down here besides Roxy. Later on, Gregory will find Goldie, but instead of calling for the mascots whenever Vanessa is near, he'll send out a signal to distract the other Balloon Babies away from Gregory so they won't call for the mascots or overwhelm him. Goldie can tell that Vanessa and Freddy are fit guardians that love Gregory very much, and can also tell that they're afraid of the mascots, though he can't compute why- it's his job to make sure that kids and their families are safe, so he's doing his best to ensure their safety however he can. Later on, Vannie will come looking for her friend after a long period of time of him being away and find him with the 3 star family, causing more conflict between the two parties that Goldie can't understand- Cassie and Gregory are supposed to be friends, aren't they? That's what Cassie said. Friends aren't supposed to fight each other, they're supposed to protect each other. That's what Goldie believes, at least.

Random trivia;

-Gregory, Freddy, and Vanessa have been living together for about 3 years now. 1 year by the time of Ruin, and 2 years after the fact leading up to Balloon Circus.

-Cassie has been gaslit into thinking that all the stuff Dr. Rabbit did was actually Gregory himself with no outside influence, only fueling her want for revenge, not only for the elevator incident, but everyone he hurt. This will affect Gregory greatly(he has not 100% recovered and this Does Not Help).

-Cassie still doesn't fully trust the Mimic, despite being under its influence. She let the M.X.E.S stay up after the 3 star family put it back up after Ruin despite Mimic's demands for her to shut it down again, assuring him it was "part of her plan". She wasn't entirely lying, shutting down the M.X.E.S was how she wanted to lure the family back, but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't also partially because she wanted to keep "that old endo" sealed away. He's not completely free from fault either.

-Gregory and Vanessa both have chips implanted in their heads, it's how Dr. Rabbit and Vanny took over way back when. Those same chips gave them VR vision, but the chips have since been "domesticated" and can't go full VR mode anymore. Despite this fact, they do still have a few side effects of the VR vision, such as some walls and objects simply not existing, despite them looking perfectly normal and real. They can phase through them without trouble, and this helps them navigate the Balloon Circus, becauseeeeeee;

-Cassie was there during the construction of the circus and set up VR walls in certain spaces to help her hide out and travel around undetected, even during the day. The 3 star family can also use these now as an easier way of navigating through the circus, but also as a way to hide from the mascots and even sometimes the Balloon Babies.

-The entrance to the underground levels is behind a VR wall, but it's one set up by the construction workers so the patrons wouldn't notice it. The reason an intentional opening is there is because the new entrance is now used as a dumping ground for stuff from random items from the ruins of the Pizzaplex to unused stuff from the circus to anything the employees with access to the area want to throw in there. It's how the ruined Glamrocks ended up there.

-The Glamrocks were being slowly reintroduced to the public, the biggest attraction so far being 'Chica of the Sea', a tent for the underwater hologram show of a prerendered mermaid Glamrock Chica that would swim around, wave at guests, and do a few preset moves that employees could turn on whenever. There's hints of them wanting to reintroduce the others as well that haven't been shown off to the public yet, with the new roles being; Glam Freddy and Bonnie are the co-ringmasters of the main tent where the mascots performances are held, making sure everything runs smoothly. Roxanne is the mascots and glamrocks make up artist, as well as offering to do make up/face paint for any patrons that came by her tent (for a price, of course). And Monty would roam around the circus grounds as a strongman showing off his incredible strength. He also has a tent for this, but he was mostly supposed to roam around and sometimes try and make people swing by his tent, mostly so they would buy his merch.

-Chica being the first to be reintroduced has an effect on her character below ground, with her hearing the news and trying her best to dress herself up in whatever scraps she could find to look like her mermaid counterpart, practicing her singing and dancing despite her condition so she could prove that she could be just as good as the hologram if she just got a few repairs.

-Roxanne is headless, having lost her head in her tussle with the Mimic. But she still has control of both her body and head, carrying around her decapitated head in her arms.

-Vannie/Cassie cares about Goldie soso much that's her new bestie<33 Friendship ended with Gregory, Goldie is new best friend<3 (I'm so sorry Gregory)

-Vannie is also known as Vengeful Vannie, but usually shortened to just 'Vannie'. A callback to the "Vengeful Spirit" aka Cassidy, because I think the parallels between the two are neat<3 (THIS MEANS NOTHING LORE WISE IT'S JUST A NAMING THING.)

-Some of the stuff at Balloon Circus was bought from the carnival mentioned to be across the street from the Pizzaplex in the TFTPP epilogues, and rebranded to fit with the new Fazbear theming

I wanna talk more about these guys later- not sure what else exactly to do with them, but if anybody has any questions then feel free to send 'em to my inbox! I'll be more than happy to reply to the best of my abilities<3

[draconym]

Chag pesach sameach everyone, I am thirty six and I have just learned today that contrary to what I have always believed, it is not mandatory for all Jews to fast on the first day of Passover. This is partly because I am not a particularly observant Jew, but it is mostly due to the way my family handles conflict, which is to say: deception.

Let me explain.

I have two half siblings who are not Jewish, and who are about ten years older than I am. Throughout my childhood, my mother in particular was very inconsistent about referring to them as her children or as my siblings--it largely depended on her mood and whether she was fighting with my dad at the time (they were alternately "your half-siblings" or "your father's spawn").

This struck Young Me as very unfair (and frankly just mean) and I responded by referring to my brother and my sister only as My Siblings and correcting anyone who tried to call them Half Siblings, or who referred to me as an Only Child. If asked, I was the youngest child, and in no way an only child, and my siblings were whole, entire people.

Enter Ta'anit B'khorot, the Fast of the Firstborn. This is a custom in which firstborn children fast on the eve of Passover to commemorate not being killed by the tenth plague. That is to say, it is not customary for people who are not the firstborn to fast on erev Pesach.

Now, I spent most of my childhood in my Jewish grandparents' home. My mother generally left very early in the morning and came back late at night, often after I was asleep. So before the Seder, both my grandparents (each of them a firstborn child) and I would be home and all of us would be fasting together. Literally until this evening, I was under the distinct impression we were fasting because it was something that everyone did all day before the Seder. Because it was mandatory. For everyone.

And today I find out that it's not and it's because OF COURSE my wack-ass family would have gone out of their way to obscure the fact that this fast is for FIRSTBORN CHILDREN ONLY!!!

Yes, according to Halachic law, a child who is a firstborn to their mother but not their father does qualify as someone who should fast on erev Pesach. But you try explaining this to an eleven year old who has decided to die on the hill of not being their mother's only child.

No wonder I always felt like I was the hungriest person at every Passover Seder??? Probably half of the other people there had just been eating all day as normal???

I can't even be mad about my family for doing this because the drama of it all is too funny to me.

[slutforpringles]

“I think for Daniel, I struggle with the results he’s had lately, because he’s an exceptional talent. He really is. To jump in the Red Bull when he did [2014] and go up against Sebastian Vettel, to go up against Max and be as competitive as he was, it was unbelievable. It really was. And then we saw glimpses of it at Renault as well, you know, before it was Alpine. Took some time to find his feet, but then he was extremely quick against the Hulk [Nico Hulkenberg], who we all rate very highly. It just didn’t materialise at McLaren and Alpha Tauri, which is such a shame. And why is that? I don’t know. It’s not his age. He’s not old. Look at Fernando Alonso, what he can do. So the only person that knows is probably Daniel, and I feel for him, because to be on such a high for a lot of your career, and then it fall away for the last few years, it’s tough. But I think, from what I’ve heard, he’s made peace with it, and he’s got his whole life in front of him."

I really, really dislike some of the framing I've seen of Jenson Button's interview on the Sky Sports podcast that he's paying Daniel some lovely compliment about his career. While I think his intentions were probably in the right place, his comments scream of someone who hasn't actually paid attention to the last year/eighteen months of Daniel's career and only reinforce Red Bull's narrative that Daniel was dropped because of his own under-performance this season.

First of all I think comparing Daniel's performance at McLaren and Alpha Tauri/VCarb is just a complete false equivalence - the situations genuinely could not have been more night and day different. The fundamental mismatch between driver and car at McLaren and the futile mission McLaren went on to try to mitigate it - by trying to fundamentally change Daniel's driving - was a unique set of circumstances that was unsustainable for both driver and team.

This just didn't exist at AT/VCarb, which was pretty evident from the fact that Daniel hopped straight into a completely unfamiliar car and outqualified Yuki on his first attempt. Sure there were some races that were more tricky than others due to certain car characteristics introduced by various upgrades, particularly given the propensity for this generation of F1 car to have such a weak front end. But to try and compare the McL and AT/VCarb stints just demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding by Jenson Button.

Takes like this also reinforce rhetoric from Marko that Daniel just didn't achieve high enough level results, which given the actual machinery he was driving is laughable. Sure it's fair to criticise Daniel's slow start to the season this year, or his inconsistency in qualifying, but Daniel also turned his season around and after a difficult start put his head down and put in the work - Scott Mitchell-Malm summed it up well on the The Race podcast.

"A few races before the summer break my understanding was that Ricciardo and Perez had basically been told up your game before the summer break because that's when we're going to revisit things. It wasn't a promise or a threat either way, but it was a give us your best so that when we sit down we've got absolutely everything we have. One of the drivers pretty much rose to the occasion; has Ricciardo been stunningly good in the midfield? No. Has he been good, effective and doing pretty much what you can with that car? Yeah I think he has, actually. [Ed Straw: Yeah he's been pretty decent.] So I don't really see that he has floundered in that situation whereas Perez has, he hasn't risen to it."

Ultimately Daniel was punished by VCarb's complete inability to upgrade their car this season. Had the VCarb continued to improve over the season in line with Daniel then we wouldn't be in this situation, and people wouldn't be making ridiculous, inaccurate and unfair comments on Daniel's performance like Button has here.

[nyxshadowhawk]

A Retrospective on Harry Potter

Why did I like it in the first place? What about it worked? Where do I go from here?

I have decided to give up Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling’s reputation now stinks to high heaven. At this point, she is quite indefensible. And even if that weren’t the case, she is not someone that I would want to associate with anyway. Meanwhile, the internet has not only turned against her, but against Harry Potter itself. An innocent question on Reddit, about which Hogwarts Houses the ATLA characters would be in, got downvoted to oblivion. Innumerable Tumblr threads insist that fantasy fans should get into literally anything else (suggestions include Discworld, Earthsea, The Wheel of Time, and Percy Jackson). And now that Harry Potter is no longer a sacred cow, there has been a recent slew of video essays that rip it to shreds, attacking it for its poor worldbuilding, unoriginality, and the problematic ideas baked into the original books (like the whole SPEW thing), etc. Those criticisms always existed, but now they’re getting thrown into the limelight.

It pains me to see such an ignoble downfall of Harry Potter’s reputation. If Rowling had just kept her damn mouth shut, Harry Potter would have aged gracefully, becoming a beloved children’s classic. I'd still plan to introduce it to my own kids one day (after Rowling dies and the dust settles). It’s not surprising that not all aspects of it have aged well, since it’s been more than twenty years since its original publishing date, and everything starts to show its age after that long. I acknowledge that most of the criticisms of the series that I’ve seen lately are valid, and I’ve read plenty of better books. And yet, when I return to the books themselves, even with the knowledge of who JKR really is inside my head, I still really enjoy reading them! There’s still a lot about them that I think works!

None of the other things I’ve read have had as collossal of an impact upon my identity, my values, and my own writing as Harry Potter. It’s hard to move on from it, not just because it’s something I enjoy, but because I have to literally extract my identity from it. I don’t know who I’d be without Harry Potter. I don’t know what my work would look like without Harry Potter. I don’t know how to carry it with me as just another piece of media that I like, as opposed to a filter for who I am as a person. So, with all that in mind, I have to ask myself why I liked Harry Potter so much in the first place. If I’m going to move on from it, then I have to be able to define and isolate the things about it that I want to keep with me. Something about it obviously worked, on a massive scale. So what was it?

It’s not the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is objectively quite terrible, especially in comparison to that of other fantasy writers who knew what they were doing. At best, it’s inconsistent and poorly thought-out, and at worst it’s insensitive or even racist. Is it the characters? The characters are, in my opinion, one of the stronger parts of the story. But I felt very called-out by one of the many online commentators, who said that anyone who identifies with Harry is too cowardly to write self-insert fic. (I do not remember who said it or even which site it was on, but I distinctly remember the phrase, “Reject Harry Potter, embrace Y/N.”) The reason why people get so invested in Harry Potter’s characters is because they’re easy to project upon, and it’s possible that my love of Harry comes more from over a decade’s worth of projection than anything else. The incessant arguments over characters like Snape, Dumbledore, and James Potter ultimately stem from the fact that these characters do not always come across the way Rowling wanted them to. As for the writing itself, it’s decent, but not spectacular. Harry Potter is something of a sandbox world, with less substance than it appears to have and a crapton of missed opportunities, making it ripe for fanfic. For more than ten years, I’ve been doing precisely that — using Harry Potter as a jumping-off point to fill in the gaps and develop my own ideas, some of which became my original projects.

So what does Harry Potter actually have that sets it apart? Why are people so desperate to be part of Harry Potter’s world if the worldbuilding is bad? What, specifically, is so compelling about it? I think that there’s one answer, one thing that is at the center of Potter-mania, and that has been the underlying drive of my love of it for the past decade and a half: the vibe.

Harry Potter’s vibe is immaculate.

You know what I mean, right? It’s not actually a product of any specific trope, but rather a series of aesthetic elements: The wizarding school in a grand castle, with its pointed windows and torches and suits of armor, ghosts and talking portraits and moving staircases, its Great Hall with floating candles and a ceiling that looks like the night sky, its hundreds of magically-concealed secret doorways. Dumbledore’s Office, behind the gryphon statue, with armillary spheres in every single shot. Deliberate archaisms that evoke the Middle Ages without going as far as a Ren Faire: characters wearing heavy robes, writing with quills and ink on parchment instead of paper, drinking from goblets, decorating with tapestries. Owls, cats, toads. Cauldrons simmering in a dungeon laboratory. Shelves piled with dusty tomes, scrolls, glass vials, crystal balls, hourglasses. Magical candy shaped like insects and amphibians. A library with a restricted section. A forbidden forest full of unicorns and werewolves. That is the Vibe.

There are five armillary spheres just in this shot. They are unequivocally the most Wizard of tabletop decor.

There’s more to it than just the aesthetic, though. The vibe is present in something that writers call soft worldbuilding.

There’s a phrase that writers use to describe magic systems, coined by Brandon Sanderson: hard magic and soft magic. Sanderson’s first law of magic is, “An author’s ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” A hard magic system has clearly-defined rules — you know where magic comes from, how it works and under which conditions, how the characters can use it, and what its limitations are. Examples of really good hard magic systems include Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist. If the audience doesn’t understand the conditions under which magic can work, then using magic to get out of any kind of scrape risks feeling like the writer pulled something out of their ass. It begs the question, “Well, if they could do that, then why didn’t they do that before?”

You may come away from that thinking that having clearly-defined rules is always better worldbuilding than not having them, but this isn’t the case. Soft magic isn’t fully explained to the audience, but that doesn’t matter, because it isn’t trying to solve problems ��� its purpose is to be evocative. Soft magic enhances the atmosphere of a world by creating a sense of wonder. If your everyman protagonist is constantly running into cool magical shit that they don’t understand, then the world feels like it teems with magic, magic that is greater and more powerful than they know, leaving lots of secrets to uncover. Harry Potter, at least in the early books, excels at this. The soft magic in Harry Potter is what got me hooked, and I think it’s what a lot of other people liked about it, too.

The essence of soft magic is best summed up by this scene in the fourth film, in which Harry enters the Weasleys’ tiny tent at the Quidditch World Cup, only to find that it’s much bigger on the inside. His reaction is to smile and say, “I love magic.”

That’s it. That’s the essence of it. You don’t need to know the exact spell that makes the tent bigger on the inside. You don’t need to know how Dumbledore can make the food appear on the table with a flick of a wand, or how he can make a bunch of poofy sleeping bags appear with another flick. You don’t need to know how and why the portraits or wizard cards move. You don’t need to know how wizards can appear and disappear on a whim, or what the Deluminator is, or where the Sword of Gryffindor came from. You don’t need to know how the Room of Requirement works. Knowing these things defeats the purpose. It kills the vibe, that vibe being that there is a large and wondrous magical world around you that will always have more to discover.

One of the best “soft magic” moments in the books comes early in Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry is trying to navigate Hogwarts for the first time:

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk. —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 8

Many of these details don’t come back later in the series, which is a shame, because this one paragraph is super evocative! It establishes Hogwarts as an inherently magical place, in which the very architecture doesn’t conform to normal rules. Hogwarts seems like it would be exciting to explore (assuming you weren’t late for class), and it gets even better when you learn about all the secret rooms and passages. The games capitalized on this by building all the secret rooms behind bookcases, mirrors, illusory walls, etc. into the game world, and rewarding you for finding them. The utter fascination that produces is hard to overstate.

Another one of the most evocative moments in the first book is when Harry sees Diagon Alley for the first time, after passing through the magically sealed brick wall (the mechanics of which, again, are never explained). This is your first proper glimpse at the wizarding world and what it has to offer:

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad....” A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon.... —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 5

What works so well here is the magical weirdness of wizardishness juxtaposed against normalcy. Eeylops Owl Emporium is just a pet shop to wizards. A woman makes a very mundane complaint about the price of goods, but the goods happen to be dragon liver. Broomsticks are treated like cars. All of these small moments contribute to the feeling of the wizarding world being alive, inhabited, and also magical. It gets you to ask the question of what your life would be like if you were a wizard. What do wizards wear? What do they eat? What do they haggle over and complain about? What do they do for fun?

In Book 3, Harry enjoys Diagon Alley for a few weeks when he suddenly has free time, and we get to experience the wizarding world in a state of “normalcy,” when he isn’t trying to save the world. He gets free ice creams from Florean Fortescue, gazes longingly at the Firebolt, and engages with delightfully weird people. He’s a wizard, living a (briefly) normal wizard life among other wizards in wizard-land. And that is fun. It’s so fun, that people want that experience for themselves, enough for there to be several theme parks and other immersive experiences dedicated to recreating the world of Harry Potter.

One of the greatest things about Universal was its phenomenal attention to detail. You can hear Moaning Myrtle’s voice in the women’s bathroom, and only the women’s bathroom. The walls of the Three Broomsticks have shadows of a broom sweeping by itself and an owl flying projected against the wall, so convincingly that you’ll do a double take when you see it. Knockturn Alley is down a little secret tunnel off of the main street, and that’s where you have to go to buy Dark Arts-themed stuff. It’s really well done.

Another thing that contributes to the vibe, in my opinion, is that the wizarding world is slightly macabre. They eat candy shaped like frogs, flies, mice, and so forth, and they have gross-tasting jellybeans. In the film’s version of the Diagon Alley sequence above, there’s a random shot of a pet bat available for purchase. In the third film, when Harry is practicing the Patronus Charm with Lupin, the candles are shaped like human spines. In the first book, this is Petunia’s description of Lily’s behavior after she became a witch:

Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school, and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 4

I remember reading this for the first time, and it just kind of made intuitive sense to me. I suppose it fits into the “eye of newt and toe of frog” association between magical people and gross things, but somehow it works. Unfortunately, this is retconned later with the knowledge that wizards can’t use magic outside school, but before that limitation gets imposed, the idea of Lily amusing herself by turning teacups into rats seems like an inherently witchy thing to do.

That association between magic and the macabre shows up elsewhere, as well. In The Owl House, Luz’s interest in gross things is one of the things that marks her as a “weirdo” in the real world. When she goes to the magical world of the Boiling Isles, weird and gross stuff is absolutely everywhere. That world’s vibe leans more towards the macabre than the whimsical, but it works because you sort of expect the gross stuff to exist alongside the concept of witches, and that they would be an intrinsic part of the world they inhabit. You don’t question it, because it’s part of the vibe.

(The Owl House is one of the few things I’ve encountered that has a similar vibe to Harry Potter, but it’s still not the same vibe. In fact, The Owl House outright mocks the expectation that magical worlds be whimsical, and directly mocks Harry Potter more than once. The overall vibe is much closer to Gravity Falls.)

The Harry Potter films utilize a lot of similar soft worldbuilding with the background details, especially in the early films that were still brightly-colored and whimsical. For example, the scene in Flourish and Blotts in the second film has impossibly-stacked piles of books and old-timey looking signs describing their subjects, which include things like “Celestial Studies” and “Unicorns.” When Harry arrives in the Burrow in the same film, one of the first things he sees is dishes washing themselves and knitting needles working by themselves, taking completely mundane things and instantly establishing them as magical. In that Patronus scene with Harry and Lupin, the spine-candles and a bunch of random orbs (and the obligatory giant armillary sphere) float around in the background. One small detail that I personally appreciate is the designs on the walls above the teacher’s table in the Great Hall, which are from an alchemical manuscript called the Ripley Scroll:

It’s all these little things that add up to produce The Vibe.

Obviously, much of the vibe is expressed very well in John Williams’ score for the first three Harry Potter films. The mystical minor key of the main theme, the tinkly glockenspiel, the strings, the rising and falling notes that mimic the fluttering of an owl, the flight of a broomstick, or the waving of a wand. That initial shot of the castle across the lake as the orchestra swells, as the children arrive at their wizarding school:

If you grew up with Harry Potter, just looking at this image gives you The Vibe. The nostalgia hit is definitely part of it, but The Vibe was already there, back when you were a child and you didn’t have nostalgia yet.

In my opinion, only Williams’ score captures this vibe — the later films, though their scores are very good, do not. But the soundtrack of the first two video games, by Jeremy Soule (the same person who did Skyrim) absolutely nails it. This, right here, is Harry Potter’s vibe, condensed and distilled:

This is why I feel invalidated by the common advice “just read another book.” I have read other books. I’ve read plenty of other books, many of which are wonderfully written and have left an impact on me. But there’s still only one Harry Potter. To date, there’s only other book that has filled me with a similarly intense longing for a fictional place, and that is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. That book deliberately prioritized atmosphere over everything else in the story, and actually lampshades this in-universe. The Night Circus has a plot and it has characters, but it’s not about its plot or characters. It’s about the setting and its atmosphere. It swallows you up and transports you to a fictional place that is so evocative and so magical that you just have to be part of it or you’ll die. And even then, The Night Circus has a different kind of vibe from Harry Potter. In this particular capacity, there’s nothing else like Harry Potter.

The thing is, I don’t think Rowling was being as deliberate as Erin Morgenstern. (In fact, given many of Rowling’s recent statements, I question how many of her creative choices were deliberated at all.) She was throwing random magical stuff into the background without thinking too hard about it, which works when you’re writing a kids’ story, but stops working when you try to age it up. Actually, scratch that — soft worldbuilding is definitely not just for kids! The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system, for crying out loud, and Tolkien is the original archmage of worldbuilding. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that prioritizing atmosphere over meticulousness is bad worldbuilding. That is a valid way to worldbuild! Not everything needs to be clearly explained, not everything needs to make sense. The problem is that Harry Potter doesn’t balance it well. Certain things do have to be explained in order for the magic to play an active role in the story (and the setting of a magic school lends itself to that kind of explanation), but no rules are ever established for the kinds of magic that need rules. When you begin thinking about the rules, you’re no longer just enjoying the magic for what it is. At worst, you begin running up against the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

It wasn’t actually the “aging up” of the story that did it in, per se, but rather, the introduction of realism. The early books were heavily stylized, and the later books were less so. A heavily stylized story can more easily maintain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. That’s why, for example, you don’t ask why the characters are singing in a musical — you just sort of accept the story’s outlandish internal logic, and the inherent melodrama of it doesn’t take you out of the story. Stylized stories are more concerned with being emotionally consistent over being logically consistent. The later Harry Potter books changed their emotional tone, but without changing the worldbuilding style to compensate.

In addition to the more mature themes and darker tone, Harry Potter introduced more realism as it went, but Rowling did not have the worldbuilding chops to pull this off. There’s the basic magic system stuff: When you begin thinking about it too hard, something like a Time-Turner stops being a fun magical device, and starts threatening to break the entire story. Then there’s the characters: Dumbledore leaving Harry on the Dursleys’ doorstep in the first book is an age-old fairy tale trope that goes unquestioned, but with the introduction of realism in the later books, it suddenly becomes abandonment of a child to an abusive family. The exaggerated stereotypes of characters like the Dursleys become tone-deaf. The fun school rivalry of the House system is suddenly lacking in nuance. And then there’s the shift in tone: The wizarding world that we were introduced to as a marvellous place is revealed to be dystopian. You start thinking about how impractical things like owl messengers are, you start wondering if Slytherin is being unjustly punished, the bad history appears glaringly obvious, the quaint archaisms become dangerously regressive. Oh, and the grand feasts are made through slave labor! The wizarding world suddenly feels small and backward instead of grand and marvellous. J.K. Rowling’s bigotry throws it all into an even harsher light.

This is why I’ve always preferred the early books and films to the later ones. There’s a lot of things I like about the later ones, but they’re not as stylized — they don’t have The Vibe. Thinking about things too hard is just a necessary condition of adulthood, but it’s still possible to tell a dark, mature story that is highly stylized. I really think JKR could have better pulled off that shift if she was a more competent worldbuilder. But it is painfully obvious that she did not think things through, and probably didn’t understand why she had to. In her defense, she did not know that her story would end up being one of the most scrutinized of all time. As it stands, her strength in worldbuilding was in the softer, smaller, deliberately unexplained moments of magic that were there just to provide atmosphere. And there were less and less of those as the books went along.

Pretty much all the Harry Potter-related content released since the last film — including Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts, Hogwarts Mystery, Hogwarts Legacy, Magic Awakened, and that short-lived Pokemon Go thing — have been unsuccessful attempts at recreating The Vibe. In fact, the only piece of supplemental Potter content that I think had that Vibe down pat was the original Pottermore, back when it was more of an interactive game. And of course that got axed. That was right around the time things started going downhill.

Some of the art from Pottermore’s original Sorting quiz.

So what now? Well, that’s the question.

I think I can safely say that The Vibe was the reason I liked Harry Potter. It’s the thing I still like the most about it. I’ve spent years chasing it, like an elusive Patronus through a dark wood. If I can capture and distill that Vibe, and use drops of it in my own work, then perhaps I won’t need Harry Potter anymore.

I'm gonna write the story that I wish Harry Potter was, and when I'm a famous author, I won't become a bigot. I'll see you on the other side.

[wizardrousactivity]

CAN YOU DO AN ASK WHERE KONIG IS WITH A LITTLE FREAK!!!! Like she's very sweet and dainty but in the sheets she's an actual devil like she'll overstimulate him pls pls pls pls my little wizard pls i n

anything you ask for silly CW: König is depicted as an older man, also depicted as having exploiter traits but its only said once. He's just a freak idk TW: Smut, sperm cramps/ball cramps

The man himself, was in for a sweet surprise when he first met you, this little sweet thing that made equally the sweet treats.

He wasn't the kind who would purposefully buy desserts - always watching the weight he gained and lost, it was a truly bad habit, one he hasn't been able to get over since his teenage years up to his late 30's. But all of that previous baggage had gone down the drain once he saw you, unpacking loads of flours and goods, just on his daily walk. You gave him a warm smile as you hauled them over your shoulders, hoping he would come into your little bakery to shop. You were just a nice little baker after all, he wouldn't mind taking advantage of it. And here he is now, chest rising and falling shakily beneath you - as you milk him for all he's worth. He's trying not to be too loud as his balls cramp and tighten, but your pace just won't let up, your thighs were practically on fire from how much they burned with your constant motions. But it's all worth it if you get to see him break, reduced to an ant-hill in front of you. He's about to go cross-eyed from how dumb-fucked he's gotten, heaving out moans pathetically, begging for you to stop his umpteenth upcoming orgasm. "Hmg- Slow down..!" His voice was thin-laced beset by your previous actions, and his desire to release himself. You only chuckle, grabbing his cheeks so he only looks at you. The contortionist of his torture - his fingers dig into the mattress beneath him, and his eyes almost roll to the end of his skull as you start to squeal out and tighten around him. You bite into your bottom lip, gazing at him with heavy eyes. "One more time. Please Köni.." You whine out, and he couldn't refuse, especially not when you looked at him like that. "Ah-Ahuh.." He clumsily agrees, knowing you were lying, you just loved the feeling of his cock filling you up. Nice and full with his length. König whines at the coil in his lower stomach getting unbearably thin, your legs quiver in pain and your back arches twofold, equally as close as him. You muffle a maniacal sound of pleasure, a dumbed out, cheeky smile planted on your face. And he feels as if a succubus from the deepest parts of Hell has came to drink him, leave him dry of all fluids. Is that evident in the sounds he's making, his mewls getting faster and frequent, more panicked even. "Mgh-nein..!" All you can hear is inconsistent babbles, your nearing hours of edging and draining made him sensitive all over, you doubt he wouldn't cum just from the slightest touch or peck you give him. "Hah-- fuck!" He groans out like it was hurting him, unable to function and grab onto anything anymore - his arms fall beside him, teeth clenching tightly in an attempt to stop any more 'embarrassing' sounds threatening to escape. His legs shake with another intensely pleasurable orgasm dragged out of him, perhaps the edging did help.

[omegaversereloaded]

Youtube link by Zezaree Caligari

This one is for my freakssssss!!! It's a bit of a weird one so i don't really expect it to be as well-received as past poll songs, but I hope you enjoy Zezaree's bizarro-horror-batcave music! I'm sure there's more information on him online in Spanish, but he is based in Mexico! If any MX goths know more about him please let me know - but for the time being it seems that Youtube is his only social media.

So sorry for another late-in-the-day upload and for overall inconsistency - this has been a very busy month for me.

If this one's not for you, don't stop now – a lot of sounds fall under the goth umbrella and I'm trying to post different stuff every day. No repeats allowed~

If you like this song, I recommend these other songs by him:

[madeby-meru]

I have always seen the argument of "If you don't like it then stop playing" flying around since I have been in gaming communities and I have been thinking on writing a more detailed post on why I personally think that this statement doesn't truly fit in many of the complains about MCL NG.

Just as a heads up, I am not directing this to anyone in specific, honestly I can't even remember who has said this cause I have seen this comment across multiple social medias and various forums. So, to make things clear: I am only discussing the concept behind the argument, that's it.

Leaving it under the cut.

Now,

why do I think this response doesn't apply to (many of) New Gen critiques?

Lets use another free game with microtransactions as an example that I think will make things pretty obvious: the new Nikki game

If I came into that fandom and began complaining about the concept of style battles, of how focused it is on dressup, the storyline being about fashion... That is a me problem, that is my issue alone. I am complaining about the core of the game, about the purpose of it and about what makes the game what it is. I am not the target audience. I should, therefore, simply stop playing cause the game does not align with my taste and I am not gonna enjoy it.

I believe this is not what is happening with New Gen.

The most common critiques I have seen about it are: - The AP system (merging AP and Gold, expensive dialogue choices) - The style contest (unfair competition) - The price of packs (they are not simply cosmetics, they are means of earning more in-game currency, so they create an imbalance in the playerbase between those that can afford them and those that cannot) - The lack of transparency and communication with the company (announcements coming too late, not letting the players know what they will need to spend in events) - The timing of events (the pack event timings, overlapping) - The quality of the writing (inconsistencies, lack of a linear storyline, characters feeling OOC, nonsensical plots)

These complains are not a matter of taste, these complains are a matter of unfair treatment and poor quality (despite the cost of the game).

In this specific case, those of us that complain about these things are the target audience. We have a history of nostalgia, we like the personalization and dressup aspect, we like the adult setting and characters, we like the style of otome, we like the free option to play. And most importantly, I feel like most of us that complain so vehemently want to keep playing. We are still here for a reason, there is still something that keeps us logging in every day. We don't want the bad things to overpower the good ones.

"Don't play the game" feels like a dismissive argument here, it casts aside complains that should be made. You should complain about the poor quality of a product (specially if you have invested money and time in it), you should complain about the poor treatment you are receiving (feeling pushed to make purchases, feeling unlistened, feeling like you are not treated the same as other plaeyers, etc). These types of comments are necessary and beneficial. A critique that is well worded and based helps the game be better, a company should hope to receive those and not simply compliments. A company should what to fix what is wrong.

I think that the negative sentiment many players share its completely understandable and it should not be labelled as simply being hateful for no reason.

Of course I am not including hate for the sake of hate here. That may help vent when you're frustrated (valid) but it does not add anything or help in any way. Obviously, it's very easy to get wrapped up in the negative mindset and not allow yourself to enjoy the parts of the game that you do like and that you can find fun and engaging. It is important to take a step back every now and then and see when you may be being unfair (specially to other players, its unfortunately easy to get heated in a discussion and hurt someone else). And if you feel like the critiques towards the game and company are affecting you in any way, please step away from them. Mute, block, silence, keep your peace in your online experience and cater it to yourself <3

[brawlingdiscontent]

I've been seeing a lot of Armand discourse lately about different interpretations of him and which are wrong and unreasonable and why - and one thing I'm not seeing reflected is the utter ambiguity of his character as presented by the TV show.

We start off thinking he's a totally different dude and then all of a sudden he's like "PSYCH I'm the vampire Armand!" and Louis' like: "you know that guy I've been mooning about for the past seven episodes? The love of my life is actually this other guy!" What does the audience do in this case? Do we believe Louis? Do we mistrust him given his false memories that Daniel's just exposed?

The show doesn't give us Armand's POV, we only see other characters' perspectives of him, including Daniel's one of suspicion, and Louis' which fluctuates and is defined by inconsistencies. We know what he says about himself, but also from the moment he appears as Armand, in the very act of appearing the show frames him as a liar (or at the very least, someone who may engage in deceptive practices/be withholding something)! And this confusing ambiguity is only validated by the story as it goes on, including 2.5 and the twist in 2.8. Did Armand mess with a significant chunk of Louis' memories without his consent? Possibly! Did he only alter the end of the 1973 altercation and only because Louis asked him to? Also possibly! Did he always love Louis and never intended to manipulate him and this was all an unfortunate tragedy? Could be! Was he hung up on Lestat and insincere and manipulative with Louis from the start? OR pining after Daniel all of these years? Maybe!

And bringing out evidence to support any one interpretation of Armand's motives or beliefs is complicated because as the show (and 2.8 in particular) has demonstrated, this evidence could be later redacted/invalidated!

Absolutely there's an argument to be made for nuance, which the show tends to present us with, and for duality, the "both and-" which rings true to the complexity of the characters it constructs: Armand could be manipulative AND traumatized AND sincere in his intent all at the same time!

While some outcomes are less likely, there's so much about Armand that we simply can't definitively confirm until/unless the show more explicitly addresses this from Armand's and/or a detached, 'objective,' third-person POV. Sometimes folks have extra insight from the books/behind the scenes, but I also think it's a totally fair viewing experience to take what's being presented to you at face value without doing extra research (and in this case the show presents multiple possibilities).

I'm obviously not talking about racist takes here (and things get trickier when we're talking about patterns of responses that may be strongly informed by biases), and the most extreme takes can feel a bit far-fetched, but in general there are so many interpretations of the character that can't be definitively claimed to be wrong.

'How can you interpret him as x?' Pretty easily, actually. He is ambiguous! inscrutable! (And while this runs the danger of an Orientalist framing, I think the show avoids this as it seems to argue that he's not these things because he's Asian-- but because he's Armand! - and also because of the vagaries of the show's particular chosen storytelling devices).

TL;DR: Re: Armand, there is so much that the show has yet to clearly define about the character, making many possible interpretations valid. In the meantime, maybe the only thing we can agree on is that he didn't give a shit about Claudia!

(P.S. that last line is a joke!)

[niloksilverart]

Ignore how inconsistent the art style looks lol. In the messy beginnings of writing my story  'Is this a Brother?' I actually tried to draw a version of this scene. It wouldn't stop haunting my WIPs every time I even thought about drawing so I finally made an attempt at finishing it because I loved my little casual Ingo on the couch in the background too much to let it sit in purgatory

Chapter 3

Even after settling in at home, Emmet couldn’t find a reason why the International police wanted to talk about his brother and even when the suggestion of someone having mixed them up was floated they couldn’t find any reason why Emmet would be in trouble either. Unfortunately, they could also rule out a scam as they had previously had brief dealings with the agent known as Looker due to the Team Plasma incident. It was definitely him and his preferred contact number.

After a moment of consideration, Emmet concluded that the only way they could get answers would be to call him in the morning as it is late and he is going to bed.

That plan is dashed as his Xtransceiver starts to buzz with an inbound call. With the remains of his customer service façade, he answers.

“I am Emmet. It is the middle of the night. What do you want.” Probably could have been better.

“Ah… My apologies but you would agree that this is something very important, Mr Emmet we found your missing Brother Ingo earlier today in Sinnoh.” Brightly explains Looker.

“My brother isn’t missing. I saw him earlier today. In his usual place. Home. In Unova.” Emmet bluntly states.

“Are you sure that the Ingo with you isn’t a Zoruark?” Looker asks a little thoughtlessly, not realizing what a massive Faux pas he committed by insinuating that a twin was a Zoruark, especially a Unovan twin.

A cacophony of offended voices washed over him.

“HOW DARE-“ “MR LOOKER!!”

Emmet is only stopped from hanging up the phone in offence by the sound of his brother's voice coming from an unexpected direction, the Xtrans on his wrist.

“That is a very inappropriate thing to ask of anyone!” The voice continued.

Yep. That was definitely his brothers ‘I’m very disappointed in you' tone. He had a brief thought that maybe his brother was pulling a prank and calling from another room but that was quickly disproven when a second less offended voice sounded from behind him.

“Are you okay in there?” Ingo asked, peering into the room from behind Emmet. It seems Ingo’s voice was also picked up by the call as they seem to stop at the second Ingo voice.

“You didn’t even check if this Ingo’s shoes were missing before trying to get our Ingo to wear them!?” An incredulous-sounding child pipes up somewhere behind Looker.

“Of course I did! I called Gear Station and asked to speak with Subway Master Ingo and they told me he was missing!”

Both brothers look at each other and then back to the distressed-looking agent seemingly arguing with a child just off-screen.

His brother Ingo decides to step more clearly into the frame.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I had an unexpected day off due to some scheduling mishaps, I still don’t see what that has to do with my shoes, however.”

[bouquetface]

PAC: What’s the tea on him/her?

Keep in mind: Not every pac you come across will be for you. Take it as entertainment.

Photos are completely random have nothing to do w the content.

1-2

1.

THINGS THAT MAY BE SIGNIFICANT: CAP. AQUA. JACK HARLOW - AMBITIOUS.

This person is well known. They could be a social person. They could have a big following. It seems this person has reluctantly left a situation.

They felt you or this situation showed little effort or interest. Potentially, you work with them or they’ve decided to focus on work. They may have communicated this to you like “I’m focused on school/work right now” “I’m really busy right now” “I can’t right now”.

Yet, there is a 3rd person involved here. I’m not saying they’re a complete liar. They are focused on materialistic matters over relationships right now. That doesn’t mean they aren’t casually flirting/entertaining other options. This person could be attractive or social n flirty asf. It may come as no surprise they have other options. Whether this person is a man or woman, they have a female friend.

I’m unsure what your connection is to this person. It seems you have little to no contact with them right now. As I said earlier, this reading began with an ending type of energy. Someone cut ties with a friend or lover. They could have left a job and not a relationship too. They felt it showed little or no room for advancement.

They’ve ended something and now they’ve moved forward. Sorry pile 1 idk what you were expecting but I’m not picking up any serious tea/gossip.

You could be asking about a crush. If this is the case, they’ve left a relationship or job. Now, casually opening themselves up to new people.

If you’re asking about an ex friend or lover, they’re moving on. This where I strongly feel they’re getting close with a female friend. Regardless of your person’s gender, they are hanging out with this woman. She seems signifiant so I thought I’d mention her. This likely means something to someone specific.

Also, I keep getting the thought that a lot of you are thinking about a famous person. One of you or many of you are thinking about a celeb crush for this reading. If this is the case, they’ve ended a project or relationship. They’re fine and just living their life.

2.

THINGS THAT MAY BE SIGNIFICANT:

SCORPIO. LEO. PLAYBOI CARTI (i have only 4 songs of his in my Liked Songs. all 4 played on shuffle during this pile).

This person is currently very inconsistent in their moods. They go in and out of people’s lives. Very inconsiderate of other people’s time and energy.

“They’re too old to be acting this way” - The tea on this person is they’re immature. People are fed up with them. Coworkers, friends, family, love interests.

It could be due to external factors. School or work has put a lot of stress on them. For someone specific, this person could even be dealing with something very serious. A pet or friend could have died. As a result, they’re in chaotic energy right now. Sometimes they’re feeling fine, other times they’re wanting to disappear.

They are not someone who is being open with their feelings. As a result, other people are giving them a lot of shit. People don’t know what’s going on with them. They’re getting to a point where they don’t even care.

“[Person’s name] never gives a shit about anybody else’s feelings, why should I give a shit about theirs?” - This is the kind of thoughts people are having about this person.

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. It seems they could be going through something and have potential to do better. But it seems their recent actions have disappointed/irritated those around them.

They could possibly be cancelling plans all the time. Never showing up or showing up very late. If this is work related, it’s likely they’ve been given a warning. If it’s friend related, seems their own friends just don’t want to invite this person out anymore. What’s the point they never show up anyways?

They’re also very secretive. They may lying to some people. They could have literally stolen something. Once again, this person is being very inconsiderate and selfish. They aren’t focused on anybody but themselves. But with all this self sabotage behaviour, they’re barely taking care of themselves. If they’ve cut you out, know you’re likely not the only one who got cut out. That’s the tea on them.