#need to accept it and move on to living alone until i waste my whole life away. accepting might make it easier to deal with. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

qqueenofhades · 3 years ago

Text

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ��fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

#the green knight #the green knight meta #sir gawain and the green knight #medieval literature #medieval history #this meta is goddamn 5.2k words #and has its own reading list #i uh #said i had a lot of thoughts?

2K notes · View notes

watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

Text

Risk it - Harry Styles

a/n: this came so fast and typed most of it out at work lmao, but i kinda dig how it turned out!! hope you’ll like it too! as always, feedback is very much appreciated!

pairing: professor!Harry x Reader

warning: sexual content

word count: 11.8k

masterlist

You shake yourself a little bit to get rid of the spicy coldness that’s been lingering around in the city in the past few days. It’s only the end of August, but feels more like late October, though they say the warmness will return for a few more weeks shortly. That would be much needed, you’d love to enjoy some more lunches out in a park or down near the river before you are forced to withdraw into the insides for the rest of the year.

Looking around in the packed pub you look for the familiar golden locks of Piper and you quickly spot her in one of the corner booths, laughing joyfully with pinked cheeks probably from the almost empty pint of beer in front of her. Marching through the place you slide into the booth joining the group of three.

“And there she is!” Piper cheers.

“We thought you’re gonna bail on us,” Abigail snickers and you just roll your eyes.

“I said I would come, just had some work to finish before,” you tell them, shaking your cardigan down your arms quickly, the air is thicker, mustier and much warmer in here, but it’s not surprising, the pub is packed, just as usual on a Friday evening.

“You work way too much,” Piper shakes her head in disapproval as she downs the rest of her drink.

“I’ll be working way less from September.”

“Yeah, but you’ll spend the rest of the week in school, so it’s gonna be the same!” Mona chimes in with furrowed eyebrows.

“They promised me a fat raise if I get this degree within the next three years, I could definitely use the extra cash so I can finally buy my own place soon,” you explain.

You know they understand the situation and they wish you the best. They want to see you succeed in life and in your career, they just love teasing you about how dedicated you are towards your work, having to say immediately yes when your boss told you you’d get a new position and a raise if you finish the masters you never got to two years ago. You already had a handful of credits done that you’ll be able to get accepted, meaning you only have about one year worth of credits to finish in two years while working. It might get a little overwhelming to have an almost fulltime job and go to school but you’re determined to do this.

“We know, we know,” Abigail chuckles. “Alright, no more work or school talk tonight. We are here to let loose, so let’s get another round!”

Soon enough you are nursing a beer of your own, enjoying your time with your friends. It’s been long all four of you were free on the same night. Piper got married last year, Abigail’s work forces her to travel around a lot and Mona has a bitch of a boss, making her work overtime a lot, so it’s been hard to fix up a date that fits everyone. It’s been like this since you all finished your bachelors three years ago. You like to think you’re still a fresh little young adult who just barely stepped out into the big world, but it’s not true, hasn’t been for a while. You’re 24, you have a career, you live on your own, you take care of yourself fully. You are an adult, whether you like it or not.

Drink after drink, the four of you are getting tipsy, having an amazing time talking about the stories you shared back in university. Piper was your roommate first year uni, Mona and Abigail were in the room next to yours and you quickly became close friends, moved in for the rest of your studies until you all went your own ways after graduation, but keeping in touch as much as possible.

“I’m gonna get another one, but that’s gonna be my last one, because I have some work to finish in the morning,” you announce climbing out of the booth.

“No work talk!” Mona and Abigail shout at the same time making you laugh as you just wave them off and head to the bar.

You’ve been waiting for the line to get shorter, now only a few people are lingering around so you patiently wait for your turn, clutching onto your card in your hand. You don’t pay much attention to the tall guy next to you, only when someone bumps into you from behind and makes you fall against his side.

“Oh shoot, sorry! Someone pushed me,” you apologize immediately as the guy looks at you over his broad shoulder and your gaze meets a pair of green eyes framed with long lashes and a curious look in them.

“No worries, Love,” he smiles and you almost gasp at the British accent that laces through his voice. You take a quick moment to inspect the man, he is standing almost a full head above you, wearing a simple black shirt and brown slacks, a set of bulky rings sitting on his fingers that are spread out on the counter in front of him, his whole left arm covered in ink and you feel the urge to examine every figure on his golden skin. His chocolate curls are kind of a mess, but still look well placed, you bet he is the type who only runs his fingers through his hair and makes it look breathtaking. He is handsome and definitely your type, looks older than you, but you wouldn’t think he is over thirty.

“What’s your order?” he asks and your eyes snap up to him, realizing he is still looking at you.

“Huh?”

“What’s your order? I’ll get it for you so you don’t have to wait longer.” “Oh, I’ll just have a stout,” you tell him, feeling a little flushed from his offer. His eyebrows rise in surprise. “What?”

“Didn’t take you as a stout person is all,” he smirks at you as the bartender appears in front of him with his drink, asking if he wants anything else. “And a stout, please.” The guy nods and disappears to get your drink.

“I uhh—I only have card though,” you speak up realizing you can’t pay it back to him.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s on me.”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be fair,” you protest and he seems amused that you don’t just let him pay for your drink.

“How about this: you pay for the next round. Me and my mates are sitting over there, just come over when you finish this,” he offers, pointing at two guys sitting a few booths away from you and your friends.

“This was supposed to be my last round. I have to work in the morning,” you breathe out tilting your head.

“What? Work on Saturday? What kind of job is so cruel to make you work on a Saturday morning?” he asks with a boyish smile.

“One that pays my bills and most importantly my beer,” you chuckle softly.

“Okay, then make it just a soda,” he cheekily says and you feel giddy that this man is so keen on having another drink with you.

“I guess that could work,” you smile just as the bartender appears with your drink and the handsome man pays for the drinks, just then you realize you don’t even know his name. “I’m Y/N, by the way,” you tell him taking your beer. He tugs his wallet into his pocket before holding a hand out for you.

“Harry. Nice to meet you,” he smiles warmly and the moment you take his hand, you feel the tiny sparks. This man is surely something else. “I’ll be waiting for our next round,” he cheekily tells you raising his glass before the two of you part and go back to your own groups. As expected, your friends are already waiting for you with wide eyes and excitement, having witnessed your little chat with Harry at the bar.

“Who was that?! No, wait, it doesn’t matter. You need to go home with him!” Abigail smacks her hand to the table earning a chuckle from you.

“Don’t be dramatic, I just met him.”

“And you have to get to know him better. Deeper, you know what I mean?” Mona prompts.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you all. He is hot, but I’m not looking to day anyone right now.”

“You know, it’s starting to get boring to hear you say that you are just working on yourself these days. That’s not what you’re doing,” Piper gives you a look. “You are wasting your time on work and school and all these stuff that will be there when you’re older. Live a little, Y/N!” she begs.

“You guys make me appear like a no fun bitch, but that’s not who I am!” you defend yourself, though you know they just want the best for you.

“A fun bitch would ditch us right now and go over to their booth and then ride his dick all night.”

You gasp at the unfiltered answer you just heard from Mona, but deep down, you know she is right. You haven’t really let yourself be a little crazy in a while, your one night stands stopped the moment you graduated and stepped into the world of work. It just didn’t fit into your everydays, you had a lot to worry about, making a living and keeping your life on track, but you have it all now. What’s stopping you from hooking up with a cute guy?

“I’m not gonna just ditch you guys, came here to spend time with you!”

“Shut up, we are leaving then,” Abigail snaps, downing the rest of her drink in a blink of an eye and for a moment you’re speechless.

“What? No! We never get to spend quality time together, all four of us!”

“Honey,” Mona sighs. “We love you and we know you need this. So go, get the tatted hottie and we’ll meet up another time when you’ll get to tell us all about how good the D was.”

“Jesus, you guys are unbelievable,” you chuckle shaking your head, accepting the fact that they are really forcing you to do this.

They all quickly finish their drinks and get ready to leave, hugging you before they exit the place, leaving you alone in the booth. Staring down at the stout in front of you, feeling nervous to just walk up to the guys a few tables away, though Harry told you to go over, however he didn’t invite you to join their group, just promised another round.

You take a few long gulps, hoping the strong drink will bring out your courage and before you could talk yourself down you grab your bag and drink, heading over to Harry and his friends. He is sitting at the far end so he easily spots you walking over, perching up in his seat when he sees you approaching.

“Hey,” you greet them all with a shy smile, waving around. There’s a blond guy sitting across Harry and a brunette with equally as many tattoos on his arms as Harry.

“Hey, you haven’t finished your drink,” Harry observes with a small smirk.

“Um, no. But my friends left and I was wondering if I could… join you guys.”

“Oh, the honor is yours! Take a seat beautiful!” the blonde one immediately slides further into the booth so you can sit across Harry. “I’m Niall, what’s your name?”

“Y/N.”

“So very nice to meet you,” he grins at you, words thick with Irish accent. “That’s Louis over there,” he gestures towards the third man who nods in your way with a welcoming smile.

“Hi. I’m hoping I’m not interrupting though.”

“Oh, never,” Niall shakes his head immediately. “We saw you chatting up Harry at the bar, have been teasing him about going up to you since then,” he cheekily comments and you see Harry giving him a look, but Niall couldn’t care less.

All three of them are hilarious and you love the dynamic in their friendship. Niall is clearly the loud one, Louis is the cheeky who is always up for some mischief and Harry is somewhat the serious bloke, but it’s clear he doesn’t say no to any crazy ideas his two friends make up. You love the teasing and joking, they make you feel welcomed and as if you’d known them for longer than just an hour. As promised, you pay for Harry’s next drink, but you stick to just a lemonade, not wanting to overstep your own boundaries.

All while you’re sitting with the guys, you keep catching Harry eyeing you, your gazes meet over your drinks and at one point you feel his leg finding yours under the table, your ankles pressing together as he nudges you with his feet. You feel like a giddy teenager flirting with her crush, Harry’s effect on you is probably very clear too, but you don’t care.

Louis is the first one to leave and Niall follows not long later, leaving you alone with Harry. The nerves are raging in you as you try to figure out which way to take it. Though he seems like a nice guy, you still don’t want to take it any further than a hookup. Dating is just not in the cards for you right now. But how do you imply a one night stand? Do you ask him to come to your place? Or do you go to his? You would rather go to his so you can sneak out first thing in the morning, spare you an awkward talk over breakfast before you leave.

“We should… get going too,” you suggest and Harry nods in agreement, finishing up the last gulps of his beer. You take a deep breath and decide to just be straight forward. “Maybe I could go to yours? Have another round there?” Your suggestion comes out fainter than you intended, but you still manage to sound confident. Harry seems a little surprised, but he doesn’t voice it.

“Another? Thought you were done for the night,” he tells with an amused smirk.

“I’m sure you have something alcohol free,” you shrug innocently.

“I surely do,” he nods. “Alright, let’s get going.

He calls an Uber and the two of you sit close in the car, thighs touching and at one point his large hand finds your thigh, squeezing it gently that sets a fire in your core almost immediately. It’s been long you’ve been touched by a man, you were starting to forget what it feels like, but you know Harry will remind you well about it.

He lives in a nice townhouse and you note how it’s not too far from the campus you’ll be going to a lot in a week. He keys the two of you in, switching the lights on in his cozy home. It’s not messy, more like lived in. A lot of books everywhere, the furniture doesn’t match, but all together, the whole place is pulled together somehow. It’s very like him.

“So, what would you like to drink?” he asks walking into the open concept kitchen, grabbing two glasses from the cupboard. “I have some tea, orange juice, water…”

As you watch his broad back, his muscles moving under the soft fabric of his shirt, you quickly forget about any drink. You want him and you want him now. Walking up to him you slide between him and the kitchen counter, catching him by surprise when you cup his face in your hands and pull him down into a hard kiss, but a moment later his arms wrap around you, lifting you up from the ground until you are sat on the counter. You open your knees so he stands between them, his crotch meeting yours as you kiss messily, all tongues, tugging and nipping, but oh my! You absolutely love it. The man has a mouth full of magic and you can only imagine what else he can do with those lips.

A whimpered moan leaves your mouth when you feel his growing bulge rub against your core as his lips travel down your jawline and throat, kissing and licking on your heated skin.

“Harry, bedroom,” you demand grabbing onto his shoulders and he doesn’t waste a moment, picking you up into his arms and heading somewhere down the hallway. You can’t quite comprehend what way it is, you’re way too lost in the feeling of his lips on your collarbone and neck, surely leaving marks on you.

He lays you down to a king sized bed and gets on top of you right away, following his wandering down your body. His ring clad fingers work fast on the hem of your shirt, pulling it off you in a moment before he kneels up and gets rid of his own shirt. He looks breathtaking, all the tattoos littering his chest and stomach, you just want to kiss all of them, feel his skin on your lips.

As he unbuckles his leather belt you push down your skinny jeans, throwing the item to the side without ever taking your hands off him. The man surely has all your attention.

When his slacks join the rest of your clothes on the floor he climbs on top of you again, kissing down the valley between your breasts that are still covered in the lacy bra. Your underwear doesn’t match, but something is telling you Harry is more eager to see you without them than to examine them. When he hooks his fingers into your panties and starts pulling them down, you reach to your back, unclasping the bra and in a blink of an eye, you’re lying completely naked in front of him.

“Fuck, you look so hot, Y/N,” he breathes out before those magical lips start working on your nipples, making you moan and whimper under him.

Kissing down your stomach he spreads your thighs wide, gazing down at your naked sex and for a moment you feel a little self-conscious, but the lust in Harry’s eyes quickly makes it disappear.

“You’re gonna let me have a taste, baby?” he murmurs, sending shivers down your spine as you nod eagerly.

He is not a tease. Harry dives right in, his lips meeting your clit, working his magic and you cry out his name, fingers tangling into his locks to keep him in place, not that he is about to stop anytime soon. He clearly enjoys pleasuring you.

“Oh fuck!” you gasp when his tongue runs down your slit and he slowly pushes into you, making your back arch. You need him inside you, you need him to fill you up right now or else you’ll burst. “Harry,” you breathe out, tugging on his shoulders, urging him to come back up.

He climbs up your body, a satisfied smirk on his glistening lips and when he kisses you hungrily, you can taste yourself on him.

“Condom,” you urge him, hands pushing down on his briefs, lips still locked as he reaches to the bedside table. You hear the familiar sound of the package ripping before he leans back, your eyes falling on his naked erection for the first time and your lips part seeing his cock, knowing already he’ll feel you up so well. He rolls the condom on easily before returning to you, but you don’t stay in that position too long. You want to ride this man, see him come undone under you. Being on top is already one of your favorite positions, but with Harry, you just know it’s going to be amazing.

You push on his shoulder and he understands your intention without a spoken word, so he rolls to his back and lets you straddle him, glancing down at his cock that’s now grazing his lower stomach, so hard and throbbing just for you. His fingers dig into your hips when you wrap a hand around his length, positioning him to your center.

“Oh fuck!” he moans when you ease down, his cock filling you up inch to inch, feeling so amazing like nothing before.

“Shit,” you breathe out gasping when you sit on him fully, taking his whole length inside you, stretching your insides so nicely, your wet walls hugging him perfectly.

“You feel so fucking good,” he murmurs lowly as you start buckling your hips, moving back and forth, up and down, the friction you’re creating swallowing you up entirely.

Harry can’t take his eyes off you, a hand wandering up to cup your breast and you cover his hand with yours, encouraging him to squeeze, making you moan passionately. He starts buckling his hips in sync with your movements, meeting you with every little thrust, hitting just the right spots, building up your orgasm so easily like no man has ever done before.

“Harry, oh God!” you moan, falling forward, leaning onto your arms next to his head, your lips meet in a hungry and demanding kiss as he wraps his arms around your body, thrusting up into you hard and so good, you whimper against his lips.

“You’re gonna cum for me, baby? I wanna see you feel good,” he pants, never slowing down. A few moments later he rolls the two of you around, your back hitting the sheets again as he moves one of your legs to rest on his shoulder, hitting a spot that almost makes you see stars.

“Oh yes! There! Don’t fucking stop!” you cry out so loud, you can only hope the walls are thick enough to keep your voice locked in the room.

“Not planning to,” he chuckles shortly before burying his face in the crook of your neck. You hold onto him for dear life, fingers digging into his sweaty skin, feeling as if you are melting into him.

Harry rocks into you relentlessly, your toes curling as you feel your orgasm finally arriving, making you gasp for air.

“Harry! I’m gonna cum!” you moan and he lifts his head, never stopping, not even for a second. His green eyes lock on your gaze, curls flopping into his forehead as he watches you in awe.

“Let it go for me, baby. Cum all over me, I wanna see how good I’m making you feel.”

“So fucking good!”

He picks up his pace just enough to make you lose your mind. It hits you like a pile of bricks, your orgasm washing over you in intense waves as you moan his name again and again. Your walls clench around him and it’s enough to throw him over the edge as well. His thrusts become uncoordinated and harder as his mouth hangs open.

“Fuck, Y/N! You feel so fucking amazing!” he whimpers through his pleasure and you watch him fall apart, panting and gasping for air, trying to remember every little detail about him. This is an experience you surely won’t forget and will probably fantasize about a lot when you’re alone at home, playing with yourself, seeking release.

A few more sloppy thrusts later he stops, kissing your lips passionately before he pulls out and falls to the mattress next to you. You both need a few minutes to recover from it, just panting and laying numbly next to each other, Harry’s arm thrown over your stomach. You turn to the side and immediately meet his glistening eyes, filled with satisfaction and bliss. When he finally recollects himself he pecks your lips softly before leaving the bed. You watch him remove the used condom, tie it and toss it into the small trash can near his dressed before he moves to the bathroom. When he reappears, he is wearing a fresh pair of boxers and he has a wet washcloth in his hand. Sitting beside you he gently cleans you up as you murmur your thank you.

“Want something to sleep in?” he asks then and you nod. He grabs you a t-shirt and a pair of loose shorts that you put on gladly. They smell exactly like him, soap, something citrus-like and a hint of anise.

He returns to bed and pulls you into his embrace, you gladly make yourself comfortable curled up to his side. Lying there, feeling his fingers gently running up and down your arm almost makes you want more from him. You could get used to share a bed with him and it’s not just because of the mind-blowing sex, but he is a lovable person. You feel bad you’re planning to leave without a trace in the morning, but then you tell yourself it’s what has to happen.

Harry doses off soon and you follow him right after, the warmth of his body puts you to sleep easily. When you wake up it’s still clearly early. Harry is sleeping soundly next to you, face squished into the pillow and you almost stay, wanting to see what he’s like in the morning, but you don’t let yourself change your mind.

You get dressed into your own clothes and leave the ones he lent you on top of his dresser. You tiptoe out of his room and grab your bag before looking for a piece of paper and a pen. You quickly scribble down a short note for him.

“Had fun last night. Hope you won’t be mad, but I only saw it as a one night stand. You’re an amazing man, Harry. I’m glad we met. Xx –Y/N”

It’s more than nothing, than leaving without a word and you don’t let the guilt take over you. Taking one last look around, glancing in the way of the bedroom where he is still asleep, you pack it all up and put it to the back of your mind before walking out.

The last week before your classes start passes by faster than you imagined. It’s your last week fully in the office so you try to work a little ahead, staying in afterhours so you won’t have that much to take care of while you get used to being a uni student again. You usually get home after nine and basically fall into bed right away, and you even work during the weekend before the Monday when school starts. You go to bed way too late so it’s not a surprise you wake up late. You get ready in a rush, throwing out your plan to get a coffee on your way out the window since you are way behind time. Running across campus you’re lucky you already know your way around so you don’t have to wander around, looking for the room you have to be at, but even when you finally reach the right hallway you’re ten minutes late to the class.

Introduction to International Relations, held by Prof. Styles, 8.30-10.00, it reads on the little timetable attached to the way next to the closed doors and you pray the man didn’t start in time, so you’d be late with just a few minutes. Taking a deep breath you push the door open trying to make no sound and unfortunately, you are met with an auditorium full of people, everyone looking at you as if it was against the law to be a little late to class.

What the Hell is wrong with students these days? Being late was usual when I was a freshman, you think to yourself as you step inside, closing the door behind you, getting ready to apologize to the professor.

“I’m so sorry, Professor Styles, I—Shit,” you end your sentence with a whisper as your eyes fall on the man standing on the podium. He hasn’t turned to you, his eyes are fixed on a paper in his hand, probably the syllabus because he must have been in the middle of introducing the class, but the sudden whispering that starts upon your apology that turned into shit, he finally looks up and his eyes fall on your frozen figure.

Professor Styles is none other than Harry. As in The Harry you met at the pub a week ago, had the best sex with and left without leaving your number to him in the morning. Now he is staring back at you with the same amount of panic and surprise as you.

“What—I uhh…” He clears his throat, looking around and seeing about a hundred pairs of curious eyes who are witnessing the awkward run-in. “Take a seat,” he then firmly says, clenching his jaw as you nod.

With your heart beating in your throat you keep your eyes down on your feet as you rush over to a free seat somewhere at the front, since the back is already kinda full.

“So, uhh—As I was saying this is an introduction so we’ll talk about a lot of different topics, I want you to have a view of the most important aspects before moving onto separate fields.”

You don’t dare to look up as Harry talks about the class, the syllabus, how the semester will be built up and what you’ll have to do to pass. Scribbling your wobbly notes, you nervously bounce your legs under the desk, flashbacks from your time with him popping into your mind through the whole lecture.

This feels like something straight out of a ridiculous movie. How is it possible, that the one time you finally decide to have a one night stand with a hot guy, he turns out to be your professor?! That’s just your luck, it seems.

Harry doesn’t drag the lecture long, dismisses everyone after an hour once every question has been answered. You plan to escape right away, but it turns out Harry doesn’t want to just sweep it under the rug.

“Can I have a word with you?” he asks stepping to your desk as you are furiously shoving your stuff into your bag.

“Uh, sure,” you nod, not like you have a choice. You’d love to run, but he is your professor, it would sit well if you ditched him on the first day of school.

You slow your packing down so you finish right when the last student has left the room. Grabbing your bag you turn to face Harry who now seems furious, vivid if you might say. He strides over to the door and shuts it before facing you.

“You said you’re working!” is the first thing he throws at you, making you raise your eyebrows.

“Because I am! I’m finishing my masters so I can get a promotion!” you defend yourself.

“Wait, so how old are you?” he asks with a puzzled look.

“I’m twenty-four, what did you think?” You feel offended, did he think you were younger or older? Neither would sit well anyway, so there’s no good answer.

“I-I don’t know, but when you walked right into my class I surely thought you were twenty or something,” he explains exhaling sharply. “Okay, so twenty-four. But still, you could have told me you are a student here.”

“Excuse you? Why would have I told you, we met that night, of course I didn’t share my whole fucking life with you! Besides, you didn’t say a thing about being a college professor either,” you spat at him and it seems like he realizes your argument is quite valid. He can’t blame it all on you.

“Okay, you’re right. Sorry.”

There’s a short silence as the anger dies down and the awkwardness and shock returns. It’s such an impossible situation, you never thought you’d have to deal with anything similar. Having an affair with your professor? This shit is straight out of some teenage drama.

“I can… drop the lecture, if you want. Only took it as extra credit, because I was interested in it,” you offer the first rational option that comes to your mind.

“No, I mean… you don’t have to. Messing around with credits at this time sucks, you wouldn’t be able to find something else.”

“Okay, so then what?”

“I guess we’ll just pretend like nothing happened,” he shrugs before his eyes meet yours. “Like you did in the morning when you left without leaving your number.”

His comment spikes, you can tell he was hurt that you didn’t stay, though now is probably not the best time to bring it up.

“Well, sorry. I didn’t think of it as more,” you dryly say.

“That’s not how you came off, however. Having laughs with me and my friends like we’ve known each other for years and then…” he doesn’t finish, but you have an idea what he wanted to say. And then you had insanely good sex and fell asleep cuddling. It feels illegal to even think about it in this building.

“Look, I’m really sorry I left like that, but look at it this way: if we would have taken it further, it would be way worse now, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe we would have talked more later and found out about this and wouldn’t have had to face each other under these circumstances.”

He has a point, but it doesn’t matter now. The past is the past and you have to figure out how to treat this odd situation.

“You think you can forget about it and we can be professional? I really don’t want this to affect my studies,” you truthfully ask. Harry stares at you for a long moment before nodding.

“I think we can make it work. We are both adults, let’s put it behind us.” You nod, satisfied with his answer. “So what’s your major and why do you need it for your job?”

“It’s communication. I’m set to take over our international partnership groups, but the board is set on having someone with a higher degree. I told my boss I started it back then but never finished when I started working. He said I would instantly get the position if I finished my masters, so… here I am.”

Harry nods, chewing on your answer. Suddenly, as you look at him, guilt washes over you. He is such a genuine and lovely man, yet you left so abruptly, never even giving him a chance. Not that it would have made this situation any different, but it seems like you hurt him.

“Harry, I really am sorry for leaving. I had a great time with you, but I don’t think dating just fits into my life right now. I felt like you’d want more and I didn’t want to deal with all the explaining and apologizing.”

“I get it. It just would have been nicer to talk it out. Not that it makes a change now,” he adds with a soft smile.

“So we’re good?” you ask hopefully.

“Yeah. Professional and all,” he smiles nodding and you feel like a rock has been lifted off your shoulders.

“Great. Well, I guess I’ll see you later, professor,” you add a little cheekily and you see the fire in his eyes instantly, but he holds his tongue, not commenting on how sexual it sounds from your mouth. You couldn’t miss out on the teasing.

“Dismissed,” he nods turning away from you as he walks back to his desk. You walk out with the longest sigh that’s ever left your lips.

“Professor Styles! You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Piper screams at you over Facetime later that week when the two of you have your usual little chat. You’re making dinner while she lies on her couch, staring at you from the screen with the widest eyes. You just told him the whole thing with Harry and she almost choked. “The man is a professor? This shit is wild!” “Not just a professor, he is my fucking teacher, Piper!” you chuckle awkwardly. You still haven’t fully wrapped your mind around the fact that you hooked up with your professor.

“How old is the dude to be teaching at a university?”

“Well, he said he is twenty-nine. I might have done a little search and since he is british, schooling was a little different for him. Apparently, he finished high school early as a fucking genius that he is, then uni, masters and everything. He started teaching at my school two years ago. The guy is like a big name in the field of social sciences.”

“Damn, he is a gem. So what’s gonna happen now? Y’all gonna fuck on his desk after class?”

“Piper!” you snap at her.

“What? I hope you’re not thinking about passing on him.”

“I passed on him way before I knew he was my professor. We can’t have anything going on because one, he is my professor and two, because I’m not looking for anyone to date.”

“You are so full of bullshit, Y/N,” she snorts. “So what if he is your professor? Just for this semester. Keep it a secret and then it’s done. You’re not some eighteen year-old freshman, he is just five years older than you.”

“You can’t be serious,” you shake your head. “I’m not going to have an affair with my teacher.”

“Not an affair, a relationship! You gotta hold onto good dick if you find one. This is what I did with Ronan,” she smirks satisfied.

“Yeah, it’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Piper, have you been listening to what I was saying?” you ask in disbelief. “Yeah, five years is not much, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule against teachers dating students.”

“Rules are for losers. You literally found the perfect guy and you’ll just throw him away? Said it yourself after your hookup that you liked the guy. Why are you being so difficult?”

“Sorry for not wanting to get myself or Harry out of the university,” you scoff turning the stove off under the sauce before you burn it all.

“Harry? So you’re just calling him Harry?” Piper wiggles her eyebrows at you, leaning closer to the camera and you just groan at her. How was this the only thing that stuck to her?

“I can’t fucking believe you,” you mumble under your breath.

“Okay, yeah, I get you. I truly do. But I’m also your friend who wants to see you happy. So I’m just saying that if he makes a move… be open. He is your professor for only one semester, so once it’s over you are free to do whatever. Fuck, date, anything.”

Soon enough you fall into a pattern with your everydays. Mondays, Tuesdays and Friday mornings are for school. Wednesdays and Thursdays are spent on campus at your lectures and you usually go into the office on Friday afternoons to make sure everything works fine before you go off for the weekend. Having so many credits accepted from before, you have less classes meaning that you have less work to do with school as well. There are a few papers and assignments, but nothing too crazy. You genuinely enjoy your classes, each of them unique in a different way but if you’re being honest, Harry’s class is your favorite. He has done a great job at building up the lectures. Introduction classes tend to be shallow and boring, but not Harry’s. He has chosen interesting but still important topics and he makes sure the students are always involved and he isn’t just reading up his slides dully. There are a lot of discussions, everyone gets to tell their opinion and Harry genuinely seems interested in anything his students have to say.

You also came to realize his class is full of girls, only a handful of men dared to sign up. You didn’t pay attention the first time for obvious reasons, but as you looked around the next week you saw heart eyes and lustful gazes towards the man standing on the podium talking. You’re not sure if Harry doesn’t notice it or just chooses to ignore it, but he is doing a good job at staying professional. In the aspect of your situation as well.

For a bit you were afraid he would have hard feelings towards you or treat you differently, but it’s not the case. You are just another pair of curious eyes and ears at his lectures, only that sometimes you catch yourself daydreaming about that one night. When that happens you can always feel yourself blushing and an irrational fear that Harry can hear your thoughts invades your mind, though it’s stupid. But you always try to stay low just in case.

It’s early October when an unexpected project lands in your hands at work, setting you back in your schedule. You work through the weekend just to get it right but that means that you couldn’t start working on your paper for Harry’s class that has to be turned in by the end of the week. So next Monday morning when class is over you walk up to him to ask for some more time.

“Hey, can I have a word with you?” you ask and as he glances up at you he seems surprised you initiated a private conversation.

“Sure, what’s the matter?”

“I just wanted to ask if I could have just a little more time to turn my paper in. I know it’s due Friday, but I’m a little behind and it would be amazing if I could work on it on the weekend. I’m sure I’d be done by next Monday.”

You’re afraid he might think you want to use your history and take advantage of it, but it seems like Harry looks more concerned than upset about your request.

“Yeah, sure. Everything alright though?”

Your eyes wander around the room, only a few more people are left inside and they are heading out as well. For some reason, you are a little paranoid that someone might figure out what happened between you and Harry though it’s nearly impossible.

“I’m good, I just got some extra work last week and it totally threw me off.”

“Oh, what kind of project?”

“I just have to put together a communication plan for three of our partners and it’s taking way more time than I expected,” you admit with a chuckle.

“I think I have an amazing book about international communication plans. I could lend it to you, if you’d like. It has amazing tips on sustainability.”

“That would be… amazing,” you say, surprised by his nice offer.

“Are you on campus tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I have a lecture. I can come by your office.”

“Fantastic,” he smiles warmly. “And don’t worry about the paper. You’re not the first one to ask for more time. If you hand it in on Monday it’s gonna be perfectly fine,” he assures you.

“Thank you Harry. I-I mean Professor Styles,” you correct yourself, feeling awkward that you called him by his first name, but he just chuckles.

“You can call me Harry outside class.” “Okay,” you smile nodding. “Then, see you tomorrow,” you say as you leave the room.

You spend the rest of the day working unfortunately, still a lot to do with your project. It’s hard to harmonize three different companies from three nations, working in different time zones. The next day you decide to skip your lecture in the noon. The professor is not too strict on attendance so you’re just gonna find a nice coffee place, set up a temporary office and work some more so you can finish everything on time.

You find Harry’s office easily. The door is open and you spot him sitting behind his desk right away, searching for something in a stack of papers. His office resembles a lot to his home, it has a cozy vibe but looks still very much academic with all the books lining on the shelves on the two sides of his desk. You knock on the doorframe as you arrive and his green eyes shoot up to your figure.

“Hey! Come on in!” he smiles at you. “Just a moment please,” he asks, still vigorously flipping the pages until he finally stops. “Here it is, I’ve been looking for it for ages,” he mumbles to himself and you smile. He looks a lot like the version of him you met at the bar. A fun, nice guy, clearly a little lost in his own world, but it amuses you rather then annoys. You wonder what could be happening in that brilliant mind of his.

He pushes himself away from the table and walks over to his bag that lies on the small sofa in the corner. Digging into it he pulls out a thick book that he hands over to you.

“Wow, lengthy,” you chuckle as you flip through the pages quickly.

“Yeah, looks a little dry but I promise it’s good. I put a note to the chapters that are the most relevant to you,” he explains and just then you spot a yellow post-it on one of the pages, a few more following behind.

“Oh, thank you. That’s really nice of you.” You smile up at him warmly, holding the book to your chest. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I’m done.”

“Take your time,” he nods. “And how is it going so far?”

“Uh, it’s… going,” you say with a tired chuckle. “It’s a little tricky, but I’m sure I’ll solve it. I’m gonna work some more on it now, so hopefully I’ll be done within the next few days.”

“You’re not going to class?”

“No, I allowed myself a skip this week so I’m gonna find a café or something.”

“You could… stay here, if you’d like. I could even help if you let me have a look at it. I mean I’m not an expert in communication but I’m good with multicultural stuff.” His offer catches you by surprise and for a moment you want to say no, but then you realize he might actually be helpful. Another set of eyes is always beneficial.

“You don’t have a class?”

“Not until four, no.”

“And you sure I can stay? I don’t want to bother you.”

“You’re not. Please, I would love to take a look at what you’ve put together.”

You hesitate for another moment, but then let your bag slip off your shoulder as you walk over to the armchair in front of his desk.

You pull your laptop out of your bag and set it on the table so both of you can see from the two sides of the desk. You open up what you have so far, explaining it in details and Harry listens intently, nodding and humming along so you know he is following. At the end you tell him your concerns, the ones you’ve been trying to rule out these past few days so you can finish it all up.

“This looks amazing, Y/N. I’m very impressed by the way you synchronized it all.” “Thank you, but it’s not perfect, so I have a lot to work on. Any thoughts though?”

Harry asks you a few questions before he gives his two cents, telling you what he would do and change. His point of view actually helps a lot, allows you to see the whole thing from a different angle and he gives you some awesome tips. Before you could realize, the two of you are deep in the project, all kinds of books splattered across his desks as you work together to finish the thing. Two hours pass by as it was just two minutes, but at the end, you have it all figured out.

“Oh my God. I can’t believe it’s done!” you breathe out, scrolling through the document you put together for your boss. Everything is put together, well-thought and in place, thanks to Harry’s help. “Harry, thank you. You literally saved my life,” you chuckle softly, leaning back in the armchair you haven’t left in hours.

“You had a strong base, I just helped you find a few solutions, but it was all you.”

“Don’t belittle it, you literally had so many ideas even in fields you are not familiar with. You really are a genius.”

“I’m just good at using my sources,” he smiles at you, glancing down at all the books he has pulled out during the process. “It was fun working on something so practical, I’m way too used to literal things.”

“Oh stop, you want me to feel bad because you are this ridiculously smart college professor who doesn’t get to work on practical projects?” you tease him earning a boyish smile.

“Maybe I do want that.”

“Well, you’re not getting it,” you laugh and he joins you. Once the mood settles you realize how good it felt to be around him. The dynamic the two of you had was so great, working with him felt like a fun activity. And now that you’re done, you really don’t want to leave this office though you know you have to.

“You know, I might come to you with work stuff all the time. You just spared so much time for me, I really thought I wouldn’t finish before Friday.”

“My door is always open,” he smirks shrugging. “I’m glad we got to work together. You really are great at what you are doing. Your boss is lucky to have you around. I’m sure you’ll be an amazing group leader once you get your degree.”

“Thank you.”

His compliment actually means a lot. Aside from this weird situation, Harry is a brilliant mind in his field. Hearing him tell you that he thinks you are doing an amazing work is such a boost to your ego.

“Well, I owe you one for this,” you tell him as you start packing up.

“Yeah? I’ll keep that in mind for sure,” he smirks, watching you put your things away.

“Mhm, see you around, Harry,” you smile, waving in his way before walking out.

“See you, Y/N.”

Thanks to Harry you get to turn in your project in time and write his paper until the original due date as well. You send it in email and for your biggest surprise he answers later that day.

“Glad you could finish in time, can’t wait to read your thoughts on the topic! –H”

It’s a simple message, but what catches your eyes is the signature at the end. It reads his full name, Prof. Harry Edward Styles, the school’s name, his official office hours and at the very end… his phone number.

Looking at it you think it seems a little out of place, as if it doesn’t belong there originally, he just added it to your email, but you can’t tell. Is this a hint? Does he want you to call or text him? What if he puts it into every email, not just yours? Would it be awkward to text? Why do you even want to text him in the first place? You agreed to stay away from him!

It keeps eating you the whole evening, staying on your mind, doesn’t matter what you do. After you’ve drunk a glass of wine with your dinner you finally make up your mind, convincing yourself it’s strictly friendly as you type in the words.

Y/N: Turned my project in, my boss already emailed me he likes it so far. Thanks for the help again. –Y/N

His reply comes fast and luckily, he doesn’t question why you decided to text him.

Harry: Glad I could help! Ran over your paper, looks great too. You’re doing an amazing job, Y/N.

There’s no stopping after that. The two of you keep talking through texts and though it’s all casual and friendly, you don’t feel bad about it, because in class, you still keep it professional and you have no advantage. He treats you just like any other student, keeping your friendship away from whatever happens in the classroom.

The line slowly starts to blur, however. You think way more about Harry than you should and you actually find yourself regretting that you’re not able to get as close to him as you want. He fascinates and attracts you in ways no one ever could before and something is telling you he shares these feelings, but you are both keeping it at bay, afraid what would happen if you let your desires take the lead. You just wish you could go out with him, have drinks with him and his friends like the night you met him, forget about how he would always stand on the podium on Monday morning no matter what happens and he’ll be grading your papers. Mixing feelings with this impossible situation might turn it into a disaster and you know you have to stay strong, but it’s getting harder.

Harry is the kind of teacher who likes to finish his class before everyone else, so when December rolls around everyone already has their grades from the papers that had to be turned in through the semester, so when December rolls around it’s all just free talks, he starts interesting discussions about topics students want to talk about. His lectures feel like free time but still, no one skips them because they are always so entertaining and interesting.

“Alright, we’ll meet for the last time next week. As per suggested, we’ll talk about the European Union so get your questions and thoughts ready,” he smiles around, ending the lecture. “Y/N? Can we talk for a second?”

“Sure,” you smile at him. Putting your things away you walk up to his desk much more carelessly than before.

“So I have a question and you can totally tell me if you don’t want to go, but there’s this great International Affairs Summit next weekend just a few towns over, not more than a two hours ride. I thought that you might be interested in going? They’ll have some awesome presentations and displays, thought it might interest you.”

For the first time since you’ve met him, he seems nervous, stumbling over his words a little as he avoids looking into your eyes. He looks so much younger, not at all like the respected professor that he is. He is just Harry now, the guy you bonded over that stout he paid for.

“Sounds nice,” you answer smiling at him, he seems surprised at your answer. “I would love to go.”

“Really?” You chuckle at his disbelief.

“Really.”

“Just to be clear it’s not a school thing, it’s gonna be the two of us,” he clears and your grin widens.

“It’s clear. Still want to go.”

“Amazing,” he breathes out, a smile finally tugging on his lips. “I can pick you up in the morning.”

“Sure. Can we discuss the details in text? I have a meeting soon.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. We’ll talk later,” he nods enthusiastically, seemingly very joyful that you agreed to go on this trip with him.

“See you later, Harry!” you wave at him walking out of the classroom.

“Later!”

Piper would be very satisfied to know that you are going away with Harry this weekend. Though you still try to tell yourself it’s nothing more than just a friendly thing, you’re not fooling yourself. You want it to be more and now that the semester is over, your doubts and fears are almost fully forgotten and left at the beginning of September. Soon Harry won’t be your professor and you now see that it wouldn’t be that bad if something more happened between the two of you. You grew close through the year even though you only kept in touch through phone, appearing publicly wasn’t really an option, but still, you got to know him better and you liked him. A lot. There was no use in denying that.

Harry picks you up early in the morning and so the little trip begins. You take control over the music and play some of your favorites to him while he drives, educating him on recent popular music. Then he shows you some of his favorites, playing a lot of Fleetwood Mac and you weren’t expecting anything else from him.

He looks great today in a creamy colored knitted sweater, black wool coat and grey checkered slacks. His hair is now longer than when you met him for the first time, but it just adds to his amazing look, he rocks it pretty well.

The two hours pass by fast and you arrive to the Summit. Checking out the program the two of you choose the presentations you’re most interested in, leaving some time in the middle of the day to have lunch somewhere near.

You choose a sandwich bar that has a nice winter garden at the back looking out to a little pond. You sit at a small table, the conversation hasn’t stopped since the morning, only paused when the presentations were happening, but you always picked up right where you were before. Harry tells you about his time at university back in the UK and you’re a little surprised to hear that he was kind of a wild kid for a while.

“You? Wild?” you laugh. “I can’t picture it.

“It was mostly the first year though. Felt like I can’t miss out on anything so I was at every party and gathering,” he chuckles softly.

“And why did you stop?” “I don’t know,” he shrugs, but you know he is not telling you the truth, so you gently kick his leg under the table. “Alright, but you can’t laugh!”

“I won’t, I promise!”

“It sounds very nerdy, but I fell in love with studying. I mean I was always a good student, that’s why I could finish high school earlier, but I did it to be done with it already. But then I grew an odd love to studying, to learning new things. I wanted to read every book there is, know everything in the world.”

“And do you know everything now?” you ask with a soft smile, completely in awe with how he talks about his passion for sciences. You don’t find it funny at all, more admirable.

“Not even a fraction of it,” he chuckles. “But I learn something new every day,” he shrugs.

“What did you learn today?”

“That Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus had… beef?” He is a little unsure about the last word that you taught him today in the car when you were listening to a song from Miley. It sounds so funny hearing from his mouth.

“Yeah, beef,” you nod chuckling. “Great knowledge you’ve learned today.”

“I learn a lot from you,” he smiles cheekily. “But really. I’m glad you could come today. Felt like I needed to take this step since you took the one before this.”

“Huh?” you ask, a little confused about what he is talking about. Then, as if he realizes he just said something he shouldn’t have, he chuckles nervously, keeping his eyes on his iced tea on the table.

“Well, I hope this won’t be too weird, but when you emailed me your paper back in October and I replied… I put my phone number into my signature and told myself that if you use it, I’ll take it as a hint that you… are open to more. And you did send me a text, took the risk so I thought I should be taking it next.”

You look at him in awe. So you were right, he did put his number in just for you and wanted you to use it. You’re amazed at how sneaky he was to find out how you’re feeling about him, but now you’re glad you took the risk and texted him.

“So you asked me to come today. I see where we are standing,” you nod smirking.

“You’re not mad? At the number thing?”

“Why would I?” you ask with a soft chuckle. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, but we agreed to keep it professional and all along I yearned for something more and threw you this hint. When I sent the email I wanted to take it back immediately, thinking that you’d see through me right away,” he admits.

“Well, I didn’t,” you tell him making him laugh. “I debated for a long time whether I should text you or not and then just… said fuck it!”

“I’m glad you did,” he smirks and his gaze holds yours for a little, you can feel the moment you’re sharing. This conversation has definitely opened a door for the two of you.

The rest of the day passes by peacefully. You love having Harry with you and discuss the presentations with him later. He has a great mind, you love sharing your thoughts with him, get deep whenever something really catches your attention. It’s so easy to talk to him and you actually feel like he values your thoughts, unlike some men you had to deal with in the past.

During the ride back home you keep thinking about whether you should take it any further or not. You surely don’t want him to be just a one night stand anymore, it’s still very fresh but you actually feel like you’ve started falling for him and you wonder where he is standing in the situation right now. Today has changed a lot so when he parks in front of your building, you decide to just risk it again, like you did it so many times with him.

“Would you want to come up for a little? I could show you that article I talked about today,” you say, trying to sound calm though you see the surprise in his eyes, he wasn’t expecting this invitation.

“I… would love to. You sure it’s not too late?”

“Positive,” you smirk at him unbuckling yourself.

He follows you up to your apartment. It’s definitely not as big as his home, but you take pride in it. It’s the perfect size for you and you’ve worked a lot on making it your home. Harry is looking around, inspecting the place as you walk into the small kitchen and grab two bottles of beer, offering one for him.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, following you to sit on the plush couch you adore so much. It feels like a cloud is swallowing you up. “This place suits you.”

“Thanks. You know, this is what I thought about yours too.”

“Yeah? I think mine is just a mess,” he chuckles, taking a sib from his beer.

“It’s a good mess. Liked it.”

There is some tension, but in a good way if you might say. As if you both were unsure about where it’s heading, walking on eggshells, not knowing where the boundaries are lying as of right now.

“You know, the semester is almost over,” you imply, giving him an innocent look.

“I’m very much aware of that, the pile of tests on my desk waiting to be graded reminds me every day of it,” he chuckles making you smile too.

“Mhm and it also means that very soon you won’t be my professor anymore.”

You scoot closer, your knees coming in contact with his thigh and he sucks on his breath, looking down at the spot where you two touch. You really hope he won’t turn you down, because you’ve already gotten your hopes up about making it work.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” you nod confidently. He doesn’t move and you’re losing patience. So grabbing his beer from his hand you place his and yours as well to the small coffee table before shamelessly swinging a leg over him, sitting on his lap. Your hands rest on his broad shoulders and his hands immediately find their way to your waist, his thumb caressing the skin that shows from under your ridden up shirt. However you see hesitation in his eyes.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on in your head, talk to me,” you ask him softly, tilting your head to the side.

“I just… I know soon it’s gonna be alright for us to… you know. But I… I hope you know it’s not a game for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I’m all in, Y/N. I know it’s been a crazy few months, but I really like you. A lot. I love talking to you, I love it when you are talking so passionately about things that interest you. I love how open and hardworking you are. I think that you’re an amazing person and I don’t want this to just be some passing, quick thing. I’m serious about this. About you.”

You can’t hold your growing smile back as your hands move up to cup his cheeks. Leaning closer you peck his lips softly.

“Great. Because I’m serious too.”

Harry breathes out in relief and a second later he is kissing you hungrily, letting his desire take over after holding back for so long. You weren’t the only one having a hard time during lectures. He hated how he always found himself looking in your way, thinking about how beautiful you are, how amazing it felt to hold you in his arms and it ached his heart that he had to keep himself so far away from you. When you took the risk and texted him, he could cry in excitement and he knew right in that moment that he is fucked for you.

Though it started a little rocky, now that he has you in his arms again, he wouldn’t change a thing, because it brought him to this very moment and he is overwhelmed with joy. He is more than ready to show you how serious he is about you, not just with his words but his actions, so he is quick to leave the couch and navigate into your bedroom to relive that mind-blowing night the two of you shared back in late August.

“Congrats, Miss Y/L/N. We are looking forward to seeing you work your magic as the leader of the group.” The executive manager shakes your hand and you see your boss from the corner of your eye, looking at you proudly.

“Thank you. I won’t disappoint,” you smile back.

You say your goodbye to everyone else in the room before finally heading out with the widest smile on your face. You did it. You finally got the promotion.

You finished your masters just a month ago and this meeting was scheduled almost immediately. For a while you were afraid they wouldn’t wait until you finish your studies, but they proved that they wanted no one else but you, making you feel so valued.

Walking back to your office you do the rest of your work left for the day, finishing up every pending task so you can be free for the weekend. When five o’clock finally comes you pack up and head out. Pushing through the double doors you step out into the warm July afternoon, immediately spotting a mop of curls you know all too well. Harry is waiting for you leant against his car with a huge bouquet of flowers, smiling at you with pride as he watches you cross the parking lot.

“What’s this for?” you ask teasingly when he pushes himself away from the car and kisses you softly before saying anything.

“A little something to celebrate your promotion.”

“How do you know I got it?” you ask, trying your best to sound serious. He narrows his eyes at you in suspicion.

“I knew you’d get it, who else would get it? Did they not fucking give it to you?” he asks, working himself up at the thought that you weren’t the one to get promoted.

“Relax, I got it,” you chuckle, wrapping your arms around his neck to kiss him a little longer this time.

“I was ready to fight whoever I needed to,” he mumbles against your lips, a smirk tugging on the corners of his mouth.

“What a gentleman,” you giggle pecking his lips again.

“That I am. And not just because I would throw a fist for my love, but because I knew you’d get it so I went ahead and booked us a mini vacation for this weekend. So let’s head home, you have thirty minutes to pack before we leave,” he smirks down at you, clearly satisfied with himself.

Harry is always full of surprises. In the one and half year you’ve been officially together, he never failed to surprise you with the tiniest things, make you feel loved and appreciated no matter how long you’ve been dating.

“Where are we going?” you ask in excitement, eyebrows shooting up on your forehead.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

Harry listened to every hint you’ve dropped how you’d love to spend some time away in some cabin in the woods, disconnecting from the world just for a little and he found the perfect place for that a few hours away. He knew you’d be the one to get promoted so he took the risk to book it weeks ahead, making sure you’ll have the perfect place for the celebration. You have a slight guess it’s gonna be like that because Harry is great at taking hints, but what you doesn’t know is that deep down his already packed suitcase, there’s a little velvety box with a ring inside it that he plans to put on your finger this weekend, hoping you’ll give him the answer he wants to hear.

And you will. Because you are head over heels in love with this man, have been for a while and you want to spend the rest of your life with him.

The two of you head home and your hand finds his over the shifting gear, lacing your fingers together with his. Glancing at you he kisses your knuckles, pressing a long kiss to your empty ring finger.

“I love you,” he tells you and the three little words never fail to make your heart flutter. While the lamp is still red you quickly lean over and steal a kiss from his soft, pink lips.

“I love you too, professor,” you tell him teasingly. He didn’t like it when you called him that back when he was still just your professor, but since the air has been clear, he grew a liking to it, especially because he can’t get enough of hearing you moan it in the bedroom.

You call him a lot of other pet names too. Baby, H, Har, Sweets, whatever comes to your mind while he likes calling you his baby, Angel, Princess or Love. And as the two of you head home he thinks about how he wants two new names to be added to the list. Husband and wife.

Thank you for reading! Please like and/or reblog if you enjoyed!

@harrysgloves

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfics #harry styles au #professor!harry #professor!harry au #harry x reader #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst

3K notes · View notes

blzzrdstryr · 4 years ago

Text

Prize of war

Yandere!Morax x water deity!reader

Wordcount: 1459

CW: Yandere, violence, confinement, sexual harassment

The archon war is at its peak, when an oceanid, Periboea, brings sudden news to you - the deaths of Guizhong and sealing of Osial. The former produces nothing but a sly smirk - the Dust Goddess, despite her kindness and wisdom was still a formidable opponent, another competitor for the title of the Seven.

The latter, however, makes you both frown and sigh in relief - the Vortex Lord was your ally, a needed help to fight and defy Morax of Guili plains, yet he also was a future enemy - the grounds of your so called alliance were shaky, unreliable, ready to change at any moment like dark waters you both command.

Now, with him sealed away you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to worry about Osial turning against you, you have to worry about facing the Lord of Rock alone instead.

“Out”, you dismiss Periboea, sensing the forming headache. What should you do? What should you do? With the Guizhong out of the picture it would be easier for both you and Osial to finally overpower Morax and take over the plains if it wasn’t for him being sealed away.

You stay motionless and deep thought for a while, thousands of possibilities appearing in your mind - none of them a clear solution, a path to absolute victory. Suddenly water spirits visit your abode, bowing in both fear and deep respect - Morax has made a new step in this bloody version of xiangqi. You stand up then, gritting your teeth and taking your weapon - war never waits.

With no reckless but also insanely strong and fast Osial by your side, Morax’s power shines in a new light - his presence is felt everywhere, despite his figure still being unseen. You call to the power of the seas, sending wave after wave to look for your enemy, until a voice booms nearby.

Ah.

That’s why you couldn’t see him.

Morax looks pitifully small and weak in his human form - with a razor sharp talons and long serpentine body replaced by the soft mortal flesh he doesn’t inspire usual awe or terror, yet you keep your guard up. He stands on the shore, surrounded by his lackey adepti near some strange machine.

Guizhong was working on that ballista, you realize, focusing your eyes a bit longer.

“[First]”, Morax says, his usually calm voice now gravelly and dead - Guizhong’s passing must have been hard on him.

“Morax”, you reply, understanding his intention - it’s the last battle then.

You start to fight - adepti lunge at you, while their lord stays on the ground, fiddling with the ballista. You keep an eye on him, while carefully evading the blows from his lackeys - they might be lesser creatures, but even a snake can kill a lion, so you keep a distance, slowly but surely approaching the sandy shore.

“Now”, Morax yells, to his adepti, not you. You quickly turn in his direction, alarmed of what he might do next, only to see a bright glowing bolt shooting your way. The time freezes, as you scramble away and somehow you succeed, projectile grazing only a side of you.

“Huh”, you whimper, seeing how the nearby waters turn red from your blood - oh, Morax will pay for that. You will make him pay for that.

“Oceanids!”, you command your servants, voice travelling through the entirety of the seas: “rip Morax’s loyal dogs to shreds”, a thousand of voices echo your war cry, water spirits finally emerging from the blue deeps.

With the loch folk on the surface, the tides of battle turn against your opponents, as you shift your look on the Morax again - he feeds ballista his energy, hastening the next shot - you won’t have it. Focusing hydro energy is easy, forming your own water mimic is even easier.

You send the replica of a great leviathan to Morax’s direction, the volume of water splatters everywhere upon crushing on the shore, breaking Guizhong’s last masterpiece. This prompts Morax to finally face off you, with his spear in hand and fierce amber eyes burning brighter than any star.

“You will pay for that”, he whispers, the dragon evident in each syllable.

“We’ll see”, you taunt, finally taking out your weapon. Your battle looks like a dance, with your moves fluid and flexible, yet fast and unstoppable, like a river flowing in the spring. A laugh escapes your lips, the thrill of the battle getting into your head, so you don’t notice his lackeys disappearing from the battlefield.

“Now”, Morax says again, looking past you.

A blindingly bright bolt flies into your direction - you haven’t destroyed the ballista completely - there's not enough time to dodge.

It goes right through you.

You scream.

Everything fades to black.

***

You wake up in the unfamiliar room, clothed in the unfamiliar clothes and surrounded by unfamiliar things. You can’t sense the call of Celestia, meaning that you’re either outside the Teyvat or in someone’s pocket dimension. This is bad. You almost jerk, but you can't - a burst of pain explodes in your solar plexus upon the slightest of movements.

With a shaking hand you touch your midriff, feel a hastily sewn hole and then you come to a horrifying realization - you can't feel your hydro. A distressed noise escapes you as you caress the injury, a lack of elemental core crushing you better than any humiliation or defeat.

Consumed by your grief for the lost powers, you miss the moments someone enters the room. It’s Morax again - he looks vastly different now, with all hints of his usual bloodlust and cold fury gone, he resembles a kind and wise dragon from the fairy tales human parents tell to their children.

“[First]”, he starts, taking one slow step after another, careful not to scare or enrage you: “I am happy you’re finally awake. You’ve been unconscious for a while now”.

You look at him with angry, accusing eyes, all of your grievances temporarily forgotten: “I can’t believe you did it, I thought you were an honourable person”, he lightly tilts his head, feigning ignorance: “You ripped out my core! I bet you were enjoying every second of it, you sick bastard!”.

“None of that”, he deflects your insults: “your core was destroyed by the ballista, not me. The last projectile went through you and subsequently your core”.

“Well”, you rise from the bed, despite the agonizing pain: “you stole me too! Ballista has nothing to do with this!”

“It’s either that or the eternal seal”, he adopts the patronizing tone and you want to kill him just for that: “with your core gone, I doubt you will restore even a fraction of your power, so sealing you away will be a waste”.

“A waste”, you repeat, remembering that Morax is not only a god of martial arts, but also business and commerce: “What is there to waste? I have no power now, no reason to live”

He wordlessly comes to you after this phrase, his hand touching the bandaged torso, before his amber eyes glance at you momentarily. You know that look, have seen it during the countless battles - cold, calculating and thoroughly fixated - a shiver goes through you.

“I am the one who defeated you”, he finally says, so quietly that even you with your superhuman hearing have to strain your ears: “You belong to me now, I can give you a new reason for living, I can make you accept and embrace it”.

You look at his eyes and the hand he laid upon the injury, fear caused by his words alone paralyzing your whole being. A whole tornado of thoughts appeared in your mind, each one of them anxious, nervous and unsettling.

“You should have expected this”, Morax mutters, noticing the dread that clings to you: “your insufferable taunts and your little tricks, you wanted to be my first thought in the morning and the last in the night, you have succeeded”.

A warm hand cups your face, and you can’t find any comfort in it, as strong fingers pry open your lips. He forcefully kisses you, his tongue invading your mouth, as you desperately battle the panic. Finally you take control of your body back and quickly shut your teeth together, biting him, tasting a coppery blood”.

He leans back, still collected, despite the blood escaping past his lips: “I should have expected this”, he says more to himself than to you and then he shifts his eyes back to you: “Still, I have a lot of time to tame a wild sea beast like you”.

He leans in again, his hand forcing your mouth open with a renewed strength: “Water can take any shape, [First], and I’ll guide you to the shape I want you to be, my prize of war”

#yandere genshin impact #Yandere genshin impact x reader #Yandere Zhongli #Yandere Zhongli x reader #Yandere genshin #Yandere genshin x reader #male yandere #Yandere #my writing #osialish darling

733 notes · View notes

astaroth1357 · 4 years ago

Text

Brothers Finding Out a Lesser Demon with a Crush is “Moving In” on MC

You know, I like to show the good sides of our boys a lot… But how about the ugly for today? Let's let them just being mean, nasty, possessive little demons, huh?

Full disclaimer: I almost didn’t post this because I received an answer post from @diavolosthots that ended up being distressingly similar to this idea about 3/4th of the way through drafting it. I’m posting it anyway because of the time I’ve already sunk into it but in exchange I will absolutely encourage you to read from @diavolosthots if you aren’t already. They’re a big reason why I’m making content to begin with and I love what they’ve done. Warning: their blog is a LOT less fluffy than mine (they probably wouldn't be into my stuff 😅) and has NSFW content so be prepared for that going in. If that’s not your thing then just give them a pass, cool?

Check out the Masterlist for more!

Warnings: Violence, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Cannibalism(?), Murder, Yandere-ish

This is all for the purposes of fantasy and in no way an endorsement for these behaviors in real life. Be nice (and smart) with your lives, my friends.

Lucifer

Is honestly offended for them.

Don’t they know the caliber of demon MC rubs elbows with every day? Do they honestly think they’d stand a chance? Any one of his brothers would be more deserving than some lesser demon suitor and that even INCLUDES Mammon.

But of course, the real reason they’d stand no chance is because he wants the MC too and he’s not planning on sharing with or losing to someone who isn’t even worthy to be stuck under his boot...

He may lay down some… “discreet” hints for the poor demon to look elsewhere.

Things like advising Diavolo to make some emergency changes to the classes at RAD so they no longer share any class together or watching the demon extra closely for any minute slip up he can flag them for. If he could have them expelled for a dress code violation, he’d do it no sweat.

Okay, "discreet hints…" Flagrant misuses of power… Same difference right?

He may never come right out and say they should leave MC alone (why dignify the guy with such a response?) but if looks could kill then his “competition” would be utterly decimated by now. Especially if he ever catches the two in the same room... Yikes.

Mammon

Oooo buddy, he ain’t happy. He doesn’t even like sharing with his brothers and now some rando wants a piece too?? Nuh-uh. No way.

Takes the more direct approach and just confronts the guy when the MC isn’t around. It's good for the demon that Mammon doesn’t like resorting to violence if he doesn’t have to. Heated words and a threat or two will be exchanged then they can go their separate ways.

That can be the end of it if the guy backs off (as anyone with sense should). But if not…

When he makes a threat, and he’s serious about it, Mammon makes good on them.

He’ll come back to the House one night a little beat up, maybe with a few nicks and scratches. Of course he’ll want the MC to play nurse for him and he’ll be delighted if they accept (even if his tsundere ass won’t say it).

The lesser demon apparently dropped out of RAD the next day. No explanation given. He didn’t even step foot back on the school grounds to do it...

Of course, everyone’s sure there’s no relation between the two. I mean, this is the same Mammon we’re talking about… right...?

Leviathan

It’s a miracle he even found out but now that he knows he’s pissed. He’s not the Avatar of Envy for nothing.

Look, he might be a shut-in and not worth all that much but he’s got to be better than some lesser demon guy! He’s the third born and he has a freaking navy for crying out loud!!

Will likely leave his room for the first time in who knows how long to follow the MC to RAD. Once he’s got a face to the name, that’s all he needs for his hatred to really get going...

He will make this dude’s life a living hell with the best tool a shut-in has, the Internet.

He’ll dedicate a freaking week to digging up dirt on this bozo then start releasing it out to everywhere he frequents. Not a single sock of that dirty laundry is getting left out. All of his most embarrassing secrets are laid bare for the Devildom to see.

He’d cover his tracks, of course, so nothing can be traced back to him. The MC is probably none-the-wiser to who’s spreading all this hot gossip but his brothers know right away.

Once the dude’s social life and pride are in utter ruin, he’ll invite the MC over for a movie marathon to celebrate! He might even get a little more cuddly than usual... His MC is with him and that’s how it ought to be.

Satan

Pffft… That’s cute. Real cute they think they stand a chance. He’d wish them luck but he also kind of wants to stab them so…

On the one hand, he knows he probably shouldn’t waste his time but on the other he just can’t resist the call to absolute devastation that his inner rage is forcing on him...

His new goal is to utterly undermine the new competition in every way, mental and physical, which means he will take every opportunity he can to demonstrate just how much on another level he is.

Gets nitpicky and corrects the guy’s every move. If he says something wrong in class, he’ll berate him for it. Make a social faux pas? Well now the whole school is going to know about it.

Doesn’t stop there, though. He will do everything in his power short of throwing the first punch to try and instigate a fight with the him. He knows that if he technically starts it then the punishment will be on him, but the other way around he can say, “Hey, he’s the one who punched Wrath incarnate. What was he expecting would happen?”

Any resulting fight between the two would be a very one-sided bloodbath. He will not hold back at all and stop when he damn well feels like. The guy will be in whatever the Devildom equivalent to a hospital is for weeks...

If the MC tries to ask him about his behavior, he’ll gaslight them and change the subject. He doesn’t really like indulging in the more violent side of himself in his day-to-day life but some things just can’t be helped, can they?

Asmodeus

Honestly not as bothered as the others are. He knows they stand zero chance, so why worry? It’s bad for the skin.

But that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit back and do nothing. Oh no, a zero chance could always become a one, even five percent chance if you’re not careful.

Asmo’s preferred method of ridding competition is like a mixture of Satan and Levi, but Oh. So. Much. Worse.

Lesser demons can be astonishingly easy to charm without them noticing and he is the best charmer of the family. He’s pretty popular to start with but suddenly he’s talking to almost everyone he comes across until, well, he’s got the whole school listening.

From there it’s child’s play. Suddenly, the demon’s friends won’t talk to them. People stare and whisper about them in the hallways, is what they’re saying true? Doesn’t matter. Asmo could feed them anything and they’d believe it.

He’ll make sure they feel isolated, alone, and hated by everyone they speak to and they won’t even know why. Going to RAD at all will be like walking into a prison. Ideally, they’ll just stop going, and then tada! Competition no more.

Of course, he could just charm the competitor to look elsewhere, but then who’s going to be the example to the others? Nobody needs any more “Zero-Chancers” popping up around the MC, right? You’re welcome, sweetie~! 😘

Beelzebub

He’s trying not to be that guy, he really is… but since the MC is involved… Really? You actually think you got a shot there, buddy?

Probably going to be the brother most likely to try and let the guy down gently at first, but make no mistake he will make sure he knows it’s a lost cause.

If the other demon still insists on being a competitor though… Alright.

MC pretty much goes under his “protection” from that point on. If they’re at RAD at all, Beel is not far behind. Not exactly looking outright intimidating but always just…. there.

But if the dude so much as enters a room with them he’ll be sure to stare him down and mention that he’s hungry a little louder and a lot more often.

To the MC that may just be typical Beel, but everyone else there knows Beel has swallowed lesser demons whole in the past. And for a lot less reason than this...

When Beel gets territorial he can be a subtle about it, but terrifying nonetheless.

Belphegor

Would laugh in their face and give zero shits about it.

Like, even as the weakest sibling he could snap them like a toothpick and that’s not even getting to how they probably know jack all about the MC anyway. What even is this idiot??

Starts pulling some casual “pranks” on the guy to grief him at first. Little things like tripping him up with his tail or taking his things and hiding them in inconvenient places.

The lazy part of him hopes he’ll get the message and back off but that sadistic side really hopes he doesn’t so he’ll never talk to him directly...

When, of course, the dude doesn’t back off because he doesn't know he's supposed to, his pranks start escalating. A textbook in the school pool suddenly becomes an explosive curse put on their backpack. A kind of homicidal passive-aggression, if you will.

By some unholy miracle the guy manages to last a couple days after a barrage of progressively lethal murder attempts pranks, Belphie’s inner laziness and frustration will finally get to him and he’ll cut the passive from his aggression.

Much like with Mammon, everyone finds out that the demon dropped out of school quite suddenly. But he’s also seemed to have gone dark from all his socials and his friends can’t seem to find him anywhere...

Concerns were raised with Lucifer but he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about starting an investigation... It’s not the first time he’s covered for his brothers after all. 🙄🤷‍♀️

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me asmodeus #obey me satan #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me scenarios #obey me headcanons

3K notes · View notes

deidearly · 4 years ago

Text

Kakashi Relationship Headcanons

Guess who’s back with another relationship headcanon today? And as usual, I had a good time writing this one even got slightly carried away, hehe. Enjoy! XX.

Well— Hatake Kakashi, huh? Dating him would be such a roller coaster ride, tbh. It’s like, one moment he’s so clingy, fragile, so afraid of losing you— but one moment he’s like, “Just do what you need to do. I don’t really care.” This is due to the fact that he’s got a lot of things in his mind and occasionally struggled to sort out his priorities.

Anyway, of course you’ve complained about his ‘reading-smut-in-public’ issue, especially when you’re together. You two would come up with an agreement somehow. But to piss you off, he’d pretend like you’re the one who’s obsessed with reading smuts.

You’re browsing for some important books and he playfully yelled, “Y/N! Come here, it’s your favorite book— Icha Icha Tactics! My, I know you’ve had four books, but another one won’t hurt, right? Since you love it that much!” making everyone in the bookstore giggled.

He received “Y/N Signature Punch” that day.

To your surprise, he’s not very secretive about his relationship with you. In fact, you’ve caught him frequently use you as an excuse for him to escape some unwanted occasions.

Let’s say Gai was asking Kakashi to fight him like usual— and he wasn’t having it that day. “Gai, with all respect— I would gladly accept your challenge. But can’t you feel the springtime of romance youth is blooming? I must see Y/N immediately.”

Gai’s tearing up.

Don’t worry, he actually went to your place.

“Yo. Can we hang out? I just told Gai that I would come to your place. Please say ‘yes’ to make me less of a jerk, will you?”

Would totally show up in front of your place at an ungodly hour.

At first it surprised you but now you’re used to it.

You just finished your mission, it went pretty well but you felt there were some wasted chances due to your captain’s miscalculation. It’s nearly 2 AM but you caught yourself wide awake, reviewing back your battle– only to got distracted by a knock on your bedroom’s window. Instead of turning your head in surprise, you already knew who it was. To have a little fun for yourself, you ignored the sound, which was later followed by a second knock. Walking over to the window, you saw a silver-haired man with a mask. Although half of his face was covered, it’s obvious that a smile was apparent. “Yo.” he greeted, but you replied with a sigh. “You could actually knock on the door and I’d let you in through the door. It’s something normal people would do, Kakashi.” you grumbled, opening the window for him to get in. “Ah, spare me the lecture!”

So, reverse psychology works best for Kakashi. Like the Icha Icha Tactics– the more you ignore his behavior, he would actually try not to read his book in public like you told him to. But the more you complain, he’d read it in places where he shouldn’t be reading it at all. This method works in almost every cases.

You’ve been dating for weeks, but you haven’t seen his face.

Yes, when kissing, too.

You’ve had enough of kissing fabric.

You had planned to make a dinner together at his place. He was preparing the dishes and you’re about to finish your cooking, when he suddenly asked, “Hey, Y/N. Have you ever wondered what would I look like under this mask?” You were dying to know actually. So, now you’re stuck with two options: (a) be honest about it, (b) pull out another reverse psychological answer— and you chose the latter. “Huh? Not really,” you shrugged, “I don’t really care so it’s not like I’m eager to see it.” and of course, this was a lie. Kakashi went silent for a while. “Anyway, dinner’s re—“ you swore you could’ve dropped the whole pan when you saw an unfamiliar presence. “Kakashi?” you asked hesitantly. The man looked up with a questioning look, “Why are you blushing?” he replied casually.

“ANYONE WITH A DECENT EYESIGHT WOULD BLUSH TOO, YOU STUPID.”

He’s honestly so heavenly to look at.

Sometimes it’s just too overwhelming to see his whole face, you thought.

It’s safe to say that it’s a privilege to be able to see his face. But due to his immense charm, you’d prefer to have him with a mask on.

“Y/N, I feel naked without my mask—“ , “And I honestly feel like I’m being forced to see an illicit nudity, too. Put your mask on, it’s fine honestly.”

He’s been very good at his job for almost his whole life, a fine shinobi. So, he’s rarely exposed to mundane things, moreover a relationship. Thus, making him quite restrained in expressing himself. Plus, he was labelled with some negative titles, saying how cold-blooded he was and he just decided to live with it. This, obviously, requires a lot of patience.

But he’s determined to change, the first step he took was letting you in— into his life.

It started rocky, though.

He’d say something like how he didn’t care much about you and sadly, he really didn’t.

But as the time went by he realized how your presence has been the one that helped him through it. How you’ve always been there to comfort him, by listening to him, giving him a lot of supports, or simply by reminding him that he’s not completely alone.

And when that moment came, he’s sworn to protect you with all his might.

He had a lot of nightmares, he still does, unfortunately. But when you’re around, your presence eases him up a little.

When you’re not around, however, he’d rather spend all night unhealthily tiring himself until he fall asleep.

His personal favorite would be curling up next to you with his hand around your waist while hiding his face near the crook of your neck as he’s giving you some soft neck kisses.

Again, NECK KISSES.

He had a hard time trying to open up himself fully to you and this applies to romantic gestures, I believe. He surely would take his time to explore you, what you like, and what he likes.

Would shower you with kisses, all over your face without missing a spot. He greatly admires every inches of yourself.

Body worship, oof.

Lowkey (semi highkey) protective.

Lowkey (semi highkey) a show-off.

Would straight up jump to save you if it’s necessary.

And since he’s a show-off, he lowkey loves PDA— but the soft ones, of course. You two would always get spotted together. He would casually sling his arm around your shoulder or lazily has his hand wrapped around your waist.

Favorite time to spend with you is training together. No matter how many times you’ve told him to “fight with an intent to win” he simply refuses— saying how, he’s “far too powerful” for you.

But deep down he just doesn’t want to hurt you…

Chatting in the middle of a training

“Tsunade-sama hasn’t assigned me any missions lately *throws kunai*” , “Maybe if you threw your kunai accurately, she will. *dodge kunai*” , “Kakashi, shut your pretty mouth up. *throws MORE kunai aggressively*”

When you turned him down while he was showing off his new tricks, though, it weirdly turned him on.

He loves someone powerful, with a right amount of cocky.

Doesn’t talk big. He’s a man of action— his action speaks louder than words!

Doesn’t spoil you that much, though. Because it’s actually him who needs to be spoiled.

Really loves it when you trace your fingers all over his skin— it’s intimately soft, he claimed.

LOVES YOUR SCENT. Has it memorized probably.

He’d prefer someone independent. Someone who could actually take care of themselves instead of relying on him completely.

Anyone too childish would remind him of Team 7, tbh.

Speaking of Team 7, they would probably be the one to get introduced to you.

Naruto was so shocked to find out that his sensei was capable to develop a romantic feeling towards someone. But he had his doubt— do you really know Kakashi? He started to bombard you with questions to test your knowledge.

“So, do you know what’s Kakashi Sensei’s favorite—“ , “I’ve seen his face. Multiple times.” , “YOU WHAT?”

Complained and sulked about it, “Kakashi Sensei, we’ve trained together for years. How could you?!”

Sakura was confused.

“How? I know he’s probably very handsome under that mask but come on, Y/N, reading smut in public? That’s an absolute no.”

On the contrary, Sasuke was thrilled, internally.

“Yeah. Finally. Old man has someone to annoy besides us. About time.”

He has a pretty bad behavior, too. Unlike Gaara, who’d put an emotionless facade when he’s only in the Kazekage mode, Kakashi would treat you just how he feels like doing it that day.

Let’s be real, he has so many bottled up feelings inside his heart so it’s not a surprise that someday, somehow, a random painful emotion just hit him— hard, and he shut himself out.

The hospital is the place you immediately visit right after Kakashi’s arrival after a mission because you know he’d be there— reading his book with a few bruises here and there. But this time was a bit different. When he’s hospitalized, he would whine about you not being able to stay more than an hour— but right now you’re puzzled, since he’s been completely silent and avoiding you, answering your questions with a mere shrugs.

Tsunade told you that the mission went pretty well, thanks to Kakashi for eliminating all the enemies on the field, singlehandedly. You automatically knew that it must brought up his past traumas. “Kakashi, it’s not your fault.” you decided to speak, earning a glance from Kakashi, but that’s it. “It’s a mission and you protected all of your comrades!”

“I killed them, Y/N. I didn’t have to, but I did.” he said, with his eyes still glued elsewhere. “Every time I look at my hands, I feel dirty. It reminded me of that—“, “Kakashi, look at me.”

You moved closer to his bed, reaching out your hand and traced your fingers softly on his face. His cheeks were cold, and you could clearly see how he was slightly trembling with teary eyes. “Kakashi, if you didn’t do it— it could’ve been your own comrades. Now they’re safe and sound, thanks to you.”, you paused as he slowly began to move his sight to you. “And if I could meet you way sooner, I would remind you every day that it’s never your fault— it’s never been. You’re a good person, Kakashi. I, and all of us, are forever thankful for the things you’ve done.” you whispered, now wiping a few tears that fell down to his cheeks. A weak smile started to bloom, “I’m forever thankful for you as well, Y/N.”

#naruto #boruto #hatake kakashi #kakashi hatake #kakashi x reader #kakashi x y/n #kakashi headcanons #kakashi imagines #headcanons #kakashi

367 notes · View notes

bvidzsoo · 4 years ago

Text

White Lilies

Author: bvidzsoo

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x female reader

Warning: swearing, violence, mentions of death, stalking, breaking in, borderline toxic relationship, allude to some mental health conditions but never named

Word count: 26, 815

Summary: Your brother, Kim Doyoung, works for the police. Ever since you finished high school, you moved away from home with him and now you live in a big city. You struggle with different things, but the worst one is the tendency to stalk others. And one day when you walk inside a coffee shop and come across a very handsome stranger, you can’t help yourself, he becomes your next target. Jeon Wonwoo. But he isn’t innocent, you find that out the hard way.

Taglist: @chal-kagyu @taeyongandfree @minkwans @itsdnguyenxoxo @rjsmochii

Unable to tag: @cheolliehugs @3rachaonlyfans @leahxxiong

A/N: Here it is! The spin off to Poison, it can be read as a stand alone, if not check out the mini-series: Poison. Minor things will make more sense. I hope it doesn’t bother you that I tagged you for this too, since it’s connected in some ways. Now, there’s things I have written in this oneshot that are totally not okay and I am very conscious of them, so please, if you ever come across a stalker or someone who harassess you, please report them, your safety is very important. But this is fiction, and I’m allowed to write whatever I want to. All the sentences in italics are the voices that Y/N hears. Enjoy now and don’t forget to leave feeback!

All mornings were usually the same, it was a routine I became accustomed to a long time again. Five years ago, actually, when Doyoung and I moved away from home. There is only a two-year difference between us, so it was easy for me to follow him, having been already done with high school. Doyoung completed the police academy and he was being promoted, brought to Seoul, so I packed up and left my old life in our hometown. Nothing tied me to that place, I never liked it there. My parents were hot headed and they always argued with me, trying to convince me to become a house wife, to find myself a wealthy man that would care for me and for our family. But it wasn’t what I needed; I had always been a free spirit. I liked to explore and disappear from civilization from time to time. Like in eleventh grade, when I sneaked out and disappeared for ten days, the whole city was looking for me. However, I was living in the woods, by the outskirts of the city, in a small hut with a nice, old lady. She moved there after she gave up her job, because she wanted a peaceful life, surrounded by nature only. When she saw me wandering around, she offered me some tea and I accepted it, surprised to see someone living there. The hut wasn’t deep inside the woods, but it still took me by surprise that a lady like her wasn’t afraid inside there all alone. I wasn’t a big fan of forests, but being surrounded by trees and the green scenery always calmed my erratic nature. It was hard for me to stay still sometimes, that’s why Doyoung and I would regularly go on runs, to try and use up my energy on something. In school, I didn’t do very well, but it didn’t bother me. I was able to finish high school and get a diploma, but I didn’t want to go to college. I found it a waste of time and money, I decided I would find something that I liked doing and would excel in it. And with the help of the old lady from the hut, I realized I had a passion for photography. I got my first camera from her, and ever since then I didn’t stop taking pictures. It became my passion and my hobby, it earned me money. I was known for taking nature pictures, sometimes even of animals, and I had my own little blog where I posted all of my works. Sometimes I’d have my pictures put up in galleries for expositions, I earned well during those events. The small house Doyoung and I lived in, was full of all the pictures I took. We lived in a homey, quiet neighborhood, deep inside the heart of the city. Doyoung earned well and my salary always fluctuated, that’s why I decided to stay with my big brother, at least until I had gathered enough money to live on my own.

The house smelled of bacon and peppermint tea as I opened the window of my room, letting the fresh morning air in. I was already dressed for the day, camera packed safely inside my bag, waiting for a call. I wore dark velvet cotton pants and an oversized grey sweater with a deep V, due to which it fell off my shoulders. Ankle high heel boots and a few necklaces I used as accessories complimented the look. It was becoming warmer and warmer outside, which was great, because I never liked wearing coats. Besides, I rarely needed them, I had the unusual trait of not exactly feeling the cold. I was always underdressed during winter and it scared some people, especially Doyoung because he had the impression that I’d catch a cold, but it’s just how my body was, always too hot. I checked my phone to be sure that Mark didn’t decide to text me instead of calling me, but seeing there was nothing, I closed the window and took my bag, leaving my room. I closed the door after me, a habit I had, and headed inside the kitchen. Doyoung was in his police uniform already, moving around quietly the kitchen.

“Good morning!” I called loudly, sitting at the table, with my chin in my hand.

“Good morning.” Doyoung greeted, quieter, and turned around with a plate and mug in his hands. He placed them in front of me and I grinned, thanking him. I took the fork and dug into my breakfast, humming at how tasty it was. Even if our mornings were always the same, the breakfast wasn’t. Doyoung always had something up his sleeves, either trying out new recipes he searched up late at night, or just trying to replicate mother’s old recipes. I took a sip of the peppermint tea and pursed my lips, giving Doyoung a thumbs up as he closed the stove and turned to sit with his own plate and mug in his hands. He chuckled and mirror my thumbs up, before starting to eat too. We ate in silence, it’s how we were in the mornings, quiet. It was the only time Doyoung could savor the silence, because it was the only time I was silent. My hyperactivity followed me through all stages of life, I still struggled with staying still…that amongst other things.

Doyoung cleared his throat and I glanced at him, before checking my phone again, “What are your plans for today?”

“Ah, the usual.” I answered with a smile, trying to look nonchalant, so that he wouldn’t realize I was lying, “I’ll just go to the park and take some pictures if I find something I like.”

Doyoung nodded and took a bite of his bacon, “Don’t you think it’s time to…find a more stable work?”

“Like what?”

“Getting employed at a studio, maybe? You know…you could go to weddings, birthdays…all kinds of events to take pictures.” Doyoung’s suggestion was friendly, but it still angered me. I left home because I didn’t want to hear the constant nagging of our parents, but here he was, doing the same thing.

“I’m a nature photographer. And I wouldn’t like working inside a studio, or whatever.” I said a little harshly, making Doyoung sigh.

“I’m not judging you or trying to tell you what to do,” He knew how I could react to these things, he knew how much anxiety my parents induced when they would try and tell me what to do with my own life, “It was just a brotherly advice, because I worry about you.”

“You don’t have to!” I exclaimed cheerily, my phone ringing at the same time. I shot my hand out to grab it and answered the phone, already knowing who the caller was.

“Target is getting ready to leave, he’ll be at the same Coffee Shop he was for the past week.” Was all the person said before I hung up, stuffing the rest of the food inside my mouth hurriedly. I scrambled up from the chair and clumsily threw my phone inside my bag, trying to chug down the peppermint tea at the same time.

“Who was that?”

“Just some person trying to sell me something—” A burp I couldn’t control surfaced and Doyoung’s eyebrows furrowed in displeasure, but I just gave him an apologetic smile, “I’ll see you after work.”

I pressed a hasty kiss against his cheek, then raced to my car and unlocked it, throwing my bag inside before getting in. I would have to get to the Coffee Shop before the target gets there, to choose a good spot. This is what Doyoung didn’t know about me. I wasn’t just a nature photographer, I worked together with his colleague, Mark, whose job was to gather information about the targets the police had. He was really good at it, but sometimes he couldn’t gather enough information by sitting behind a computer. That’s where I come in play, I go out and stalk his targets. A year ago, Doyoung had a gathering with the colleagues he was closer to and I was invited too. Mark got really drunk and I offered to drive him home, that’s when he started telling me about his work. About how he already almost got fired twice, because his information wasn’t good enough or it was lacking. And because I was always seeking new experiences and new adventures, I proposed to help him. Of course, he’d have to pay me, but I’d stalk the targets for as long as he’d need me to. Until all information that was needed was gathered for him, which he could turn into a report and pass onto the higherups. He accepted without a second thought in his drunken haze and I was beyond happy; but I asked him to keep it a secret, especially from Doyoung. If my brother were to find out, he’d definitely either lock me up in our basement or send me back home, both were things I wouldn’t be able to survive. And being in this city was good for me, it was big enough that it distracted me from my other issues. Back in my hometown, everyone knew almost everyone and it was too easy to find someone you wanted to know. Which was bad for me, bad for someone who had stalking tendencies. That’s why I have been working with Mark for a year now, I was just too good, no one ever discovered me or my identity. I knew how to stay low-key and I knew how to work around the targets without them noticing that someone was trailing them almost 24/7. Having this job, it distracted me from getting infatuated with anyone, I didn’t have the time anymore. And it was a lot more thrilling to be trailing different people each month. It was a distraction from the dark voices in my head, which tried telling me that the next man that appeared around the corner could have been the love of my life. Or the woman that I ran into at the flower shop, could have been my soulmate. I hated those thoughts, and I battled with them my whole life. I used to take medication, it silenced them while I was a teen, but it still didn’t stop me from stalking others. So, as I grew older, I stopped taking them and I started spending more time in nature, where I was alone. Photography wasn’t just a job for me, it was my own therapy.

Everything was set up perfectly, I grinned widely as I leaned back in my seat. My bag was on the chair next to me, the camera placed on the table. For this to work, I needed as many people as there were inside the Coffee Shop to see it. Thankfully, traffic wasn’t bad and I got here five minutes before the target. I sat close to the exit, from where I could see the whole shop well and could run away too if something happened. The target too was really transparent, he sat at the same table he’s been sitting at for the past week. Next to the big windows, behind his table there were a bunch of plants decorating the place and a painting of flowers was hung above it. Which was perfect for me, my plan was coming together. The target has already ordered his coffee, so now it was my time to do something. I took my wallet and walked up to the barista, having hung the camera around my neck. The weight of it was comforting, having worn it for so long, that it became something familiar. I smiled at the barista and looked over the menu behind her, acting like I was thinking of what I wanted, offering her enough time to take in my attire closely.

“I’ll have Caramel Macchiato.” Finally, I told her and she nodded, returning the smile, as I handed her the money.

“A name?” I was glad this wasn’t the barista who took my orders the other times, I didn’t want them to recognize me. I wouldn’t come to this Coffee Shop either way anymore after I was done with this job.

“Y/N.” I answered the barista and she nodded, passing the cup with my name written on it, to her colleague. She printed the receipt and handed it to me, her eyes falling onto my camera. As there was no customer behind me at the moment, she looked at me curiously.

“You’re a photographer?” She asked as the coffee brewer started making loud noises.

“A nature photographer!” I told her with excitement and the barista nodded her head, offering me a friendly smile.

“I tried it once, it wasn’t made for me.” We chuckled at her words and I just shrugged.

“It requires patience and technique, for sure.” I said and she nodded her head in agreement, “By the way…this floral arrangement—”

And then I turned my body sideways, eyes falling on the target. He was just a few feet away, I made sure to speak even louder, so that he would hear me, “The floral arrangement is so pretty! Do you mind if I take pictures of it?”

The barista thought about it as my drink was done and handed to me by the other worker, “I don’t think it’s a problem, go ahead!”

“Thank you!” I bowed my head a little and she bid me farewell. My plan was working, I just needed to do one more thing. So, with the most innocent expression I could muster up, I approached the target. I knew he heard the conversation between me and the barista, but I wanted to make sure he understood what I was about to do.

“Sir, excuse me—” I spoke softly, almost shyly, “Do you mind if I take pictures of this floral arrangement? You won’t be in frame at all.”

“Go ahead.” He answered me with a very uninterested shrug, the wrinkles around his eyes made him look older than the age Mark told me. I bowed my head and placed my Caramel Macchiato on top of his table, turning on my camera. I kneeled on one knee and started snapping photos of the plants, pursing my lips, trying to get the perfect angle. Then I rose to my feet, and took another one, the painting above it being included in the shot too.

“I’ll take some more from my own table, just letting you know…” I spoke up again, but the man wasn’t paying attention to me. I smirked a little, grabbing my drink from his table, cradling it in both of my hands. With a victorious look on my face, I turned with enthusiasm and took a step forward blindly. My body slammed into another body, and we both yelped loudly. Mine was high pitched, but the other one was deep and almost guttural. My heart started thumping in my chest loudly, taken aback by the accident, and hopeful that I didn’t spill my drink on my favorite sweater nor on the person I ran into.

“I’m so—” But when I looked up, I was left breathless. The man standing in front of me was frowning, looking over himself, to check if anything got spilled on him. Thankfully, the lid of the drink was put on really well and the way I was holding the cup stopped it from spilling out. The thumping of my heart became deafening and all I could see suddenly was the man standing in front of me.

He’s the one. Don’t let him slip past your fingertips.

The dark voice, however, quickly snapped me out of the state I almost got lost in. The target, I’m here on a very serious mission, Mark’s counting on me. But the man’s eyes would be forever ebbed inside my mind, I knew I would think about his sharp, fox like eyes before going to sleep tonight…or every night. Round glasses sat on his long nose and he pushed them up with his long fingers, they almost fell off at the impact. When his lips started moving, all I could see was the redness of them and how deep his Cupid’s bow was. Then I snapped out of it, eyebrows furrowing as I totally missed what he just said.

“Uh—I’m really sorry.” I said awkwardly, stepping back when I realized how close our bodies were to each other.

“It’s fine, you didn’t spill any on me…or you.” His eyes went to the sweater I was wearing for a second before he looked back up. His deep voice sent goosebumps down my skin and I very visibly shivered, but I wasn’t cold. The dark blue hoodie this handsome stranger wore seemed to be alright.

“Yeah, I didn’t spill it…” My mind felt like it was made out of gum, I had no coherent thoughts and it made me feel awkward. Taking a last glance at the handsome stranger, noting how his black hair was clumsily parted above his left eye, I bowed, and then willed myself to move away.

He’s everything you’ve ever wanted.

I walked back to my table and took a seat, taking a deep breath in. I can’t let myself get distracted. I run into strangers all the time; this handsome, deep voiced man wasn’t different at all. I couldn’t let the voices get to me, I had to focus on the target. So, I took a big gulp of my Caramel Macchiato and then looked at the target. He was tapping the table almost nervously, so I turned on my camera again and took two pictures of him, then one of the floral arrangement to make sure it didn’t look suspicious. I looked around the Coffee Shop and my eyes fell on the handsome stranger, who was laughing with the barista. What could they have been talking about? The jingling of the door snapped me out of my own thoughts and I watched as a tall woman, wearing a business suit, walked inside. Her hair was in a low ponytail and she looked fairly young, I almost lost interest in her, but then she sat across from the target. I took another picture of the floral arrangement and then snapped a bunch of pictures of the two, making sure the woman’s face could be seen well in all. There was movement in the corner of my eyes and I saw the stranger sitting at a table close to the front desk.

You should snap a picture of him too.

I cleared my throat and took another sip of my drink, the target and the young woman got up from their table, and I quickly went to grab my bag and pushed my camera inside. As I stood up, a name was called.

“Wonwoo?” And I saw the handsome stranger stand up and walk up to the barista to take his drink. Wonwoo, that’s his name. But I shook my head and waved at the barista with a cheerful smile as I quickly left the Coffee Shop, eyes narrowing to see the couple. To my luck, they were walking on the other side of the road, so I remained on this side and fished out my camera.

So, you’ll leave Wonwoo for that pathetic old man and the woman? He’s not more important?

I shook my head and snapped a few pictures as I walked on the sidewalk, getting to a cross. I crossed the road and cursed when they disappeared around the corner, I had to speed up; and threw the cup in the trash bin as I have finished my drink. I looked around once I turned the corner and panicked for a second, thinking I lost the target. But suddenly, I spotted them sitting on a bench in the park, so I headed that way. I started taking pictures of the river and the few birds sitting by the shore, then of the trees that have blossomed already. The white cherry blossoms were beautiful and I smiled to myself as a light breeze brushed my hair. Then I willed myself to focus again and turned the camera towards the target and the woman, who had decided to take a walk. There was a decent distance between them and I, and to anyone else, it would look like I’m taking pictures of the nature; which I was still kind of doing. The couple walked around for at least five minutes, and I decided to sit on a bench and watch them from there, putting on my shades as the sun was directly in front of me. I was just about to snap a picture of a little duck family, but the woman leaned in towards the target and I quickly started snapping pictures of them. It looked like she whispered something in his ear and then a kiss was pressed against the target’s cheek and the woman walked the opposite way they have come in. I snapped pictures of her alone too before turning back towards the target, who was on his phone. He was on the other side of the river, and I couldn’t have reached him in time, or follow him, my car was ten minutes away from here. So, I just continued snapping more pictures, and my eyebrows furrowed when someone got into the frame. The black hair covered the side of the picture, and I moved a little to the left, leaning against the trunk of a tree. I snapped pictures of the license plate and of the target as he got inside the car, seeing someone already inside of it. I smirked to myself as the car drove away and pulled my phone out, going to my contacts. I pressed the icon next to the name ‘Money Bag’ and it dialed the number.

“Anything?” Mark picked up on the first ring.

“A young chick showed up, but they split up and I lost both. My car wasn’t close enough.”

“That’s fine, where are you now?”

“At the park, by the river.”

“Okay, meet me in front of the town hall.” I hung up and placed everything inside my bag as I started walking back to my car, enjoying the weather and the warm sunlight. Spring was finally around the corner, it was the perfect time to snap pictures of nature, or at least, my favorite time. As a second thought, I took my camera into my hands and turned it on, curious of how the nature pictures turned out. I scrolled past the ones of the target and woman, and chuckled when the one with the ducks came into view. They were cute, people would like this. As I continued looking through the pictures, the ones where someone got into them, made me frown. I was about to delete them, but my finger paused. Black hair, sharp jaw, long nose, round glasses.

You know you can’t delete it. You can’t fight the urge, can’t you? Wonwoo’s the one, listen to us!

The town hall wasn’t far from the park, so I didn’t bother driving there. Besides, I liked taking walks. It helped with calming me, even though I was desperately in need of a run right now. After waking up, Doyoung and I go straight for a run, but I slept in this morning and I’m sure Doyoung woke up later too as he worked until late last night. He said his boss, Sana, was making him work extra hours because she was sniffing around a very powerful mafia leader. I was aware of the illegal things some people did, sometimes the people I had to stalk for Mark weren’t the brightest, I was well aware of that, but I was never offered information about them. It was Mark’s way of protecting me from harm, which I didn’t think did much. If I was caught, they wouldn’t care if I knew or not things about them, I probably would have been still tortured. Which is why I asked Mark to keep the details to himself, if I knew that I was stalking a mafia leader or some other gang member, I probably would’ve been too scared to go through with the procedure.

I was shifting my weight from one leg to another as I stood waiting around for Mark, pouting when I looked down at my wrist watch. I’ve been standing here for ten minutes; I was becoming really bored. I took my phone and sent a text to Doyoung, checking up on him.

From Doyoung: Just had my lunch break, I’ll be heading back to work. It’s possible I’ll be back late once again.

To Doyoung: No problem, I’ll leave some dinner for you.

From Doyoung: What are you up to?

To Doyoung: I’ll be going for a run in a few minutes, see you at home!

From Doyoung: Take care of yourself!

I smiled and as I looked up, Mark was walking towards me. I started waving at him with a big grin, my phone almost fell from my grip, but I managed to steady it. Mark was wearing dark jeans and a black hoodie, with a black baseball cap on his head. If this was him trying to be casual, he was failing.

“Stop drawing attention to us!” He said with a hiss as he came to a stop in front of me and I frowned.

“That’s not how you should treat someone so important to your team.” I said and Mark rolled his eyes, extending one hand. He was gripping some cash and I took it with a grin, quickly placing it inside my bag.

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” I said teasingly and Mark rolled his eyes again, I handed him the memory card, “Take good care of it! And don’t delete the other pictures I took; some came out really well!”

“I won’t.” He said with a grin and then looked down at the card, “Your job is done here, wait until I contact you again. You could go on a vacation or something.”

I laughed quietly, giving Mark a look, “Yes, captain, I might just do that.”

Mark shook his head before taking off with a wave, I waved back and then turned to walk inside the second-hand shop. I greeted the lady and told her I just wanted to change inside the cabin, so she left me alone. I changed my normal attire into my running one. Yoga pants and adidas, a black top with a fluffy hoodie over it. I pulled my hair in a low bun and stuffed everything inside my big bag, it’s why I carried it around. Random runs were the best, always exciting as I never knew where I felt like going for one. I smiled at the lady from front desk as I left the shop, heading for my car. The walk was quick because I tried to hurry up, excited to go for the run. Once I got to my car, I placed my bag inside and then locked it, having my phone and keys in the pocket of the hoodie. I headed back to the park where I took the pictures of the target and woman, and first did a little warm up. I stretched my legs out and back a little, and then started running. I took steady breaths as I ran down the path, my pace not very fast but not slow either. My heartrate picked up as I continued running and I marveled in the peace around me. The scenery brought a smile onto my lips as I ran past some couples; I willed my mind to stop thinking. It was a hard thing to do at first, I was always thinking of something, but I had to learn due to the dark voices that would sometimes push me into doing things. I could ignore them, now better than when I was younger, but it was still difficult. The problem was, they could drive me crazy, I couldn’t ignore them forever, and in times like those, I would disappear. Doyoung hated it when I did that, but I haven’t had an episode like that in long.

But you can’t stop thinking about Wonwoo. You want him, you know it. You can’t lock us away anymore, Y/N, we are here. Wonwoo wants you too. Didn’t you see the way he looked at you? He fell for you, Y/N, listen to us once again. Do it. Just ask Mark. He’ll find him in a second for you. You didn’t delete his picture; you have his name—

A loud shout left my lips as I tumbled over some rocks that were on the path, but thankfully I didn’t fall. My eyebrows furrowed as I crouched down to hug my knees against my chest. I can’t let the voices get to me. I can’t let one stranger fuck up what I built up with so much struggle. I couldn’t let a stranger rule my life. I wouldn’t let the voices get to me, no matter what. I was stronger than that. With a deep breath, chest rising and falling quickly, I turned around and started running back. The energy burst I had this morning seemed to have disappeared, which was a good sign. I would have to take a bath at home and then cook some dinner, edit the pictures I took today after Mark drops off the memory card and post them on my blog. Well, that settles it then, I smiled as I came to the end of the path. I slowed down to a walk and took deep breaths, leveling my breathing. I turned to walk on the sidewalk and felt the breeze brush my hair once again, making me shiver a little bit. My body was warm from the run and I concluded that sitting inside my warm car while I was sweaty was probably a better idea than spending more time outside, in the cold breezy weather. But my mind went numb when I saw the black-haired man sitting on a bench with a book in his hands. My feet were still moving, but it felt like I wasn’t in control of it anymore. The Universe was really testing me today. I bit my lower lip and unconsciously grabbed my phone inside my pocket.

No, the Universe is doing for you what you didn’t want to do, Y/N. He’s right there, sitting on that bench, waiting for you. How could you let this opportunity slip past your fingertips? You want it, so do it.

I didn’t realize it until it was too late, my finger had already pressed the button, a picture of Wonwoo having been taken. I hated myself for doing it, but it felt like all stress finally left my body. I felt at ease, I wasn’t fighting with my thoughts anymore, with the dark voices. In the end, I really didn’t have a choice but to fall back into my old habits. And I was doing so well, until Wonwoo showed up. What will Doyoung think if he finds out? I can’t be sent to a psychic ward again, it wouldn’t help. They never help; I hate the medication they give me. I can survive without them too. Maybe if I stalk him for a week or two, I can get rid of the voices and go back to how I was before meeting him. But I pressed the button again, another picture snapped of Wonwoo. I wasn’t walking anymore, I was rooted in one place, mouth hanging open as I gazed at Wonwoo in awe. I must have looked hilarious, crazy even, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t even move. But then suddenly, he didn’t flip the page of the book like he was planning to do, instead, he looked up. And his eyes fell on me, as if he felt that I was looking at him, and I jumped. His furrowed eyebrows snapped me out of my delirium, his sharp gaze sent a shiver down my spine and suddenly I found myself running away. I didn’t care what he thought, I was ashamed that I let the voices control me; it was time I headed home. It would be safer for everyone else if I just stayed at home.

That’s our girl, you’re doing amazing.

The first thing I did once I got home was clean the house, my blood was boiling as I lost grip of the voices, which kept celebrating for I have taken those two pictures of Wonwoo in the park. In that rage, I deleted them from my phone and threw my phone in the trash bin I had in my room, slamming the door shut as I went to the bathroom to grab what I needed to clean the house. I turned on music, played it loudly too, blocking out the noises coming from outside, but the voices in my mind too. Due to my rage, I was done in almost two hours, it usually would take longer if someone tried to clean the house alone, we had a lot of stuff despite it not being a big house. Once I calmed down, I went to the kitchen and made some ramen, sweet potatoes made in the oven, and some seasoned pork. I went and bought beer for Doyoung and myself, and after putting them in the fridge, I decided to check my phone to see if anyone tried looking for me. It was six in the afternoon and I hoped Doyoung didn’t think that I was kidnapped…well, he’d actually know that. For my own safety, he installed an app on my phone that could track me. I only accepted it because I knew he worried a lot about me, Doyoung and I had a strong bond and the episodes I had always broke him mentally, I tried to be a better person for him too.

From Doyoung: I don’t think the ramens in the cupboard are still edible. Text me if you get home!

To Doyoung: Well, I cooked those ramens, so now they are edible! Sorry, I cleaned the house so I wasn’t around my phone…

From Doyoung: Cleaned the house? Are you feeling alright?

I chuckled at the fast reply, no surprise Sana made him stay plus hours if he hung on his phone while on duty.

To Doyoung: Don’t worry, I’m feeling perfectly fine! I hope Sana pays you well if you stay after working hours!

From Doyoung: Don’t worry about that, she stays with me.

To Doyoung: Oh! Someone’s getting it!

I laughed as Doyoung started typing back, imagining his angry and flustered face.

From Doyoung: Don’t be silly, Y/N!

To Doyoung: Okay, bye!

I laughed as I walked to the bathroom, turning on the warm water to have a bath. After the long day I had today, I deserved a warm, relaxing bath. I got a message from Mark, a thumbs up, and I knew the memory card was in the mailbox, so I quickly jumped into some shoes and ran outside to retrieve it. I locked the front gate, Doyoung had keys too, and then hurried back inside the house. I placed the memory card on my desk and then proceeded to undress while walking back to the bathroom. I turned the faucet off and threw some bath salts into the water, pulling my hair in a high bun. I shut the blinds of the bathroom and sighed, biting my lower lip. Would it be so bad if I asked Mark to look up Wonwoo a little bit? I wouldn’t try to do anything, I just wanted to know him better? I wasn’t doing anything wrong, right? I picked up my phone reluctantly as I sat on the side of the bathtub, easing my legs into the water. I went to my gallery and to the pictures I deleted, they didn’t get instantly deleted from my phone, they were stored there for another month before finally getting deleted off the device. I selected the two pictures of Wonwoo and sent them to Mark.

To Mark: His name is Wonwoo. Remember that favor you have going on? Return it by looking this guy up.

I threw the phone onto the clothing pile that was on the ground by the bathtub and lowered myself into the water, feeling bad that I couldn’t resist the urge. It was too easy with Mark, when I was a teenager, I would do everything by myself. It was thrilling to run after someone, watch them from a distance not knowing if they would notice you or not. And if they indeed noticed you, you could always play it off somehow. But this was safer, I couldn’t risk falling back into my old habits. It was like gambling or drugs…you needed rehabilitation from it, but the yearning never really goes away. I hated myself for doing this, but without the medication I so refused to take, I wasn’t strong enough. I wouldn’t admit that to others or myself, living in a lie was always easier. But tonight, I would allow myself to live in a fantasy.

· Name: Jeon Wonwoo

· Birth date: 1996. 07.17.

· Height: 1,82 m

· Siblings: Kim Mingyu, apparently they are both adopted

· Job: Chauffeur of a business man

· Places he’s frequently seen at: National library, Sunday Gym, Red Corner bookstore, various parks around his neighborhood, hiking trails around the forest, Soul BBQ, Sky Blue headquarters

· Car: red Mercedes CLS class

· Additional things I found about him: It seems like he has thirteen close friends, he lives with his adopted brother; but I couldn’t find the address anywhere. Surveillance cameras say that he usually goes to read in the park, by the river, and he drinks a lot of coffee. I’m pretty sure he wears glasses, but there’s few pictures of him wearing it. I’m sorry, Y/N, for some reason this is everything I could find about him. He’s got a clean record, and even the little information I gave you I could barely find. Something’s fishy, but maybe he really isn’t that interesting. I wouldn’t bother with someone like him. P.S. Don’t tell anyone I helped you gain information on him, they’ll fire me!

The birds chirping were the first thing I heard as I woke up, then the hurried knocks on my door. I groaned loudly, voice hoarse from having just woken up, and the knocking stopped.

“Get up, it’s almost 9 am!” Doyoung’s voice called from the other side of the door and I sighed, burying my head in my pillow, “I’m heading in to work later. I can drive you to wherever you want to go, if you want me to.”

That definitely got my attention as I raised my head, “Okay!”

I cleared my throat and jumped up into a seated position, looking around my bed. Printed pictures lingered scattered around the blanket and my laptop was on the verge of falling off, so I grabbed it and got out of bed. I walked to my desk and placed it on top of it, leaning against the edge of the glass. I looked down at the pictures that were on my bed and decided, that I would do this. I stayed up until late night to research myself as much as I could about Wonwoo, but he had no social media. I found a few yearbook photos of him, but they didn’t help with much. Mark was right, he seemed to be a very boring person…he almost felt like a ghost, like his real identity was buried deep down. And that was exciting, so, if Doyoung had already offered to give me a lift, I could just head to the Red Corner bookstore and check it out for myself. Hopefully, Wonwoo would be there. I still don’t know his schedule, but if I start lurking around the places Mark told me about, I can very easily follow Wonwoo around once he shows up.

After having breakfast with Doyoung, we both got dressed and I gave him instructions to the Red Corner bookstore and we were off, rolling down the busy streets of the city. My fingers were tapping against my knees in excitement as I tried to stay still, trying not to alert Doyoung that I was feeling excited about something. But he was my brother, and he noticed.

“I didn’t know going to a bookstore could make you excited.” He raised an eyebrow and I chuckled, shaking my head.

“It’s not that, I’m just in a good mood!” I tried to lie, but Doyoung just shook his head; I knew he didn’t believe me.

“So…now you suddenly like to read?” He asked with a teasing grin and I scoffed, turning to look at him.

“What do you mean?” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms in front of my chest, “I always liked to read!”

“Fashion magazines, maybe.” I huffed and it made Doyoung laugh as he drove through an intersection. Once Doyoung was done laughing, he cleared his throat and briefly glanced at me.

“You wouldn’t be so excited about books unless you’re stalking someone.” I failed to pick up on the playfulness in his voice, the way he bit his lower lip to try and stay serious. My heart started suddenly beating really fast and my grip tightened around the seatbelt, my whole body became tense. How did he realize? Did he walk inside my room while I was sleeping? Was it something in my words that gave it away? Did I get worse at hiding my feelings? I could feel Doyoung’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t move out of fear. I was scared of what was coming next and ashamed. But then, Doyoung gasped and I had to look at him.

“I’m sorry!” He exclaimed, panic lacing his words, and I became confused, “I didn’t mean to say that—I—I worded that so badly, Y/N—”

“Oh,” I chuckled, trying to collect myself, “No, it was a joke! I totally get it!”

I couldn’t believe I almost gave myself away. He had no idea; he was just teasing me! I chuckled again, feeling at ease as I turned to look at Doyoung again. “Seriously, I totally got your joke!”

“I’m still sorry—” My laughter interrupted Doyoung and he just shook his head, still looking guilty.

“I could become an actress if my reaction made you react like this.” But in truth, my reaction was genuine and I was so thankful that Doyoung didn’t realize that. He could read people very easily, but maybe as he was driving he couldn’t focus fully, which was great for me. Doyoung sighed and he pulled up to the sidewalk, looking at the Red Corner bookstore, which was just across the road. I smiled and unbuckled the seatbelt; I pressed a kiss against Doyoung’s cheek then got out. He offered me a small wave before driving away. I took a deep breath and smiled, looking around the street. It didn’t look like a very busy neighborhood; a few people were walking here and there. To my right there were many narrow alleys that lead to the main road, and I took off down the street. Why would Wonwoo come to a bookstore in this side of the city if he could go to the big one at the mall? Wonderingly, I crossed the street and carefully approached the bookstore. It wasn’t open yet, so I figured I could go to the coffee shop I saw while Doyoung drove us here. The bookstore would only open in half an hour, I still had time. I walked down the street with a skip in my steps, smiling widely. I had a feeling today was going to be a successful day, but for that I needed Mark to leave me alone. I was hoping he wouldn’t get a new case for at least a week, the potentiality of following Wonwoo around without him knowing had me in a very good mood. Sleeping on the choices I took yesterday definitely did well, I wasn’t feeling as bad about as I was yesterday. Yes, it was still wrong what I was doing, but as long as no one got harmed, it wasn’t something very bad!

I entered the coffee shop and walked to the front desk, ordering my usual drink of choice. When it was done, I walked to a table and took a seat, it was by the window, and took a sip of the Caramel Macchiato. I watched the people who passed by and took another sip, relaxing in the chair, feeling content. The melody playing in the shop was pleasant and I bobbed my head to the rhythm. The bell chimed and I watched the beautiful girl that walked in, her hair was dark brown and wavy. She had bangs and she was tall, definitely a beauty.

You could follow her too, she’s your type. If Wonwoo backfires, you have an alternative.

I almost laughed out loud at the words whispered to me by the dark voices, feeling truly entertained. It was so easy to find someone, like I said, it could be literally anyone. If I found them attractive, nothing was stopping me from stalking them. But I shook my head, took another sip of the drink, and ignored the voices. I wouldn’t let them take full control over me. And as the beautiful girl waited at the front desk, my back straightened as a very familiar red Mercedes came into view. It was Wonwoo’s car. My heart started thumping quickly and for a second I didn’t know what do to, so I relaxed into the seat, trying to stay low-key. The beautiful girl saw my sudden reaction and she looked at me concerned, but I just smiled at her, trying to show her that I was fine. When she turned her back on me, I grabbed my phone and quickly went to the camera, snapping a picture through the window. Wonwoo couldn’t be seen, all windows of the car were tinted, but he didn’t get out. I quickly locked my phone when I heard the heels of the girl getting closer as she walked by me and I waited patiently until she was out of the shop before I sprung onto my feet. My knees accidentally knocked into the table and it took the barista off guard, I hurriedly went up to her and handed back the now empty glass, thanking her for her services. She gave me a funny look but I ignored her as I almost ran out of the coffee shop.

“Bye!” I called to her with a wave before exiting, and stopped for a second, taking a deep breath. Wonwoo’s car was still there, but I didn’t know if he was in there or not, so walking up to it would have been too risky.

Oh, here comes the fun we’ve been all missing.

My whole body was shaking in excitement as I thought of my next move, deciding to walk by the bookstore. I could peek inside and see if Wonwoo was in there or not, the windows were big enough to see everything from the outside. So, I started moving, fingers tapping against my palm anxiously, heart thumping wildly. This was always exciting, but also nerve wrecking. I had to move without being seen…or recognized. But, I was sure Wonwoo had already forgotten my face, I was just an ordinary, clumsy girl who almost spilled her coffee on him.

No, the image of your face has been forever printed into his mind, Y/N. He’s watching you, just like you are watching him.

I stopped walking, the woman behind me almost ran into me as she was taken off by my sudden lack of movement. She gave me a glare, but I ignored her. I was right in front of the bookstore and my heart was beating even faster. What did the voices mean? Does Wonwoo know that I’m stalking him? That can’t possibly be true…why would he…

Are you the only person that stalks in this world?

I shook my head and closed my eyes for a second, trying to block the voices. The thought of that creeped me out and I didn’t want to think about being possibly stalked. Then I mustered the courage and looked inside, seeing two girls at the front desk. No trace of Wonwoo, however, as I looked around the place. Not wanting to draw too much attention to myself, I walked by and rounded the corner, leaning against the red cobblestone wall. Well, if Wonwoo wasn’t inside, he must still be in his car. Which is bad, because Doyoung drove me here. I didn’t think I’d have success on my first day of keeping my eyes on him, so I didn’t find coming with a car necessary. But now, I regretted my decision. With a sigh, I took my phone in my hand and was about to search for a cab, but then I heard laughter. Deep laughter. Coming from around the corner. My heart skipped a beat as I peeked around the corner, he was standing there. Wearing light blue jeans and a turtleneck, his dark hair in his eyes and round glasses sitting high up on the bridge of his nose. I quietly exhaled, taken by the sight in front of me. Wonwoo laughed again, his voice was still deep, his laughter was short but warm. The way his lips pulled up into a huge smile it melted away the cold expression I’ve seen him have in the pictures I found of him. His eyes didn’t look as menacing anymore. Not even realizing that I was doing it, I snapped a few pictures, hopeful that I caught his smiling face. But he was with the beautiful girl, and she was touching his arm. So then does Wonwoo have a girlfriend? And it’s the beautiful girl from the coffee shop? It isn’t impossible.

You could have both…or you could get rid of one…

“Shut up!” I hissed, and quickly ducked back behind the red cobblestone wall, scared that they heard me. They were a good distance away, and there was noise on the street, but I could never be too sure. I hated the dark voices, especially when they suggested getting rid of someone. I could never do it; I didn’t want to. I would go too low, I would disappoint Doyoung so much. If I killed someone, he’d be the one putting me behind bars. I didn’t want to see the pain on his face, pain I caused for him. I didn’t want him to suffer or worry for me anymore, he’s had enough of it while we were still young kids.

The slamming of the bookstore door snapped me out of my thoughts and nervously, I peeked around the corner again, seeing Wonwoo walking away. He was headed towards his car, so I didn’t bother following him at first, but when he went past it without getting in, I grinned. He wasn’t leaving just yet, that means I can follow him around! Fixing my hair and keeping my phone in my hand for comfort, I took off after Wonwoo, keeping a safe distance between us.

And I had a very successful day. Wonwoo stayed in the neighborhood for three hours, just walking around. I snapped plenty of pictures of him, ones I would have to copy on my laptop the second I got home and delete them off my phone. He did go and had breakfast at a tiny local restaurant, which had amazing food by the way. They had some traditional cake that I haven’t eaten before, and I made a mental note to return there from time to time. Maybe with Doyoung, he’s always had a sweet tooth. Then Wonwoo went for a short walk in the park, before he went back to the bookstore. He came out with a book and then went behind the bookstore, to a playground, sat underneath a big willow tree and read. For two hours, he didn’t move from there. His hair was moved by the breeze from time to time, his lips pursed sometimes, and eyebrows furrowed every once in a while. His glasses kept falling off and he had to push them up every five minutes. I’m assuming when something was interesting or tense, he’d bite his lip or thumb, eyes running over quickly the words on the white pages. I took a picture and I was able to see the title of the book, ‘I’ll be gone in the dark’. So, he was into crime books, I looked up and smiled in his direction. He just became more and more mysterious. I was aching to know who he truly was, what he truly liked, I was yearning to hear his beautiful laughter again. And as if Wonwoo finally noticed that someone was watching him, he looked up. And he looked at me. We made eye contact, my heart started beating like crazy, my hands shook.

What will you do now Y/N? Isn’t this just thrilling?

But suddenly a tap on my knee made me jump. I looked down confused and saw a little boy grinning up at me. My eyebrows rose as I watched him; he had his hands behind his back.

“Hello?” I asked confused, glancing around to see if he was with anyone. A couple elderly people were by the entrance of the playground, chatting. He was probably with one of them.

“Hi!” The boy said shyly and I offered him a warm smile.

“Can I help you? Are you lost?” I asked him, making sure that he wasn’t here alone.

“No.” He shook his head with a chuckle, then looked down. I chuckled and looked at him confused; he was shifting his weight from one leg to another.

“You’ve been sitting here for a long time,” He suddenly said as he looked back at me, “Aren’t you cold?”

I didn’t know how to answer him, he took me off guard. What was a little boy doing, talking to a stranger?

“My jacket is thick, I’m not cold—”

“Do you like that man?” When the little boy suddenly pointed at Wonwoo, my heart jumped into my throat. I was praying he wasn’t looking my way anymore, and thankfully; he wasn’t. Actually, he was gone. Disappointment settled in and my eyebrows furrowed as I looked around, trying to spot him.

“He’s gone.” I whispered, standing up abruptly. My legs were sore, my ass actually hurt. I should have moved around, not sat there unmoving for two hours straight.

“This is for you.” The little boy chuckled and I looked back down at him; he was holding a little white flower. I took it from him confused, but he just grinned at me and then ran off. What a strange encounter that was. But after that, I went back to the bookstore, and Wonwoo’s car was gone. He had left. That meant I was done for the day, he could’ve been anywhere, and I was actually really cold. So, I called a cab and went home, changed and then went for a long run. I needed to clear my mind, block the voices that were so violently trying to dictate me my next move. I wouldn’t let them rule over me, I was the one in charge of myself and my actions.

After I got home, I showered and cooked some dinner, then I sat in the living room with the TV on as I copied all the pictures I took of Wonwoo onto my laptop. My cheeks felt warm as I looked at them again. I printed two, one where Wonwoo was smiling and one while he was sitting underneath the tree. The breeze had picked up and his hair was blown all around, he was pushing up his glasses, his lips in a tight line. The pictured offered me calmness and as I was looking at it, the front door got unlocked. Franticly, I closed my laptop and threw the two pictures into the folder I was using to store everything I had on Wonwoo. Doyoung looked tired as he walked inside and I was standing very awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

“Hi!” I called out loudly and he looked up, taken aback by my presence there.

“Uh, hi.” He greeted back, giving me a questioning look but I just giggled.

“I cooked dinner!” I tried to diffuse the awkwardness and Doyoung started grinning.

“Thank God, I didn’t have lunch today, I’m starving!” He said as he pushed his shoes off.

“It’s important to have lunch.” I said as I walked to the fridge, taking out the food I had prepared.

“Yeah, but according to Sana, so is raiding the Sky-Blue headquarters.” Doyoung said defeated and my eyebrows furrowed. Where have I heard that name before?

“Why? What’s there?” I asked curiously as Doyoung took off towards his room.

“The mafia Sana is sniffing around.” And with that he went inside his room to change and come to have dinner. But the report from Mark said that Wonwoo frequents that place often. Why? Does he maybe know there’s a mafia inside there? Or is he oblivious to it?

And you thought he was boring? Aren’t things getting more and more interesting?

“How was your day?” I slammed the plates on the table and it made Doyoung wince. I gave him an apologetic grin as I placed two forks and some napkins too next to the plates.

“Uneventful,” I said with a sigh, going to the living room to grab my stuff, “I’ll be right back, I’ll just put these in my room.”

Doyoung hummed as he took a seat at the table, placing food on his plate. I hurried to my room, clutching the file tightly to make sure it wouldn’t open and free its contents onto the floor as I carried the laptop in my other hand. I entered my room and went towards my desk, placing my laptop on top of it. The file I placed on a shelf of my bookcase and as I was about to leave I noticed how the temperature was a bit colder than in the other rooms. Looking around, I noticed my window was slightly open and with a sigh, I went and closed it and locked it. It wasn’t unlike me to forget to close it back if I happened to open it up. And just as I turned around to leave the room for good, my eyes stopped on my nightstand. Five white lilies were placed in a tall glass with water. I remained rooted to the spot, warmness spreading in my chest. It’s been long since I got flowers from someone. How did Doyoung get these in here without me noticing the flowers when he got inside the house? I chuckled and shook my head as I went to have dinner, stomach churning loudly. It felt nice to get flowers. Even if they were from my brother.

I should have taken Mark’s offer and went on that vacation he proposed, but my mind wouldn’t let me do that. I had a new mission, and it was following Wonwoo around. For a whole week I was vigilant enough that he didn’t notice me and now I knew his habits. In the mornings, he’d take that beautiful girl to the bookstore and then go buy himself coffee. Sometimes he’d go back to that park and read for a few hours, other times he’d leave and go to the gym. He would spend a lot of time at the Sky-Blue headquarters and drive his boss to less or more sketchy places. His boss was Kim Mingyu, it crossed my mind to research him too and follow him around for a day or two, but he was giving me bad vibes. When I trailed after Wonwoo’s car when he was with Mingyu, I felt like the two knew I was there. Sometimes, they’d drive around in the same neighborhood twice and I would have to take different turns in order to make it seem like I wasn’t following them…but it almost always led me to lose them. After Wonwoo was done with his work, he’d go to the national library and spend hours there, so much, that I was starting to worry that he’d fall ill from not eating and drinking enough. In fact, he barely ate anything all day, maybe he did it somehow when I wasn’t watching, otherwise I can’t explain how he remained energetic and standing for the whole day. On the third day of watching him, I decided to enter the library myself and try and find a book that I would enjoy. He switched from the book he was reading to a different one, in fact, every day he read something different. It was confusing, and I was dying to ask him why…but the right moment hadn’t come for it yet. One day, I got so immersed in my own book that I totally forgot about keeping my eyes on Wonwoo too and when I looked up from my book, Wonwoo was gone from his usual spot. I looked around a little too frantically, my knees bouncing fast. I waited for two more minutes before I sprung up onto my feet and took off towards the section I took the book I was reading from. I heard hushed laughter coming from nearby but I was busy trying push the book back in its place, so busy, that I totally missed the deep tone of the laughter. When I finally had the book in its original place, I turned and took off pretty much running, which led me into stumbling forward as my shoes got caught in the carpet. I gasped and ran into the bookshelves in front of me, barely catching myself from falling.

“Are you alright?” A feminine voice asked, and as I turned to answer them, my heart stopped beating. The woman was standing next to Wonwoo and they were both looking at me confused and concerned. I gulped and suddenly my throat was dry as my eyes jumped from the woman to Wonwoo and then back at the woman and then again to Wonwoo. I was waiting for him to point at me and yell that I’m a psycho stalker, but he just looked confused and I quietly sighed.

“Yeah, sorry!” I said awkwardly and bowed my head quickly before turning around and running away embarrassed. It was good that Wonwoo had no recollection of my face, it means that he didn’t pay much attention to me at the Coffee Shop and he also didn’t know that I was pretty much stalking him. As much as stalking Wonwoo made my week better and definitely uplifted my mood, the highlight of my week were the daily white lilies I was finding in my room each evening. I didn’t know how Doyoung was doing it, I could swear I saw him enter empty handed each evening, but maybe he was turning into a magician and was trying his tricks out on me. I didn’t say anything to him, wanting to act oblivious to his nice act if he wouldn’t say something first. But I had my concerns regarding Wonwoo and the relationship between him and the beautiful girl from the bookstore. She worked there and seeing them each morning together gave me the impression that they were on really good terms…possibly even dating, even though I’ve only seen them hugging. So, for that, to check it myself, I had a plan. I bought a copy of the book I saw Wonwoo reading in the park and one morning, on a Tuesday when I knew Wonwoo wouldn’t be the one giving a lift to the beautiful girl, I headed inside the bookstore.

The bell chimed loudly and it was warm inside. The radio was playing through the speakers at a low volume and the girl I was here for was at the front desk. My eyes fell on her and I noticed how she hasn’t had curly hair ever since that day I saw her in the Coffee Shop. She was concentrated on her phone, smiling as she typed quickly. I cleared my throat and walked up to the front desk, leaning against it. It took her a second to realize that someone was standing there, looking at her.

“Oh, hi!” She had a powerful voice; it didn’t take one long to realize she was a confident person. I smiled at her kindly and tapped my fingers against the counter.

“Hi…” I looked around quickly, feigning nervousness, “I’m sorry to bother you here…”

Then I looked at her name tag and read her name, “Hyemi, pretty name! Anyways…uhm, this book…”

I grabbed it out of my bag and placed it on top of the counter, “Wonwoo borrowed it to me and well…I’ve had it for too long and I want to return it.”

“Oh, you know Wonwoo?” Hyemi’s eyebrows rose as she took the book from me and looked at it, “I’ve seen this one laying around in his house.”

Oh, so she knows where Wonwoo lives. And she was there too. You knew this was coming, Y/N, but are you ready to face the consequences? What if you have to give up both? You can always get rid of one of them…you know it’s not hard…

“I’ve met him at the library, sometimes we talk,” I said with a shrug and took the book back from Hyemi, “he recommended it to me.”

I was hoping she didn’t see the tightness of my jaw as I tried to ignore the evil voices. They were urging me to grab the girl by the hair and drag her away. I couldn’t do that; I wasn’t like that anymore. And nothing was sure yet. They can be friends; friends hang out together in their apartments all the time. I can’t jump to conclusions just yet. And I’ve never seen Wonwoo spend time with her except for when he drops Hyemi off in the mornings.

“He really likes doing that!” Hyemi said with a roll of her eyes and I chuckled, putting the book away.

“He does, but it’s fine, I don’t mind.” She hummed and we looked behind her when there was a click. Another breathtakingly beautiful woman walked into the room and I couldn’t help but gape at her. Her lips were red and her long brown hair was in a low ponytail, eyeliner on her eyelids. She looked amazing, I cleared my throat and quickly read her name tag. Irene.

“Everything alright?” She asked with authority in her voice and I found myself nodding very quickly, but Hyemi just chuckled.

“Yes, I was just talking to—” Then both women looked at me and I was lost for a second, feeling flustered. My fingers tapped against the counter quickly and I realized they were waiting for me to tell them my name.

“Y/N!” I exclaimed and my cheeks became warm, “Uhm, my name is Y/N.”

“Wonwoo borrowed Y/N a book and she wants to return it.” Hyemi said with a smile and Irene hummed, looking me over quickly. Then she offered me a small smile and her stern expression melted away. It eased my nerves a little and I offered her a similar smile.

“Right, so…could you give me his address?” I asked, very innocently, as I looked Hyemi in the eyes. She knows where Wonwoo lives, I’m a little bothered by that but at least now I’ll find out his address too. But her eyebrows furrowed and she looked at me apologetically.

“Sorry, I don’t think I should just tell you that…without Wonwoo’s consent at least—”

“Oh, right!” I exclaimed and looked down embarrassed, “That was really…a dumb request, don’t worry! I totally get it!”

“Not to be mean—”

“No! It’s fine, you’re right!” I waved my hands in the air and Irene chuckled as she watched the exchange between us. I took a step back and played with my fingers as I tried to keep on an embarrassed expression.

“I’ll give it back to him when I meet him at the library.”

“Are you sure? You could give it to me and I’ll—”

“I’m sure.” I interrupted Hyemi and walked backwards towards the door, “Have a nice day, ladies!”

“You too!” Irene called out as Hyemi’s eyebrows furrowed a little bit.

“Bye.” She muttered as I hurried out the door, heart beating fast. What if she realized I was lying? Now all I could hope for was that she wouldn’t tell Wonwoo and throw me off from the progress I’ve been making.

And that day when I arrived home, I found more white lilies sitting on the little table that we had on the front porch. I took them and inhaled their scent, a smile appearing on my lips. And as a breeze passed by, I felt eyes on me. So, I straightened up and looked around, but the fence was high enough that no one would see inside, so I shook the feeling off and unlocked the front door, walking inside the house and headed to the kitchen to take a vase for the new lilies.

A few days passed since I’ve been to the bookstore and I had realized that I needed a different approach. Yesterday, Hyemi and Wonwoo didn’t show up to the bookstore and as I went on with my day, I found Wonwoo nowhere he’d usually be at. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so, I figured they must have taken a day off. But that thought didn’t sit well with me, so, I decided that it was time I took serious actions. A more straightforward approach. One that would set off the start of something between Wonwoo and I.

I woke up a little earlier than I usually would to be able to get ready. We had only one bathroom, and for once, I put a little effort into my appearance. I usually didn’t doll myself up, but today I wanted to look pretty. So, I put on minimal makeup and decided to be a bit bold and use red lipstick too. I pulled my hair out of my face and clipped the front strands back and then I cooked breakfast for Doyoung and I, wanting to surprise him. He was always the one that got up early and made sure we ate well, but I felt like returning this little favor to him since he’s been bringing me white lilies for almost two weeks now. I even turned his morning alarm off, wanting to give him a little extra time to sleep, which was always welcomed as he worked late and had to wake up really early. After breakfast was ready, I went back to my room to get dressed and spent at least ten minutes thinking of an outfit. In the end, I settled on high waist mom jeans and a long-sleeved colorful crop top as yesterday it was rather warm. Then, I grabbed my bag and went to Doyoung’s room to wake him up. He was in a good mood once I told him I cooked breakfast and that I let him sleep in, his laughter echoed in the house as he told me a funny story that happened at work. Breakfast was pleasant and tasty and once we were done, I didn’t wait for Doyoung, I headed out. I told him that I found a new path in the forest that lead to a beautiful clearing with a spring and that I wanted to take pictures while the sun wasn’t high up in the sky, which unfortunately was a lie. I did find a place like that, but it was last month and I had already taken plenty of pictures of it. But Doyoung didn’t have to know that I was back to stalking again, especially not today, when I was so excited about my plan. Before going to the library, I grabbed a cup of coffee, Americano this time as I didn’t have in mind drinking it and it would’ve been a waste to buy Caramel Macchiato. By the time I got to the library it was nearing noon and I was hopeful that wherever Wonwoo went, he’d be back by today, otherwise, I did all of this for nothing. When I entered, the librarian gave me a glance and her eyebrows furrowed as they fell on my coffee, but I hid it behind my back and offered her a warm smile. She shook her head but didn’t say anything and I bowed my head, hurrying further inside. The coffee wasn’t hot anymore, but it was still warm, at least it wouldn’t burn him. I cleared my throat and took in a deep breath, about to round the corner and head to the reading area. My heart was pounding quickly in my chest and I feared that others would be able to hear it in the calming silence of the library. But as I rounded the corner, my mind went blank.

There he is.

I could feel excitement enter my whole body and my fingers started tapping quickly against the cup of coffee I was holding, I had to force myself to stay as still as I could and not take off towards Wonwoo. He was sitting at his usual spot, in the middle of the area and at the edge of the table. He had a book on the table in front of him, his glasses were close to falling off and his black hair was a bit messy. He was wearing a black t-shirt and a silver necklace hung around his neck. My eyes got glued to his muscly arms as he flipped the page and I gulped, trying to focus on my plan once again.

He is a sight for sore eyes, isn’t he, Y/N? No surprise you can’t handle the thought of someone else having him.

I shook my head a little and then started walking. My heels clicked against the wooden floor, but it was a dull sound, and thankfully Wonwoo didn’t look up. His eyebrows were furrowed as his eyes ran over the words in the book, and he sighed loudly as I got closer and closer. I glanced around, but there weren’t many people, and those who were, they were too busy studying or reading. Knowing that no one was looking my way, I knew what I was about to do wouldn’t look suspicious to anyone. I was two tables away from Wonwoo, and as I was watching him so closely, I noticed the sudden tensity of his muscles. How his palms clenched into fists and it almost looked like he was reading the same thing over and over, but I wouldn’t be actually able to tell that. My plan was to accidentally run into the corner of the table he was sitting at and spill the coffee on him. Like that, I had an excuse to talk to him and hopefully he’d even agree to me buying him a new shirt. I wasn’t able to decipher his personality as he was mostly by himself, but I prayed to every God out there that he’d comply to my wishes. And just as my eyes fixated on the corner of the table, to make sure that the front of my shoe would get stuck in it, Wonwoo abruptly stood up. And I jumped and panicked. The sound his chair made was loud and I lost all train of thought as his eyes fell on me and the heel of my shoe got stuck in the edge of the carpet. And suddenly, I was falling forward, eyes widened in horror. Wonwoo didn’t even blink, he just stood there, looking almost taken aback. And then our bodies collided into each other, and I felt the warm coffee spill not just on his chest, but on my own too. I gasped loudly, Wonwoo remained silent and suddenly I felt the eyes of the people who were around us, on us. Wonwoo was tense as he quickly gripped my forearms to steady me, the empty cup of coffee fell against the ground and I felt like it made the loudest sound I have ever heard. But in reality, it barely even made a thudding sound. My eyes remained wide, heart beating fast as I remained rooted in Wonwoo’s arms.

He smells so good. And his body is so firm. Do you hear how loud his breathing is, Y/N?

The evil voice made me shiver and I sprung out of Wonwoo’s hold, looking at him wide eyed. He looked frozen for a second, but then he lowered his arms, and gulped, glancing down at his damp t-shirt.

“Oh my God,” I muttered, looking down at my own damp shirt, this didn’t go as planned, he was the only one supposed to get coffee spilled on, “I am so sorry!”

My voice was quiet as I tried not to disturb the other people in there and Wonwoo finally looked at me. His sharp eyes offered no warmness and suddenly I felt small under his intense gaze. I felt embarrassed and as if I was caught in the act, but it’s him who stood up. This was supposed to happen differently.

“At least it wasn’t burning hot.” Wonwoo’s deep voice reached my ears and I did everything I could to memorize the deep vibration of it.

“Yeah, I got it a while ago…” I mumbled and looked down embarrassed, unable to maintain his intense eye contact.

“Accidents happen,” I could see him shrug as he ran his hands down his abdomen, “And it’s my fault, I was the one who stood up so abruptly—”

“Oh, no—” I looked up and shook my hands quickly, “I shouldn’t have walked so close to the table, it’s really my fault—”

“Don’t worry about it,” His lips pulled into a small smirk and I knew I was going to blush, “I’m not mad at you.”

My cheeks were hot and I felt at a loss of words all of a sudden, almost forgetting why I even planned on doing this.

“I feel guilty though—” I managed to get out, trying to avoid looking at his lips, “Let me make up for it!”

Someone towards the back of the reading area cleared their throat and I realized I was starting to speak too loudly; my leg was tapping against the wooden floor anxiously. I wanted to insist, but I didn’t know what to say next. I needed Wonwoo to co-operate, but I wasn’t sure he would just yet. His expression didn’t give away anything and I bit my lower lip nervously.

“How can you make up for it?” His eyebrows rose and my heart jumped in my chest.

“Uhm, I—I can just, uh—buy you a new shirt?” I hated myself for stuttering, but this was more nerve wrecking than I remembered it being. Has it been really that long since I’ve done this?

“I have plenty of shirts…” Wonwoo’s deep voice made me look back at him and I tried to stay calm. I couldn’t decipher his expression, but he looked like he was teasing me. I smiled softly and played with my fingers, glancing away from him before looking back.

“The mall is literally across the road…and…if you let me buy you this shirt, you’ll never forget that a stranger spilled their coffee on you on a very nice Wednesday…” Suddenly, all tension left my body when a wide smile appeared on Wonwoo’s lips. For the first time, I noticed how his nose scrunched up when he smiled, and how soft he seemed like this. When Wonwoo smiled, he wasn’t intimidating anymore, it was as if I was looking at a different person. My heart started beating quickly again and I felt at peace as I gaped at him, hopeful that he didn’t find it creepy. If only he knew…

“You might need a new shirt as well…” Wonwoo said once he was done laughing and I looked down at my shirt, eyebrows furrowing. Well yeah…that wasn’t part of the plan.

“If you insist.” I said with a shrug and Wonwoo chuckled, shaking his head.

“I’ll put this book back and then we can go.” Wonwoo said as he closed the book he was reading and picked it up from the table. He gave me a glance before he turned and walked towards the tall bookshelves, disappearing between them. I bit my lower lip, trying to contain my victorious smirk in case Wonwoo returned. I remembered the abandoned cup and turned around to pick it up, chuckling to myself. My plan didn’t work, but worked at the same time. It played out a little different than what I had in mind, but in the end, I still got what I wanted.

“Let’s go?” I turned my head and Wonwoo was by my side, eyebrows raised as his eyes fell on the empty cup. I nodded my head and we took off towards the mall from across the road, about to buy some new shirts.

Once we got to the mall I made Wonwoo choose a shop he likes and I’d buy him a t-shirt from there, only if he likes it, of course. In the end, he lead us to the cheapest shop and said that I should choose something for myself as well and he’ll buy it, because it was his fault too that the coffee was spilled as he got in my way. When he pointed towards the shop and said that he wanted to choose from that one, I gave him a look.

“Are you sure?” I asked as I followed after him, “Because I might look poor, but I’m not. So, if you want to wear something fancy, I totally can get it for you—”

“I don’t need anything fancy.” Wonwoo interrupted with a chuckle and I shrugged, walking inside the shop.

“Well, good for you then.” I muttered, looking around. To the left was the men section and to the right the women section, I pointed towards the men section, “Let’s go.”

Without thinking, I grabbed his wrist and noticed how warm his skin was against mine. I didn’t realize it was inappropriate to hold someone you just met, let alone drag him after you. But I was too happy that my plan actually worked out and that he didn’t recognize me at all. Even though he’s seen me twice before.

What if you aren’t remarkable enough? You could get Hyemi instead of Wonwoo, since he doesn’t even remember your face.

I shook my head and stopped in front of racks of various colored t-shirt and simple shirts, “Well, choose one!”

Wonwoo came to stand next to me and his eyebrows furrowed a little bit as he started moving the racks with his left hand. My right leg was tapping against the ground as I looked at his profile. His jaw was sharp and lips jutting out as he tried to choose one. Suddenly, I became aware of the hold I had on his wrist still and released it, clearing my throat awkwardly. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and looked ahead when Wonwoo glanced at me. I could feel my cheeks burning in embarrassment, but from the corner of my eyes I could see him smirking. It made my leg tap faster against the floor and I wished that something would happen that would save me from the embarrassment I was currently feeling.

“This one will do.” He suddenly spoke up, as if he could read my thoughts, and I turned to look at him. He was holding an almost identic t-shirt to the one he was wearing, except this one had longer sleeves. My eyes lingered on it before I gave him an affirming nod, and Wonwoo smiled.

“Your turn.” This time, he grabbed my wrist and started pulling me towards the women section. My heart suddenly picked up its pace and my free hand turned into a fist as I tried to contain my wide grin once again. His grip felt like it was on fire and burned away on my skin, but I was enjoying it, it was a nice feeling. He released me though the second we got to the shirts and I didn’t even look, just picked up a brown see through shirt.

“This one!” I exclaimed and grinned at Wonwoo, holding up the shirt. His eyes fell on it and his eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you sure?” He asked and I could almost hear a certain discomfort in his tone, but I thought I was just making things up. So, I just nodded my head with a wide smile and Wonwoo sighed, pointing towards the changing rooms.

“Let’s change then.”

“Shouldn’t we pay first?” I asked surprised as Wonwoo took off.

“No, take the tag off, we can still pay.” My eyebrows furrowed at Wonwoo’s words but I didn’t say anything as I went inside a cabin and quickly changed into the shirt I picked. Once I was dressed, I gulped. Well, I certainly should have looked first at what I was picking out, you could see my black bra through the material. And it was a bit too thin for this weather, but if we stayed inside the mall for longer I wouldn’t be bothered. And my car was around the corner, hopefully I wouldn’t catch a cold. I pulled the curtain back and my eyes fell on Wonwoo who was leaning against the wall casually. He was wearing black jeans and black combat boots. The t-shirt he picked was tight around his chest and I couldn’t look away. It was a mouthwatering sight and I gulped, snapping out of it. But the silence stretched on for longer as Wonwoo continued looking at me with an unreadable expression, jaw just a little tight. He kept his eyes on my face, but I didn’t miss the split second they lowered towards my see-through shirt. It made me fidget as I cleared my throat.

“Let’s—let’s pay!” I quickly hurried past Wonwoo, feeling embarrassed for the nth time today. I could hear a deep chuckle behind me, but I ignored it and approached the front desk.

“Hi, we bought these two shirts we are wearing, the tags are here—” I started speaking as I placed the tags on the counter.

“I’m sorry Miss, that’s against the rules.” The cashier very rudely interrupted and gave me a glare.

“Uhm…we still intend to pay though…”

“It’s still against the rules to do that, I have to call security—”

“Maybe you should just scan the tags and proceed on with your life, Kelly.” Wonwoo’s deep voice boomed next to me and I looked at him, his jaw was clenched and he was glaring at the cashier, whose name was Kelly. She seemed to shrink a little under Wonwoo’s gaze and she hesitated for a second, but then scanned in the tags.

“We are paying separately.” Wonwoo proceeded to say when he saw that she put the shirts on the same bill and Kelly apologized quickly. I looked at Wonwoo, eyebrows furrowed at the sudden change in his attitude. He looked stern and demanding, I probably would’ve done instantly what he told me, if he looked at me like that. This is how I imagined Wonwoo’s personality to be like, yet it didn’t sit well with me. Something felt off about his attitude, this wasn’t the first time he was being like this. And it was very obvious that he knew what effect it would have on the one targeted.

“Here.” The girl muttered once she handed Wonwoo the change back and then it was my turn to pay, which went by quickly as both of us were trying to move quickly under Wonwoo’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Uh, bye!” I called out as Wonwoo and I walked out with a bag each and our stained shirts inside them. I stopped walking once we were out of the shop and Wonwoo stopped too, looking back at me confused.

“Something wrong?” He asked confused and I shook my head.

“Not at all…I’m just glad we are even now…” I shrugged and he nodded with a hum, looking around. I tried to shrug off the sudden uncertainty I was feeling. Wonwoo didn’t seem as safe anymore as I had imagined him to be.

“Do you want to grab some lunch?” My heart jumped into my throat instantly and my mind went blank. How do I answer that question? That was definitely not what I had planned, but it was turning even better. But I couldn’t, I felt like it would be too much. Yes, I wanted to get to know him, but I already felt like an intruder. This happened only because of me, I didn’t want Wonwoo to feel like he had to do this. And I wanted to sort out my thought first and analyze our interaction.

“I would love to, but I have to help out my brother.” I lied through my teeth, with a smile on my face.

“Ah…” He nodded and neared me, I felt small under his strong gaze. It looked like he was looking right into my soul, reading my mind. It gave me the impression that he knew I was lying, “You don’t have to feel guilty for spilling the coffee on me, I told you, accidents happen.”

“I know!” I laughed nervously, my leg tapping against the ground once again, “I feel like I should wash that t-shirt…to actually stop feeling guilty…”

And that was the second stage of my plan. Get him to give me his t-shirt so that I can wash it, that way I get his phone number and I have an excuse to meet up with him again. Wonwoo’s eyebrows rose at my words and he chuckled, reaching inside his bag for without saying anything.

“Here.” He said and handed me his stained t-shirt.

“Really?” I asked gaping and he chuckled as I took it from him, “I thought you’d be against it…”

“I’m not,” He said with a casual shrug and then fished his phone out of his pocket, “I’ll need your number in order to get back my t-shirt…unless you’re a t-shirt thief.”

I started laughing as I took his unlocked phone and typed in my phone number, trying to hide the tremble of my fingers, “Shhh, no one knows.”

I winked as I handed him back his phone with my number saved and Wonwoo chuckled, ringing me. That way I had his number too, which I would save the second I got to my car. And then, he took another step and I was taken aback by the closeness between us.

“Tell me…” He muttered, his voice deep and I gulped nervously, “Have we met before?”

He knows, Y/N.

I froze up for a second, looking at him with my jaw having fallen open, “What? I—I don’t think—where—You know, maybe at the library—No! We have never met before!”

I knew I fucked up with my stuttering and the way Wonwoo suddenly started smirking like he was proud of himself for making me react like that. Maybe he really does know and the voices aren’t wrong.

“You go to the library often?”

“Lately, yeah.” I cleared my throat and stepped back, acting like I was looking at the shop behind Wonwoo.

“I see.” He nodded and then stepped back too, holding his hand out, “We haven’t introduced ourselves, I’m Wonwoo.”

My eyebrows rose as I realized we really didn’t, even though I already knew his name. Thank God it didn’t slip from my lips, that would’ve been really bad.

“I’m Y/N, nice to meet you!” I smiled at him widely and shook his head excited, trying to ignore how hot his hand was once again. His grip was firm and I decided to ignore how our hands touched for a little bit longer than they were supposed to.

“Nice to meet you too.” Wonwoo chuckled and we let go of each other’s hands finally.

“I have to go now…” I pointed behind me and Wonwoo gave me a nod and a small wave, “Bye!”

“See you soon, Y/N.” I shivered at how low his tone got and quickly hurried away, feeling embarrassed, excited, nervous and confused by the vibes he was giving me. Why is it that I feel like there’s something going on with him?

I was eager to get home after the day I had, ready to get lost in my thoughts and analyze every little detail about the exchange between Wonwoo and I. I even considered texting him, but I didn’t want to come off as creepy, or give him the wrong impression. If I wanted things to work out, I had to be smooth and careful about everything I said and did. As I parked my car in its usual place, I noticed how the lights were on inside the house and realized Doyoung was already home. Doyoung was home early! I quickly got out of the car and locked it, almost running to get inside the house faster. It was rare that Doyoung was home before nightfall and I missed spending time with him and going out with him. We haven’t gone on a run together in a long time and I was hoping that Doyoung was up to it. I knocked on the front door first to let Doyoung know that it was me, and then pushed the door open and walked inside.

“Doyoung!” I shrieked, seeing that he wasn’t in the living room nor kitchen, “Hi!”

Doyoung didn’t answer right away and as I closed the door behind me and locked it, I heard the water running in the bathroom. Doyoung was washing up, so I walked to my room and changed out of my clothes and wore something comfortable. I quickly removed my makeup and sighed as I pulled my hair in a low bun, feeling at ease once again. I opened my window to let in some fresh air and as I was about to walk away, I noticed the white lilies on the windowsill. I chuckled at Doyoung’s creativeness and picked them up, taking them inside with me. It was smart of him, to be honest. He parked his car behind the backyard, where the wall of my bedroom was too. So, in order to get to the front of the house he’d have to pass by my windows and that would explain how he was able to sneak in the flowers inside my room without me seeing them. But as I held the lilies, I realized that there were ten pieces this time and I bit my lower lip as a wide smile spread onto my lips. I glanced at the bag that contained the shirts that got coffee spilled on them and I walked up to it, grabbing Wonwoo’s t-shirt. I took it in my hands and, having placed the lilies on my bed, and felt the soft fabric of the black t-shirt. It was bigger than my own torso as I held it against my frame and chuckled as I walked towards my mirror. So that’s what I would look like wearing Wonwoo’s shirts.

You look lovely, Y/N, we bet Wonwoo can’t wait to see you like this. If you proceed carefully, he’ll be yours in a blink of an eye.

I chuckled, letting the image the voices created linger in my mind. I brought the t-shirt up against my nose and reveled in Wonwoo’s cologne. It was masculine and it carried a musky scent and something that I have only felt on Doyoung, the smell of gunpowder. My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the t-shirt, lowering it back inside the bag. Why would Wonwoo’s t-shirt smell like gunpowder? Does he go to the shooting ranges? Is it a hobby of his? No, if it was, I would’ve known already. But before I could dwell on it longer, the bathroom door closed and I jumped, taking the white lilies as I left my room.

“Y/N, are you home—”

“Doyoung!” I exclaimed and threw my arms around my brother, giving him a back hug. Doyoung chuckled and tapped my arms, softly peeling them off himself.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be home so early!” I said as I walked around him, wandering if we had any free vases for the lilies.

“I wasn’t either…” Doyoung muttered and I heard him sigh as I opened some cabinets until I found a blue vase. I smiled in victory and filled it with water, placing the lilies inside before putting the vase in the middle of the dining table. Doyoung was lounging on the couch with a frown on his face and as I looked at him, about to rant about my day, I realized something was wrong. He looked drained; his eyes even looked red.

“Doyoung…” I muttered with a frown and approached him slowly, arms hugging around my torso, “Are you okay?”

He looked up at me and tried to put on a smile, “Yeah! I’m fine—”

But his voice broke a little and I quickly sat next to him, throwing my arms around him as I pulled him into a tight hug.

“Hey, talk to me.” I whispered as I rubbed his back reassuringly. His arms went around me and he sighed loudly, sniffing.

“Well…I was sent home early because the higher ups are in meetings…” He sighed again and I just hummed as I waited patiently for him to continue.

“Sana was found dead this morning—” His voice broke again and I froze. Doyoung’s boss was dead? Who could have done such thing? And why?

“Oh, Doyoung, I’m so sorry…” I whispered, tightening my hold around him. He nodded his head and then rested his cheek against my shoulder. We remained silent as I tried offering comfort to my brother, knowing how much Sana’s death affected him. Not many liked Sana, sometimes even Doyoung hated her, but they spent a lot of time together. And inevitably they bonded, she still meant something to him.

“She was shot in the head once, it killed her instantly—” I wanted to tell him to stop thinking about it, to not tell me anything about her death, but he had to get it off his chest. And I was there to listen, I would always be there for Doyoung, no matter what he needed.

“There were signs of other altercations before her death…” Then he stopped for a second and scoffed, “She attacked a girl, Y/N, a simple, innocent, girl. She just—broke inside her apartment, trashed it and—and tried killing her? I don’t understand—”

“People do all sorts of things,” I interrupted Doyoung’s rambling, “You can never truly know what a person is capable of until it’s done.”

Doyoung sniffed again and then gently pulled back, rubbing his eyes. I let my hands rest in my lap as I watched my brother trying to pull himself together.

“She did it because of a guy—I don’t understand. She was obsessed with this—Kim Mingyu and she attacked Hyemi for being with him, I—” Doyoung shrugged and fell back against the couch, looking up at the white ceiling. My eyebrows furrowed as I watched my brother. Kim Mingyu? It’s the guy Wonwoo works for. Wait…does Wonwoo know anything about this? Why was he missing yesterday? Hyemi…it can’t be the girl from the bookstore, right?

“Is Hyemi alright?” I found myself asking quietly and Doyoung hummed.

“Her friends found her just in time, before she could get hurt seriously. But Sana…”

“She got what she deserved.” I couldn’t hold my words back and Doyoung’s head snapped in my direction, “She tried to kill Hyemi, Doyoung. And she was a cop. Attacked a simple civilian. I understand your pain and struggle but—”

“I know,” Doyoung offered me a reassuring smile and patted my hand, “but it’s very stressful. They want me to replace Sana.”

My eyes widened as I sat up straighter, “Wait…you’ll become head of police then…?”

Doyoung’s lips formed a thin line and he sighed, looking away from me, “I guess Kim Mingyu really does achieve whatever he wants…”

“Kim Mingyu?” My eyebrows furrowed as I looked at Doyoung once again confused hearing his name, “What does he have to do with this?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about that.” Doyoung quickly said and ran his fingers through his damp hair, “I just wanted to be the first one to tell you all of this, and not Mark.”

Before I could press more about who Kim Mingyu was, I froze and looked at Doyoung surprised, “Mark?”

“Yeah,” Doyoung gave me a small glare and it seemed like he was quick to repress the feelings towards Sana’s death, “I know about what you do with Mark.”

“I don’t do anything,” I shrugged defensively, “I don’t even know who that is!”

Doyoung scoffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, “Please, you think people didn’t notice Mark’s sudden success this year? Everyone knew he was close to getting fired, until he suddenly turned into this super detective he never was—”

“And how is that my fault?!” I exclaimed, unable to keep it inside anymore. My legs were bouncing quickly and I gave Doyoung a glare, “I wanted to help. I wanted to do something else besides running my blog and taking pictures of nature, alright? This is fun and exciting—”

“And fucking dangerous, Y/N!” Doyoung exclaimed, standing up as his eyebrows furrowed, “Do you have any idea who you even follow around? Gang leaders, mafia heads, powerful business men! These people are shady! If you were ever caught, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything—”

“I know!” I exclaimed and stood up too, feeling desperate for Doyoung to understand me, “But this helped! It really did, Mark offered me an escape, Doyoung. An escape from falling back into my old habits and stalking people. Ever since I started doing this, I—I had no tendencies to stalk others—” Besides the sudden infatuation I had with Wonwoo, but it would pass. I hoped that it would. I wanted Doyoung to be proud of me.

“You just need a good therapist, Y/N—” Doyoung’s words were triggering as my parents would say this often to me and I couldn’t control myself, I shoved him back. He stumbled a bit, taken aback by my sudden outburst. Until he realized what he said, and he turned pale.

“Thanks a lot, big brother.” I snapped and turned around, storming towards my room, “You know therapists did shit and never helped me! The medication only made feel worse after a while!”

“I didn’t mean to say that, I’m sorry—” Doyoung tried to apologize as he followed after me.

“Save it, okay?!” I entered my room and blocked Doyoung from coming inside, “I—I know I’m a burden to you. I hate being a burden. But I can’t live on my own, and I hate that. I want to offer you a normal life, but instead, I’m just hanging on your neck—and I don’t need you to remind me that!”

“That’s not true!” Doyoung looked offended by my words as his eyebrows furrowed, “You were never a burden to me. I love you and I want you with me, Y/N—”

I raised my palm to stop him from talking, “Stop, I don’t care. Thankfully, helping Mark out pays well and I’m close to having enough money to move out. Give me three more months, and I’ll be gone.”

“What?!” Doyoung’s face fell and he went to grab me, but I slammed the door shut quickly, “I don’t want you to leave! We moved in here together because we both wanted to! You can’t just leave—”

“Watch me!” I screamed and I heard Doyoung sigh loudly as I crossed my arms in front of my chest. This wasn’t the time to act childish nor to drop something like that on him, not when his boss just died and he was in grief. But I couldn’t help it, he pissed me off. He would never understand what I had to go through daily and therefore he had no rights to try and tell me what to do. What Mark offered me was a life saver and Doyoung would never understand how much it helped, right up until I met Wonwoo.

“Y/N, I’m sorry.” Doyoung said loudly and knocked on my door, but I quickly locked it. I knew he was sorry and he didn’t want to hurt me, but I needed time to get over his words. By tomorrow morning I would be fine, but I needed to be left alone tonight.

“Whatever!” I called out and rolled my eyes, “Don’t bring me any white lilies anymore!”

I waited for an answer but Doyoung remained silent and I really wanted to see his expression, was he mad that I told him that?

“What?” My eyebrows furrowed at his confused tone, “You’re the one who buys them daily—”

The rest of his words got swallowed by my loudness. My heart started thumping wildly as I unlocked the bedroom’s door in a hurry and threw it open, “What?!”

Doyoung’s eyebrows were furrowed too as we looked at each other confused, “You…aren’t the one buying the lilies?”

“And it’s not you who’s been giving them to me?” Doyoung and I seemed to realize what this meant at the same time and as I scampered to shut the window of my room closed and lock it, Doyoung hurried to take on some shoes as he turned on the lights outside around the house. He threw on a jacket and hurried outside as I remained shivering in the middle of the room. Goosebumps covered my skin as I remained staring at the flowers on my nightstand that I got yesterday. Who was giving me these flowers then? And why was this person breaking inside our house?

Aw, does our little Y/N have a secret admirer? Who could it be?

“No!” I shook my head and hurriedly shut all blinds in my room and then went around the house, shutting each one of them. Doyoung came inside looking distressed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I’ll talk to the boys, and they’ll start patrolling around the neighborhood. Tomorrow a search team will come and search the house for any foreign DNA, alright?” Doyoung spoke with a serious tone as he locked the front door and turned to look at me, “Nothing will happen, alright?”

“They have been breaking in for two weeks, Doyoung—” I bit my lower lip and started tapping my leg against the floor anxiously, “Do they want something from me?”

Doyoung walked up to me and held onto my shoulders, “We’ll catch them before they can do anything, yes?”

I sighed and nodded my head, looking around the house to see the white lilies everywhere. They made me feel sick to my stomach, so I walked past Doyoung to take the trash bin and started throwing all of them inside it, cursing under my breath. I should have known that it wasn’t Doyoung. I’m so stupid!

Sleeping was hard last night and after struggling for a while, I somehow fell asleep towards the morning hours. I didn’t have the energy to go and watch Wonwoo today, I was too paranoid to even wear headphones on my run. I kept glancing behind me, until I noticed the police car parked around the curb and two of Doyoung’s colleagues chatting as they had coffee in their hands. I quickly greeted them before running past them, deciding to change my running route out of fear that if someone indeed was watching would already know I would head that way and do something to me. Doyoung kept messaging me every half an hour and I got irritated so I told him to just watch the app where it showed him my location, and at least that made him stop. I was halfway down the path when my phone started buzzing in my back pocket, tickling my butt cheek. I stopped running and unzipped the pocket, taking my phone in my hand. My lungs were screaming for air and I had sweat a lot as I pushed myself in order to try and forget the whole stalker deal. But when my eyes fell on the caller ID, I felt excited.

“I hope you went on that vacation and enjoyed yourself,” Came Mark’s voice through the phone and I chuckled, still trying to catch my breath, “Because I’ve got a new job for you.”

I hummed and breathed loudly, waiting for Mark to continue.

“Am I…interrupting something?” His voice was hesitant and it made me laugh.

“Yeah, my run.” Mark chuckled and I turned around, walking back towards the house, “Tell me everything.”

“It’s a one-day job, but it’s very important. The names are Wen Junhui and Xu Minghao. I’ll send you the details in a message on your other number, delete it once you had it memorized.”

“What exactly will I have to look out for?” I wondered as I passed by the police car again, the officers were gone this time.

“Those two are planning a heist, just take pictures of each jewelry place they go inside and send them to me straight when you think it’s clear.” I pursed my lips and thought a little.

“Fine, but don’t say a word to Doyoung. He knows about us and he’s very mad.”

“I know,” Mark cleared his throat, sounding awkward, “He very much wants to fire me right now. Maybe you heard, but Sana is dead, so he’s the big boss now…”

“I know,” I muttered and walked down the street, looking around before crossing onto the other side, “Doyoung told me. Seems like she was nuts or something…”

“She had it coming,” Mark scoffed and it peaked my interest, “Anyone who works against or turns on Kim Mingyu ends up being dead.”

My eyebrows furrowed and I was about to ask who this man was, but Mark gasped, “Shit, your brother is coming—keep your eyes on your phone!”

He hung up and I sighed as I locked my phone, wondering if I would find anything about Kim Mingyu on the internet. Since Wonwoo worked for him, I’ve seen him a few times, his business seemed pretty serious. Lost in thought, I didn’t notice the guy approaching me and gasped when their shoulder collided with mine. I hissed and stopped, turning around to shout at them, but the person didn’t even acknowledge me.

“Asshole!” I shouted after them, noticing their hunched form. The person seemed tall and looked like he was trying to hide his actual height. I turned to walk when the scent hit me. Musk and gunpowder. I quickly turned around, but the man in the black clothes was already gone.

Was that your secret admirer?

I shivered and quickly ran the rest of the way home, only being around the corner. I quickly unlocked the gate and as I walked inside, my eyes fell on the white lilies that I threw in the dumpster this morning. I felt bad for them because they were very beautiful, but I didn’t want them inside the house anymore.

After showering and getting ready, I checked out Mark’s message and memorized the information quickly, deleting the message. I grabbed my laptop and put it inside my bag together with my camera as I pulled on my tennis shoes and left the house, locking everything after me. I had an hour until the targets would show up to the city center to check out all shops, so I decided to take a walk there, try to use up the energy that didn’t go away while I was running due to it being cut short. I let Doyoung know that I was going out and to an agglomerated area, so that he didn’t have to worry, besides he had the tracker on. I snapped a few pictures as I walked and reveled in the silence around me as I took the back streets, where less people walked. I wondered what Wonwoo was doing, and suddenly I felt bad that I didn’t follow him around today. He’d be at his work place right now, having already been to the gym earlier this morning after he dropped Hyemi off at work and bought his coffee. What was interesting about Wonwoo was that each time he ordered coffee, he bought something different. My phone dinged as I turned onto the main street, getting lost in the crowd of people as I opened my phone and almost shrieked when I saw whom the message was from.

From Wonwoo: Hey…I hope I’m not bothering you…I was just wondering when we could meet up? You know…to give me back my t-shirt.

I struggled for a second to hold the phone in both hands and also not walk into others as I typed back.

To Wonwoo: Hi! You’re not bothering me at all! I washed it this morning…so if the weather is nice, it’ll be totally dry by tomorrow! Is tomorrow good for you?

I was about to put my phone away, but Wonwoo started typing back instantly and soon came his answer.

From Wonwoo: I can’t tomorrow, I won’t be in town and will only get back late. The next day…is it good for you?

I looked around me, noticing that I was in the area Mark instructed me to. I noticed the first jewelry shop and found a bench right across from it, so I hurried to take a seat there.

To Wonwoo: Sure, at noon? We can have lunch, since I turned it down last time…

My heart was pounding in my chest as I waited for Wonwoo’s answer, which seemed to take ages, and in fact only took a few seconds.

From Wonwoo: Fine, but let’s go to a restaurant. The food is better than the one at the mall.

He wasn’t wrong, besides this was sounding an awful lot like a date. I giggled and looked around before typing back.

To Wonwoo: Tell me the location and time?

From Wonwoo: 1 o’clock, but I’ll pick you up. Give me your address.

I hesitated for a second, knowing better not to give away my address to a complete stranger. My parents warned me about bad people, and so did Doyoung numerous times…especially since he became a cop and had to work on many cases that ended badly due to naïve girls going on dates with guys from Tinder. But I didn’t meet Wonwoo on Tinder…and I’ve already been watching him for weeks, I know what he’s like.

Honestly, you would pass on an opportunity like this one, Y/N? Isn’t this what we’ve been working for? Getting Wonwoo? Why did you even bother if you’re about to refuse him?!

When I saw Wonwoo typing, I quickly sent him my address, scared that he thought I was about to refuse him after I was the one who proposed getting lunch.

From Wonwoo: Alright, I’ll be there then.

To Wonwoo: Can’t wait to see you!

I instantly regretted sending that, but it was no use deleting it as he had already read the message.

From Wonwoo: Me too.

I giggled again and as I looked up; I saw a black Ferrari pulling up. I quickly scrambled to get out my camera from my bag and turned it on at lightning speed. I snapped pictures as the targets got out of the car. They were the same guys from the pictures Mark sent me, Minghao and Junhui. Both dressed pretty fancy and I knew they were the targets. I remained seated as they walked inside the first jewelry shop and snapped a picture of it. They didn’t spend much time in, quickly headed to the next one. I followed them from the bench as long as I could, but as they started walking towards the end of the street, I had to move too to be able to catch them. My phone and Wonwoo were forgotten, but just as I got up from the bench, throwing my bag over my shoulder and camera in my hand, my phone buzzed. As the targets were still inside the shop, I quickly checked to see that I had another new message from Wonwoo.

From Wonwoo: What are you doing right now?

I paused a little bit, finding his wording a little weird, but shrugged it off. I looked up just as the targets walked out of the shop and placed my phone in my pocket, snapping pictures as they talked and looked around. I wasn’t afraid that they’d see me as there were lots of people around us, but it still felt like I was being watched. They didn’t move from that spot, so I quickly answered Wonwoo.

To Wonwoo: Nothing much, just working. You?

I looked up to see the targets moving across the street, headed to a simple gardening shop. What could they be doing there? I started quickly walking towards it and snapped a picture just as I passed by in front of it, hopeful that no one saw me. Especially the targets. Then they walked out and headed down the street, towards the bench I was sitting at previously. I trailed after them, keeping a good distance as I pretended to look around and snapped a few pictures of the things that were displayed in the windows, trying to act normal and as if I was a tourist. I felt my phone vibrating again, so I checked it with a sigh. This isn’t how I’m supposed to be doing my work.

From Wonwoo: Working too, waiting for my boss.

So Wonwoo was with Mingyu then, probably sitting in his red Mercedes, waiting for Mingyu to show up and order him around. I didn’t react to the text message as the targets started moving again, headed for the Ferrari they have arrived in. Hastily, I snapped a few more pictures of the car, getting the license plate, and once they sped off, I took a deep breath. Well, I wasn’t caught, so that was amazing. Now I just have to send Mark all the photos and then have some lunch, my stomach is screaming for food.

I found a nice restaurant just around the corner and sat at a table at the back, opening my laptop. I copied all pictures on it and then sent Mark everything through an e-mail before deleting everything off my camera and laptop. No traces of what I had done, perfect as always.

To Mark: Everything good?

From Mark: Perfect, thanks again. I’ll pay you later, wait around a little bit.

To Mark: Fine, I have to eat either way!

And then I put my phone away and ordered food, which thankfully came quickly, as I was really hungry. I bobbed my head to the songs played on the radio while I ate, my legs bouncing underneath the table, unable to sit still. Not that it was something unusual. I was slurping up the rest of the soup when Doyoung messaged me and told me he would be home early again and that he could pick me up if I wanted him to. But I couldn’t as Mark had to pay me still, so I told him that I wanted to stay out alone for a little bit longer. And after almost two hours of me sitting at the restaurant, Mark finally called me that he was in front of the gardening shop, waiting for me. Paying for the food and greeting the lady, I left the restaurant in a hurry, glad that Mark finally showed up. In truth, I wanted Doyoung to pick me up, but he was at home by now and I didn’t want to bother him. I would just take a cab as it was getting dark and I didn’t want to walk home anymore. The exchange between Mark and I was brief as usual and I quickly found a cab for myself. I got in and told the driver where to take me and got comfortable against the beige leather seats. I sighed and started tapping my thigh with my fingers, looking out the window at the bright billboards and lights of the city. We went past the first intersection, but traffic was getting bad as everyone was headed home or out to have fun, so we caught the next red light. The cab driver turned the volume of the radio up a bit as he started bobbing his head to the beat and I found myself tapping along it too; the song was catchy. Police car sirens could be heard in the distance, but it wasn’t something unusual. Then suddenly, there was a commotion a few cars behind us and as I twisted my neck to see what was happening, four figures in all black and masks covering their whole faces ran up to the car. The cab driver panicked and before he could lock the doors, his door was ripped open and he was pulled out. I jumped and opened my own door in a hurry, wanting to get out, but I couldn’t as all four doors of the cab were now ripped open and the four men jumped in. I got pushed into the middle by my head by the man on my right and squeezed there as I gripped my bag to my chest. All doors were shut closed and only the driver put on his seatbelt. Suddenly, he started reeving the engine and then crashed into the car in front of us. The car jolted and I gasped as I was sent forward, eyes wide as my heart pumped loudly. God damn it, I should have just accepted Doyoung’s offer and asked Mark to pay me tomorrow. The cab driver was holding onto his head and screaming for help as the sirens got closer and the driver started honking, trying to make space for us to pass. I remained silent and shocked, gripping onto my bag and hopeful that they wouldn’t do anything to me. They seemed too stressed about leaving and getting away from the approaching police.

“For fuck’s sake!” Suddenly the one in the passenger seat shouted, his voice raspy, as he threw his door open and got halfway out. And then a silver thing glinted in his hand and I made myself small as I knew he was about to pull the trigger. The gunshots were loud as people started screaming around, suddenly the cars in front of us started moving aside, the light had turned green too.

“Floor it!” The man to my left shouted and the one in the passenger seat hopped back in as the driver pressed the gas pedal and we were sent flying forward. I yelped and held onto the headrest of the passenger seat tightly, looking ahead. The driver was honking constantly until every car started moving out of the way and we were flying down the road, but the sirens were closer too. So close, that the red and blue lights could be seen from inside the car. My breathing started to pick up as my left leg was bouncing very fast, and I was trying to remain as calm as I could. It seemed like they didn’t want to bother with me, so if I remain silent, maybe nothing will happen to me. I might as well blindfold myself so that I know nothing about where they are taking me and then they can let me free as I haven’t seen their faces.

The light turned red in front of us, but the driver wasn’t paying any attention to the traffic lights as he was speeding and switching lanes frantically, even going into the opposite lanes, making me squeeze my eyes shut. If we were about to run into any car, I didn’t want to see it. My bouncing leg knocked into something and I opened one eyes, becoming aware that these criminals were holding black bags that seemed to be heavy. They must have robbed some place and now were running away, just fucking perfect that they chose this cab! I gasped again as the car was jerked to the right and I was sent into the person on my left, making them hiss. I was expecting a slap or them to scream at me, but they just gently adjusted me back into the middle seat, turning their head towards me as if they realized for the first time that I was in the car too. I could see their brown eyes, and they widened. Mine widened too out of fear and I quickly ducked my head, holding onto my bag tightly. By now, the police was full on chasing these criminals, they were right behind us and the car was jerked to the left this time.

“Fuck this shit car!” A very deep voice suddenly shouted, making me jump, “I can’t outrun the fucking police in this old ass piece of shit—”

“Calm down!” The man on my right snapped, voice tense and raised. My left leg was bouncing so fast that I was getting a cramp in my thigh, but I couldn’t stop, I was on the brink of passing out from how anxious I was feeling. I stopped breathing normally a long time ago and I even started sweating, if only someone would’ve rolled down a window…

“Where the fuck do I go if they are trailing us? I can’t lose them here!” The deep voiced man continued shouting and he honked again as the sirens seemed to become deafening. But the more I concentrated on his deep voice, the more familiar it became. My body felt like it was made out of rock already, but it seemed like I could tense up even more. My breath got cut off for a second as my head snapped up, my whole body sitting up straight. My eyes bore into the back of the driver’s head. I knew that voice, but it can’t be. My brain is just making up things, I’m under so much stress that I started making up things.

“Take the back streets!” The man from the passenger seat answered him, “Boss is waiting at the docks.”

“The docks are fucking half an hour away from here! Start shooting at their cars tires, you idiots!” The driver’s deep voice boomed in the car and I shivered as three windows were rolled down. The three men suddenly all had weapons in their hands and they started shooting at the police car that was speeding beside the cab. I remained staring at the driver as my brain was screaming at me that the voice belonged to Wonwoo. Suddenly, the guy looked in the rearview mirror and our gazes connected. My mouth fell open when I saw foxy eyes staring back at me with the intensity I was used to seeing from Wonwoo, their brown seemed to be even darker as I gaped at Wonwoo. This can’t be happening, no. This must be a joke. But Wonwoo’s eyes narrowed and he quickly looked back at the road, taking another sharp turn as the rest managed to get rid of that one police car, but at least three more were still chasing us. Suddenly, I felt my phone vibrating in my back pocket and I let go of my bag with one hand, only now noticing how badly I was shaking. I knew no one was paying attention to me, so I curled up into a ball and sneakily placed the phone against my ear after hitting the green button.

“Y/N?!” Doyoung’s voice was frantic and the sirens were even louder through the phone, “Why the hell are you in the car we are chasing—”

Suddenly, the phone was ripped from my hands and I shrieked, trying to reach for it, “Doyoung!”

But the guys on each of my side held me down and the man in the passenger’s seat had the phone against his ear.

“Listen here—” But he was cut off by Doyoung, I could hear him screaming through the phone, but I didn’t understand what he was saying as all I could hear were my own loud heart beats as I struggled against the men holding me. Finally, my flight or fight kicked in, and I chose to fight as I didn’t really have the opportunity to run. Only God knows what was about to happen, I wasn’t going to sit around anymore. I elbowed the man on my right in the stomach and he cried out loudly as I finally freed my right arm. The man on my left was very skinny, but despite that he was very strong and my arm was turning numb, that’s how hard he was squeezing me. I started fighting against him too, punched him in the face with my free hand, even though he tried dodging it. My left arm was free too and I lunged for the guy in the passenger seat, knowing that I’d kill all of us if I started choking Wonwoo. So instead, my hands went around the other guy’s neck from behind as I started squeezing, the words he was about to say to my brother dying away in his throat. My phone fell from his hand and he gripped my wrists, trying to claw at me with his nails, but he was wearing glows. I started squeezing even harder as Wonwoo started swerving the car around violently.

“Get a fucking grip on her!” He shouted as with his right hand he gripped my bicep and started yanking on my arm. I cried out in pain, trying to elbow him as suddenly hands around my waist and forearms were pulling me back harshly. The guy I was choking started fighting back too, probably close to passing out as his struggling became less and less. But these guys were very strong, and two were pulling me back while one was squeezing so hard on my bicep that it felt like someone was trying to rip my arm off, I had to let go of the guy in the passenger seat. He started coughing and wheezing loudly as he fell forward. I screamed as I was restrained, this time the guys were almost sitting on me to stop me from fighting back. Wonwoo looked at me through the rearview mirror and I knew that he knew I recognized him, his deadly glare made me still instantly. I was rooted against the leather seat as he reached for my phone and hit a button, no doubt calling my brother.

“You want your sister? You play along with me.” Was all he said before hanging up and throwing the phone back at me, hitting my knees as it fell onto the ground. The guys still held me tightly, even though I stopped struggling. The one in the front stopped coughing, but he was still leaned over, holding onto his head as he was breathing loudly. My lungs were rising and falling at an alarming pace as my legs started bouncing again. But then suddenly Wonwoo took a sharp U turn and the police cars stopped following us. The sirens stopped blaring, all you could see were the lights, lights that were getting farther away from us. Doyoung was getting farther away from me, he was in one of those cars! I bit my lower lip and tried to keep the thoughts about me dying out as for once in my life I focused on the voices.

Look at that, Y/N is having the most fun she’s ever head. Don’t worry, you won’t die. Wonwoo won’t kill you, he’s into you. And he probably knows that you know it’s him. Isn’t he just so hot? The way he screamed, the way he’s driving…and you thought he was boring?! His burning gaze makes you feel all sorts of ways, Y/N, admit it. Now calm down, you are getting out of this alive.

The voices weren’t helpful as they were rambling about Wonwoo, but I did take a deep breath and noticed that until I was zoned out, he stopped driving at a crazy speed. We were downtown, but nowhere close to the docks. Wonwoo pulled up into the parking lot of a poorly lit convenience store, where a police car was already there. But all lights were off and only one man was there, walking around the car anxiously. It was Doyoung and my heart almost jumped out of my chest when Wonwoo stopped the car just next to Doyoung’s police car. The doors were kicked open again and I jumped when the guy on my left held onto my bicep, Wonwoo squeezed me so hard that my whole arm was on fire, it would bruise so ugly. I was pulled out of the car, but not manhandled, as Doyoung came to a stop at the back of the car. The guy let go of me and I took two hurried steps, but someone blocked my path, and I ran into their hard chest. Musk and gunpowder. I didn’t look up at Wonwoo, only stared at his chest as I held my bag against my stomach, my whole-body trembling.

“Say a word to anyone about this, I know where you live and I won’t hesitate to find you.” His deep voice was low as he whispered to me, radiating anger. I bit my lower lip and said nothing as I knocked into him hard and walked past to get to Doyoung. He was quick to pull me into his arms and I clung onto him, telling myself that I was finally safe. It was silent as no one dared to say anything; Doyoung was so tense, he felt like I was hugging a rock.

“If you ever again put my sister into danger, I won’t hesitate to continue what Sana started. You’re lucky I’ve known Mingyu since we were kids, otherwise you’d be laying in jail for life right now.” Doyoung was so angry, his voice trembled and it even raised a few octaves as he spoke to the criminals. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He was just letting them off like that? They were criminals!

“Your generosity will be always returned, you know that, Doyoung.” The guy I choked could barely speak, his voice was a low rasp and then I heard something colliding against the concrete. Doyoung moved us a little as car doors were closed and the engine of the cab started again as Wonwoo pulled out of the parking lot with the tires screeching. I let go of Doyoung and looked at him disappointed, lips trembling.

“You’re a corrupt cop?” I managed to say as a few tears fell from my eyes. He looked down at the bag and picked it up, remorse showing on his face.

“You weren’t supposed to find out, but it’s a complicated story—”

“Nothing about this is complicated!” I shouted, angrily wiping the tears off my cheeks, “You just let four criminals run off like nothing happened! Like I couldn’t have been killed in that chase or afterwards by them! If people like you are the ones protecting this city everyone should be afraid for their own lives!”

Doyoung’s face got red and he pointed a finger at me, “You don’t get to tell me what’s wrong and what’s right! I’m not perfect; you think you’re the only one with flaws, Y/N?! Wake up! I’m not the perfect brother you always make me out to be! Once you start working for the mafia there’s no way out—”

“You work for the mafia?!” I screamed, seeing Doyoung in a different light for the first time. He really wasn’t the person I thought he was. The innocent Doyoung never existed, at least not since he’s been working for the mafia apparently.

“No, but I help them out sometimes. Mingyu and I made a pact a long time ago—”

“Kim Mingyu is the mafia leader?”

“Yes—”

“Who is Jeon Wonwoo?” Doyoung paused for a second, eyebrows furrowing. I raised my eyebrows at him as I waited for an answer. Oh, and he was going to give me all the answers I wanted.

“A very skilled getaway driver, Mingyu’s closest and most trusted friend, and his chauffeur.” Doyoung answered me after he took a deep breath, searching my face for a reaction. But it never came, I surpassed it. I felt tired and I was aching all over, I need a warm bath and sleep. I didn’t even want to know anything anymore, that was enough.

“Let’s go home.” I said with a sigh and walked up to the police car, “I’m very tired.”

“Y/N—”

“Now, Doyoung.” I snapped and opened the door, sitting inside angrily. Doyoung shook his head before following suit, remaining silent for the rest of the night.

Isn’t Wonwoo just the most amazing person you’ve ever—Shut up, I shouted in my head, closing my eyes tightly. I was done listening to the voices. I wanted nothing to do with them anymore. No, Wonwoo was a criminal and he made it very clear what he’d do if I said anything about what happened. I was going to ask Mark to return that damned t-shirt to him and I never wanted to see Wonwoo again or talk to him again. I blocked his number and deleted all pictures I had of him in my phone. In the morning, when I was home alone, I was going to burn every single thing I had collected about him, every single picture I snapped. He was a criminal and I wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

Ever since last night Doyoung was acting like I was an alien. He didn’t speak to me; he didn’t even look at me! He quietly greeted me when I walked to the kitchen to have breakfast, but before I could thank him for making breakfast or ask him how he slept, he was out of the front door. He barely checked up on me all day, and when I gave him a call to ask him if he’d come home for lunch as I cooked food, he didn’t answer but sent a text saying that he couldn’t speak to me at the moment. It was pissing me off. I didn’t want him to make this harder for us. What I found out was a lot to take in and I wasn’t proud of him, but he was my brother and he was the only person who stood by my side since day one without judging me. I loved him very much and I needed him next to me. I needed him to understand that nothing changed between us, besides the fact that currently I was very pissed off and scared. The police were still patrolling around the neighborhood as no DNA was found inside the house that didn’t belong to us, and honestly, I was on the verge of inviting the officers inside the house as I jumped at every sound. Sleep came easily as I was very stressed, but my eyes opened at five in morning and I haven’t been able to go back to sleep, so I got to work. I gathered everything I had on Wonwoo and threw it in the fireplace in the back garden and watched it as it burned away in the morning light. It eased my nerves a little bit as I clutched the blanket tighter around me, knowing that Wonwoo was out of town today. But tomorrow he wouldn’t be, and I had a feeling that he was still going to want to meet up with me. But I didn’t want to, not anymore. Knowing that Mark wasn’t sleeping at that hour, I called him, and told him everything that happened. He was very sorry and felt really guilty and promised to never send me off to watch mafia members, I was content with that. Watching shady business men was alright, but following mafia members wasn’t fun anymore. I stayed inside the whole day after I went on my run and just cleaned and cooked even more. I updated my blog and accepted a request of someone to put up my photos in their gallery next month. Since Mark wasn’t going to contact me for a while now, I started looking for vacation destinations. I really needed it, I had to get away from the city for a while. The voices went quiet and even when I listened closely, I only heard intangible whispers. It was good, it meant I was over Wonwoo. Even if I wasn’t really. The fairytale I was living in was shattered and as I glanced at his folded t-shirt, I sighed. I was hoping that for once I finally found someone who would be good for me, but it turned out I was very wrong. Usually my hunches were good, but this time I was totally blinded by his attractiveness and the voices that never knew better. Shaking my head, I remembered the old lady from the woods and wondered if she was still alive…or if she’d recognize me if I showed up. She told me she’d welcome me anytime again, but I didn’t visit her very frequently as my family was keeping a close eye on me after I ran away, and it was fine. But now, I craved to be engulfed in total silence and the green nature around me.

Nightfall came and I was eating on the couch as I watched a reality show, laughing loudly when something was amusing. It wasn’t very late, but the sun still set early as we haven’t passed the spring solstice yet. I just bit into the meatball I made for lunch when the front door was unlocked and I heard Doyoung’s keys.

“Hi!” I called out with my mouth full, raising the hand with which I was holding the fork to wave at him. Doyoung hummed and went to the fridge directly and opened it.

“Oh, I made a lot of food today,” I said as I turned around, resting both legs on the couch, “Meatballs, found some spaghetti too so I made some sauce for it. I made a salad with the veggies we had and lentil cream soup, your favorite!”

But Doyoung didn’t react and my eyebrows furrowed as I chewed the food I had in my mouth. This had do end right now, I wasn’t going to let my brother treat me like I was invisible just because I found out that he’s a corrupt cop.

“Hey!” I snapped, placing the plate on the coffee table forcefully, “Stop being a pussy and face me!”

Doyoung sighed and threw a glance at me as he took out the soup and I spoke again, “Aren’t I the one supposed to be giving you the silent treatment?!”

Doyoung just shrugged as he took a bowl and poured soup into it, “I don’t know…”

“Nice to hear you are still able to speak—”

“Are you not mad?” Doyoung cut me off before I could finish my sarcastic remark and I glared at him.

“I’m very mad, but it doesn’t mean that I’ll stop acknowledging you, yeah? What kind of shit person does that?” I rolled my eyes and Doyoung chuckled, throwing a glance at me as he sat at the table to eat.

“The me kind of shit person apparently.” I chuckled and resumed eating as Doyoung did too. I lowered the volume of the TV a little bit and turned back towards him again, taking in his attire. His uniform changed; I didn’t notice it this morning.

“You have a new uniform?” I asked with a grin and Doyoung nodded, looking down at himself.

“Yeah, I got it today.” I nodded and bit into the meatball.

“Well, congratulations—next time lock the mafia guys up, yeah?” Doyoung paused and I knew it was too soon to joke about this, but I wasn’t exactly joking. My tone wasn’t playful at all and Doyoung sighed, wordlessly nodding as he started slurping his soup.

“Were you that hungry? You didn’t even change…” I wondered as Doyoung finished eating and stood up.

“No, but I have to go to the funeral house. It’s Sana’s watcher…” My lips formed a thin line as I nodded, finishing my dinner wordlessly as Doyoung moved around the kitchen. He squeezed some lemon in his water and drank it, closing his eyes for a second. His body seemed tense and he was hunched a little forward as he washed away the dishes he used.

“Don’t come too late, you should rest more.” I said as Doyoung nodded and put on his shoes, taking his keys.

“You too, don’t wait for me.” He said and I nodded, watching him leave the house. The locked the door and I sighed, getting up from the couch. I walked to the sink and washed the plate and fork I used, putting them away. I left the TV on as I just wanted to change into my pajamas and go back to watch something before bed. But as I reached my door, I heard footsteps outside the front door and knocking. Rolling my eyes, I walked to the front door and unlocked it, ready to tease Doyoung for forgetting something at home again. But it wasn’t Doyoung. I froze as I stared at Wonwoo’s face, goosebumps suddenly covering my body. Then I realized it was Wonwoo and quickly tried to slam the door closed, but Wonwoo was quick to react and he started pushing it back. I hissed and put all of my weight against it, struggling to close it as Wonwoo was pushing just as hard to open it up. I was wearing socks and my right leg slipped on the tiles and Wonwoo gained advantage as my weight shifted. He was able to push it wide enough to slip inside and I quickly abandoned the thought of trying to keep him out of the house and ran to the cupboard full of knives. I quickly opened it and took out the sharpest knife we had and turned around, just in time as Wonwoo almost reached me.

“Stay away!” I pointed the knife at him and he stayed rooted, his sharp eyes gazing into mine, “What do you want? I didn’t say anything to anyone—Doyoung already knew about you! You want your bloody t-shirt?! It’s in my room!”

Wonwoo remained silent and I jerked my hand slightly, showing him that I wasn’t afraid to stab him. I wouldn’t go down without a good fight, in case he thought I was scared of him. Which I was, but I was angrier right now and it ruled over my fear.

“I just came to talk.” Wonwoo said calmly and I chuckled dryly, rolling my eyes.

“Oh, nice talking. This is how you usually do it? You break into someone’s house and get threatened by a knife and then just…talk?”

“I usually don’t get threatened.” Wonwoo answered with a shrug and I huffed, eyes darting towards my phone that was on the coffee table. If I outsmart Wonwoo, I can get to my phone and run inside my room and jump out the window. Then he can try and talk to me, but I won’t be here anymore.

“Well…less stressful for you, I guess.” I tried stalling, gripping the knife tighter, “But I’m not in the mood to talk.”

“Just listen to me, I’m not here to hurt you.” Wonwoo’s voice softened and his eyes did too as he tried pleading me with his gaze. I rolled my eyes and then lunged towards him, without the intention of stabbing him. I just wanted to take him off guard, to distract him. And it worked as he jumped back with a gasp, his sharp eyes widening. I dropped the knife and pushed him hard, making him fall onto his butt. I quickly ran around him and got to the fridge when I was grabbed. Well, obviously my plan wasn’t a smart one and this is why Doyoung checked on me regularly. I really needed someone to look after me. I yelped as Wonwoo’s arms went around my waist and roughly yanked me back, pinning me against the table with his body. He didn’t look very pleased and my heart started beating quickly, thinking of a way to free myself from his grip. I could either kneel him or just try and headbutt him, but it seemed like Wonwoo guessed what I was thinking as his lean and muscular body molded into mine. My wrists were pinned to the table and I shivered, his cologne hitting my nose hard. He smelled like musk and gunpowder again and he was so close I could count his lashes if I wanted to. I craned my head back and tried to move around, but it only made me feel more parts of body and that was too much just yet.

Look at this compromising position, Y/N. All you have to do is lean in and open your knees, isn’t that what you’ve wanted all along? We are guessing Wonwoo wants the same thing…not that we are complaining.

I tried to remain unexpressive as the voices suddenly returned and were very loud, of course they’d come back in a situation like this one.

“Well, this is very uncomfortable.” I said quietly, maintaining the eye contact with Wonwoo. My heart was beating fast and I could feel the heat in my cheeks. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Why do I still like him? After yesterday…how can I still like him?

“Well, you didn’t give me a choice.” Wonwoo muttered, his low voice vibrating against his chest and I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” I scoffed and then glared at him, “why would I want to talk to a criminal? Let alone give him a chance to explain himself?”

“Did you let your brother explain himself?” Wonwoo’s eyebrows rose and I glanced away, trying to free my wrists again.

“Kind of…” Wonwoo just hummed and lessened his hold on my wrist so that it didn’t hurt anymore. The bicep he squeezed so hard was now a beautiful shade of green and purple.

“Then it’s my turn—”

“Whatever Wonwoo, I really don’t care. You’re part of the mafia and you robbed the jewelry shops Mark asked me to watch yesterday. And then you had to run away because Mark alerted the police thanks to me and then very sadly you got in the same cab with me. And look at my bicep, you did that.” I snapped, looking down at the bruise as Wonwoo’s gaze followed. His eyebrows furrowed and he sighed, looking back up at me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.” He muttered with remorse as he looked at it again. His words and reaction were genuine but I just rolled my eyes.

“A little late for that, now—” I shoved myself into him, but it did nothing, “Let go of me.”

Wonwoo’s lips pulled in a straight line and he shook his head, seemingly thinking about what to do next. But I started struggling and trying to move him back so that I would be able to knee him. But he probably knew that was what I was trying to do and squeezed my legs together between his.

“God, the second I get out of your hold I will beat you up so badly, Wonwoo, no one will be able to recognize you—” Wonwoo’s deep laughter echoed in the house as I looked at him menacingly. I wasn’t joking, I really wanted to beat him up and I would, but I needed to free myself first.

“I love how you underestimate me; the shock will be bigger once I’m done—” But Wonwoo’s laughter was so contagious that I had to fight back my own. His nose was scrunched up and I just noticed how he wasn’t wearing glasses. His hair was styled back and he seemed to be wearing some fancy clothes, his pants were silky. He was very attractive, but I tried to ignore my sudden thirst for him. So, I looked away and he slowly stopped laughing, my eyes fell on the front door as I tried coming up with another escape route. But on the ground were five white lilies and I felt my mind go blank as I stared at them. There’s no possible way anyone brought those in, Doyoung and I never buy white lilies, and Wonwoo is the only one that just barged in. Wonwoo.

“Oh my God,” I muttered in despair, looking at Wonwoo all frantic, “Did you—bring those flowers? Wonwoo?!”

Wonwoo looked at the flowers and cleared his throat, looking back at me, “Yeah.”

“Oh my God.” I muttered again and felt like a deer caught in headlights. It was Wonwoo all along? What is happening? I don’t understand anything anymore!

Well…at least you found out who your secret admirer is. And it’s Wonwoo, you should be happy it’s him and not some old creep—

“Shut up!” I exclaimed, squeezing my eyes shut, “This can’t be happening. No fucking way.”

Wonwoo looked confused when I opened my eyes and looked at him, “You were breaking in our house for two weeks?!”

“You’re the one to make a scene, huh?” Wonwoo suddenly raised his voice and his eyes narrowed as he started glaring at me, “You’ve been stalking me for two weeks.”

I gaped at him and blinked, taken off guard, “I—I wasn’t—what?”

“Yeah, you really thought I wouldn’t know?” He chuckled unamused, “I’m surprised it took you this long to realize it was me bringing the flowers.”

My eyebrows furrowed and I looked at him confused, “How was I supposed to know?! I thought you had no idea I was watching you—”

“Stalking me.”

“Stalking you, whatever,” I rolled my eyes, trying to make sense of the situation, “It doesn’t give you the right to break in my room and—were you marking your territory or some shit mafias do? Were you showing other mafias that you were to be the one to kill me—”

“What nonsense are you talking about?” Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrowed and I tried to push him away again, my back was becoming numb, “You fantasize too much. Mafias don’t do that, but—”

“But what?!” I snapped, eyes widening.

“I did think of killing you in the first three days of you stalking me.” Wonwoo finished with a smirk. My heart skipped another beat as I started breathing faster, his musky scent made me feel dizzy.

“What?!” I exclaimed and started struggling against Wonwoo again, trying to free myself, “For God’s sake, I can’t feel my back anymore, Wonwoo!”

He gave me a look that said if I tried running away again he’d tie me to a chair and leave me there until Doyoung returned, he probably would’ve gagged me too, so I just sighed and let go of all muscles, softening my body. Wonwoo’s eyes gazed into mine intently and his hold slowly loosened as he seemed to lean in subconsciously. My eyes fell onto his lips and realized how plump his upper lip was, but we both snapped out if at the same time as he stepped back and I jumped away from the table, breathing hard. I massaged my lower back as best as I could as I licked my lips and looked at Wonwoo with a glare.

“I don’t like what I’m about to say—” And I took a deep breath and watched as Wonwoo started smirking again, “But what if…we both just forget about all the shit we did and…go on and live our lives like we never met. And, I don’t know, get some therapy as we both apparently need it badly.”

My words made Wonwoo laugh again and I actually smiled this time too, feeling tired after all the new information dumped on me.

“I can’t do that,” Wonwoo said once his laughter died down, “I can’t continue living like I never met you.”

I shrugged and ran my hands through my hair, looking away from him, “Well, I can and I will. So, you better do the same or else I’ll tell Doyoung about everything and he’ll be really pissed and won’t care about Mingyu or whoever, yeah?”

Look at our Y/N lying like that, as if all of this didn’t happen because of her.

I felt Wonwoo move closer to me and his fingers ghosted over the bruise on my left bicep, “Can you really pretend I don’t exist? When you started this?”

“I didn’t start shit!” I snapped and turned my body away from his, “I stalked you for two weeks and I won’t do it anymore because I got over you. I always do. It never lasts for long, you’re not special.”

But he is Y/N, you know it. He knows it.

“Really?” Wonwoo muttered with a small smile and I just shrugged, avoiding his gaze, “Because I watched you the whole time we were in the same Coffee Shop. You were following that businessman, working for Mark, I assume. I noticed how you couldn’t stay still and how you whispered things to yourself. How the barista lit up when she saw you and talked to you. If you wouldn’t have stalked me after that day, I would’ve still found you.”

I just gulped and felt all the anger, frustration, fear melt away as I slowly looked at Wonwoo, “But you broke inside my bedroom…to give me flowers…”

My voice was small and he nodded as he stepped closer, placing his palm on my cheek. I almost jumped at how warm his palm was again and tried to ignore the rapid beat of my heart, “And I was wrong to do that…sorry.”

“Sorry for stalking you.” I muttered and a small grin appeared on Wonwoo’s lips as he closed the distance between our bodies again.

“I’m also sorry for the other bad things I did.” Wonwoo added.

“Yeah, fuck you.” I said with a chuckle and his grin widened into a smile.

You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Y/N?

I rolled my eyes at the voices but Wonwoo didn’t react as he leaned down and his red lips pressed against my cheek, making me blush instantly. Why did I forgive him so easily? Maybe because both of us fucked up big time this time.

“I still expect to see you tomorrow at lunch for our date, so tell Mark to stay at home.” My eyes widened as Wonwoo stepped back, letting go of my cheek.

“How do you know—”

“I’m in the mafia, remember? I know everything.” He winked and walked towards the front door.

“And you called me the stalker.” He chuckled as he opened the door and stepped outside.

“Don’t tell Doyoung just yet, he’s very mad for what I did yesterday—”

“Yeah, me too.” I cut him off and Wonwoo gave me an apologetic smile.

“Sleep well.”

“Don’t break in my room anymore!” I called out as he walked down towards the gate, turning around to wave at me. I rolled my eyes and closed the front door, locking it. Jesus, this really is not how I expected things to turn out. I don’t think I need to watch any TV to feel sleepy. This is my cue to rest and worry about what to wear tomorrow for lunch.

You can wear whatever, Wonwoo is head over heels for you, Y/N. And as we’re seeing, you’re too for him.

205 notes · View notes

shycoconutt · 3 years ago

Text

I Found My Light: Chapter 3 (Kakashi x Reader)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

A/n: Sorry for the delay! Wasn't sure where I wanted to go with this but it came to me in the shower (as all good ideas do). Hope you enjoy it! This story is far from over.

Summary: You attend the group training session where, to your dismay, Kakashi is in attendance.

Word Count: 1800

Warnings: fem!reader, SFW (but won't be in future chapters), violence, angst

Fanart!: Please check out this fanart inspired by this fic by the talented @szamasza <3

If this training session goes like any other typical training session, you are in for a long one. Training usually begins around mid-day and lasts several hours until everyone feels like they’re on the brink of death. Then, when face down in the dirt, Asuma tries to convince everyone to head to the bar on the main street that gives discounts to shinobi. After a few minutes of resounding I’m-too-tireds and maybe-next-times, everyone gives in and spends the remainder of the night into the next morning crammed in a booth getting absolutely sloshed.

This night was like any other night, except not because your anxiety was at an all-time high.

Kakashi showed up about an hour into training, aloof as ever. You were deep in your spar with Genma when you saw him out of the corner of your eye. Genma must have noticed your distraction, as he didn’t hesitate to spit his senbon at you with full force. Luckily you were refocused in less than a second and caught it between your fingers.

“Nice try, buddy,” you teased him, “It’s going to take more than that to throw me off.”

Genma raised his eyebrow at you. “I don’t know, (y/n), you seemed a little distracted,” he teased.

And just like that, you were back at each other’s throats.

Kakashi ended up finding a spot sparing Gai. Typical of him, as usually Gai is the only one who can keep up ability-wise. Although, Kakashi hasn’t seen how much you’ve grown and a part of you is hoping you’ll get a chance at him. You still have yet to use your chakra sword-whip, your most brutal weapon, in front of your fellow shinobi. It’s remained in its sheath strapped across your back, waiting to be used against the most brutal opponent.

“Alright, alright,” Genma pants, curled up on the ground holding his left side where you just landed a forceful kick, “Please show me some mercy, (y/n).”

“Only if you admit that I’m a better shinobi than you in every way,” you say smugly, crossing your arms across your chest.

“Yes, you are a better shinobi than me in every way. You're stealthy, quick, strong, intelligent, adaptable, beautiful, and, most of all, kind. Which is why you’ll give me my senbon back.” He pleas, still laying on the ground with his hand out to you.

“Mmm, fine,” you tease, pulling the senbon from your hair where you used it to hold it in a bun. “It does make a great hair accessory though. I think I might have to get one for myself.” You help Gemma back up to his feet and stick the metal needle back into his mouth.

He gives you a smirk, still grasping onto your hand. “You should see my collection. I have at least two hundred of these,” he boasts, taking the senbon out of his mouth to twirl it in his fingers. “I‘ll make sure to pick one out for you.”

“I would be honored.” You smile warmly, squeezing his hand.

At this moment you could sense a set of eyes staring at you from the other side of the training field. Well, one eye, you should say, as Kakashi is staring directly at you while he holds Gai in a headlock. His expression is unreadable as his eyes flicker from you to Genma and then back to you. You could swear that you saw his shoulders drop a bit before he brought his attention back to Gai who is currently struggling to breathe in his grasp.

“Ka-ka-shi-ple-ase-le-t-me-go-” Gai gasps, holding onto Kakashi’s arms currently wrapped around his neck. Kakashi’s eyes widen when his attention is brought back to his opponent and he immediately releases Gai from his grasp. With a thud, Gai drops to the floor and sucks in one big breath.

“Are you trying to kill him?!” Kurenai yells as she runs to tend to Gai who is sitting on the ground rubbing his neck. Everyone else on the field stops what they’re doing when they notice the commotion and circle around Gai wondering what happened.

“I’m sorry-” Kakashi starts, hands back in his pockets still staring at Gai wide-eyed.

“Apologies are unnecessary my rival!” Gai cuts in, still gasping for air. “Flashes of my youth came to me as I was falling out of consciousness. It reminded me how much there is to live for. I thank you for the near-death experience, Kakashi!” Gai quickly recovers and stands up, dusting the dirt from his green jumpsuit. “You win this round, but I wouldn’t get used to it!” Gai challenges, holding out a hand for Kakashi to shake.

“Yeah, sure Gai.” Kakashi agrees sheepishly, accepting Gai’s hand.

“Damn, Kakashi.” Genma starts, a smug smile pulling at his mouth. “The Anbu made you a pretty ruthless fighter, huh? I didn’t realize friend-killer Kakashi applied to us too.”

You could hear everyone in the circle try to hold in their gasps after registering Genma’s statement. Kakashi’s whole body stiffened and you could see the appearance of a grimace form under his mask. He is visibly uncomfortable. Yet, instead of looking at Genma who just addressed him, he is looking at you.

You suck in a breath, feeling terrible for Kakashi. Rumors spread, nicknames are formed, it’s all a part of being a shinobi. But “friend-killer Kakashi” is on a whole other level of petty.

That jerk.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Genma?” You turn to him and yell. “What makes you think you can say shit like that?”

“Oh c’mon!” Genma retorts. “We were all thinking it! This is the first time he’s been back training with us since the Anbu. You’ve heard what people have said about him. I’m surprised one of us isn’t already dead!”

This time no one was able to hold in their reactions as gasps escaped everyone in the circle.

You are fuming.

“Actually, Genma, the only one you should be worried about killing you is me because I am a second away from shoving that stupid senbon down your throat.” You take a step forward, challenging him.

“Hey, hey,” Genma retreats, taking a step back with his hands up in defense. “I was just trying to look out for us, for you especially. I mean out of all of us, you should be the most concerned. You know, with the whole situation that happened with Ri-”

You close the gap between you and Genma in seconds, grabbing the collar of his vest, you yank the senbon from his mouth and hold it against his throat.

“If you finish that sentence it will be the last words you ever speak.” You threaten. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea the details of what Kakashi has been through. What Rin went through. What I went through. It isn’t your place to speak about a situation you know nothing of. So do us all a favor and shut up.” You let go of his vest and shove him back a couple steps.

“Wow, damn, okay, sorry.” Genma apologizes, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “I was just joking around. There’s no need to be so serious about it, (y/n).”

“My hand went through Rin’s heart,” Kakashi speaks up from his silence. “There’s nothing to joke about.”

Hearing Kakashi speak this hard truth sends a sharp pain through your heart, and you instinctively grasp onto the part of your shirt lying over your chest.

You turn and look back at Kakashi, who meets your eyes.

Pain.

So much pain.

You turn to step towards him, but he’s already retreating from the circle.

“I think that’s it for me today guys. I’ll catch you around another time.” Kakashi says as he turns away from the group giving you one last glance. Heading towards the forest, he reaches around to his pouch and pulls out his Icha Icha novel, bringing it in front of him to pick up where he left off.

After a few silent beats, Asuma claps his hands together to bring attention to him.

“So,” he starts, “drinks anyone?”

Everyone immediately becomes more relaxed now that the focus has shifted. You, on the other hand, are feeling so tense that you start to hear ringing in your ears. You get that Asuma is just trying to relieve the tension in the group, but you can’t help but be annoyed that he’s trying to move on from what just happened so quickly.

Kurenai meets your gaze and can read your annoyance. She gives you a pleading look that says drop it for now, (y/n).

Everyone in the circle, including Genma, give a resounding “yes” and head in the opposite direction of Kakashi back towards the village. You're left alone standing in the middle of the grounds as they make their way out.

“(Y/n), are you coming?” Kurenai calls out to you.

You contemplate for a second and begin to wave her off.

“I think I’m going to stay here for a minute. You guys go on ahead, I’ll meet up with you later,” you reply. Honestly, you have no intention of getting back together with them, as any place where Genma is hanging out is the last place you want to be.

“Okay,” Asuma shouts back at you, “we will be at that one bar on main.”

“As always.” you joke back, trying to sound light-hearted.

Once they are out of sight you turn to look back at the trees that Kakashi exited through. You have absolutely no idea where he could be headed to or how fast he could be traveling through the trees. It might be a waste of time to head out after him. After all, if Kakashi doesn’t want to be found, you have no chance of finding him.

Feeling slightly defeated, you plop down to the ground and sit criss-cross in the dirt. You sit up straight and put both of your hands palm-up on each knee. Taking a deep breath in, you feel the breeze rustle through your hair. Taking a deep breath out, you hear the sound of the trees flowing in the wind.

If he wants to talk, he will come to me. In the meantime, I will meditate.

The next time you open your eyes, it’s dark out.

Damn, how many hours have passed?

You close your eyes.

More time passes.

The next time you open your eyes, Kakashi is sitting a few feet across from you mirroring your position.

His eyes are open.

As if your thoughts are mirroring each other as well, you both speak in unison.

“I’m sorry.”

#kakashi #kakashi hatake #kakashi fanfic #kakashi fanfiction #kakashi x reader #hatake kakashi #kakashi fluff #kakashi imagine #naruto fanfiction #kakashi x you #kakashi x y/n #kakashi one shot #kakashi x yn #kakashi sensei #i found my light

123 notes · View notes

jaeminscoffee · 4 years ago

Text

After wedding shenanigans | J. JH

Pairing- Jung Jaehyun x reader

Genre- Fluff, Smut.

Word count- 2.52k

Warning(s)- typical lyra smut, proper pwp, sensual intercourse, a little roughed, fingering (prep), softdom!Jaehyun..?, slightest bit of breeding kink (yes, jaehyun unloads inside. But this is a fiction, so play it safe), praise kink.

Synopsis- Sure the wedding could be considered the best time of your lives for the both of you, but the after wedding activity was what Jaehyun was more excited about at the end of the day.

Type- requested!

@kpopscape

"Oh finally alone."

The pieces of night had fallen into place, complete as though you'd just finished a two hundred piece puzzle.

The wedding night went on successfully, vows were taken, rings were exchanged, lips touched and hearts connected. And of course, the bouquet-throwing ceremony towards the end to determine the next wedding.

Then came the after wedding reception. You changed out of your heavy gown, instead opting for a more subtle and comfortable dress, flowy to the floor, white the same as the wedding gown, just a little more easy breathing. And because you didn't want to stain your wedding dress with champagne stains, it's too precious for that.

Mrs. Jung.

You found that title very flattering, to have the 'Jung Jaehyun' as your husband is flattering. The night the ends were made, wishes were passed, you thought of it as the best day of your life.

Not for Jaehyun apparently, who's frantically trying to push the both of you further into the room, kicking close the door behind him not evening bothering to make sure it's locked

Jung Jaehyun is a man of high sex drive and that comes of as no shocking fact.

Even during normal days he'd find it hard to keep his hands off of you, well the same goes for you too but he's just topped you in that factor. His college roommates called you two lovesick rabbits. Well, mainly because of the rabbit like sex drive, also because of how lovey dovey you two always have been.

It wasn't until years after your relationship that stood as strong as ever, when you, actually beat him into proposing the idea of spending the rest of your lives with each other in a rather comical way that you two decided to get a house of your own.

Yes, you were the first one to propose, which only increased Jaehyun's love for you. Others found it weird how the female had been the first to ask the male out, but Jaehyun rather found it hot. Your boldness had turned into one of his biggest turn ons.

"Slow down, boy" you laugh into the kiss when you almost stumble back, your heels doing little to nothing to keep you stable, which, other than Jaehyun's hands around your waist, you wouldn't be. He groans once he stands up onto his feet after making sure you're safely laying on the bed.

"How the fuck do i do that when you look like this" he threw his head back, removing the now suffocating bow tie and discarding it somewhere behind him.

Jaehyun meant it. Watching you go around the party hall accepting wishes and presents with a beautiful godly smile was all too much for him. His heart felt content. He felt full. Finally having you all for himself as he'd always dreamed of and now, he doesn't have to worry about anyone stealing you from him.

"Like what?" you ask, propping yourself up on your elbows to look at him slowly remove his tux coat, leaving him in nothing but a white button up shirt that has its sleeves rolled up and a black formal office pants.

You brace yourself to hear a very cheesy, cringe worthy yet heart fluttering answer from his end when he passes you a knowing smile, leaning down and forward to hover over you. Arms by the sides of your propped up elbow, face close enough to have a sniff of the champagne you two had downed.

"Like an angel" he leaned forward, the smile still prominent on his face. Jaehyun places a kiss on your lips for a short second before pulling away, leaning sideways towards the nape of your neck, right below your earlobes,

"My angel" he blows into your ear, the feeling ticklish which was easily hooded by your now heating up self. Yes, it was cringe and extremely cliché, yet coming from him; You felt like a high school kid who'd just been asked out by her crush. You left like you're in cloud nine.

The playful mood was immediately set aside when Jaehyun's previous frenzy took over him again. Attaching his lips onto the raw skin of your exposed neck, he placed a few love bites here and there. Mindful to scatter it all over your neck, in case anyone even dared staring at you for more than a few seconds, they'd know you're taken. Taken by him.

"You're so cheesy" you rasped out the best you could, breath growing short and frantic as he worked his way south, wet lips moving towards your slightly showing cleavage that tempted him throughout the day. He nipped right between your chest at your words, a mischievous yet desperate smile adorning his features, causing your breath to hitch.

"Just for you" he replied with the same emotions your voice portrayed.

It could've been your activities or the hotel room must've grown in humidity as you felt the need to rip your gown up and away from your body. So you tapped at the back of his neck which you'd held custody since he started his ministrations. "Get these off me" you plead once his attention was focused on you.

"It stays on, darling." you whine at his reply causing him to let out a throaty groan at the feeling of something twitch down there. You scoot backwards to create enough space for you to remove your own gown, "You look so fucking sexy in it."

"Can you leave it on for me, love?" He questioned, now standing up to remove the shirt. Not bothering to go button by button, instead, ripping it open instead. Discarding it the same way he did with his coat and tie, his pants following suit.

His voice mixed with the way he's glowing right now, the lights of the room highlighting all of his godly features and the slight plea in his command you oblige, opting to lay back down comfortably on the bed with the gown ridden up just a little to expose your lace inner and look at him with a sultry look, luring him closer to you.

Wasting no more time, Jaehyun decided it was enough of a wait for both of you as he quickly climbed onto the bed, "Only because i love you" you let out when he came in close, taking up his previous position on top of you.

"I love you too." with that, he engulfed your lips with his, not bothering to slow down as tease has started to become too much for him and his little (not that little) friend down there, and by the way you were constantly rubbing your thighs together, it probably had gotten painful for you to take it slow too.

You whimper into the kiss when you feel his hand travel all over your body, reaching under the dress to rip the now soaked lace lingerie you'd worn to give him a show (which was a futile attempt as he'd not bothered to look at it for even a second before ripping it off impatiently like an animal in heat) as it joins the pile of his clothes on the floor.

It was when he cupped your heat with his jewel adorned hand that you began trembling with pleasure. His warm hands in contrast to the cold metal all too pleasurable as you'd finally got some sort of relief at your throbbing core. "J-Jae.."

Jaehyun hushes your whimpers, contemplating whether to actually take time to prepare you after feeling how much you're dripping already. "Such an angel, you're dripping love, doll. Should I even prepare you?" He asked rhetorically.

"Fingers.. Jae i need you" you moan wanting to feel his beautiful slender digits piston in and out of you. "Hm? You want my fingers?" he asks to which you confirm enthusiastically, "Alright, anything for my wife"

You were half embarrassed by the fact that the moment he let two fingers slide in smoothly, you'd already felt yourself close to your edge but the other half far too driven by pleasure when he'd started moving his fingers to care enough.

"Does my doll like that?" Jaehyun inquires, setting a fast, steady pace to move his fingers in and out of you, the rings brushing on your plush walls making your whole being tremble, along with the tips of his finger brushing against your sweet spot turning you into a complete moaning mess.

"Answer me, love" Settling on his knees to steady himself, Jaehyun brought his other hand up to your chin to make you look at him with a vice grip on your chin. His gaze made you shudder and shrink when he'd felt you clench around his digits. "Y-yes.. I love..-it" he hums with satisfaction.

Too far into your own zone, your moans mixed with Jaehyun's actions and his sweet nothings, with the squelching sounds echoing throughout the wall, you felt the knot at the bottom of your stomach tighten painfully. All too familiar with you constantly clenching around his fingers, he picks up speed to which your back arches off the bed, "Ja-Jaehyun I'm.. Close. So. -fucking close-!"

You moan out loud at the addition of his thumb on your clit, which pulled the last string seconds after, coaxing your orgasm out of you, "So well. Look at you, darling. You look ethereal when you come" he stills his wrist, letting you grind your hips onto his fingers to prolong your orgasm, as he watches you moan with your nose scrunched up, your eyebrows knitted and your mouth slightly open ajar.

You only stop your actions when you felt it was too much for you, and because you heard a moan coming from your husband's end. You look straight at him, only to see him staring back at you with the same intensity while palming himself, which had another wave of pleasure wash over your being as he'd looked so hot at the moment.

It wasn't once or twice or three times, instead everyday when you'd remind Jaehyun that you thought he was surreal. And that god shows favoritism as he has the looks of that of greek sculptures or maybe even, dare you say, better than the sculptures themselves.

So when you see his dark eyebrows furrowed, his eyes hooded with lust and desperation, his once perfectly gelled hair now disheveled with a few strands falling stray over his eyes. His lips a shade of deep crimson from the previous frantic make out and his constant lip biting, you let yourself out a silent moan which prompted Jaehyun to hover over you for the nth time that night.

"Jaehyun.." you whimper with an airy voice.

"Fuck me, please" you take his face between both your palms to urge him forward the exact moment he let out a loud groan at your lewd words. You shift below him in a way to allow the head of his shaft to prod at your entrance the moment you capture his lips into a much slower kiss.

The feeling of your wetness and heat on his painfully inflated member when he slowly eased himself inside up to the brim had him bite down rather harshly on your bottom lips, making drawing the slightest of blood out to which you moan.

"You're so fucking perfect, doll. You take me in so perfectly.." you both let out a sigh of content at the feeling of being full as you urge Jaehyun to move and not waste more time in taking the next step to lock you in as his for once and for all.

Jaehyun moves his hips backwards collectively pulling out more than half of his shaft outside, letting just the tip of the head linger at your core, removing his lips from yours, instead opting to find home back at the nape of your neck, which now glowed of pretty red and purple love bites before slamming back inside you with all he'd got, making you let out a loud moan of pain and pleasure.

"Oh god, Jae that..-feels so good. So.. So.-good" you whine while he moved faster and faster, one hand clenching your dress and holding it up above your breast while the other dropped down to balance himself on his elbows to avoid crushing you, "Yeah..?" he inquired, which came out as a shaky growl from how fast he was moving.

"Yeah.. So,..-good" you bite back a whine to hear his moans loud and clear, which caused your body to release another round of arousal at his deep groans and growls.

The wetness dripping onto the sheets with each of his thrusts, causing wet noises to resonate throughout the dim lit room, his moans and your moans mixed causing waves of mixed emotions churn inside you. "You feel so good around me too, love. I'm going to come, urgh-" Jaehyun struggles to keep a steady pace at your constant clenching.

You squirm underneath him, feeling yourself grow hotter and closer to the edge with each of his sloppy thrusts, whining out loudly when he starts twitching inside of you. "I'm going to come inside, darling, fill you up to the brim, yeah?" he inquires, not really expecting an answer when he feels you clench harder around his already twitching member which causes him to grit his teeth to hold himself back from coming for a little longer.

"You like the idea, hm?"

"You like the idea of me fucking my come inside of you? You like the idea of walking around with my child inside you? Hm?" he asks with pauses as you make it harder for him to move with how much of a tight hold you had on his dick. "Jae..-" you whine out loud at his lewd words, the idea intriguing you enough to throw you off the edge, while blushing really hard

"Jesus fucking christ, Y/n.." He let himself unload right after you, still keeping a slow pace to make sure not a drop of his essence would drip out of you, which was hard considering that your arousal mixed with your come and his had become too much for your body to withhold, causing you to writhe in overstimulation under him as he immediately collapses over you, the feeling of your walls clenching weakly around his now soft member causing him to twitch in the same emotion as you.

Taking a minute or so to calm down your palms flat on his sweaty back, the other playing with his hair while his hand worked on your side to cool down the burning skin, you speak up, "I do like it.." you let out softly.

You hear a slow and silent questioning hum from his end beside your head, as you speak up louder, "I do like the idea of walking around with your child inside of me" you claim shyly as you feel his hands halt at your sides, his head moving side-wards to place a peck on your cheek with a quirky smirk on his lips, the hands now gripping your side with a slightly tight grip,

"Round two, then?"

644 notes · View notes

chickenmcstucky · 4 years ago

Text

meet me in the hallway

Bucky Barnes x reader

Light angst, fluff || 5.1k

Your bad day gets worse when your less-than-friendly teammate catches you having a breakdown over your shitty morning.

A/N: So this is the second work I’m posting, but actually the first I wrote. Inspired by my own bad morning, lol. Nothing like a little cathartic writing. I’d love feedback!

You had to physically stop your whole body from tapping along with your impatient foot. If you didn’t get out of here and back to your sunny balcony soon, you might actually die of frustration. Sure, the whole sunny day stretched out in front of you, waiting, but it was the principle of the thing. Wasting sun is sacrilege to you. Still, the young woman behind the counter was only doing her job as she gathered your prescription and searched for the coupon you asked for. Why was healthcare so expensive?

As your body cooled from the workout you’d finished just before hopping over to the pharmacy, your thoughts wandered to the lazy hours of writing, tanning, and listening to music you had planned for the day. The team was between missions and somehow the stars aligned and your time off brought gorgeous weather and some much-needed you time. The thought relaxed you as the woman finally rang up your total; as you swiped your card you put your Starbucks order into the app and prepared to finally get home and enjoy your day.

That is, until the card machine gave a deep chirp and the cashier informed you your card wasn’t covering the entire purchase. You balked - how could this happen? The insurance debit was loaded up for the year, ready for any medical purchases. It rarely ran out so early in the year, and it was just April! Your brain scrambled to make sense of it. Had the account rules changed and some of your purchase didn’t qualify? No, that couldn’t be it, you’d done this same process just a few weeks ago.

Your cheeks bloomed with heat as you realized the declined card was the only one you’d brought with you, convinced it would be a quick errand and seeing no reason to bring your whole wallet for the short trip down the street from the Tower. Fuck. And there were people behind you; you shuddered to imagine what they might be thinking of you in your sweaty workout clothes as you stammered to the cashier you’d have to come back. Just fucking great. You felt your good mood at the prospect of a sunny day slipping as you left the store as quickly as you could, trying to save a little face.

***

Making your way around the construction - why did they need to close the entire sidewalk? - you hastily headed back to the Tower to grab your wallet from your personal quarters, wondering all the way how this could happen. Why do the simple things always have to go wrong? Rationally, you knew this wasn’t a big deal. You would just pay the balance out of pocket and deal with the insurance later. But it was embarrassing and annoying and just plain inconvenient. Sure, you had the time and the money to spare, but why couldn’t things just work how they’re meant to? Your swirling thoughts brought you through the private lobby of the Tower and to the elevators that led to the personal floors; angrily jamming the button for your floor, you whipped out your phone to check the balance on the insurance card.

Your jaw literally dropped as your eyes caught sight of the balance. There was more than enough to cover the charge at the store! Now you were really upset. Jesus, why was this happening to you? Stupid, simple nature of the occurrence aside, you felt tears of frustration welling to the surface as you berated yourself internally. Why did you have to be lazy and only take the one card? If you’d just taken your whole wallet and been prepared, you could’ve saved yourself so much humiliation and frustration. And time. You’d brought it on yourself, you always did. Your frustration with the pharmacy and your anger at the insurance company quickly turned to annoyance at yourself and your lackadaisical ways. Why were you like this?

You shoved yourself further into the corner of the elevator, letting your head fall back against the wall as it ascended to the personal floors. You could feel your face was still ripe with embarrassment, your throat thick with unshed tears. God, why did everything have to make you cry? Embarrassment, anger, and frustration brought tears to your eyes more often than not, while sadness rarely wet your eyes. Of course, no one else knew that and you felt like a dramatic cry-baby every time you got teary-eyed in front of your teammates and friends. You were an Avenger, dammit! As the elevator signaled your floor and the doors whooshed open, you could only hope the walk to your room would be deserted. You wanted to make a quick exit before anyone saw your despair.

***

The hope was short-lived. You walked out of the elevator with your gaze on the floor, and smack into a well-muscled chest.

“Oh, sorry,” you mumbled, trying to scoot around the body without making eye contact.

“Walk much?” and if that wasn’t the last voice you wanted to hear. Of course, your card gets declined and you get humiliated to tears, and not only could the universe not provide you a painless return to your apartment, it also brought you face to face with Bucky Barnes. You were hardly in the mood to deal with him on a good day, let alone today. He rarely acknowledged your existence except to quip mockery at you, it seemed. At first you thought he was just like that, but you soon realized he was perfectly funny and friendly with the others, if quiet. So it was something about you; what, you didn’t know. And you’d accepted it. You didn’t need him to like you, honestly. His attitude towards you might have brought you to tearful rages sometimes, but only in the quiet solace of your room where you could freely wonder why he despised you so. His devilish good looks and killer smile didn’t help. Avoiding him was the best strategy.

“Can you just not?” you snapped at him as he blocked your way down the hallway, apparently hellbent on making sure you knew he was making fun of you. As if you weren’t painfully aware of how he felt about you. It didn’t help your girlish crush, the little voice in the back of your head always telling you maybe he was mean because he liked you. Bullshit.

“Whoa there, no need to get in a twist doll. Was just havin’ a little fun is all. What’s got you so worked up?” you heard the teasing lilt to his voice but the question forced your eyes to his anyways. God, the asshole was smirking, those gorgeous blue eyes glinting with mirth. Horrified, you felt tears welling up in your eyes again because the universe liked laughing at you, apparently.

“God Bucky do you ever fuck off? Honestly,” your voice broke on the last word as tears threatened their way out of your glassy eyes. “Just leave me alone, why do you always have to be so mean? What did I ever do to you?” the words tumbled out before you could stop them, your anger and hurt getting the better of you.

Realizing your outburst, you floundered in the hallway as Bucky looked at you with a confusing mixture of shock and hurt on his face. Did he really have the audacity to be upset with you? After the way he’s treated you, so often making jokes at your expense? In the back of your head, you knew the jokes weren’t that bad, nothing more than you’d say in a harmless rib against your other teammates. But they were your friends; Bucky was a menace. Not knowing what else to say as the shocked silence stretched on, you averted your eyes from his now stony face and tried to will your tears - and your anger - away so you could get what you came for, finish your errand, and try to salvage the rest of your day. How did things go so wrong so fast?

You didn’t notice as Bucky’s expression morphed from hurt to cocky as he prepared to deliver his next blow.

“Oh, woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning I see, sweetheart.” His smiling tone grated on your nerves - of course he was still making fun of you even after you yelled at him for just that. He couldn’t just be nice, could he?

“At least I sleep in a bed,” you spat, meeting his eyes once more. You knew it was a low blow, immediately regretting it as a pained expression flitted across his face. You sighed - only you could end up feeling guilty for dishing his own mockery back at him after months of his unanswered jibes. “Sorry,” you muttered, your eyes falling closed in shame and frustration at your inability to contain your emotions.

“Yea, okay, I probably deserved that,” you stopped yourself from mocking his ‘probably,’ refusing to dig a deeper hole for yourself, though the eye-roll was unavoidable. “I guess I’ll get out of your way then,” Bucky acquiesced, his voice quieter now.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his flesh arm reach out as if to pat your shoulder, but he jerked it away as if he hadn’t meant it to move. He hesitated as he half-turned away; why wasn’t he leaving, and since when did Bucky get so unsure of himself? Usually he moved with a sure swagger that riled you right up knowing he thought so highly of himself. Of course, you knew he probably didn’t do it on purpose; your inner feelings about someone had always colored your observations of them and Bucky was no exception - sometimes you manufactured your dislike, but it was inescapable. He infuriated you.

Your head swirled with anger, leftover humiliation, shame at your words to Bucky, and confusion at why he was still in the fucking hallway. You stuttered, mouth moving without your permission but no words forming.

Bucky glanced back at you, and your downturned yet clearly turmoiled face brought an unseen soft, caring look to his chiseled face. It hurt him to see you upset, though you were unaware. He didn’t know why his words to you always came out so biting. He knew how to act around the rest of the team but for some reason you brought out his inner turmoil and apparently his coping mechanism was to just make fun of you. Was he protecting himself? But what did his feelings matter when he had so clearly hurt you? His heart broke realizing that your lack of response to his mocking over the weeks wasn’t good-natured but instead was silent hurt. Fuck, he’d fucked up.

“Honey, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” the softness in his voice was so foreign and surprising to you that you jerked your head up, meeting his eyes in shock. “Maybe…I can help,” he gestured awkwardly.

You must’ve pulled a face at that, because his head immediately rolled back as he quipped out, “what, is it so surprising I can be nice?”

“Well…yeah,” you half-whispered, your mouth once more speaking without your mind’s permission. Suddenly you couldn’t meet his eyes anymore, your gaze falling anywhere but his soft blues. Once again you felt shame flood through you, even though you had told the truth - it was shocking to see Bucky offer kindness, at least to you. Had you somehow misread him so horribly? Fuck, there were the tears of frustration again. As if you weren’t embarrassed enough, this time a few actually fell, carving their way down your burning cheeks as your breath hitched.

“Shit. Okay, please don’t cry sweet girl, I’m sorry. I know I’m an asshole. I - I don’t -,” he cut off, not knowing how to explain. At his saccharine tone and the pet name - this time caressed with gentleness rather than thrown with cocky disdain - you broke as tears fell down in rivulets, your body wracking with silent sobs. Why were you such a mess today? Sure, you wore your emotions on your sleeve, but even you could control yourself more than this. Bucky’s sudden softness had caught you off guard. Where on earth was it coming from?

Unsure what to do as you exposed your raw nerves to him like this, you wrapped your arms around yourself as Bucky twitched in front of you, hesitating before once more reaching out to you, with purpose this time. He tugged at your shoulders until you were pressed into his chest, hiding your face in his faded blue henley. You felt the tension bleed out of you as he slowly brought his arms around you, his flesh hand running up and down your back in comfort.

“Hey there, it’s alright,” he cooed quietly, “it’s okay. We can figure it out. I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry.” It was tearing him apart, seeing you cry. You’d never reacted to his jokes like that, at least not to his face. He wondered how often you held your tears in until you escaped to your room, and his heart fractured. He hated who he turned into around you. He’d fix it, he had to. A pretty girl like you shouldn’t cry over a stupid guy like him.

You finally hiccuped to a stop, the tears no longer falling as his sweet ministrations calmed you down. Before more embarrassment over your breakdown could set in, Bucky grasped your shoulders and set you away from him so he could look you in your eyes.

“Now, you tell me what’s going on. I’ll fix it,” his hands gripped you tighter with his last words, assuring you. His sudden change of heart, while shocking, was strangely believable. You trusted his conviction that he wanted to help you.

Sighing shakily, you sniffled and began to explain. “It’s stupid really, Bucky. You don’t gotta worry,” you deflected, walls going back up even though you longed for his comfort, his friendship that you hadn’t allowed yourself to crave.

“Little darlin, it ain’t nothing if it makes you this upset. Please talk to me,” his soft eyes pleaded with you, the kindness floating in their depths piercing straight to your heart. Your resolve - built less from stubbornness now and more from niggling shame at letting him see to your core - crumbled.

“It was just gonna be a quick run to the pharmacy - I needed a refill - and then I was gonna come back here and sit in the sun and try to just enjoy my time off alone but my fucking card got fucking declined even though it has enough money and God, Buck, it was humiliating. And then I came back to get my wallet and -,” you cut yourself off, unsure, not wanting to accuse Bucky of making you cry. He had, but it was the whole situation that had really gotten you going. You didn’t want to point the finger at him when he was being nice for once.

Your sudden silence clued Bucky in to the rest of the story quickly enough, though he took sweet pause at the nickname that had slipped from your pretty mouth. He had the grace to look a bit ashamed, but continued on. “Okay, that’s not so bad then, huh? You can just go back and finish up, it’s still early in the day, plenty of time to relax,” Bucky assured you, thinking he’d figured this out pretty easily.

“Easy for you to say,” you grumbled. “You weren’t the one humiliated in front of multiple people thinking you couldn’t pay. I mean I basically ran out of there, Bucky. Why am I so - UGHHH.”

He very nearly laughed, covering himself by clearing his throat - now that you were talking to him and his dumb brain was letting him be nice to you, he wasn’t about to ruin things by upsetting you again. He wasn’t going to push you away. He found it endearing how open you were with your emotions, wishing he could be more like you some days when his melancholy got the best of him. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to suffer alone.

“I see…well I’m real sorry you had to face that. I’ve been there a time or two, it’s no fun. But it ain’t bad as all that - they weren’t paying you that much attention. It’s New York City, everyone is so self-absorbed I bet they didn’t even notice. That’s not to say you don’t deserve attention ‘cause you do - I mean - that’s not - …yea,” he trailed off, cutting his rambling before he really embarrassed himself. He met your eyes sheepishly, surprised to see a small smile there. His heart soared knowing he was the one to put it there, even at the cost of some embarrassment himself.

“Well, I don’t have much of a choice, I need the prescription today. And - fuck! Whyyyyyyy,” you groaned, your face scrunching as you whined. And damn if that wasn’t just the cutest thing, Bucky couldn’t help but think.

The lilting, light tone returned to his voice as he gently laughed at your groaning. “What is it now, then?”

You moaned, blood rushing to your face as you admitted the silly annoyance, “I forgot my drink at Starbucks. I ordered it while I was in line at the pharmacy, I was gonna grab it on my way back. God, it’ll be warm now - or gone. Icing on the cake, just what I needed,” you sighed, resigned to the wasted money.

Bucky smiled genially as he reached over to ruffle your hair, tucking a stray lock behind your ear with surprising softness. You weren’t sure you’d ever gotten this close to his metal appendage. Something deep inside you fluttered at the prospect of more gentle touches, exploring each other and - now where the hell did that come from? You were beginning to think this morning’s commotion had somehow addled your brain. You shook your head at yourself, emptying those thoughts and Bucky chuckled. This time, though, it felt like he was laughing with you rather than at you. That was….refreshing. Nice, even. You yearned to make him laugh more.

“Alright. It’s no big deal,” Bucky calmly spoke, again determined to bring that smile back to your face and maybe, just maybe, get to know you as a friend. Something about how you’d opened up to him gave him hope he hadn’t ruined things beyond repair with his boyish taunting. He’d treat you like you deserved, be a good man to you, if he could take this chance.

“How about this - you go back, get that paid for, and I’ll go get your drink. If it’s warm or gone, I’ll make them make you a new one. Then you can get on with your day, and I’ll, uh…get out of your hair, I guess,” Bucky trailed off, suddenly unsure. Would this truce be short lived, lasting only until you resolved your dilemma? He guessed he’d deserve it if so, but he couldn’t help but hope you’d stick around him. He’d just have to give it his best shot.

“That’s - wow Buck, you don’t have to go to all that trouble. It’s nothing, silly really, I told you,” you scuffed your feet along the floor, suddenly feeling burdensome. A fearful voice in the back of your head wondered if you were just giving him more ammunition for future joking.

“It’s no trouble darlin’. It’s…it’s the least I can do for ya. I guess I know it’s a miracle you even talk to me. I don’t know why I’m so..” he cut off again, still not sure how to explain without exposing his inner thoughts. “Now, what’s the order?”

“Oh, uhm…,” you balked, disbelieving at what you were about to have to say to Bucky. “It’s, uh, called a Pink Drink?” you let the name escape your lips uncertainly, waiting for the inevitable mocking. But to your surprise, the sweetest smile graced Bucky’s face, lighting up his eyes.

“Well, if that ain’t just adorable,” he gently joked to you as you gave a grudging smile. “One Pink Drink it is, honey.”

And wow, these sudden sweet names were getting to you. You felt your heart flutter as he winked at you before sending you on your way down the hall to your room, finally about to clean up the mess you’d made this morning. He even waited for you to get your wallet, escorting you back to the elevator and riding down to street level with you.

“Go on then,” he encouraged, seeing you hesitate again. “I’ll meet you back up there,” he nodded back towards the Tower.

You smiled softly, half at him and half at the ground you were once more staring at, before making your way back to the pharmacy.

***

You supposed the second trip was actually rather painless. Not a big deal at all, just as Bucky had assured you. Perhaps you could salvage your afternoon indeed, let the sun burn the frustration and embarrassment out of you. Though something told you your newfound confusion at Bucky’s kindness would soon take hold. You still couldn’t believe the gentleness with which he handled you, the kind softness of his words as he comforted you - was this really the same man who spared few words for you but for jokes and laughter at your expense? Something had…shifted. You pushed the uneasy, yet warm feeling away. No time to dissect that right now, you scolded yourself as you headed up the elevator once more, this time for good. You were determined to put this morning behind you and enjoy your rare sunny day off.

As you stepped off the elevator to head to your room, you absently wondered where Bucky was. Surely he had made it back before you - the Starbucks was much closer than the pharmacy. Yet he was nowhere to be found. You weren’t sure if you were bothered or relieved about that. Bothered that he might have abandoned his mission to help you, relieved you might not have to face him again. At least before, his unkindness was certain. You had learned to deal with it. Now, this new kind, gentle Bucky? Just what in the hell were you supposed to do with that? You didn’t know what to think.

***

These swirling thoughts stuck with you as you walked into your room; you were so distracted by your own internal monologue that the open door didn’t phase you, nor did the breeze coming in from the now ajar balcony door catch your eye. Absentmindedly you flitted around the room, putting away your wallet and goods. When the breeze coming in from the balcony caught a lock of your hair, blowing it across your face, you froze. Why was the balcony door open? You certainly hadn’t left it that way.

Peering out to investigate, you stopped right in your tracks at the sight that met your eyes. Your lounge chair was covered in one of your beach towels, bluetooth speaker already gently playing your sunshine playlist. And there on the table was your Pink Drink. You were flabbergasted - had Bucky come in and done this? For…you? The mere thought of him taking the time to set this up sent your heart soaring. But where was he? Perhaps your earlier thoughts were right - his sudden kindness had run out, and he was tired of being your friend already. Somehow, you couldn’t quite believe that to be the truth.

Determined not to let this chance go, because now that you’d had a taste of Bucky’s sweet side you would be damned if you couldn’t sink your teeth in, you set off in search of the brooding man. Wandering down the hallway, you steeled your resolve - you were going to thank him, and you weren’t going to get flustered this time. Maybe this could be a new start for both of you. Maybe he was more than you thought.

The door to Bucky’s room was open, and you heard the soft notes of Billie Holiday float into the corridor. You pushed your hesitation aside and walked in, not seeing him anywhere until your gaze fell upon a brunette head just peaking over the top of a chair on his balcony. Walking towards the glinting sunlight outside, you lightly knocked on the doorjamb to alert him to your presence, knowing he had probably heard you come in anyways.

“Hey,” he exclaimed softly, rolling his head to the side to glance at you. He seemed less…pompous than earlier, at least, but less energetic too. Like something had popped his bubble.

You stepped gingerly out onto the balcony, as if you were wary of startling him. As if you even could. Suddenly you were lost for words, the atmosphere awkward in a soft way. Unspoken words flitted between the two of you, both lost as to how to approach the new dynamic that crash landed in your laps earlier.

“Uh,” you started, lapsing into a giggle. “Thanks for the uh, for my drink. And stuff,” you finished uneasily, letting out a sharp laugh at your inability to articulate your appreciation for his earlier kindness. You still weren’t sure if there would be more where that came from, or if you had simply taken him aback with your tears and his sudden gentility was a stress reaction. You steeled yourself to be laughed out of his room, just in case.

“My pleasure, sweet girl,” he sighed, gazing out over the city. “Least I could do, really.”

“I - Bucky,” you heaved a deep breath and continued, “thank you, you really didn’t have to be so….sweet.”

He didn’t respond immediately and you wondered if you’d taken it too far, but before you could get too worried he spoke again.

“Darlin,” he started, the term of endearment dripping from his lips sweet like honey, “I owe ya a real apology. I never wanted to be unkind to you, but it felt like I couldn’t stop it. Whenever I see you I just…forget myself. It’s like I don’t know how to act, you scare the decency right outta me.”

Was this really happening? You gaped, “wha - Bucky, what?”

He held up a hand to stop you as he kept speaking, his words further shocking you yet sending a warm buzz up your spine at the same time. “I’m sorry I’ve treated you the way I have. I like joking with people but it’s not right that it hurt you and I kept on. I’m sorry I made ya cry. It ain’t an excuse but girl, you really terrify me. In a good way, I think, but I didn’t let myself see that. I hope it ain’t too late, you know…to be friendly?��

You were sure he could see the astonishment clear as day on your face, and you watched as his own expression contorted with unease. It wasn’t hard to see this admission was uncomfortable for him. But why? Because it pained him to admit he was wrong, or because…he was as afraid of rejection as you were?

“It’s not!” you blurted before you realized you had even spoken. ‘“It’s not too late.”

Bucky looked at you with a small smile, hope blooming in his eyes. You couldn’t believe your shit day had turned into this - who would have ever thought Bucky Barnes, the asshole next door, could be nice. Could apologize, even.

An idea struck you and before you could lose your confidence, you spoke, “Do you wanna come sit out with me?”

You left the invitation hanging desperately in the air as you shifted from one foot to the other, hoping he would accept.

“Only if you let me have some of that drink,” he laughed as he got up and ushered you back inside, through to your own room and balcony. You smiled to yourself but stayed quiet as you sat down on your chair; Bucky got comfortable in the chair next to you as the tune of a love song permeated the thick, warm air around you.

Silently grasping your drink, you handed it to him. It felt like a peace offering.

His rosy lips wrapping around the edge of the cup mesmerized you, a rivulet of condensation dripping from the cup down his arm as he swallowed.

His low laugh snapped you out of your reverie. “Well?” you inquired.

His lips stretched into a smile, “sweet drink. Perfect for a sweet girl,” a husky tone to his voice as he handed the drink back to you, your mouth agape once more.

A laugh ripped its way out of your throat, loud and boisterous and before you knew it you gasped out, “who are you and what have you done with Bucky? So charming, jesus.”

“Guess I have my moments. Gonna try harder to have them around you,” he let out a breathy laugh, still unsure how to act around you. But this felt better, lighter. For the first time in a while, he felt at ease within himself.

“I think I’d like that,” you spoke surely. Then a streak of courage hit you and you went on, “maybe next time, I could go with you? I mean, you could go with me - together, uh..”

Bucky smiled then, wide, “you askin’ me on a date there honey?” he cooed, joking but in kindness.

This time, you were ready to dish it back. “If you think one drink and some sweet talking is enough to get a date with me you got another thing coming, Barnes!” you jibed. “I was merely offering to return the favor,” you turned your face up with false haughtiness, but your laughter and the way you averted your eyes told him the truth. Turning over a new leaf and all that, he guessed.

“Well, I suppose that’s a start,” he laughed, hope bubbling in his chest. “That’s a start.”

As you watched the sun reach its midday summit, your mind wandered. What a day it had been already. You never thought you’d share such emotion with Bucky, that he’d be capable of handling it, or even sharing some in return. Maybe there was some truth to his words - you wouldn’t let the pain of his mocking slide so easily, but you felt he deserved the second chance he was craving. You deserved it, too.

You stole a quiet glance at him, your cheeks warming as you realize he’d been staring at you. He looked away quickly, but not before you caught a blush spreading across his cheeks. Perhaps, you thought, bad mornings weren’t so awful if they ended with afternoons like this.

***

231 notes · View notes