#nothing that's incredibly detailed but! to be safe

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Retiring the US debt would retire the US dollar

THIS WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

One of the most consequential series of investigative journalism of this decade was the Propublica series that Jesse Eisinger helmed, in which Eisinger and colleagues analyzed a trove of leaked IRS tax returns for the richest people in America:

https://www.propublica.org/series/the-secret-irs-files

The Secret IRS Files revealed the fact that many of America's oligarchs pay no tax at all. Some of them even get subsidies intended for poor families, like Jeff Bezos, whose tax affairs are so scammy that he was able to claim to be among the working poor and receive a federal Child Tax Credit, a $4,000 gift from the American public to one of the richest men who ever lived:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

As important as the numbers revealed by the Secret IRS Files were, I found the explanations even more interesting. The 99.9999% of us who never make contact with the secretive elite wealth management and tax cheating industry know, in the abstract, that there's something scammy going on in those esoteric cults of wealth accumulation, but we're pretty vague on the details. When I pondered the "tax loopholes" that the rich were exploiting, I pictured, you know, long lists of equations salted with Greek symbols, completely beyond my ken.

But when Propublica's series laid these secret tactics out, I learned that they were incredibly stupid ruses, tricks so thin that the only way they could possibly fool the IRS is if the IRS just didn't give a shit (and they truly didn't – after decades of cuts and attacks, the IRS was far more likely to audit a family earning less than $30k/year than a billionaire).

This has become a somewhat familiar experience. If you read the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, Luxleaks, Swissleaks, or any of the other spectacular leaks from the oligarch-industrial complex, you'll have seen the same thing: the rich employ the most tissue-thin ruses, and the tax authorities gobble them up. It's like the tax collectors don't want to fight with these ultrawealthy monsters whose net worth is larger than most nations, and merely require some excuse to allow them to cheat, anything they can scribble in the box explaining why they are worth billions and paying little, or nothing, or even entitled to free public money from programs intended to lift hungry children out of poverty.

It was this experience that fueled my interest in forensic accounting, which led to my bestselling techno-crime-thriller series starring the two-fisted, scambusting forensic accountant Martin Hench, who made his debut in 2022's Red Team Blues:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

The double outrage of finding out how badly the powerful are ripping off the rest of us, and how stupid and transparent their accounting tricks are, is at the center of Chokepoint Capitalism, the book about how tech and entertainment companies steal from creative workers (and how to stop them) that Rebecca Giblin and I co-authored, which also came out in 2022:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Now that I've written four novels and a nonfiction book about finance scams, I think I can safely call myself a oligarch ripoff hobbyist. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating, enraging, and, most importantly, energizing. So naturally, when PJ Vogt devoted two episodes of his excellent Search Engine podcast to the subject last week, I gobbled them up:

https://www.searchengine.show/listen/search-engine-1/why-is-it-so-hard-to-tax-billionaires-part-1

I love the way Vogt unpacks complex subjects. Maybe you've had the experience of following a commentator and admiring their knowledge of subjects you're unfamiliar with, only have them cover something you're an expert in and find them making a bunch of errors (this is basically the experience of using an LLM, which can give you authoritative seeming answers when the subject is one you're unfamiliar with, but which reveals itself to be a Bullshit Machine as soon as you ask it about something whose lore you know backwards and forwards).

Well, Vogt has covered many subjects that I am an expert in, and I had the opposite experience, finding that even when he covers my own specialist topics, I still learn something. I don't always agree with him, but always find those disagreements productive in that they make me clarify my own interests. (Full disclosure: I was one of Vogt's experts on his previous podcast, Reply All, talking about the inkjet printerization of everything:)

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/brho54

Vogt's series on taxing billionaires was no exception. His interview subjects (including Eisinger) were very good, and he got into a lot of great detail on the leaker himself, Charles Littlejohn, who plead guilty and was sentenced to five years:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/charles-littlejohn-irs-whistleblower-pro-publica-tax-evasion-prosecution

Vogt also delved into the history of the federal income tax, how it was sold to the American public, and a rather hilarious story of Republican Congressional gamesmanship that backfired spectacularly. I'd never encountered this stuff before and boy was it interesting.

But then Vogt got into the nature of taxation, and its relationship to the federal debt, another subject I've written about extensively, and that's where one of those productive disagreements emerged. Yesterday, I set out to write him a brief note unpacking this objection and ended up writing a giant essay (sorry, PJ!), and this morning I found myself still thinking about it. So I thought, why not clean up the email a little and publish it here?

As much as I enjoyed these episodes, I took serious exception to one – fairly important! – aspect of your analysis: the relationship of taxes to the national debt.

There's two ways of approaching this question, which I think of as akin to classical vs quantum physics. In the orthodox, classical telling, the government taxes us to pay for programs. This is crudely true at 10,000 feet and as a rule of thumb, it's fine in many cases. But on the ground – at the quantum level, in this analogy – the opposite is actually going on.

There is only one source of US dollars: the US Treasury (you can try and make your own dollars, but they'll put you in prison for a long-ass time if they catch you.).

If dollars can only originate with the US government, then it follows that:

a) The US government doesn't need our taxes to get US dollars (for the same reason Apple doesn't need us to redeem our iTunes cards to get more iTunes gift codes);

b) All the dollars in circulation start with spending by the US government (taxes can't be paid until dollars are first spent by their issuer, the US government); and

c) That spending must happen before anyone has been taxed, because the way dollars enter circulation is through spending.

You've probably heard people say, "Government spending isn't like household spending." That is obviously true: households are currency users while governments are currency issuers.

But the implications of this are very interesting.

First, the total dollars in circulation are:

a) All the dollars the government has ever spent into existence funding programs, transferring to the states, and paying its own employees, minus

b) All the dollars that the government has taxed away from us, and subsequently annihilated.

(Because governments spend money into existence and tax money out of existence.)

The net of dollars the government spends in a given year minus the dollars the government taxes out of existence that year is called "the national deficit." The total of all those national deficits is called "the national debt." All the dollars in circulation today are the result of this national debt. If the US government didn't have a debt, there would be no dollars in circulation.

The only way to eliminate the national debt is to tax every dollar in circulation out of existence. Because the national debt is "all the dollars the government has ever spent," minus "all the dollars the government has ever taxed." In accounting terms, "The US deficit is the public's credit."

When billionaires like Warren Buffet tell Jesse Eisinger that he doesn't pay tax because "he thinks his money is better spent on charitable works rather than contributing to an insignificant reduction of the deficit," he is, at best, technically wrong about why we tax, and at worst, he's telling a self-serving lie. The US government doesn't need to eliminate its debt. Doing so would be catastrophic. "Retiring the US debt" is the same thing as "retiring the US dollar."

So if the USG isn't taxing to retire its debts, why does it tax? Because when the USG – or any other currency issuer – creates a token, that token is, on its face, useless. If I offered to sell you some "Corycoins," you would quite rightly say that Corycoins have no value and thus you don't need any of them.

For a token to be liquid – for it to be redeemable for valuable things, like labor, goods and services – there needs to be something that someone desires that can be purchased with that token. Remember when Disney issued "Disney dollars" that you could only spend at Disney theme parks? They traded more or less at face value, even outside of Disney parks, because everyone knew someone who was planning a Disney vacation and could make use of those Disney tokens.

But if you go down to a local carny and play skeeball and win a fistful of tickets, you'll find it hard to trade those with anyone outside of the skeeball counter, especially once you leave the carny. There's two reasons for this:

1) The things you can get at the skeeball counter are pretty crappy so most people don't desire them; and ' 2) Most people aren't planning on visiting the carny, so there's no way for them to redeem the skeeball tickets even if they want the stuff behind the counter (this is also why it's hard to sell your Iranian rials if you bring them back to the US – there's not much you can buy in Iran, and even someone you wanted to buy something there, it's really hard for US citizens to get to Iran).

But when a sovereign currency issuer – one with the power of the law behind it – demands a tax denominated in its own currency, they create demand for that token. Everyone desires USD because almost everyone in the USA has to pay taxes in USD to the government every year, or they will go to prison. That fact is why there is such a liquid market for USD. Far more people want USD to pay their taxes than will ever want Disney dollars to spend on Dole Whips, and even if you are hoping to buy a Dole Whip in Fantasyland, that desire is far less important to you than your desire not to go to prison for dodging your taxes.

Even if you're not paying taxes, you know someone who is. The underlying liquidity of the USD is inextricably tied to taxation, and that's the first reason we tax. By issuing a token – the USD – and then laying on a tax that can only be paid in that token (you cannot pay federal income tax in anything except USD – not crypto, not euros, not rials – only USD), the US government creates demand for that token.

And because the US government is the only source of dollars, the US government can purchase anything that is within its sovereign territory. Anything denominated in US dollars is available to the US government: the labor of every US-residing person, the land and resources in US territory, and the goods produced within the US borders. The US doesn't need to tax us to buy these things (remember, it makes new money by typing numbers into a spreadsheet at the Federal Reserve). But it does tax us, and if the taxes it levies don't equal the spending it's making, it also sells us T-bills to make up the shortfall.

So the US government kinda acts like classical physics is true, that is, like it is a household and thus a currency user, and not a currency issuer. If it spends more than it taxes, it "borrows" (issues T-bills) to make up the difference. Why does it do this? To fight inflation.

The US government has no monetary constraints, it can make as many dollars as it cares to (by typing numbers into a spreadsheet). But the US government is fiscally constrained, because it can only buy things that are denominated in US dollars (this is why it's such a big deal that global oil is priced in USD – it means the US government can buy oil from anywhere, not only the USA, just by typing numbers into a spreadsheet).

The supply of dollars is infinite, but the supply of labor and goods denominated in US dollars is finite, and, what's more, the people inside the USA expect to use that labor and goods for their own needs. If the US government issues so many dollars that it can outbid every private construction company for the labor of electricians, bricklayers, crane drivers, etc, and puts them all to work building federal buildings, there will be no private construction.

Indeed, every time the US government bids against the private sector for anything – labor, resources, land, finished goods – the price of that thing goes up. That's one way to get inflation (and it's why inflation hawks are so horny for slashing government spending – to get government bidders out of the auction for goods, services and labor).

But while the supply of goods for sale in US dollars is finite, it's not fixed. If the US government takes away some of the private sector's productive capacity in order to build interstates, train skilled professionals, treat sick people so they can go to work (or at least not burden their working-age relations), etc, then the supply of goods and services denominated in USD goes up, and that makes more fiscal space, meaning the government and the private sector can both consume more of those goods and services and still not bid against one another, thus creating no inflationary pressure.

Thus, taxes create liquidity for US dollars, but they do something else that's really important: they reduce the spending power of the private sector. If the US only ever spent money into existence and never taxed it out of existence, that would create incredible inflation, because the supply of dollars would go up and up and up, while the supply of goods and services you could buy with dollars would grow much more slowly, because the US government wouldn't have the looming threat of taxes with which to coerce us into doing the work to build highways, care for the sick, or teach people how to be doctors, engineers, etc.

Taxes coercively reduce the purchasing power of the private sector (they're a stick). T-bills do the same thing, but voluntarily (they the carrot).

A T-bill is a bargain offered by the US government: "Voluntarily park your money instead of spending it. That will create fiscal space for us to buy things without bidding against you, because it removes your money from circulation temporarily. That means we, the US government, can buy more stuff and use it to increase the amount of goods and services you can buy with your money when the bond matures, while keeping the supply of dollars and the supply of dollar-denominated stuff in rough equilibrium."

So a bond isn't a debt – it's more like a savings account. When you move money from your checking to your savings, you reduce its liquidity, meaning the bank can treat it as a reserve without worrying quite so much about you spending it. In exchange, the bank gives you some interest, as a carrot.

I know, I know, this is a big-ass wall of text. Congrats if you made it this far! But here's the upshot. We should tax billionaires, because it will reduce their economic power and thus their political power.

But we absolutely don't need to tax billionaires to have nice things. For example: the US government could hire every single unemployed person without creating inflationary pressure on wages, because inflation only happens when the US government tries to buy something that the private sector is also trying to buy, bidding up the price. To be "unemployed" is to have labor that the private sector isn't trying to buy. They're synonyms. By definition, the feds could put every unemployed person to work (say, training one another to be teachers, construction workers, etc – and then going out and taking care of the sick, addressing the housing crisis, etc etc) without buying any labor that the private sector is also trying to buy.

What's even more true than this is that our taxes are not going to reduce the national debt. That guest you had who said, "Even if we tax billionaires, we will never pay off the national debt,"" was 100% right, because the national debt equals all the money in circulation.

Which is why that guest was also very, very wrong when she said, "We will have to tax normal people too in order to pay off the debt." We don't have to pay off the debt. We shouldn't pay off the debt. We can't pay off the debt. Paying off the debt is another way of saying "eliminating the dollar."

Taxation isn't a way for the government to pay for things. Taxation is a way to create demand for US dollars, to convince people to sell goods and services to the US government, and to constrain private sector spending, which creates fiscal space for the US government to buy goods and services without bidding up their prices.

And in a "classical physics" sense, all of the preceding is kinda a way of saying, "Taxes pay for government spending." As a rough approximation, you can think of taxes like this and generally not get into trouble.

But when you start to make policy – when you contemplate when, whether, and how much to tax billionaires – you leave behind the crude, high-level approximation and descend into the nitty-gritty world of things as they are, and you need to jettison the convenience of the easy-to-grasp approximation.

If you're interested in learning more about this, you can tune into this TED Talk by Stephanie Kelton, formerly formerly advisor to the Senate Budget Committee chair, now back teaching and researching econ at University of Missouri at Kansas City:

https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_kelton_the_big_myth_of_government_deficits?subtitle=en

Stephanie has written a great book about this, The Deficit Myth:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/14/everybody-poops/#deficit-myth

There's a really good feature length doc about it too, called "Finding the Money":

https://findingmoneyfilm.com/

If you'd like to read more of my own work on this, here's a column I wrote about the nature of currency in light of Web3, crypto, etc:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/21/we-can-have-nice-things/#public-funds-not-taxpayer-dollars

[whateveriwant]

I know you already did the 141 boys when their wife gives birth (which was fantastic btw) but maybe if they missed the birth because of a mission or whatever else your brilliant mind can think of!

Don't give me compliments because then I'll follow you home like a cat and you'll never get rid of me 😖

Price

(This goes for all the men, really) but he's absolutely gutted to not be with you as you're giving birth

Honestly, if he had the choice, he would've rather lobbed off his own arm than miss such a momentous occasion in both your lives

It’s nothing less than the literal fate of the world that's keeping him from you, and he makes sure to reiterate that over and over again

The only thing that gives Price a bit of peace of mind when leaving you at a time like this is knowing you have a strong support system to help you through it

And boy oh boy does he put those friends and family members to use by having them constantly text him with every update imaginable

What time your water breaks, how far apart your contractions are, how much you've dilated, so on and so on. He wants to know it all

While he has to remain focused during the bulk of the mission, when he's able to, he's whipping out his phone to scroll through the literal hundreds of messages that await him

The updates are so plentiful and detailed that if he tries hard enough, he can almost pretend like he was right there beside you all along

And once he gets to the pictures of you holding your little one for the first time, well… he's not afraid to admit that he sheds a manly tear or two at the sight

Soap

He kicked up quite the storm at work when he realized he was going to be missing the birth of his child

He did everything in his power to try to get out of the mission – to try to get back to you – but, ultimately, he had no other choice than to go

But he's not just going to go gently into the night. No, he has a few tricks up his sleeve to make it as if he's still there with you in some capacity

Like Price, Soap takes comfort in leaving you with a huge support system to help while he's away

And also similarly, he's recruiting your loved ones (more so their phones) into letting him video chat with you whenever he gets the opportunity

(Does that mean he snuck his unauthorized smartphone into the middle of a battlefield? …. Yes. Yes, he did. .……....… Don't tell Price)

You'll be in the midst of a call with him and a bullet will fly right by his head and embed itself in the wall behind him

Of course, this has you incredibly concerned, worrying over how you're distracting him when he should be focused on his mission

But he assures you there's no need to fret, dear. He's perfectly safe and everything’s completely fine

(Oh, and just disregard that sound in the background, hun. No, it wasn't a bomb. Heavens, no! It was a… a… piano falling out a window)

Gaz

Even when he's away on mission during normal circumstances, he's calling home all the time to check in with you

But given your current state, now he's checking in twice as much as he usually does

Expect a minimum of three calls a day just to ensure things are still all hunky dory on your end

It's during one of these calls that your water breaks, and as you fly into a state of panic, forgetting everything you're supposed to do, Gaz has to calmly walk you through the steps of what you'd planned

He's able to talk you down and make sure you get yourself to the hospital in one piece, but then after that call, weirdly, you don't hear from him again

It's not until several hours later when you've already delivered your child that you're awoken by the feeling of someone beside your bed

You look to see who it is and it's none other than Gaz himself – still dressed in his full gear, covered in all sorts of dirt and grime, a hushed apology pouring from his mouth

He's so sorry he couldn't get there quick enough, beautiful. He left as soon as he could once he'd pulled a few strings with Price

But you don't even care about the excuse because you're quickly enveloping him in a hug. With tears in your eyes, you assure him it's alright. He's here now, and that's all that matters to you

Ghost

When he was informed he was being shipped off to a remote location less than a month before your due date, he was livid

No phone, no radio, no communication of any kind with the outside world and he was supposed to be okay with that? He very much wasn't

The higher-ups had to really hammer home the whole “safety of the world” thing to convince Ghost to go, and even when he did, he did so grudgingly

He finds that as he sits in this shoddy shack halfway across the planet from you, all he can do is keep a mental tally of everything he’s missing

Going with you to your final check ups, helping you pack your hospital bag, holding your hand as you begin to push, etc. etc. etc.

But what about things he might not know about? What if something's gone wrong while he's been away?

He can't let himself think on it too much because he'll end up putting his fist through the drywall, and he needs at least one good hand to hold his child with when he meets them for the first time

Seven weeks, four days, and nine hours after he shipped out, Ghost is on a plane back home

He doesn't stop to talk to anyone when he touches down at base (not even to report to his superiors). He just gets into his car and books it, not letting off the gas until he's parked outside your home again

And when he finally reaches the front door, an unexpected tremor passing through him as he grabs for the handle, he closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and walks inside, beginning the next chapter of his life

[lovelyney]

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯DATING THEM !! FONTAINE GUYS⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

CHARACTERS: freminet, lyney, neuvillette, wriothesley.

SCENT: headcanons

WARNINGS: mentions of nsfw on everyone’s but freminet’s.

FLORIST’S NOTE: wow !! took me long enough ☹️ im so sorry for the wait pookies. also how are we liking this new layout for these ?? ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯2023 !! #©LOVELYNEY

꒱₊˚ 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐓 !! 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐁𝐓𝐒

𖠵𝟎𝟎: SWEET BABY BOY FREMINET I LOVE HIM SM.

𖠵𝟎𝟏: As we know, Freminet's quite shy; he doesn't have much experience with romance, but he tries his best !!

𖠵𝟎𝟐: He wouldn’t hear the end of it from Lyney when he first started crushing on you. . . He kept on asking and asking when he was going to confess.

𖠵𝟎𝟑: Doesn’t like going out very much, but if it’s at the expense of your happiness and being with you, he’ll try and push through.

𖠵𝟎𝟒: Bought you a handmade plush of Pers since you always like to cuddle the robotic one while he’s away.

𖠵𝟎𝟓: Loves whenever he sees you wearing his clothes. he’d probably give you his entire closet if he could.

𖠵𝟎𝟔: Has a bunch of pictures of you and him that he keeps hidden in his dressers.

keeps one on him for good luck !!

𖠵𝟎𝟕: I honestly can’t tell if he’d give you a pet name ?? It’d probably be something like “nestling,” “my love,” and “baby/bébé.” (/ Meaning he uses both the English and French ver.)

❝H—Hey bébé. . . If you aren't too busy, would-would you maybe want to accompany me to brother’s magic show tonight ?? I-I could really use your company and I know we haven't been a date in a while. . .❞

𖠵𝟎𝟖: Crafts you all kinds of trickets🫶🫶

𖠵𝟎𝟗: Brings you the prettiest stones and little things that he finds when he goes deep-diving.

𖠵𝟏𝟎: Lyney “adopted” you into the family the moment you and Fremi started dating.

𖠵𝟏𝟏: He cringes whenever Lyney calls him a nickname, but he melts when you do it.

𖠵𝟏𝟐: Isn’t a big fan of PDA (he’ll obvi hold your hand) but in the confines of his room, he’ll cling to you.

𖠵𝟏𝟑: Will sometimes get pouty when you’re cuddled up to Pers and not him.

𖠵𝟏𝟒: Doesn’t get jealous like at all, he’ll just get annoyed and nervous at most.

𖠵𝟏𝟓: Didn’t pay much attention to his appearance initially, but ever since you started lovingly thumbing, kissing, and counting his freckles, it’s become his favorite thing about himself.

𖠵𝟏𝟔: I can imagine him liking his hair played with.

𖠵𝟏𝟕: Silently protective over you, you know ?? Like he’ll squeeze your hand if he senses someone you’re around is dangerous or unnerving. Or if he wants to leave and doesn’t want interrupt your conversation.

𖠵𝟏𝟖: Strangely warm !! He isn’t sure why you enjoy hugging him so much, but never complains, hehe.

𖠵𝟏𝟗: Likes to be both the big and little spoon !! If a day comes where he’s just exceptionally tired, he’ll want to be the little spoon. But if he wants to feel like the bigger person or you need comforting, he’ll be the big spoon.

꒱₊˚ 𝐋𝐘𝐍𝐄𝐘 !! 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀

𖠵𝟎𝟎: I’M 1000% COMPLETELY NORMAL ABOUT THIS MAN, I PROMISE 🤐🤐🙏🙏

𖠵𝟎𝟏: Lyney, as we know him, is very incredibly playful and can be very charming !! He uses this to his advantage.

𖠵𝟎𝟐: Was obsessed with you before you started dating and is still obsessed with you now 😭

𖠵𝟎𝟑: The complete opposite of Freminet. He will not shut up about you to his siblings. . . (Sometimes he might mention you to “father.”)

𖠵𝟎𝟒: Wants nothing but for you to be safe and protected. (Bonus points if it’s in his arms.)

𖠵𝟎𝟓: Going back to the Knave, Lyney might share the relationship you two have with her but won’t give any explicit details about who you are as a means to protect you.

𖠵𝟎𝟔: “Darling,” “gorgeous,” “lovebug/bug,” “my (love)/mi (amour),” “my sweet,” and “sweetheart/chérie.”

❝Thank you so much for coming to today’s show, my love! It always fills me with so much energy seeing you in the seats, staring up at me. . . I ought to put together a show just for you, hm? How does this Friday sound?❞

𖠵𝟎𝟕: Loves to tease you !!

𖠵𝟎𝟖: Does not like waking up in the mornings, especially when you’re lying in bed with him.

loves to hide his face in your neck whenever he’s lying with you.

𖠵𝟎𝟗: Loves PDA. He cannot give a single fuck if you guys are in public. If anything, he’s proud to show his love for you to everyone.

𖠵𝟏𝟎: Can sometimes be unintentionally flirty with other people without realizing it. Don’t get it twisted, though; he’s incredibly loyal to you.

𖠵𝟏𝟏: Many people (of all genders) find him very charming, and as much as that might sting you, Lyney always finds a way to bring you into the conversation to dismiss their advances.

𖠵𝟏𝟐: Can be a little feisty sometimes. Examples are: biting your lower lip when he’s kissing you, biting your ear and nibbling on your neck in public, and placing his hand dangerously close to your thigh.

𖠵𝟏𝟑: Uses incredibly cheesy pickup lines and one-liners.

𖠵𝟏𝟒: If someone is continuously making advances towards you, then he’ll get jealous.

he’ll walk over to you, put a hand on your waist and act overly affectionate towards you hoping it’ll drive the person away.

𖠵𝟏𝟓: Seems innocent (enough), but if he sees you’re upset by someone’s actions, he’ll flip that fatui switch on immediately just to see you smile again.

sometimes asks Lynette and/or Freminet to comfort you while he’s taking care of the person.

𖠵𝟏𝟔: Surprises you by showing up in the most unexpected places in your house.

𖠵𝟏𝟕: Hates being away from you for long ): That’s the main reason why he hates arguments between you two.

𖠵𝟏𝟖: (↑) Although he lowkey can be petty sometimes. . .

𖠵𝟏𝟗: His hands are really soft !! Sometimes you’ll gently caress them, and he’ll literally melt on the spot.

𖠵𝟐𝟎: Also one who loves to see you in his clothes !! 𖠵𝟐𝟏: Really wants to have matching outfits with you. 🫶

𖠵𝟐𝟐: Loves whenever you dress yourself up !! He just adores seeing all sides of you.

𖠵𝟐𝟑: You have a whole bouquet of rainbow roses from the amount of times he’s randomly pulled one out and gave it to you. . .

꒱₊˚ 𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 !! 𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐉𝐔𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓

𖠵𝟎𝟏: The most gentleman to ever gentleman, I believe ?!?!

idk man, it’s something with the dragon guys in Teyvat. . .

𖠵𝟎𝟐: I’d like to believe that when he started liking you, the Melusines caught on, because he seemed to always be lost in thought. . . 🤭

𖠵𝟎𝟑: Despite him being absolutely stunning and incredibly smart, he somehow felt like he didn’t have a chance with you. . .

the Melusines and Furina were not having any of that !! they devised a plan where she talked to you, and they talked to him. it all worked out in the end.

𖠵𝟎𝟒: Being in love with a busy man has its pros and cons, obviously; Neuvillette always tries his best to balance them out. ☹️☹️

𖠵𝟎𝟓: You guys tried to keep your relationship hidden for as long as you could with how Fontaine loves its drama. . .

and when you it got out (guess how), rumors, whispers everything spread like a wildfire. it was incredibly overwhelming for you, and he tried his best to quiet everyone down and comfort you 😞☹️ you can imagine the weather. . .

𖠵𝟎𝟔: (↑) Some people were muttering how you didn’t deserve him or weren’t “pretty enough” for him, which really pissed him off, but he had to remain civil (for the most part, lolz.)

𖠵𝟎𝟕: Your emotions have an incredible impact on him ?!?! If you start crying or if you’re sad, it’ll domino effect onto him. He loves you so much that it physically hurts him to see you distraught.

𖠵𝟎𝟖: All the Melusines adore you !! They absolutely see you as their other parental figure since you guys started dating.

𖠵𝟎𝟗: (↑) MELTS whenever he sees you interacting with kids. . .

𖠵𝟏𝟎: “Cherie/sweetheart,” “honey,” “my (dear/dearest)” and “my (love)/mi amour.”

❝I’m home, mon chéri. . . I must apologize for coming home later than usual—an issue in the case I’m looking into has presented itself and I went to personally deal with it. Hm, what was that, love? Ah, what was the ‘issue?’ Don’t worry about it, my dear. What matters is that it’s been dealt with. Now, have you had dinner yet?❞

𖠵𝟏𝟏: His trust in you runs pretty deep, so he trusts you when others are flirting with you. However, when people aren’t leaving you alone or are masking their interest behind innocent actions, he’ll get pissed.

𖠵𝟏𝟐: God forbid anyone lays their hands on you. . . Neuvillette doesn’t take people hurting you lightly at all.

𖠵𝟏𝟑: (↑) He isn’t a big fan of people touching what’s his in general, but he knows he (unfortunately) can’t have you all to himself. . .

𖠵𝟏𝟒: (↑) Safe to say, he’s quite territorial. . . He is a dragon, after all. They are quite protective over their treasure..

𖠵𝟏𝟓: Wrio likes to bring you up in conversations over tea !!

𖠵𝟏��: This man has always been head over heels for you. Whenever you two are shopping together, he’ll follow you around like a puppy—always insisting that he holds your bags and pays.

𖠵𝟏𝟕: Pretty gentle with you. . . The farthest thing he wants is to hurt you, but sometimes his primal instincts kick in and he can’t help but want to mark what’s his !!

𖠵𝟏𝟖: Spoils the hell out of you. He literally can’t help it. He’ll see something that he’ll think you’ll like or something that reminds him of you and gets it without another thought.

𖠵𝟏𝟗: Really doesn’t like that you can tell his mood based of whether or not it’s raining. . . He hates worrying you.

𖠵𝟐𝟎: Furina loves to ask about you !! She thinks you two are so cute together.

𖠵𝟐𝟏: Loves whenever you visit him in his office while he’s working !! He’ll always try and persuade you to stay with him while he works—coaxing you to sit on his lap and such.

𖠵𝟐𝟐: He’s still relatively new to understanding human emotions, so he really appreciates you being patient and helping him out.

𖠵𝟐𝟑: Whenever you’re mad at him or giving the silent treatment, he’ll just look at you with the most saddest eyes ever. Guarantee heavy downfalls until you two make up 💔

꒱₊˚ 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘 !! 𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐘

𖠵𝟎𝟎: Literally the almost perfect definition of my type 😭

𖠵𝟎𝟏: He’s smart, cocky, and hot. You’re in for a wild ride with this one 💔👍

𖠵𝟎𝟐: Secretly a deep-rooted hopeless romantic at heart, he just hasn’t had the time to explore that part of him because of his duties in the fortress.

𖠵𝟎𝟑: Like Neuvillette, this man is head over heels for you. It’s just that he’s better at hiding it (most times, anyway.)

𖠵𝟎𝟒: A big teaser !! He loves to get under your skin.

𖠵𝟎𝟓: Can and will protect you at any cost. He loves you so much, it’d kill him inside if something were to happen to you.

𖠵𝟎𝟔: A bit of a sadist, I think. . . He’ll watch you struggle for a bit before actually helping you with something.

𖠵𝟎𝟕: Before you two started dating, Sigewinne kept on insisting he confess to you because of how obvious it was.

Clorinde also gave him shit for it.

𖠵𝟎𝟖: “Baby/babe,” “doll,” “my (darling),” “my (dear),” “my (love/lovely),” “pretty/my boy/girl,” and “sweetheart.”

❝Oh? I wasn’t expecting you to stop by for a visit today, doll—not that I’m complaining, of course. . . Lucky for you, I just finished up all my paperwork for the day, so I’m all yours ~ Wait, what? What do you mean you’re only here to deliver more papers? Please tell me you’re joking, babe. . . Archons sake, please at least stay for tea. I haven’t seen you since this morning.❞

𖠵𝟎𝟗: Roughly smells like freshly brewed tea with a mix of his cologne—it’s a rather comforting smell, actually.

𖠵𝟏𝟎: Hates whenever you’re gone too long above ground. He gets grouchy (more so than usual) whenever he hasn’t seen you for a certain amount of time.

𖠵𝟏𝟏: Surprisingly like a sloth when you two aren’t at work. . . He loves clings to you, doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you’re at.

𖠵𝟏𝟐: I’d like to think he doesn’t give a shit about what people normally think of him, so he’ll love you on wherever and whenever.

loves to rub his cheeks/stubble against yours despite your whining !! i’m weak

𖠵𝟏𝟑: One of his favorite things about the two of you is your size difference. He finds it adorable his hand can comfortably envelope yours and somehow perfectly fit around your throat. . .

𖠵𝟏𝟒: A waist holder !! He loves to have a hand on your waist one way or another. Whether it be him pressed against you from behind or simply just a hand on your waist while you’re standing next to each other.

𖠵𝟏𝟓: Protective and possessive !! Not too much to the point where it’s toxic, I think. He’s just very territorial, and does not like when people get too close to you. He always denies he doesn’t get jealous, but he isn’t fooling anyone.

he doesn’t want your future to repeat his past, so he tries desperately to protect you from those kinds of people.

𖠵𝟏𝟔: (↑) All for marking you in obvious places if he sees this is a frequent thing. . . He’s far from shy with it, as well.

𖠵𝟏𝟕: Always prepares an extra cup of tea for you just in case you were to stop by his office.

𖠵𝟏𝟖: Nearly suffocates you if you’re in bed facing him—he’ll smoosh your head against his chest so you don’t have a chance to leave.

𖠵𝟏𝟗: People were genuinely shocked when they found he was dating someone !! Some didn’t believe you until Wrio proved them wrong.

𖠵𝟐𝟎: Is a mixture between gentle and rough with you. . . He doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you or you know, break you.

𖠵𝟐𝟏: He claims he’d be fine if you two broke up but in reality, he’d be a complete mess. (Sigewinne knows this without a doubt.)

𖠵𝟐𝟐: (↑) Pouts whenever you spend too much time with her and not enough with him </3 He can be a literal manbaby sometimes.

𖠵𝟐𝟑: Literally doesn’t know what to do with himself whenever you ignore him or give him the silent treatment.

goes to Clorinde for help if he’s really stuck. which may or may not be proven helpful depending on her mood. . .

𖠵𝟐𝟒: Adores whenever you’re resting on top his chest !! He always says that’s where you belong, lol.

𖠵𝟐𝟓: (↑) Also likes it when you rest on his lap when he’s sorting out paperwork. He claims you “give him the energy needed to make it through the day.”

𖠵𝟐𝟔: The one for you if you have a praise kink and the one for you if you have a degrading kink !! Two birds with one stone, amirite ?? kill me

[honourablejester]

I’m realising as I browse around that I really love lore when it comes to ttrpgs, games and game worlds. And by that I don’t mean I like to obsessively learn lists of dates and wars, and the names of leaders of factions, I mean …

I like learning weird, juicy details about the worlds of games. I like finding little nuggets that say things about the set-up and culture and assumptions of the world. I like finding fragments of ideas to hang whole story and character concepts off.

I love that in D&D 5e’s Spelljammer, the Astral Sea is full of the corpses of dead gods that you can fully sail up to in your ship. Just. Floating out there. Waiting for you to rock up to them.

I love that in Sunless Sea, the king of the drowned is the way he is because he fell in love with an eldritch sea urchin from space, and successfully married it. His niece is an angry sentient floating mountain whose mother is a goddess-mountain and whose father is a face-stealing humanoid abomination. This is fine and normal.

I love that in Starfinder, there are mysterious bubble cities in the surface of the sun that the church of the sun goddess discovered and cheerfully occupied despite having no idea who the hell built them or for what purpose.

I love that in Dishonored, the entire industrial revolution that has built the empire we’re in the midst of saving or destroying was built on the properties of whale oil harvested from eldritch tentacled whales that live half in the oceans and half in an eldritch void personified in the form of a weird-ass black-eyed shit-stirrer of a deity who was formed from a murdered and sacrificed child. And this is largely a background detail.

I love in the Elder Scrolls that the dwarves up and fucking vanished, as a race, at some point in history and absolutely nobody has any clue what happened to them or where they went, but their technology is so insane that ideas like ‘they time-travelled’ or ‘they erased themselves from existence’ are absolutely on the table.

I love that in Numenera, so many incredibly advanced civilisations have risen and fallen on this world that it’s absolutely littered with bonkers science fiction artefacts that have caused the current medieval-esque society built over top of them to develop in bizarre ways, and also you can find a mysterious artefact that absolutely baffles and delights your character, but that you the player will fully recognise as a slightly-more-advanced thermos flask.

I love that in Fallout, an irradiated post-nuclear apolocalypic hellscape, there’s a cult that worships the god of radiation as they have come to understand it, and they are mysteriously immune to radiation with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. They’re not ghouls, the usual result of fatally irradiated humans with some resistance, they’re perfectly normal humans who can somehow just tank rads all damn day. It could be a mutation, but Lovecraftian gods apparently do also fully exist in this setting, so it’s also possible that maybe they were on to something with this Atom thing.

I love that in Heart The City Beneath, there’s a mass transit train system that they tried to hook up to the eldritch beating god-thing buried under the city so that they could metaphysically chain the stations together more easily, which went horrifically and metaphysically wrong in entirely predictable fashion, and now there’s a whole order of train-knights who have to keep people safe from the extradimensional weirdness magnet the network has become.

That, and all the fantastic little details you can stumble across. There’s a biotech augmentation in Starfinder called an angler’s light that gives you a little angler-fish bioluminescent antenna on your forehead, and it was developed by asteroid miners who needed light but also both hands free for work. In Dishonored there’s a festival that everyone pretends is outside of time so nothing you do during it can be held against you. There’s a god of snuffed candles mentioned in a single line from Heart The City Beneath who has pacifist cannibal priests, and that is literally all the information you get on him.

While things like the history and geography and timeline of a world do also fascinate me, I’m not really here to memorise stuff like that. I’m here to find weird little nuggets of information and worldbuilding and delight in them. Give me funerary customs and weird myths and oddly specific circumstances and baffling little objects and absolutely bonkers cosmological implications. Give me the corpses of dead gods, and aesthetic movements with highly specific backstories, and bureaucratic fuck-ups of titanic scale, and mysterious things that seem to break all other rules of your setting with absolutely no explanation because people in-universe have no fucking clue how they work either. Why are the Children of Atom immune to radiation without ghoulifying? Not a clue, but Confessor Cromwell has been cheerfully standing in that irradiated pond that kills the player character with about 10 minutes of exposure for the last year and he’s still absolutely fine.

I just. I really love lore. I like my settings to have some meat in them, some juicy details to dig into, some inexplicable elements to have fun trying to explain. Particularly that last bit. I feel like a lot of people when building worlds feel like the rules have to be absolute and everything has to have an explanation, but nah. Putting some weird shit in makes everything immediately feel bigger, more real, because we don’t have even half an idea of how our world truly works, there’s always something we just don’t fully understand yet, and you can put that in a fictional world too. Some mysteries, some contradictions, some randomness, some weirdness. There’s a line, obviously, this depends on execution, but a little bit of mystery really does help.

Lore is awesome. And weird lore is even more so. Heh.

[strwberri-milk]

hiii :3 could i please request lads boys reactions to mc flinching during an intense argument 🖤

hello!! please read the request to make sure you're okay w the content - there are going to be the implication of something going on to make reader flinch during an intense argument but nothing specifically detailed

Zayne rarely gets riled up like this. He just couldn't do it anymore - he hated seeing the way you kept things to yourself and refused to listen to his advice when he just wanted to see you take better care of yourself.

He wasn't yelling at you thankfully but he was being much more confrontational with you. It's not until his hands come up to gesture mildly at your direction that you flinch, stepping back from him as you wait for his next move. His brows furrow, trying to understand what he just witnessed. When he puts together the pieces he's devastated that your response to him raising his hand is that he's going to hit you.

Zayne immediately puts his hand down, avoiding reaching out and touching you to worsen your reaction. You hate how pathetic you feel in this moment, unable to properly voice to him what's wrong. Thankfully he doesn't ask you - instead choosing to just let you come to him at your own pace. Thankfully you quickly come to him, knowing that whatever it was you were afraid of it's not actually due to him. You love him and you know he's going to take care of you.

He ends up spending the rest of the night telling you softly that he doesn't want to annoy you or anger you but he's just worried about you. The two of you have a good heart to heart that night, finding the perfect compromise.

Xavier also tends not to get very riled up. For whatever reason the two of you just couldn't agree, things escalating far past their normal threshold. Xavier tends not to be very physical when it comes to conversations but when he flicks his wrists in frustration, almost as though reaching for you you can't help but yelp and back yourself up against a wall, apologising desperately.

He has no idea where this came from, the confusion and sadness at your reaction stopping any sign of anger that he might have had. He offers his hand to you, wanting you to take it but also knowing he can't force you to take it. He's glad when you do, even if it took you a second, reassuring you that he's not mad at you, just at the situation. He wants you to trust him and you should know he'd never do anything to hurt you on purpose.

It takes a while but he'll also ask if you feel comfortable telling him what happened to make you react that way. The two of you talk about the situation and what to do in the future. He tells you that he'd never hurt you, ever and that you can trust him. All he wants is to keep you safe and protect you, he swears.

Rafayel is always very animated when he speaks and unfortunately this does end up being intimidating sometimes. You can't help the way you flinch when he steps towards you, his intention to be to try and get closer to you but the look on his face terrifies you. You immediately flinch, unable to look at him as he realises what's happened to you.

He's immediately on his knees in front of you, trying to get you to tell him what's wrong. The quiet feels awkward after all the yelling, but Rafayel is somehow always incredibly patient whenever it comes to you. He waits for you to tell him what's wrong and reassures you that he's here for you, not the other way around.

He'll hold you tightly through the night, reminding you that he loves you and he'd never hurt you. From there on he's very careful with how he deals with his anger and shows it to you, never wanting to make you feel that way ever again.

Sylus is aware he's intimidating but he never thought that he was intimidating to you. When a gesture of his makes you flinch back though he can't help but worry. He narrows his eyes at you, asking you what the problem is. Unfortunately, he isn't aware yet that this is just making things worse. You decide to try and leave, Sylus even more confused as he tries to understand what's happening to you.

You have to tell him that he's scaring you - beginning to scramble apologies much to his dismay. He immediately steps back a bit, telling you that you don't need to apologise. He wants to reach out to you though, clearly looking very conflicted despite his words. It takes you a second to clear your throat, telling him that it's okay and you just need a minute. You've never seen him this hurt before, the slight drop in his brows and lips makes it obvious how he's feeling, coming to him and apologising for your response.

He takes it well thankfully, telling you that you really didn't need to worry about him. He wants you to focus on doing what you think is right for you, never holding it against you. You have to convince him that you're okay with him and you trust him, choosing to confide in him why you reacted so strongly. He's glad you trust him, showing a more vulnerable side to you as thanks for doing so.

[risuola]

HANDCUFFS AND ALIBIS || GOJO SATORU

It's rare that you make mistakes. You know which houses to target and which ones to avoid but this time, you failed to read a note properly — that led you to a man that you, as a robber, would rather avoid. It's a story about a dance between crime and law.

contains: policeman!satoru x burglar!reader, crimes (burglary, corruption, slight blackmailing, thief, gun usage), smut (strangers, unprotected sex, oral very briefly licked), usage of pet names (kitten, good girl), wc. 5000 ⋯ reader discretion is advised

kinktober '24 masterlist || art in the header: @/lxzemathena on X

Seventy-seven.

“Fuckin’ lucky sevens,” you grumble, breathing quickly as you look down at the ever-present city of Tokyo. The flickering neons and long stripes of light glitter against the dark streets and buildings, matching the starry skies above. There’s so much life below you — the cars rushing through nighttime traffic, people scurrying over the jaded pavements. You can smell the mellow scent of the street foods and when you close your eyes, you can almost see the older ladies calling invitingly to try whatever delicacies they are offering. The view is gorgeous, you have to tell, but it’s also incredibly high and scratching you in all the wrong places. But you move through the roof, the skyscraper below your feet seems to vibrate slightly with each step you take. “You better be damn lucky.”

Once more, you glance at the piece of paper you kept in your pocket — a handwritten note from your associate, the address along with the numbers of the apartment, your tonight’s target. It’s supposed to be empty and full of goods you can steal. It does seem a little strange that your middle-aged middle-class businessman lives at the very top of the building, in a zone that you are certain is reserved for vips, but there’s no time to question it. Maybe the not-overly-successful CEO is in fact more successful than you’re giving him credit for. Or maybe it’s the lucky sevens.

Moving with feline fluidity, you’re swift about the break-in. The window is open, invitingly so, and you slip off the edge, swallowing the swearwords that bubble at the top of your throat — right above your racing heart. You move like water, like a drop of liquid sliding through the surfaces until you reach your destination. Two more steps and one little jump and you’re in. Breathless for just a moment, you listen to the silence making sure that you’re alone, as you are supposed to be. The businessman that’s unluckily occupying the lucky sevens should not be home for three more hours at least so you’re fairly confident that you can wrap it up in that time and maybe even grab some chicken nuggets on your way home. That being said, it’s better to be safe than sorry so you listen, you focus on the darkness as the soft thud of your landing echo in your ears along with the furious beating of your heart. You hear nothing.

But nothing hears you. The thud of your feet meeting the wooden planks lining his floors makes his lips turn upwards. Oh, Satoru has seen you way before you even thought about placing your little foot on his windowsill. It wasn’t hard, or rather, he’s very perceptive. Maybe it’s because of the experience he’s gathered in life or maybe just his own eyes are predisposed to catch little details that otherwise would have slipped away.

Once you’re inside his apartment, ruthlessly shifting the balance of his sanctuary, he allows you a moment to look around. He lets you wander and pick on his things just to look at you, to take you in. You’re clueless, it’s sweet. Gojo doesn’t rush it, the night is still young. He lets you find out yourself, he lets you experience the dread when you’re ready. He would hate to spoil the surprise.

There’s much less valuables than you anticipated and it makes you wonder why would your associate even recommend this house to you? But it does look good. With cat-like quiet, you move around the living area, taking in the sight of the opulent surroundings. Even in darkness you can make up that the furniture is high-end, crafted from real wood and glass. Looks like ebony, dark and rich, but you’re not sure. There is a feeling of luxury, a scent of it coming off the leather couch and armchairs, artistically mingling with the hint of perfume that marks the place with male presence. A nice perfume, with hints of vanilla and tobacco. Maybe you’ll snatch the bottle once you make it to the bathroom. Just for yourself.

You find some money in one of the pockets of the jeans discarded messily over the backrest of the sofa. The belt doesn’t seem expensive so you leave it before moving towards the bedroom. That’s where the main event is and as you go through the drawers, you grab a watch, already eyeing the laptop resting on the nightstand. Quickly, you move the socks around and then your hand finds something hard.

Oh, it is surprising to pull out a god damn handgun.

“I see you’ve found it,” a voice pulls at the strings of your attention and your eyes snap to the side. The light flicking to life blinds you for a split second before you see the man leaning against the doorframe. He’s tall, white hair and eyes that seem to be blue. How could you not hear him earlier? You must have been too busy rummaging through his belongings, too confident that there’s no one home that you lowered your guard. Rookie mistake. “Now be a good girl and put it down.”

You’re not a good girl and you raise it up, pointing the barrel at his direction — it’s an instinct, you wouldn’t shoot him, probably. You’re a robber, not a killer. He chuckles, as if he knows it as well as you do, or more.

“You’re not—”

“Oh, I certainly am not,” he cuts you in, his face morphing into a smile that you could only describe as wicked. He’s amused, you can tell, exhilarated even. He wants and will toy with you if you allow him and you’ve already decided that you won’t. “I wanted to let you know earlier but you were too sweet to interrupt. A little kitten digging through my underwear, searching for treasures that are nowhere to be found. It’s disappointing, isn’t it?”

“Shut up,” you snap, feeling the annoyance boiling inside your chest. Maybe you will shoot him.

“Now, now… don’t hiss at me,” he shakes his head, his white hair bouncing with every move of his neck. “I must admit, the wash of dread on your face was a sight I would hate to miss and you surely delivered. Now give me the gun–“

“I will shoot you,” you threat, taking a step back once he takes one forward. “Stay where you are.”

“Oh, kitten, do you think I keep a loaded gun right next to my boxers? That seems like a bad luck,” he laughs, his broad shoulders moving up and down as he shrugs nonchalantly. “See it for yourself. There’s a button on the side, can you feel it?” He’s instructing you and despite yourself, your eyes lower from him and onto the weapon in your hands. “Right there, good girl. That’s a magazine release button. Press it and the magazine will slide down from the gun’s grip.”

You truly don’t know why you follow the instruction. Maybe it’s because you have no real idea how to use a weapon or maybe it’s because his voice is so beautifully honeyed as he praises you. Maybe it’s because of how distracting he is, standing right there in nothing but a pale blue t-shirt and a pair of black boxers. And he is excited, in more ways than you’d expect.

You put some pressure on the button and just as he said, the magazine pops from the bottom of the handle. You pinch the protruding baseplate with your fingers and pull it out in a steady motion but you have not even a second to examine it when the man closes the distance between you two. His long legs covering the missing meters effortlessly and his body moving as if it was something he does on a daily basis. He grabs the barrel, aiming it up and grips your wrist, wrenching the gun out of your grasp. Throwing the weapon away, he twists your arm behind your back, slamming you onto the nearest wall. Your chest meets the cold paint and you whimper in surprise and discomfort.

“Got you,” he murmurs, his breath teasing your earlobe and you feel his strong, big body pressing against yours, much smaller one. The hard plates of his musculature crowd you in the forced embrace, his heat a harsh contrast against the cool wall. “Such a naughty little kitten, aren’t you unlucky to break into a cop’s house?”

A cop. It makes a lot of sense.

“Seems like the sevens on your door have nothing to do with luck,” you sneer, struggling in his grasp, shifting and pulling your body inch by inch towards the freedom. And he lets you, he lets you have hope as he keeps the control over every squeeze of your muscles.

“Sad to disappoint,” he hums, teeth grabbing the delicate flesh of your earlobe teasingly before his cheek presses against your temple. There’s something threateningly intimate about the way he keeps you close, his breath so delicate while his grip holds you harshly. “It truly would be a waste to put you in jail, don’t you think?” You can’t see him, but you can hear that damn smirk. “You wouldn’t like it. Pretty girls like you were not made for the bars and enclosure.”

“Oh yeah? And you’re so sure of yourself that you will catch me?” You ask, despite all and he’s laughing again. His free hand slides around your waist, splaying possessively across your stomach as he pulls you harder against him. You feel his crotch pressing against your butt, the bulge hard and prominent against the plush of your rear and the leggings you have on do little to mellow it down.

“Let’s be real now, will ya?” He muses, slowly enveloping you more and more within his arms. You feel them snaking around you, smothering, suffocating. “I could think of far better uses for such a delectable little kitten. Perhaps we could come to a more… mutually beneficial arrangement. What do you say?”

And you laugh at the realization. “Not very lawful of you now, is it?”

“Not very lawful of you to break into my house too but here we are,” he nips at your ear, sharp teeth grazing the sensitive skin and sending shivers down your spine. You feel his lips moving lower, following the side of your neck, marking the juncture of it with little wet kisses. “Damn, you smell so good,” he purrs, nuzzling his nose into your skin and inhaling deeply.

And he smells good too. Once so close, the lingering scent of his perfume fills in your nostrils much more. It’s musky, a hint of wood and a spice lingering below the sweetness of vanilla. There’s something impossible to guess too — something that seems to be just him.

“What’s stopping me from screaming?” You challenge, fighting yourself to not purr at his touches. “I’m sure your neighbors would love to hear about their friendly neighborhood cop assaulting a helpless woman.”

“Go ahead,” he chuckles. “Go ahead and scream, kitten. No one will hear you. Besides,” he lowers his tone, mouth hovering right next to your ear. “I don’t think you really want to be rescued, do you?” You don’t. “I bet you’re wet already.”

It’s you who laughs this time. What a sassy bastard. It doesn’t take you long to catch him off guard, twisting out of his grasp and elbowing him straight in the ribs. You’re not gonna go down without a fight, though… you wouldn’t mind getting a taste of that man, sinking your teeth into his muscled flesh, leaving a mark on him.

He groans and you push him back, making him stumble just a bit and it’s enough for you to flee through the doors, right towards the exit but he’s right behind you before you touch the locks. “Good luck with that, sweetie,” he mocks and you hear the metal clinking behind your back. You turn, expecting to see the keys dangling off his finger but instead, there are handcuffs there. “I wouldn’t want to cuff your pretty little and oh so fragile wrists, but you might not leave me with a choice.” He’s toying with you yet again and yet again, you scoff.

He’s annoying. Everything about him — the tone of his voice, so smooth and buttery; the sly smirk on his stupidly handsome face, those eyes that now you see are in the shade of the sky in the middle of summer, or the ocean, twinkling below the sun; the way his hair sticks out and falls down here and there in an artistic kind of mess. And his body, oh, how infuriatingly sexy he is. It makes you want to both choke him and choke on him and sooner or later you might act on either one of those urges.

Satoru knows you want him just as he wants you. It’s easy to tell in the way you look him up and down; he can almost feel your eyes exploring his frame, studying the lines and edges of his physique. It tickles his ego, feeding into his grin and he knows he needs to have you by the end of the night — and after that, the world can turn upside down. You’re too good to let go, too beautiful to let you slip between his fingers. The way your lashes flutter when you blink and how your brows furrow each time you try to act bothered by his words makes the fire burn hot and bright in his lower belly. The things he would do to you—

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” you warn, eyes fixed on him as you take a step towards him. “It’s a fire you’re toying with and you know what fire does? It burns.”

“Dangerous games are the most fun,” he grins, fingers finding the edge of your jaw as soon as you’re close enough. His touch trails along the line, hand splaying a little wider once he slips below your chin and you feel it wrap around your throat. He squeezes just enough to let you know it’s him who’s in charge. You allow him to think that it’s him.

You’re exhaling a little weaker, inhaling greedier as he holds you in his hands. You do nothing to stop him, you play into his game, dance to his melody just as he dances to yours. Your eyes meet and he’s smiling, stepping closer, you feel his heat going right through the thin layers of clothing between you. “So what will it be?” He’s purring, voice low as he leans down, running his nose down the bridge of yours.

Tilting your head, you grab his mouth, your teeth grazing over his lower lip as you nip and kiss him. He tastes like mint, you want more of him. Your hands find his hair, tugging on it, gripping it as you pull him closer. He pushes you back, your butt meets the edge of the dresser and soon you’re sitting on it. His growing bulge presses right into your core, grinding against the thin fabric of your leggings and you can’t help but whimper into his mouth.

His hands are all over you and yours are all over him, tugging and pulling the fabrics away, shedding the threads and baring his skin to your hungry paws. He’s a stature, light skin stretched over the wall of muscle that you’re all too eager to explore. He’s gorgeous, you let your lips lower, tracing down his jaw and neck, towards his shoulder. Little nips and sucks made him chuckle — purr — as he wastes no time removing your clothes.

“Aren’t you fucking gorgeous?” He breaths out, taking a step back and admiring you with an unabashed grin. “And dripping already.”

“And who says it?” You tease him back, hopping off the dresser. Your bare body is a sight, the curves and edges of you he wishes to engrave into his mind forever. You can tell he’s hungry — for you — and it stirs a thing in you, you want to devour him. You skip the distance, your hand gripping him through the boxers, palming the thick, throbbing erection and your thumb finds the tip, rubbing circles over the wet, sticky patch on his underwear. “I’m not the only one dripping, am I?”

“Certainly not.” He grins, large hands kneading the supple flesh of your bottom.

“Let’s get the guns out,” you muse, pushing him back, step after step until his knees met the edge of the bed.

“This gun is loaded, little kitten. Can you handle it?” He’s nonchalant as he falls back, bouncing off the mattress with a low chuckle. You let him smirk, pulling the black fabric off his legs and it makes you salivate — he’s thick, throbbing with need. Pearly white globs of precum glisten at the pink tip, stretch between it and his skin each time the hefty shaft meets the bottom of his stomach, too heavy to stand properly on its own.

“I can handle a corrupted cop,” you mock, crawling on top of him, running your flattened tongue up his length and swirling it around the tip.

And he’s laughing, taunting, “oh, says the little thief,” sneering. But his breath hitches, his eyes glued to the way your mouth stretch around his tip. It feels warm, wet, like silk and honey. You have no intent of rushing, you want to tease him, to make it painfully slow, to make him beg. “Be a good girl.”

“Am I not?” You stop, grinning wickedly and he groans, twitching right against your cheek.

He won’t beg.

You can’t have another lick before he’s right on top of you. Your chest vibrates when you laugh at his desperate movements, a mocking reminder of your victory but he ignores it. Set on the target, Satoru moves your thighs apart, groaning “shut up,” before he rubs the tip of his cock against your clit.

The contact is electric, sending tendrils of pleasure through your entire body. His movements are deliberate, it’s intense, it makes your thighs tremble on the sides of his hips. You look at him and his eyes are set on the spot you’re connected — the way his precum coats your throbbing bud, how it mixes with the thick, sticky fluids that slick your pussy, how your body twitches from pleasurable little shots of ecstasy.

You won’t beg either.

But he’s never been patient, he wants to be inside you. He needs to feel you around him, to be squeezed by you, to be buried to the hilt and lost completely, utterly in you. So he moves, his tip sliding down your slit, prodding your entrance as if giving you a ghost of a chance to run away, before he’s deep in you. One thrust is all it takes; he groans and you moan. Your back arches off the mattress, hands find their way onto his shoulders, scratching and squeezing, pushing and pulling.

The air hot from each breath, thick with tension and heavy with anticipation. He fills you completely, your walls stretching to accommodate his girth and a gasp escapes your lips. You feel all of him, it’s too much and not nearly enough. It overwhelms you, consumes you; the sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure, sending shivers down your spine and makes everything blurry. His pace is relentless, punishing almost, each thrust harder than the last. His hips snap against yours with desperation and desire. It’s lustful, it’s raw.

Your bodies move together in a primal dance, the room echoing the symphony of raw, unfiltered passion — a cacophony of heavy breaths, soft moans, the wet smack of skin on skin and the rhythmic creaking of the bed beneath you. You grip his shoulders, run your fingernails across his pale skin, mark him with pleasure that fills every cell of your being. It burns you from the inside out, it turns your mind into a flurry of no thoughts. Your walls clench around him — it’s a silent plea for more, for harder, for faster.

His hand finds its way into your hair, gripping it tightly, tilting your head back as he pounds into you. He can feel the pressure building, a fire igniting within his core and he wants more. His teeth graze the exposed column of your neck, like a predator, he runs his nose along your silky skin inhaling your scent, memorizing it. He nips and kisses the delicate juncture, leaving wet marks and wet trails.

Your legs wrap around his waist, heels digging into his firm ass, urging him onward, urging him closer. Satoru listens, his pace quickens as each powerful thrust drives deeper into your overly sensitive body, stoking the fire between you both. You feel the tension building, a delicious pressure coiling in your lower belly, threatening to unravel at any point and you don’t hold it. He grips your hip, bruising your flesh with his fingers as he holds you in place. You scratch his back and he’s leaving marks, you bite his shoulder and he sucks your skin. You lose your mind and he loses it too.

In this moment, there is no corrupt cop and a petty thief – you are just two souls entwined in the throes of ecstasy, drowning within the sea of pure, deafening bliss. The world outside ceases to exist, walls of reality blurring as you surrender to the overwhelming sparks coursing through your veins — an eager, desperate chase of euphoria. With each thrust, he claims you, branding your very essence with his presence and yet, in the surrender, there is a sense of empowerment. You hold the key to his undoing, just as he holds yours.

Your heart is pounding in sync with the unforgiving rhythm of Satoru’s hips against yours. You see the strain on his face, the muscles in his neck standing out as he’s fighting to maintain control, to prolong this exquisite torture, but he can’t. Sweat beads on his brow, trickling down his temple and mirroring the sheen that glistens upon your own skin. The salty tang of perspiration blends with the heady aroma of arousal, creating an intoxicating perfume that fills the room. Soon, his restraint snaps, he’s growling lowly as he drives into you with frenzy — new ferocity of his movements sends you careening over the edge. You cry out, arching yourself as the waves of crashing pleasure wash over you. It’s a freight car that hits you, sending you spiraling into the abyss, it’s a tsunami that sweeps you off your feet and into oblivion.

“Look at me,” he commands, stilling himself inside you — despite himself, despite the overwhelming need and the surges of electricity that seem to be the only thing to keep him alive right now. “I want to see you when you come undone,” his voice is barely more than a raspy whisper and you look at him. Hazy eyes find his own, blurry lines of his face are all you’re able to make out in the dimly lit room but he’s there, you see him, you feel him.

He moves again, the crescendo builds as both of you dance at the edge of the release. Sweat slicks your skin, mingling as you press tightly against one another. It’s a torment, an expertly administered torture that targets your very soul and you love it, you grow addicted, you want more of it, more of him. And then, as if the universe itself cannot resist the pull of desire as powerful and heavy, the dam breaks. Your inner walls clamp down around him, orgasm ripping through you with power you have never experienced before — one that leaves you breathless, that makes you see nothing but stars in the dark blue eyes of the man above you. Release rips through you, it comes and drowns you as he angles his hips to hit that one sweet spot over and over, making you cry real tears and gasping for air. Soft moans and pleas escape your lips in a litany of need, a beg for mercy and for more at the same time. And he’s right after you; feeling your climax, he lets himself come undone too. He finds his release within the tight embrace of your body. Enveloped by the pulsating walls, milking him until he too succumbs into the overwhelming sensation, shuddering and following you headfirst and into the bliss. You can feel the muscles in his body tensing as he empties himself in you, fills you until you can’t take any more and spills, running down your velvety skin and onto the bedsheets below.

For a moment, time stands still. The two of you remain locked in an intimate embrace, hearts pounding in tandem as the echoes of your shared climax reverberate through the silence. Your breaths blend together and hearts mimic each other’s beating. As the aftershocks subside and the haze of passion begins to clear, you find yourself in a tangle of limbs, the evidence of what happened cooling on your skin. There’s a sweetness in the aftermath. A gentle vulnerability that neither of you are accustomed to showing but none of you fights against. It’s a moment of peace. Rare. Real.

Satoru rolls onto his back, taking you with him so that you’re draped across his chest. His heartbeat thrums steadily under your ear, a comforting rhythm that lulls you into a state of peaceful repose and for now, you choose to simply exist in this moment, allowing the events of the night to wash over you. The moonlight filters through the window, casting a silver glow over the scene. You feel his breathing evening out, his grip on you loosening bit by bit.

His sleeping form seems peaceful. He’s beautiful, truly and you almost feel bad before disentangling yourself from his embrace, careful not to wake him. Silently, you retrieve the handcuffs from the pile of discarded clothes on the floor and dress yourself in what you came in. There is a brief flicker of remorse as you secure his wrist to the bedpost, but it’s quickly extinguished by the thrill of the impending escape. Of winning. You lean down, pressing a soft kiss to his lips — a strange mixture of gratitude and goodbye, a stolen intimacy that you couldn’t get enough that night and you know, deep inside, that you will miss the feeling of him.

It’s bittersweet.

His wallet, watch and badge lie on the bedside table, ripe and ready for the taking. With deft fingers, you lift them, ensuring to keep the silence, not to disturb the peacefulness of the room. You pick up the gun — the one he has ripped out of your hands before everything escalated — the weight of it is unfamiliar in your grasp and you hesitate. For a moment you consider leaving it behind, but your nature wins out and you tuck it into the waistband of your leggings.

Clad in the moonlight, you take one last look around the room, memorizing the details — the rumpled sheets, the faint smell of sex still hanging in the air, and the man who — for a fleeting moment — made you consider a different life.

But that life isn’t for you.

With a final glance at the sleeping cop, you slip out of the room, closing the door softly behind you before you’re on your way out. As the steps echo through the staircase leading you down the building, you can’t help but smile. You want to laugh, it’s impossible. You can’t shake the feeling of Satoru’s touch, the memory of his body intertwined with yours. He’s a dangerous distraction, one that could get you caught if you’re not careful enough.

Once you step outside, the cool night air greets you, a stark contrast to the warmth you’ve left behind. The streets of Tokyo are never quiet and quickly, you allow yourself to be swept by the chaos, by the neon lights, by the people chatting around the edges of the street food booths. And you run, forward, somewhere. You run and you laugh. It’s high, you’re lightheaded. New day will come by and you’ll never see him again.

It’s okay.

It was worth it.

The first rays of dawn seep into the room, casting a golden hue over the tousled bedsheets, warming up the bare skin. Satoru stirs, blinking sleep away from his eyes as consciousness returns. He stretches, expecting to feel the warmth of a body that had been nestled beside him only hours before, but instead, his hand meets the cold sheets and even colder metal. His eyes snap open and he turns his head to see his wrist bound to the wooden bedpost by a pair of his own handcuffs. The very same ones he had shown you at night, the ones he wanted to put on your forearms. He tugs at it, listening to the metallic clink that echoes in the otherwise silent room, as the events of the previous night come flooding back.

You’re gone, and Satoru laughs. A cursory search of the bedside table confirms his suspicion — you’ve taken the wallet, the watch and even his badge. A souvenir, he thinks. Alone in his bed, he relaxes. He lost. A little thief had bested him, the woman who had writhed beneath him, had turned the tables in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He lowered his guard, allowed himself to fall into slumber.

You’ve played his game and won.

You had enough curtesy to leave the key, knowing that once he’s awake again, you’ll be long gone. You left the key knowing, that he will not pursue you, that he will not call the authorities. Oh, you little minx. As Satoru uncuffs himself, he cannot stop chuckling. There’s so much lies he will need to tell to get out of losing his badge and the gun without admitting to what truly has happened.

But it’s okay.

You are worth it.

[giamee]

🧩 ᯓ★୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔!

STARRING. ノ geto ✦ gojo ✦ choso

summary. ノ as a princess, you need a knight to keep both your body and heart safe from harm. luckily, he's got that covered.

word count. ノ 6.6k

contains. ノ royalty!au, princess!reader x knight, some suggestive content but nothing explicit, fem coded reader bc princess

gia's notes. ノ this draft has been sitting at the VERY bottom of my notes but i've finally dug it up and blown the dust off of it hehe. i have more ideas for this premise so if anyone asks i'll do a part two. eagerly.

GETO SUGURU ⌇ despite his politeness, there's more to him that lies below the surface

when you first met geto suguru, the most prominent thought in your mind was just how surprisingly pretty he was to be a mere knight. his delicate features and unblemished face seemed more fitting to be that of a nobleman's, and when he kneeled to you to swear his loyalty, his every movement was dictated with a gracefulness that suggested he was born royal.

always smiling, always alert, always vigilant, geto now accompanied you in your daily life like a second shadow. and while there had been... admittedly few attempts on your life, you chalked that up to his talent rather than a lack of conspiracy.

you had asked him one night when you had sneaked too much drink during a feast and you were too loose-lipped on your way back to your chambers, why his face was so handsome if he was just a knight.

he had merely laughed at your drunken question, readjusting his grip on you as he half-carried, half-guided you back.

"i'm handsome because nobody's been able to lay a finger on me."

you were quite fond of him, beyond his ability to keep you safe. you may be naive but you weren't stupid- you knew how others looked at the pair of you, how scandalous it was for the princess and her handsome knight to be so close with each other, in public at that.

it was incredibly apparent at balls and other royal events- ever so cumbersome, but still a requirement- that you always made sure to drag geto along to, no matter the security detail. and if you had personally ensured that he wears clothing befitting of a royal, and more importantly matched your gown every time, who wouldn't jump to conclusions?

in all honesty, you liked the attention it drew to the pair of you. you revelled in the glances shot your way, zeroed in on your hand looped around his arm or the way his encircled your waist, looking more like a courtier than a bodyguard.

you liked how the other women of the court looked at you with not just disgust, but with jealousy, because you knew that they certainly knew that geto suguru is a very handsome man. and no matter how much they stare, the fact that he was firmly attached to you would never change.

and if they hated you, let them come. geto would keep you safe, anyway.

whilst you were more than happy to live life as you were (the same as always with no real responsibility), the world continued its course, and you found yourself being suddenly thrust into something that you never imagined would happen this soon- a removal of your freedom.

that wasn't its official title, of course. a marriage proposal is what it had been presented to you as. to some poncey prince from a neighbouring kingdom in the name of keeping peace and good relations with neighbours- it was enough to make you feel sick.

you remembered ranting about it to geto that night in your bedchambers- yes, he was in them whether it was permissible or not- him merely chuckling at your rage while leaning against one of the walls, watching as you paced the room, waving your arms fervently to accentuate your frustration.

"relax, your highness. you'll still have me, after all." his words have an effect on you, admittedly, and it's comforting to find some constancy in him.

on nights where you let your imagination take over, it's quite easy to imagine him as a prince, one who courts you and you fall for and eventually marry- a mere fantasy to escape from this world.

despite your wishes, despite the rumours, the royal engagement continues. you haven't even met your fiancé, yet the marriage is due to happen this spring- symbolising the fresh beginnings of this joyous union.

geto had been gracious enough to accompany you on your newly-developed habit of taking long walks around the castle in favour of sleeping. you might as well memorise every nook and cranny before you'd be forced out of here- kicking and screaming, no doubt.

despite geto's best efforts, the joy you once found from life in the castle was quickly draining, merely fluff to pad the days leading up to the inevitable date.

an arrangement to meet this prince in person was very quickly procured out of nowhere- you couldn't remember his name for the life of you- and you found yourself going through the motions of being even more dolled up for a special ball with little to no enthusiasm. there was once a time where you would be bursting with delight at the beauty looking back at you in the mirror, though now it felt like you were being trussed up in the same sense the cooks were preparing the roasted animals on golden platters for everyone to feast on.

you were just meant to look as appetising as possible. you felt like a prize cow. anything in the name of peace.

you heard someone clear their throat from behind you- your eyes flicked up to your mirror to see geto stood behind you, his gaze particularly soft. you smiled at his outfit, equally exquisite in its brocade and material as yours. a perfect pair.

"i know i say this every time i see you, but you look especially radiant tonight, your highness." and just like that, you're glad to be so dressed up.

"thank you, sir geto." his lips twitch at the official title, but he extends his arm out for you to take nonetheless. "you look very handsome yourself." his cheeks go a shade darker, barely noticeable. you see it, though.

"how could i manage without you?"

the ballroom was decorated even more lavishly in commemoration of tonight- a decadent gold being the setting for this glorious occasion. you hoped that the prince would live up to the grandeur. or at the very least, not be completely hideous to look at. he'd never look as good as geto.

there were a lot of formal introductions. you always had hated curtsying, but the practice you were forced to endure paid off- you were nothing less than perfectly gracious as you met the officials of the neighbouring kingdom, and then, finally, the prince. he winked at you before kissing your hand and asking you to dance. you would rather dance with someone else.

at least the prince wasn't ugly. with the way he looked at you, though, you had to try not to let your nose wrinkle in disgust as you read the lechery in his eyes. was this really who you would be bound to 'til death do you part?

he stank of wine as the two of you danced. you were surprised that he wasn't toppling over, with the way that his words were already slurring. you tried your best to smile and nod along, though you couldn't help your eyes from wandering over his shoulder, settling on the figure of geto stood on the edge of the dancefloor.

you longed for him to be the one before you, and judging by the look on his face, it's what he would have wanted too. even jealousy looked good on him, his narrowed eyes and set jaw infinitely more handsome than the prince's leering one that you barely avoided as he lurched towards you, a little too close for this courtly dance.

geto jerked forwards at this, hands automatically settling on his sword. his eyes met yours, a silent plea to let it go exchanged before he begrudgingly relinquished his defensive stance. his little action still sent a thrill running through you nonetheless, something to cling to as an affirmation that he cared in more than a professional sense.

you let your thoughts wander as you danced, and you didn't do much to try and reel them back in. would it really be so bad to become wedded to a knight? it was unheard of, but there was a first time for everything, you supposed. you wouldn't mind no longer being a princess, as long as you were with him.

that realisation snapped you back to reality, just as the ending notes of the song played. your mandatory dance was over, and you curtsied to the prince before excusing yourself, weaving your way through the crowd of nobles until you reached the outskirts of the ballroom. your whole world felt like it had been tipped on its axis with this revelation, and even then you couldn't help but seek him out.

it was like an invisible force drew you together as you all but crashed into geto, him steadying you and immediately taking in the no doubt frenzied look in your eyes.

"are you alright, your highness?"

"i'm alright, just need to get some air."

geto nods dutifully, keeping hold of one of your arms as he navigates the crowd, slipping the both of you out of a side exit, the noise of the ballroom immediately drowning out as the door shut behind you.

"is that better, your highness?" your heart warmed at the genuine concern written over his face, and you nodded gratefully.

"much better."

the pair of you walk in silence for a few minutes, retracing the same routes of the castle that you had both become so accustomed to recently. it was comfortable to be with him, no matter the occasion.

"you know, i wish i could dance with you." it wasn't quite a confession, but it would do for now. geto paused for a second, and you saw him turn to look at you in the corner of your eye.

"there may be no music playing right now, but it would be an honour to have this dance, your highness." he bows down low, a mockery of etiquette, and you giggle before slipping your hand into his outstretched one. he's smiling as he straightens back up, his other hand curling around your waist with a gracefulness that would put the entire royal court to shame.

the dimly lit corridors became your private ballroom, and geto led you down them nimbly. another giddy laugh escaped you as he raised his arm, letting you twirl freely before bringing you close to him again.

it's a back and forth that you enjoy being led through, wondering to yourself just where he learnt to dance like this but not finding the heart to complain about it. it was a sweet moment amidst the growing realisation that this would most likely be ripped from you as you are forced to move to a different kingdom, away from everything that you've ever known. well, almost everything.

one particular turn has you stumbling ever so slightly, the questionable gap left between you and geto fully closing as your head collides with his chest. his arms instinctively protect you, effectively encasing you against him, leaving you to merely stare up at his face with a dumbfounded look on your face.

"your highness?"

he looked so much more handsome up close, and the torchlight cast shadows that only accentuated his features. you could count his eyelashes from here, feel the slight rise and fall of his chest against your own as you both leaned in ever so slightly- just a few more inches and your faces would be-

a noise from the end of the hallway distracts you, and your focus slips from the man before you to whatever lay behind him

you're horrified by what you see before you. it's that very prince, your fiancé, nestled in one of the darker corners castle, and he wasn't alone. your brain took a little longer to comprehend what was happening, but with the way the woman he was with was pressed up against the wall, caged in by his arms, and the little moans that echoed against the stony walls, it didn't take a genius to figure it out.

"let's go." you sounded so robotic, a ringing in your ears making your voice sound a thousand miles away as you began to retrace your steps, taking you further away from the transgression you just saw. you were vaguely aware of geto talking to you, but your thoughts were too overpowering to properly process anything other than the rising tide of emotion quickly consuming you.

you could barely turn the next corner before you felt yourself start to break down, tears that you fought so hard to contain tracking down your face. even with your back to him, geto read you like a book, placing a hand on your shoulder in some sort of attempt to comfort you.

you took it as an invitation to turn around, burying your face in his chest and letting yourself properly cry as his arms wrapped around you, one rubbing circles on your back and the other petting your hair.

"i wish you were a prince, geto," you sobbed into his tunic. your knight merely chuckled, continuing to stroke your hair as he let you stain the expensive clothing with your tears.

"i do too, your highness." his tone is light, but you still detect the underlying sincerity. it doesn't do much to stop your tears, though, until you feel one of his hands cup your face. these hold more evidence of him being a knight, with rough callouses marring his otherwise flawless hands. his fingers brush back the strands of hair that have come loose from your elegant updo, lingering a moment too long.

"besides, why cry, your highness? you and i both know that your heart does not belong to him." his hand's still on your face, fingers now hooking underneath your chin, raising your gaze to meet his. his smile's coy, and you both can read between the lines of what he's saying. it had been rather obvious for a while now.

that your heart lay a lot closer to home. that maybe the rumours were right.

"you'll always have me."

GOJO SATORU ⌇ he's two whole years younger than you

officially, the title of royal knight carries a certain air of poise, of authority and grace that forces your spine a little straighter whenever you cross paths with them. but never did you think that this man would be the one entrusted with your life and safety in general.

you were more mature than him, and that's saying something. and despite his insistence on being one of the strongest, in your eyes he certainly didn't act like it. but if he was appointed as your personal bodyguard, then that must mean that he did something worthy enough to fulfil the role, right?

despite your slight doubts, you didn't actually have anything against him. on the contrary, you rather enjoyed his presence. he wasn't afraid to make himself known, and you much preferred the thought of him as an animate person than some silent looming shadow that mirrored your every step.

besides, he wasn't half bad to look at.

you especially liked it when he was in the mood to humour you and your questions, opening up a little about his life before becoming a knight- of the small village he used to live in, the beauty of life beyond the castle walls, and his stories intrigued you, invoking a childlike wonder that hadn't been piqued in years.

satoru had told you of one particular festival- a lantern ceremony to celebrate a bountiful autumn's harvest. it was one you had heard of, had seen always from a distance, the faint lights of hundreds of paper lanterns floating into the sky mere pinpricks that blend into the stars from your vantage point of the castle window.

he has a knack for storytelling, too- for better or worse. he spins gold with his tongue, painting a picture so lovely and vibrant that you are compelled to see it in person- whether it is as wondrous as the knight claims it to be.

and gojo has always been up for a challenge.

"satoru."

"princess y/n." he's amused, already knowing what your proposition will be before you utter another word.

"how good are you at keeping me safe?"

"incredibly, why?"

"i'd like you to take me to see this festival in person."

he had to decline at first- he had a duty to fulfil, after all- but you demand, you implore, you even beg in order to get him on board.

he was willing to do so the very first time you mention it, the gleam in his eye giving his true intentions away, but he plays along, getting a kick out of the desperation in your voice. you whine about how you are the princess and it's his job to do what you ask- and he laughs, throwing his hands up in mock defeat with an obliging "as you wish, your highness."

and thus begins your daring expedition to sneak out of the castle and back in completely undetected.

it's an operation carried out under the guise of night, the pair of you in cloaks and dressed inconspicuously. it's a simple plan, too. the gardens below your bedchamber's window is not a commonly patrolled area, and it's laughably easy for gojo to slip out of the window first and jump down the few metres until he lands on grass. he lands like it's nothing, smiling back up at you and motioning for you to join him.

it's a leap of faith, the crossing of a boundary as you swing your leg over the windowsill, feeling the fear kick in as you see just how high up you are. but you see gojo, too, his bright hair and eyes looking up at you encouragingly, and you swallow that fear.

"i'll catch you," he promises.

and he does. it's a soft landing, all things considered, as you land in his arms that are deceptively solid beneath you. you yelp as you fall- it couldn't be helped- but it's short-lived as you find yourself face to face with satoru.

he seems as equally stunned as you at the proximity of your faces, but the moment passes quickly for him, his signature practised grin coming back on to his face as he gently touches your feet to the ground.

"good to go, princess?" you nod, still reeling. he offers you an arm, half-joking, and you take it with a pleased smile.

gojo knows the castle grounds like the back of his hand- leading you to a concealed door in the outer wall, slipping through it like a shadow with you in tow. it wasn't until now that you saw him in his element, not sitting around like a lazy cat like he so often did in your presence.

he's more alert, alive, lithe body moving with purpose. it's nice to see him like this, without all of the bulky armour and constraints of the castle walls. the tension leaves him, his gait changing, and you feel the adrenaline course through your veins as the two of you officially make it outside of the castle.

you try to memorise every step you take, the way the ground feels against your shoes, the feeling of the breeze rushing unfiltered against your face. it's surreal, this taste of freedom, and you feel the urge to laugh like a maniac.

your hand slips from its grasp of gojo's bicep, letting you drift away from your knight in favour of pausing to squat down and inspect the brightly coloured flowers that grew on the path.

it was a mere tulip- nothing that you had ever seen before, the castle favouring more exotic species to showcase than some simple thing that you could pluck from the ground. but it was beautiful, all the same.

you felt gojo pause, letting you have your moment uninterrupted before you stand, beaming up at him.

"the outside world is very beautiful."

"indeed it is, princess. just wait until you see the lanterns up close."

it wasn't too far to reach his hometown, so he said. it was a comfortable walk, the terrain not too demanding. and finally, with the last stretch of land, you saw it.

"oh, wow."

if anything, satoru didn't do it justice in his stories. there's another element that you had never anticipated, of the music coursing throughout the town, breathing life into the people. everything was so much more colourful, more beautiful up close.

the closer you approach it, the more it comes into focus, and you don't try to hide your awe as you take in the surroundings. you don't turn your head to see the way your knight is smiling down at you, a soft look in his eyes.

and while it may make his job a pain sometimes, satoru's thankful that you're so oblivious to his surroundings and the ways he pines after you gone unnoticed. he had never exposed this part of himself before, the small nostalgic part of him that treasured unblemished memories of his childhood, now walking arm in arm with a princess and pointing out each little nook and cranny that he used to play in.

the pair of you finally make it to the inner part of the festivities, where there are countless stalls set up with all kinds of goods being sold. satoru stands back, letting you pour over each individual item, oohing and aahing as the vendors explain what they are.

you do this for... quite some time, until you settle upon a small jewellery stand. it was nothing like you had ever seen worn by nobles, fashioned out of colourful stones and leather cord instead of the gold and silver inlaid with precious gems. it intrigued you, the beautiful polished stone somehow being the most elegant thing you had ever laid eyes upon. and like a bloodhound, the lady running the stall sidled up to you and satoru.

"and for the beautiful couple, what can i interest you in?"

"oh, we-" you laugh, all pitchy as you get flustered, but satoru takes this in stride, simply wrapping his waist around you and pulling you closer together. he always had been one to toe the line.

"i think that my darling here had her eye on that necklace." he nods towards the very one that had caught your attention, you glancing at him in surprise, unaware that he even noticed such details. he merely winked in return as the lady beamed, taking it off its hook and holding it out to you.

"a fine choice, indeed! the rose quartz is said to bring luck to you in all romantic endeavours." you blush as you accept the necklace, satoru paying for it before you could get a single word in. he waved off any protests, merely taking the necklace from your hands before lifting it to fit around your neck.

his fingers brush against the soft skin at your nape, a little shiver rippling from it as he moved your hair onto one of your shoulders, out of the way of the cord.

"it looks beautiful on you." you try not to read into the sincerity emanating from his gaze, bowing your head graciously from the compliment before looping an arm around his, letting satoru guide you through the rest of the village.

you ended up in the main square, watching as some officials released the lanterns, how each one floated upwards until they became pinpricks in the sky. your gaze drifted towards the castle looming, and you felt some heaviness return to your heart.

the night had to come to an end, after all.

satoru sensed your shift in mood, offering a sympathetic smile before the pair of you trudged back, retracing your steps to return to your chambers without getting caught.

for a few minutes, before you properly laid down to rest, you caught yourself toying with the necklace, unable to stop the grin that spread across your face as you thought of the magical night with satoru, and his unseen side.

and as you woke up the next morning, the events of the past few hours were hard to see as more than a dream. but as you rise, you gaze at your reflection in the vanity next to your bed again, and you see the cord of the necklace still peeking out past the neckline of your nightgown.

there's a knock on your door, too, and you see your knight's face peek from around the corner.

"good morning, satoru."

"good morning, princess. did you sleep well?" there's a practised formality in his tone, but you don't miss his expression, the smile that threatens to slip onto his face.

it'll be a secret between just the two of you.

CHOSO KAMO ⌇ there wasn't a single doubt in your mind that this man wouldn't put his life on the line for you

however, it wasn't so certain from the start. when you were first introduced to choso, he was polite. he looked you in the eyes, kneeled to you, pledged his allegiance, but what struck you most was the anger that his gaze met you with.

it was like being scalded, making you shrink back from the sheer intensity. you couldn't get a read off of him apart from that cool anger, one that you weren't even sure was directed at you or not.

it was only through gossip overheard by the maidservants that you learnt of his prospects before being appointed as your bodyguard.

the most promising of his rank, on course to become the youngest commander in the military in the past century. he would have been set for life, the salary enough to support his entire family- yet he's now responsible for babysitting a spoilt princess.

it's what they had said, after all.

and the more you thought about it, the more awful you felt. you understand now why he looked at you like that, that pointed gaze with all its burning intensity. why he looked like he would rather be anywhere else within the castle than at your side.

it's improper to assume responsibility for anything as a member of the royal family, but you do so anyway and apologise to him one night- borderline tearful, your emotions besting you as you finally cave in and tell him about how you think he hates you.

and he stops you mid-sentence, confusion written across all of his features.

"milady... i'm afraid you've got it all wrong."

it was an awkward conversation, to say the least. you had never really been exposed to someone like him before- to have such a rigid sense of duty and seriousness that it translated as hatred was unheard of, even for the castle.

and despite this revelation, choso's stiff upper lip did not waver. his intertwined sense of duty was a tricky thing to peel away from him.

but it's a task that you were willing to commit to. you'd be spending a lot more time with him, after all, and you'd much rather get to know choso as a person if that was the case.

and so began your futile efforts of breaking down choso's barriers. you felt like a petulant child, always asking him questions that he would either blank or answer with an occasional grunt.

you were glad that news travels fast within the castle- any gossip about the princess' handsome new knight was a snippet of information that you hung onto eagerly.

it appears that you weren't alone in harbouring an interest in the young knight- if the excited chattering of maidservants and the way that they squealed over every interaction with him was any indicator.

for some reason, hearing them gush over the way his muscles looked when he was practising swordfighting in the barracks, or how strong he was when he helped carry in heavy sacks of grain rubbed you the wrong way. it lit a fire underneath you that made you all the more eager to get to know him well and truly before anybody else did.

you seemed to have struck gold about sir choso when you overheard one maidservant admit to having grown up in the same village as him- how she remembered that his family used to own a horse that him and his brothers loved more than anything else when growing up.

amidst the oohs and aahs of this revelation, a plan started to hatch in your mind. one that came into fruition the very next day as choso accompanied you on your morning walk around the royal gardens.

"say, choso, have you ever ridden a horse before?"

out of all of the questions and hints about him that you've posed, you've never seen such a reaction from him before. he starts, and out of the corner of your eye you see him almost puff up with excitement, and your ears strain, eager to hear what he has to say before you see him school his features once again, and the moment is bitterly over.

"it was part of my training to become a knight, milady. why do you ask?"

it was no matter if he didn't want to open up yet, you can be patient. and spend a little longer playing dumb about just how much you know about him.

"well, i was thinking of doing something slightly different today." he raises an eyebrow, prompting you to continue. "i wanted to go horse-riding." he pauses for a good few seconds, ever so stoic, before nodding his head in acknowledgement.

"as you wish, milady."

you clap your hands togeher excitedly, beaming up at him.

"perfect!"

you set off in the direction of the stables, your knight following closely behind you, and dare you say with a slightest improvement in the upbeat of his gait. despite all of his professionalism, he still had his tells.

the smell of fresh hay and the less pleasant odour of manure reaches your nostrils before you can properly see the horses, but you let your nose wrinkle in displeasure and resolutely keep marching onwards to the stable entrance. you had a purpose to fulfil by being here, after all.

now, as a princess, it was imperative that you had acquired several different skills as part of your royal upbringing. how to eat properly, how to speak properly, act properly, including when riding a horse.

but, try as you might, you just couldn't quite manage to get a proper grasp on that last part. but, if it meant getting to know choso, you'd simply grin and bear it and hope to god that it didn't buck you off directly into a patch of mud.

the horses can smell your fear, you had been told as a child. even the stubbiest pony accustomed to your eight-year-old self's stature still towered above you, nostrils flared and rubbery lips dripping with saliva, making you hide behind the legs of your tutors as you cowered away from such a ferocious beast.

such childlike fears seemed to resurface now, as the snort of a nearby horse makes you twitch, visibly enough that it doesn't go unnoticed.

"are you alright, milady?" he's eyeing you sideways now, having caught up with your stride with his much longer one. you wonder just how eager he must be to ride a horse that it would warrant him breaking his usual pattern of tracing your footsteps and now meeting them with his own as the pair of you walk.

the thought brings a pang of guilt to accompany it, so you plaster on a smile and nod at him brightly.

"of course i am! it just caught me off guard, is all. not to worry, i'll have two horses be arranged for us."

you look at the nearest stable hand expectantly, and the young boy seems to comprehend your message as he dashes off to affix saddles and leashes to two fine stallions, befitting of royalty, to ride. you don't miss the doubtful look choso still gives you out of the corner of your eye.

it's better than focusing on the huffs and snorts of the beast before you as it's brought forwards, close enough for its putrid breath to curl in warm tendrils against your face. you feel your skin shrivel at the sensation.

but being a princess means putting on a brave face, and to never crumble in the face of adversity.

you march over to see the stirrup, level with your chest, inviting you to step up and onto the horse's back. it's funny, all these years later you would have dwarfed that little pony, so now they've brought an even larger horse to maintain order.

you can feel your heart hammering in your chest as you approach it, and you think that the horse can feel it too, because it snorts, twisting its head, the stable hand sounding panicked as the rope is prised from his grasp by the powerful strain from the stallion.

and then there's those painstaking moments, of the horse bucking and neighing, free now, and you really regret not providing more foresight into this plan.

how exactly will you get to know choso more if you've been trampled to death before he opens his mouth again?

you think this is the end of your short and silly life, if not for the hand that shoots out, grabbing the reins, another smoothing over the horse's snout. you watch in awe as your knight, your personal bodyguard, does just that and saves you from what would have been an imminent and painful death.

and like some horse whisperer, the stallion was now rendered meek and docile, following where it was led as choso turned to you, expression impassive as always.

"are you scared of horses milady?"

how foolish of you to think you wouldn't be all these years later. there's no use lying, and you dejectedly nod at his question. a beat of silence, before confusion graces his features.

"then why decide to go riding today?"

"because i heard that you like horses..."

it sounds so truly pathetic coming out of your mouth, but your heart still skips a beat as you see an entirely new expression on his face. a smile, one that he bites back as he looks off to the side, shaking his head in disbelief.

and then he looks back at you, really looks at you, with that coldness in his eyes parting like clouds to give way to something softer, warmer.

"allow me to help you then, your highness."

you give him a shy little nod at his proposition, and choso turns to the tearfully apologetic stable hand, signalling to him to return the other horse. you're confused as he approaches you, horse in tow, and you eye the animal with suspicion as it meets you face to face.

"the first thing about any animal is to establish a connection with it, milady." choso speaks so softly, voice barely above a whisper, and you watch in amazement as the horse's ears prick up, as if hanging on every word that he says alongside yourself.

"you've got to talk to it, introduce yourself." he motions for you to try, and your eyes flick back to the horse.

"hello, horse," you whisper to it. you feel like an idiot, but choso's nod of encouragement and second rare smile convince you to keep going. "it's nice to meet you."

it seems to have turned its attention towards you now, its nose snuffling at you, and you rear back a little.

"it's okay, milady, he just wants to smell you."

you look at choso again, expression doubtful, and he holds his hand outstretched, prompting you to place your palm in his.

he's warm, deliciously so, a decisive strength resting behind each finger as he guides your dainty hand towards the maw of the beast. its nostrils flare, snuffling against your hand, and you giggle girlishly at the odd sensation. choso's smiling now, no charade as he lets his joy shine through, matching yours.

"see? he likes you, your highness."

the pair of you stay like that for a few minutes, tentatively stroking the horse, until you feel comfortable enough to suggest riding them. choso nods, a flicker of responsibilty taking over his expressions as he guides you towards the saddle.

you're uncertain all over again, for different reasons now, as the distance required to get your foot in the stirrup seemed a little too high to achieve. and then choso's behind you, a hushed "may i?" whispered into your ear as his fingers curl at your waist.

you're flustered now, nodding all the same, gasping at how easily he lifts you until your feet dangle adjacent to the sturrup, and you let yourself slip a foot into it and swing the rest of yourself up and over to be seated on the horse.

you peer down at choso, desperately trying to ignore the fact that his head was directly next to your lap. it was absurd- you were the one riding atop a horse as he remained on the ground, you were the one of royal descent- yet in this very moment you were entirely at his mercy.

you clear your throat, nodding to him.

"if there aren't any more horses, how are you going to ride one?" and now he smirks at you, as if it's the most obvious answer in the world.

"well, if you're so scared of horses, i thought that i'd continue to help you get over that fear."

the penny doesn't drop until he places his foot in the very same stirrup that you had used to hoist yourself up, doing the same in an admittedly much more fluid motion, and positing himself flush against your back.

if it weren't for the light armour he wore, you were certain that he would be able to feel the way your heart threatens to beat out of your chest.

you look down to your lap, watching as his arms reach forwards, practically embracing you, before his hands take a willful grip of the leather reins.

"how does that sound, milady?" he's practically purring into your ear, and he must know the effect he's having on you, if not before then definitely now as you sharply inhale, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck prickle at the slight sensation of his breath.

you don't even trust yourself to speak eloquently without making a fool of yourself, so you nod instead. the message is not lost on choso, and he chuckles right into your ear before starting to guide the horse as easily as breathing.

the animal lurched forwards, and your hands shot out, instinctively latching onto the nearest solid thing. whether they were your knight's hands or not wasn't important. but choso took this in stride, guiding your hands to take hold of the reins, and then encapsulating them with his own.

it sent a little thrill jolting through your spine, especially as he shuffles even closer to you, just to make sure that he could see properly.

your plan was working brilliantly after all.

and for all the trouble it took to situate yourself on the horse, your initial fears melted away in the presence of choso, as he spurred the horse to start a slow walk out of the stables, and onto the vast grounds surrounding the palace.

and as you gaze back to catch a glimpse of your knight, catching the way he smiles down at you so freely, faces a breadth apart, you realise that your fates are well and truly intertwined together.

➤ IF YOU LIKED THIS, TRY ... there's no release, i feel you in my dreams

(i don't have any other jjk fics FOR NOW ㅜㅡㅜ) best friend!aventurine x reader

➤ alternatively, you can find my jjk masterlist here!

[love-bitesx]

HI MIAAA just have... Hobie brainrot... About little details in every day life like 😭😭 him nonchalantly pulling u by the waist so he's on the side of the street facing the road, him towering you in the bus or underground, blocking you from the big mass of bodies or any possible creeps (had my share when bus is too crowded 😭), or giving you the window seat because ita your favorite and that way he can block u from the aisle and protect u like with the street thing 🥹🥹 letting you fall asleep in his shoulder or hugging his arm. Sitting always in the chair facing the door when u go to a cafe or a pub, so he can watch out for any possible threats that could come in and be ready for them, so u can rest assured and enjoy ur time. Letting you play with his rings when you're bored or anxious, holding you tight when you hide a bit behind him if you're too shy when he first introduces you to his friends, his hand giving u a reassuring squeeze. !!! EXCHANGING BATTLE JACKETS <<333333 maybe yours fits him a little shorter but its so cute... Such a bonding act.... Making patches or diy badges for each other's jackets too!!! Painting each other nails and kissing the knuckles for every nail painted 😭❤️❤️ i could go on and on. I LOVE HIM!!!!

VIVI I SCREECHED INTO MY MATTRESS WHEN I READ THIS OH MY LORD ABOVE

i’d like to elaborate, if you don’t mind—

his brain was so wired to protect you that half the things he did weren’t even consciously (cupping his hand around corner of tables or cupboards so you don’t hurt yourself/hit your head, steering you to the other side of the pavement, away from the road, etc.). of course, you knew having spider-man as a boyfriend, you’d be safer than most, but when the mask comes off and it’s just your hobie, dark eyes lidded, watching you through his lashes as he towers you at the packed bus stop, cuffed arm pressed above your head, you knew nothing bad could ever touch you.

something about him mindlessly towering you on the tube just. wow. it’d be packed, rush hour hitting and he swore he could’ve just swung you both to your location, but you refused. swinging made you nauseous, and the tube wasn’t all that bad. if you chose to sit down, his ringed hand would be glued to your thigh, not to be a flirt, but to ease your anxiety, know that you’re safe and that he was there. if it’s too busy, he’d let you play with each steel band, secretly calmed by the sensation.

standing up, however, he’d hold onto the railing on the roof, free hand on your hip to bring you flush against him, grip tightening at every bump and screech of the crooked underground carriages. you know it isn’t his intention to tease you, but the way his body moved around yours at every turn, his cologne and natural scent inescapable with how close he held you, and the incredibly nonchalant intimacy of it all. something about the smirk that sat on his pierced lips, however, made you believe that his intentions aren’t always mindless. anytime you questioned him about it, he’d brush off your accusations, simply saying;

“too many creeps around ‘ere, darlin’. gotta keep you safe.”

he trusts you with every part of him and more, but his trust for other people was non-existent at best. so, at the pub, he always liked to be able to feel you (within reason (or without, actually, he wasn’t fussy)). whether it’s simply your knees pressed together, or you playing with his hands from across the table, arm snaked around your waist or shoulders as you sat next to him. he’d like to keep you away from the door, sandwiched between himself and his mates.

although he insists his intentions are strictly safety-related, he’d be lying through his teeth if he said that the visible rush of blood to your cheeks and falter in your voice as his hand slides across the skin of your thigh under the table, wasn’t an added bonus. the smug prick.

he’d share everything with you, if it’s possible. clothes? yours. no question. jewellery? yours. badges, patches, safety pins with beaded designs? yours within a heartbeat. hell, you even had a collection of guitar picks on your bedroom dresser that he’d been dying to give you after special shows. you had no use for it, but the giddy smile he wore on his face as he kissed it between his lips and offered it to you, who are you to refuse that?

speaking of gifts; if he wasn’t the one and only spider-man (well, of his dimension) then his criminal record would be miles long, purely because of the sheer amount of stuff he steals for you. he’s like a cat. anytime he leaves you for the day, he’ll crawl back through your window with pockets full of tiny trinkets he’d robbed throughout the day. anything he sees that even remotely makes him think of you and he’s slyly sneaking it into his back pocket – and trust me, it’s a lot.

all in all, he’d go to insane lengths to keep you safe, and if he’s able to keep a smile on your face – and a blush on your cheeks – whilst he does it? then he’s a very happy man. loves you more than he could ever say, and hopes these little measures let you know that.

i’m violently in love with this man, i actually need to be sedated

[b3ach-bunn7]

JAPANESE DENIM

You’re one of eight princesses invited as a potential bride for Prince Satoru. With no idea what he looks like, you find yourself ranting to the Prince himself how little you want to marry him

Royal!au, fluff, strangers to lovers

—————————————————————————

You wonder how angry your parents would be if you pretend to collapse against the cold tiled floor.

Your dress trails as you walk idly around the ballroom. Your petticoat and crinoline make you feel ten times heavier, your heels pinching your toes as you drag the fabric around. You’d think you’d be used to it by now, the formal dress and the discomfort of it all. But you never have and you never will, which is why you know Prince Satoru will never pick you tonight.

Your parents weren’t even that important. You’re a princess from a kingdom that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, and you know of the eight girls here tonight you’re the least royal. That, and you’re definitely the least princess-like of them all. Unlike the majority of the girls here, you don’t want to get married. You hate the fact that you’re all dressed up to parade yourself in front of a man just so he’ll pick you to bare his children. You hate that you know nothing about him other than his name and his status. You were here because your parents had forced you to be, but you have no intention of running around and playing nice.

It’s why you’re standing to the side, looking at a painting on the wall. It's tall and so intricately detailed you wonder how long it had taken to be made. You’re sure if you look close enough at the woman depicted you could make out the wrinkles in her skin.

“The painter’s name is Choso. He’s good, no?” 

A voice pulls you out of your stupor. You hum softly. “Yes. It’s very beautiful.”

You turn to the voice and you are very glad you did. The man in front of you is incredibly attractive. He’s tall, for one, his hand curled around a glass of wine. His clothes look expensive, a fine tailored navy blue tunic with a white collar curling around his neck. His eyes are unnervingly blue, and you watch them trail up and down you. He looks slightly amused but also just as bored as you do.

“I’m Y/N. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” You nod your head. You're still unsure who he is, but his garments look far too regal for him not to be important.

He just nods back. “Likewise.” He doesn’t give you his name and you don’t ask for it.

“So. You’re not enjoying the ball tonight?”

You roll your eyes. “No. How long do you think I can wait before it’s socially acceptable for me to leave?”

He huffs a laugh. “You’re already looking to leave? The prince has not even chosen his bride.”

“And if my wishes come true, that bride shall not be me.”

“You’re one of the bachelorettes?” He asks.

You nod, sighing heavily. The man grabs a drink off a nearby waiter and hands it to you. You nod your thanks. There’s a few eyes on the two of you but you pay them no mind. You turn back to the painting and he follows.

“Yes. My parents brought me here to present me to the Prince, but in all honesty I have no intentions to be picked.”

The man tilts his head. The stark white curls on his head curve against his cheek, as the corner of his lips twitch into a smile. “You don’t wish to be his bride?”

You frown. “No. I’ve no knowledge of the man. For all I know he could be a hideous troll.”

The man laughs then, and the sound makes you smile. “An interesting fear to have.” He takes a step closer to you and his height towers over you. “Do you believe all princes to be hideous trolls, then?”

“Only the ones I’ve never met.”

He grins. You lean against the wall and he just watches in faint amusement. “Not very ladylike for a princess.”

“Columbus, if only you felt what it was like in these heels.” You cover your mouth at the curse that slips past your tongue. You shoot him an apologetic look. “God. If my mother heard me speak like that I’d be hung.” 

“Don’t worry, my lady. Your secret’s safe with me.” He places a hand on his heart solemnly and you laugh.

The orchestra's music rings across the hall. The room is bigger than any ballroom you’d been in thus far, but you're not surprised. The Gojo family is the richest one around, and the extravagant decorations are enough to tell you that. You take another sip of wine. It’s expensive and you hum contentedly. You turn to the man next to you and find him already staring at you.

“Do you have any idea what the prince looks like? I suppose I should mingle some. I can feel my mother glaring at me from across the room.”

The man moves an inch closer, voice dropping to a softer tone. “If you’re so frightened he’s some hideous troll I could describe him to you. If it would ease your nerves.” He teases. 

You nod. The distance between you two is smaller than you’d thought and when you turn to face him you’re near enough to almost brush his nose with yours.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

He breathes heavily. His eyes dart around the room. “Well. He’s tall. Devilishly handsome. Long hair, good build.”

You look out into the crowd as well. Your eyes land on a man in green silk robes, long black hair curling down his back. “Is that him?”

The man’s eyes follow yours and they darken upon seeing the same man you do. He frowns. “No. That is not Prince Satoru. That is Suguru Geto. He comes from a much lesser family than the prince.”

You know Prince Suguru, of course. Everyone around the country had heard of his fight with Prince Satoru that had nearly caused war between the two families. You peer at the mystery man curiously, at the sour look on his face. You’re interested in what his problem with that Prince is. 

 “Do you know him? Personally, I mean.”

The man’s eyes flicker to yours. “No. Why do you ask?”

“You speak with much contempt.”

He smiles slightly. “You see right through me, my lady. We’ve had a few arguments.”

Your brows furrow in confusion. “You have? How did you come across him?”

He just taps the side of his nose, smirking. “You’re a very nosey princess, did you know that?”

“Well, I’m not known for my graciousness.” He laughs.

You look back at Prince Suguru, where’s he’s talking to two young girls. “A shame, though. He’s really quite attractive.”

The man’s nose wrinkles in disgust. “I disagree. I- Prince Satoru is much more good-looking.”

“Hopefully I’ll never know.”

He snorts a laugh at the disinterest in your voice. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why come here? Get all dressed up and ready if you have such an aversion to marriage?”

You sigh. Adjust the top of your corset, finish the rest of your glass. He looks at you patiently, and you miss how his eyes dip to your chest for just a second.

“I’m a princess to a king and queen with no heirs except for me. Despite my aversion to it, I’m not stupid enough not to realise the importance of marriage. I need to marry someone who can benefit my family and my kingdom.”

Your eyes land on the other potential brides. They walk with an air of elegance you never seemed to be able to achieve, a beauty that, despite your aloofness, you can’t help but envy. You sigh slightly, hoping the man next to you doesn’t see the sadness on your face.

“And your happiness is not a factor?”

You snort. You can hear your mother in your head telling you how unladylike you are for making such a noise. 

“Don’t make me laugh. I’m not sure where you stand in your kingdoms lineage, but my happiness is never a factor.”

He hums. “I see. Just another pawn for the chessboard of politics and duty.”

You nod. It’s weird how he understands. Most men would scold you for even complaining.

“It’s quite alright. I know a man like Prince Satoru won’t want someone like me, anyway. So I don’t bother.”

“And why wouldn’t he want you?” The man taps his fingers against his now empty glass. You turn to him once more. He looks confused now.

“Look at me. I’m nothing like those other girls. I speak impolitely and I lean against walls and talk to strange men instead of him. I’m not as beautiful as they are. But what can I do?” You shrug.

“You’re wrong. I think you are very beautiful.”

His words draw you to turn to him once more. He looks at you so earnestly that you couldn’t not believe him if you tried. You bow your head in thanks.

“Thank you, sir. As flattered as I am, I doubt the Prince will agree with you.” You shake your head.

The man shrugs. He grabs the glass out of your hand, and for a moment your fingers brush against each other. They’re smooth, unmarred by work, another sign of his nobility. He places the glasses on a waiting tray.

“You never know. Keep your hopes up, my lady.” 

You go to respond but suddenly, a voice calls form the front of the hall. It’s time. You shut your eyes, cursing to yourself. You hadn’t even had the chance to speak to the Prince all night. You can already imagine the scolding you’d receive once you got home. You look back at the man and he’s already turning to leave. You reach out and grab his arm. The fabric of his clothes feel expensive beneath your grasp.

“Wait. I never got your name.”

He just taps the side of his nose again. You roll your eyes. “You’re so cryptic, did you know that?”

He barks a laugh. He bows, deep and low. You watch his white locks flutter in front of you, so soft you almost reach for them. 

“Good luck, Y/N.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

And you’re being dragged away by a waiting lady before you can see where he goes off to. You don’t have too long to wonder if you’ll ever see him again, because you’re suddenly placed between the other girls, all lined up in the front of the room. You try to smile at the girl beside you but she only scoffs, turning her nose up as she looks away. You roll your eyes. Some people.

You glance and see the Prince's two knights, two pink and black haired boys, standing at the side. They look awfully young to be fighting, you wonder, but the glare on the black haired one’s face makes you feel like they might never need to. 

The King and Queen look at the row of you with interest. All big, long robes of expensive cotton and silk trailing down the golden thrones they sit on. It’s only then, when you’re studying the intricate finery of their crowns, you notice the Queen's hair. A white, so stark and vibrant you don’t think you’ve ever seen it anywhere else. But then you realise you have. On a mysterious man insistent to make conversation with you. And it’s then, when you turn your attention to the King, you see his eyes bluer than the ocean and the sky combined, and your heart drops.

Because just as the dots connect in your head, your mystery man comes to stand at the front of the hall. Eyes trailing lazily over the women next to you before they land on you. And then he grins, winking at you quickly. 

The girl besides you gasps. “Gods, he just winked at me.” She speaks in a hushed tone to the girl next to her.

You're too distracted to try to correct her. You’re so stupid. How could you not know? Of course, it was your first time in the kingdom, but. How had you no idea that he was the prince? The man you’d practically embarrassed and debased yourself in front of, cursing and calling him a hideous troll to his face. You feel your cheeks flush as his gaze doesn’t waver from yours, an unreadable expression on his face.

The signs were all there. The way he carried himself. Something about him just screamed expensive and important, if not for his important robes or the way people had been glancing at the two of you all night. His hatred for Prince Suguru. You’re a fool.

You’re so stupid. He’d have you hung, surely. Hung or exiled from the country as a whole. 

Your hands tighten where they are clasped in front of you. You watch as the king stands, steps forwards until he is side by side with his son. He claps a hand on his back and the Prince straightens slightly. 

“It is now time for my son, the oldest and only Gojo heir, to choose a candidate to be his future queen and mother of his heirs.”

You’re sure the king says more but your brain is too preoccupied. You wonder what your mother will say. You wonder how horribly your reputation will be after this. If any man will ever want to marry you. You’re so caught up in your thoughts that it takes you a minute to hear Prince Satoru say your name.

“Princess Y/N. I choose her.” 

You can’t move. Chatter erupts amongst the people and the women next to you sound just as shocked as you feel. Satoru just looks at you expectantly. You feel your mothers hand curl around yours. You let her drag you forward, smiling and nodding at those who bow around you. She whispers congratulations as she and your father come up to greet the king and queen, and you’re placed in front of Satoru.

You bow your head immediately.

“Please, forgive me for my actions before, I- I had no idea you were the prince, I had no right o say what I did.” You say quickly.

A hand curls under your chin, lifting your head up to look him in his eyes. There’s a small, pleased smile on his lips. 

“None of that, now. Where’s all that sass I saw from you earlier?” He grins.

You scoff. “I’m not stupid, your majesty. I would never call you such names to your face.” 

“So you would behind my back?”

Your cheeks flush and you shake your head quickly. “Well, no I-“

“Please, Y/N, calm down. It is quite alright. I liked your sass. Your vim. So refreshing after my conversation with those ladies behind you.” 

You sigh. His hand leaves your chin and they both travel down to grab your hands.

“But. Why me?”

“Why not you?”

You roll your eyes, then look towards the other girls, who are glaring daggers at you from below.

“They’re better princesses than I. All prim and proper. Polite. I doubt any of them would call you a hideous troll. They’re perfect.”

Satoru can’t help but let out a soft chuckle at your response.

“Ah yes. Princesses are supposed to be perfect.  All manners and decorum, never showing any sort of flaw or imperfection."

He turns back to you, a glimmer of mischief in his gaze.

"Which is exactly why I picked you."

You tilt your head slightly. “You’d settle for imperfection? For me?”

Satoru shakes his head slightly, his gaze locking with yours.

"No. I don’t want to settle for imperfection. I just don’t want perfection. I don’t want a prim, proper princess who’s only talent is looking good."

He steps closer to you, his eyes searching yours intently. And now, with him as close as he is, you can see a dusting of freckles across his face, eyes tinged with a hint of green you’d not noticed before. He’s so beautiful and you can’t believe he’s yours.

"I want someone real. Someone who will challenge me, make me think, keep me on my toes. You are not a prim, proper princess. And I like that."

He smiles cheekily. “And I meant what I said earlier. You are beautiful.”

Your breath comes shakily at the close proximity. He smells like something rich, expensive and his thumb rubs circles on your hand.

“I’m glad. And I will try to be a good wife for you, your majesty.”

Satoru gazes down at you, an inscrutable look in his eyes. You look so suddenly vulnerable, and a small part of him feels bad for putting a hint of uncertainty in you. For putting you on the spot like this. His hand comes back up to graze your jawline.

"You don’t have to try to do anything. Just be you." He smiles. "That’s why I chose you."

Satoru lets his hand drop, but not before his thumb gently brushes across the edge of your jawline, lingering for a moment. You watch his eyes dart to your parents conversing behind you. His gaze flicks back to you, a small smirk on his lips.

“At least your parents will be off your back now.”

You grin. “I’d hope so, having married into the Gojo family.”

Satoru lets out a soft huff of amusement. "Yes, I imagine they're quite pleased."

He glances at your parents across the room, who are clearly quite satisfied with themselves. He turns his gaze back to you, his smirk growing slightly.

"I’m sure they’ll be even more pleased when they get to have grandbabies."

Your cheeks redden. If not just for his words but for the hungry way he looks at you.

“I hardly think that’s a conversation to have right now, your majesty.”

“Enough with the formalities. Call me Satoru, you are my wife now.” He takes a small step closer to you, his eyes dancing with amusement.

"And why not?" he teases, his voice low. "Isn’t a prince allowed to be excited about his future heirs?"

“Well of course. It’s just. I hardly think this is appropriate to discuss in front of all these people.”

You hope nobody can see the flush on your cheeks from the hall. Satoru lets out a soft hum, noticing how your eyes dart away from his.

"We are soon to be newlyweds, sweetheart," he replies, a hint of husk in his tone. "Discussing heirs is hardly inappropriate."

He grins slightly as he steps even closer, his body almost a breath away from touching yours.

"Afraid to discuss the… practicalities in front of everyone? Hm?"

“I- Yes. Slightly.” You laugh nervously.

And Satoru’s grin grows wider, his eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief. He reaches out, his hand gently grasping your chin once again, tipping your face back up to look at him. His thumb grazes ever so gently over your bottom lip, the touch sending a shiver down your spine.

"No need to be nervous." His voice is low, almost a murmur. "After all, we will be getting rather intimate very soon."

With all the luck in the world, your mother steps forward, bowing to Satoru before gesturing you away. The weddings to be set in three days, three days until you become a Gojo and the next queen in line for the throne. You watch with keen eyes as Satoru greets your mother like he’s know her his whole life. Has some weird manly conversation with your father, before he returns back to you.

“Three days. I trust you’ll be able to keep yourself out of trouble until then?” He raises a brow.

You bite back a smile. “Yes, Satoru. I’ll see you then.”

He nods. “Until the wedding, then. Safe travels, Y/N”

—————————————————————————

I had this idea while watching Harry Potter movie? I have no idea why. Also reader why r u lowkey like.. not like other girls omg 🙈

also I’ve lowkey been so obsessed with Harry Potter recently??? So either except some Harry Potter fics or some JJK/MHA X HP fics 😝 feeling bold

I hope u enjoyed!!

[prettyboykatsuki]

your kind of like | h. suo

✮ tags ; fem!reader, tomboy / athlete!reader, friends to lovers, third-year suo but its not super important, mutual pining, silly shoujo tropes lol, i headcanon tsubaki using she/they pronouns

✮ wc ; 2k (??????)

✮ a/n ; based on violets request for suo + my tomboy reader delusions. reader is a himbo but a girl and i love her.

also sorry if i completely butchered this guy LOOOL

The first time Suo lays eyes on you, you're half-way up a tree - a few feet from the ground, trying to coax and old lady's cat to jump on you and come down safely.

He remembers it in great detail since it left a lasting impression. How you rolled your skirt up so it wouldn't get in your way, how your face and hands were covered in scratches - and most particularly, how you smiled the entire time. How you were loud as you clicked your tongue but soft to it once it jumped into your arms.

You had jumped onto the soles of your feet with great force but the kitty seemed calm in your arms after a while. Bright as the sun and twice as warm, you returned the cat to it's owner and then, met Suo for the first time.

You give him your name, your age, your birthday - and then ask him for the same. When he gives it to you, you clap a hand on his shoulder and tell him it's so good to meet him.

Suo does not believe in love at first sight. Koi no yokan—love at second sight, or the feeling when you meet someone that loving them is your destiny. If Suo could put a name to that feeling, it was probably that.

He was bound to love you from that very instance.

For the last two years, he's been going straight down that path with no resistance and insurmountable clarity.

It's natural for Suo to make comparatives. It's the type of person he is, the kind of fighter he sets himself up to be. Primarily a martial artists with a preference to keep calm requires strategizing.

Drawing connections comes to him as easy as breathing.

So, if he had to compare him to you, there's no end of things that make you incredibly different. Almost opposite in all ways except your decency. Compared to Suo, you are loud and brutish and strong. You're easy to read in a way that reminds him of Sakura, but denser. Your nature is tough and absurdly honest.

You don't often fight outside of your sport for one reason or another, but when you do - you prefer to tank hits instead of avoid them. Everything you feel always shows on your face.

He's never met a girl so earnest in his entire life.

He's never really met anyone like you in general.

After your first meeting, you began to get friendly with him and Bofurin in general. A student athlete in an all-girls school in the same town, you're often in the area doing odd jobs for money. You live with your brother who works in the city, and you're the youngest of your family. You're incapable of lying, even when it might benefit you and you like sweet things.

You're nice to everyone and like to chat up whoever's around, but you like Suo especially. You often ditch class to go to Furin and hang out with them and you're rarely intimidated by anyone. You're comfortable with his friends, though you seem especially fond of Nirei and Sugashita. Sakura too, though he has yet to know how to act around you even this many years later.

Your relationship is as normal as any other friendship, but maybe that's part of the problem. You treat Suo as thoughtful as you would any other friend - even when he refuses to tell you about himself. You're not hurt by the fact he's got walls up so high, and you don't hound him when he can't be straight with you.

You understand Suo as a friend and don't bother with any other details. You just.. get him. So effortlessly. And even when you don't, nothing changes.

The nature of Bofurin after all, leads Suo to fights that leave him in emotional tatters. Moments where anyone else would ask to open up, you remain steadfast. Your friendship is a lot like you, sturdy beyond his understanding

(Countless times, Suo has shown up at your door unannounced - often covered in bruises and battered. You worry and anger, but you always let him. Take care of his wounds, let him borrow your shower. Even going so far as sneaking him into your room when your brother was home, just so he didn't have to be alone with his thoughts.

He can't count how many times he's slept across from you in your bed. Dense. An honest idiot. A girl with no self-preservation who's letting a guy sleep alongside her with no care.

Suo always feels apologetic the next morning and you smile and go along like nothing happened. It might've been true in your case, but in his - he fell in love a little more each time.)

Because you're that way - Suo finds it hard to deal with his feelings. With the enormity of them, the intensity of them. You're not totally clueless - but when people talk about relationships or dating, it always seems like it has nothing to do with you.

If you were anyone else, he thinks it'd be easy to confess to you. If you had been another girl, or less of a friend.

But it's you. The bright, earnest, tough, you. He can't even bring himself to flirt with you or treat you idly despite how much he likes you. He knows better than anyone how good you are, and can't pretend to be anything less than honest about it. He adores you so utterly that it'd be pointless to even try to pretend to have the advantage.

He can be a tease. A flirt, if he wants to be. With anyone else it'd be easy. But with you, the love is so genuine it's impossible. He just wants to cherish you. Wants to shower you in affection, wants to spoil you and give you all of his time.

Friends is such a hard line in the sand. The minute Suo crosses it, there's never going to be anyway to go back to how you were before. He's been careful in being content with just friends, because he'd rather keep you in his life than not have you at all by scaring you away with his feelings.

He thinks it'll all be fine until Nirei tells him word on the block about a recent confession.

__

"A kouhai from a different team asked you out?"

Suo reaches out to wipe the grain of rice from the corner of your mouth as you eat onigiri. Your carelessness endears him but he's too distracted by the rumor to pay it any mind. You nod, swallowing with a sip of water.

"Uh-huh. Akira-kun. Dun' know his first name, but he's a good kid. Super tall for being younger, though."

Suo was sure he would never have to worry about this since you went to an all-girls school. To think you'd get a confession from a fellow student athlete, a boys member of an opposing team. He tries not to get irritated at the thought.

"Are you interested in him?"

You pause. Suo feels his heart race before you answer with a shrug and continue to eat your bento.

"Dunno the guy enough to like 'im. He seems nice. I told him as much but he said that was fine," You pick at the veggies in your bento, taking a bite out of one. "So he asked me on a date instead so we could get to know each other."

"Oh?" Suo forces himself to smile and keep his voice even. "Are you going to go?"

You nod and Suo feels his heart stop. Shit.

"Really? I'm surprised."

You hum. "Well, you know, I've never been on a date," You say, suddenly smiling. You look so genuinely happy Suo can't bring himself to be totally upset. "But, it sounds super fun! We're gonna go to a batting cage in another prefecture."

He looks at you in surprise. "A batting cage?"

"Well, he thought I'd like that more than other date ideas, but I'm not all that picky since I've never been."

"You already talked about it a lot then."

"Uh-huh. He laughed when I said I wanted to go eat meat after. Said that was just like me... somehow I don't get it, but I'm happy anyway. I hope it'll be fun."

Suo smiles his best business smile and tells himself beating the shit out of his friends kouhai for flirting with her is wrong. "Hm. Are you prepared to go on the date?"

"You sound like Tsubaki-chan," You lament. "She made me go get nice clothes and everything."

....

"She did, huh? That sounds just like her. Did Kotoha-san go too?"

"Mhm. They just picked it out for me since I'm not good with any of that. Tsubaki-chan is so beautiful so I trust her."

"Mm,"

"What's wrong?"

You're looking at him with such clear eyes it makes Suo guilty. He knows if he says nothing now, you'll drop it without question. That's just how you are. But for once he doesn't really want to drop it. It's too impulsive and entirely rash but he really...

"You know, if you wanted go on a date - I could've just taken you."

You pause then grin a little. "Dates are for people in like, you know."

Of course you would assume it was a joke. Suo pauses, suddenly looking serious.

"So, if I told you I liked you - would you consider going on a date with me?"

"Sure," You smile because you definitely still think he's joking. But it's a pretty, honest smile anyway. "But Suo-kun doesn't need to ask me for anything. We can always just go together."

He still himself as he scoots in closer to you where you sit, pushing your lunches out of the way and closing the distance to look at you closer. You blink in surprise but don't back away or flinch.

"I'm being serious you know?" He hums softly. It's less hard to say than he thought, but maybe it's because he's already been willing to put everything on the line for you from the start. "I really like you. In that way."

You blink. "...Huh?"

He can't help himself. He'll apologize later. Your breath is warm and soft when he leans in and presses his lips to yours for too long. You don't push him away, uncannily receptive to the touch. You taste salty. Suo kisses you for as long as you'll let him and pulls away only for breath.

He isn't sure what he's expecting, but the jump from pure shock to pure embarrassment surprises him. You put a hand on your shoulder, jaw open in disbelief.

"....So it was like that," You mumble, in shock. "It was... really like that?"

"For a long time, now"

"I also like Suo-kun, but how shocking."

Suo stares at you. "Are you sure your like and my like are the same? I get the feeling that -"

You press your lips to his as if to prove a point, pulling away and brushing it off just as quickly. He can feel the heat rise to his neck in immediate disbelief. You frown at him "Between us, I'm the one who's good at being honest so don't be like that,"

He just... stares. He's elated but completely confused. "Why didn't you confess earlier?"

You smile sheepishly. "Being your friend is also good, so I was okay with not changing it. It's hard to tell what you're thinking and I didn't think it was important."

He laughs in disbelief, dropping his head down to your shoulder. He didn't think he would be this happy. He didn't even think it was possible. "How could that not be important?"

"You're more important to me than that," You say easily, though he can hear your beating from where his head is. "I'm happy we like each other but I care the most about Suo-kun's feelings and being with you since you're important to me. I want to be with you for a long time."

Ah. In some regards, it seems like Suo is never going to be able to one-up you. He laughs in disbelief as his arms snake around your waist, crushing you more tightly in his arms than he can bear. You giggle so sweetly when he does he thinks he might really be done for. His usual demeanor comes in easy, calm and collected but absolutely estatic.

"It sounds like a proposal." He mumbles, almost lovesick.

"We could get married but you have to ask my brother first."

Suo laughs brightly against your neck. "Be less casual about something like that," And then a little softer. "But yes, we'll stay together as long as you want."

He holds you like that a little bit longer.

[bangtanficsforyou]

Fine Line (JJK)

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader.

Au: Enemies to lovers.

Word count: 2.4K

Genre: angst, smut, fluff (i am ninety percent sure I'll write a part two at some point with all the spice)

Summary: You hate Jungkook. Jungkook hates you. It's simple. Until it isn't.

A/N: here's my patreon for early access to all my works and exclusive drabbles and aneek peaks!

Part two here!

"You're beautiful," he speaks loudly to be heard over the loud blaring music.

"Thank you," you express your appreciation not only through your words but also through your red hot cheeks and shy smile.

His hand tightens around your waist as the both of you sway gently along with the music. "You're welcome, pretty."

Chuckling, you place one of your palms on his chest and look up at him.

The night has been filled with subtle touches, light teasing and full of laughter. You didn't expect you'd have this much fun when you agreed to go on a date with the guy you matched with, a few weeks ago. But it has been a pleasant surprise so far and you have been feeling glad over the decision of going out tonight.

You both dance with low giggles and occasional compliments are thrown in the air. That is until the music changes into something more upbeat.

"Would you like to go to the bar?"

You're relieved on hearing that question and couldn't agree sooner. It's not unknown to you that with the change of music comes the typical club activity aka grinding on each other. And you're not in the mood for that so it's rather wise to remove yourself from the dance floor.

One might question, why then did you choose a club of all places? Simple reason, a crowded place is safe for a first date. Why not a restaurant? Because you were not really that excited about the date at first and a restaurant felt a bit too intimate. What if there's no flow of conversation? What will you do then? Sit there awkwardly and enjoy the sounds of knives and forks?

Hence, clubbing.

You two sit yourselves next to each other on stools and ask the bartender to make the both of you drinks. Something sweet for you, something strong for him.

"What's the last book that you have indulged yourself in?"

You perk up at the mention of books. You had mentioned to him previously that you absolutely love reading books and you would stay in fictional worlds if you could. And you're impressed that he remembers that small piece of detail.

You tell him about the book you're currently reading and all the reasons why you love it. You get even more excited when he adds his recent reading experiences and from then on, there's no stopping the chit-chat between you two.

The conversation moves on from books to people in both of your lives and then to food and then lord knows, to what.

At some point, you both get tipsy and you can tell he's more affected by the drinks than you are. It gets to the point where you feel like it's better for him to head home now before he gets to a stage where he cannot get home by himself.

"You should probably stop with the drinks now," you suggest, softly. "Would you like for me to book you a cab?"

He dismisses your words with a wave of his hand. "Nah, sweetheart, I am only getting started."

He throws his hand in the air and before you can register what's happening, he's placing them over your shoulders. His fingers rub the skin of your arms and he grins at you. You squirm in your seat, suddenly finding his grin to be not that attractive. You try to tell yourself that there's nothing to be scared of, some people tend to get a little touchy when they get drunk.

"The night has only got started, sweetheart," he mutters, getting incredibly close to you. You think he's attempting that thing where someone whispers in your ears in a sexy gruff voice in hopes that it'd be attractive. But if anything, you shiver in disgust and fear.

You try to put some distance between the two of you but he doesn't budge. It's only when you put a little more force that you're successful at your attempts.

He's taken off guard by your sudden use of force but his surprise fades and he smirks. "Do you like it rough, babygirl?"

Okay, that's it.

"I need to go use the washroom," you come up with the most basic excuse ever but you doubt in his drunk state, he'd ever pay attention to how lame you sound.

You're right in your assumption that he doesn't pay attention. However, he's not happy that you're leaving him. "You should not leave me here. We should leave together for my place."

The lopsided grin on his face makes your stomach churn in a bad way. Before you can get a word out to come up with some excuse, a glass of shot is being placed in front of him.

"Sir, your order," the bartender says and that seems to be the magic words as he seems to forget that he had an issue with you leaving him moments ago.

You ease up a little bit and don't miss the look the bartender is giving you. She seems to be telling you with her eyes that she will make sure that your date doesn't follow you.

The relief on your face is the only thing that serves as a mode of expressing your gratitude as you quickly flee the spot. Not knowing any place better, you actually do find yourself in the washroom. What if you were to stand outside the club and somehow he catches up with you? In the washroom, at least there will be other girls.

You take your phone out and hesitate for a brief moment. Would it be the right thing to do to ask your best friend, Jisoo, to come and pick you up? You could take a cab but with the sudden turn of events, you feel scared to be alone.

Pushing your hesitance aside you shoot her a text, knowing she would be very mad if she were to learn you didn't text her when in need.

You: can you please come and pick me up?

Jis 🥵: sure can

Jis 🥵: but is everything alright?

You chew on your lower lip and decide this is no time to go into details.

You: I'll tell you once I reach home

Jis 🥵: sure

Jis 🥵: i can see your location

Jis 🥵: I'll be there in fifteen

You sigh in relief when you read the text. You wait for exactly twelve minutes before stepping out of the washroom, getting a little impatient to get out of the club.

However, the moment you step out, you're met with a figure that you recognise immediately. Jungkook. And by the looks of it, he looks agitated about something as he looks at his phone screen.

You're no fool to think that Jungkook being here is a mere coincidence and walk towards him. The sound of your heels catches his attention and he looks up, finally noticing you.

"Why are my calls not reaching you?" He asks, looking absolutely pissed. Any other time, you'd have felt extremely satisfied at that but you fail to feel any of that right now.

To address his question, his calls are not reaching you because you have him blocked. Why?

Before answering the why, you should probably get into how you and Jungkook know each other.

You see Jisoo has a boyfriend, Taehyung. And Taehyung, bless his sweet soul, has an absolute devil of a best friend, Jungkook.

You never imagined that you'd ever have this much animosity with your best friend's boyfriend's best friend. But for some reason unknown, you and Jungkook just simply do not get along. You both are involved in constant bickering, pulling pranks and throwing insults at each other.

Which leads to the why, you have Jungkook blocked. Last time, he posted an advertisement on his social media saying there's a need for someone who can do a good Minnie Mouse impression and put your phone number at the bottom of it. For several days people kept calling you asking if they can give you their demo. Some didn't even bother asking, they thought saying hello in the Minnie Mouse voice would earn them brownie points. It made you so incredibly furious that out of sheer pettiness, you blocked Jungkook.

"Why are you here?" You ask instead of answering his initial question.

"What? I'm your prince charming for tonight," Jungkook smirks, his previous agitation melting away and it immediately irks you. "I heard you needed a ride and so here I am."

Your eyes follow his and you immediately shake your head when you realise he's asking you to get on his bike. Jungkook and his bike go hand in hand, so much so that you hadn't paid attention to it when you first saw him. However, now you feel incredibly stupid for not realising any sooner that his bike is supposed to be your ride for the night.

"No, no, no, I'm not getting on that," you shake your head vehemently.

Jungkook raises a brow. "You have no other choice, sweetheart."

"I'll book a cab," you grumble, knowing very well that you are not quite fond of that idea.

"I'm already here. Just get on the bike Y/N."

You don't reply for a few moments before sighing when you realise how your argument is incredibly stupid. "Fine."

Jungkook grins and gets on the bike. He starts the engine and motions you to take your seat. You hesitate for a moment but then get behind him. He hands you a helmet before putting one on himself.

You wait for him to start the bike but you are confused when Jungkook doesn't do so. "What are you waiting for?"

"For you to wrap your arms around me," just by the tone of his voice, you can tell he's enjoying this thoroughly.

You scoff. "Why would I ever do that?"

Your question is answered when he revs the engine and the force of it makes you stumble forward. Involuntarily, your arms wrap around his torso as you cling to him for dear life.

"There's my good girl," Jungkook comments with a cheeky grin on his face and takes off.

With how fast he's going, you find yourself feeling scared and hold on to him tighter. His hard back presses against your chest and you rest your chin on his right shoulder, soon finding the position comfortable and despising it at the same time. You both spend the entire journey to your place in this manner and in absolute silence.

You're surprised at how quickly you reach your destination. It's like his motorbike flies. Untangling yourself from Jungkook, you get off the bike. You remove the helmet and throw it at him, not wanting to spend another moment in his presence.

But before you can walk inside your home, he grabs your hand. "Woah, woah, woah. Do I not get a thank you?"

"Fuck off, asshole," you roll your eyes and free yourself from his grip. You're aware that if you were to ask anyone they'd tell you, you are the one who's being an asshole but you and Jungkook simply do not share the kind of dynamic, where one thanks the other. If it were Jungkook in your place, he'd probably say something cheeky or call you names. He'd do everything but not say thank you.

You take the key out of your purse and are about to unlock your door, when you're swiftly turned around in the blink of an eye and the next thing you know, you are caged between your front door and Jungkook.

"What do you want, Jungkook?"

The corner of his lips lift up. "A simple thank you."

You smile too, the only difference being yours is sarcastic. "Thank you so much Jungkook for coming to pick me up because Jisoo asked you to."

"She didn't ask me to," he replies, immediately, shaking his head. The action causes a few of his curls to fall on his face and with him being this close to you, you let your mind drift to how easy it would be for you to just gently remove those strands out his face. However, you control yourself, getting annoyed with the whole situation.

"Of course, she didn't ask you to! You came because you wanted to really help me." Your words are so sweet that they drip venom.

Jungkook observes you closely, before curiosity gets the best of him. "Why do you hate me so much?"

You're caught off guard by his question. The hate between you and Jungkook has always been mutual and reciprocated. None of you have ever questioned it. Hating each other is what feels right, what feels natural. You never imagined that any of you would ever question it.

"Well…you know," you stutter, finding yourself at a loss of words.

"No, I don't," he challenges. "Tell me Y/N, what have I done for you to hate me so much?"

"Y-you know, y-you know you are not a good guy," the words sound lame to even your own ears but that's the best you come up with.

"That's it, huh?"

You roll your eyes and look away from him, not wanting to make it obvious that you do not have a proper answer to give. However, Jungkook grabs your chin and makes you look at him.

He leans in incredibly close and you feel his breath on your skin. It makes you wonder what he's doing, it makes you wonder if he's going to kiss you and it makes you wonder why you aren't moving away from him. Your breathing speeds up and your chest heaves to give testimony to that. Your eyes drop to his lips and for the first time you find the previously annoying mole under them, cute. Just when you think he's about to close the distance he goes straight to your ears.

"I think you want me to be the bad guy," he whispers. "Because you know I'd be too good to you."

He nips at your earlobe before backing away, causing a shiver to run down your spine.

"What are you doing?" You may not have been kissed but you sound just as breathless as one gets after a heavy session of kissing.

"Good night princess," he winks at you before getting on his bike. "Have sweet dreams."

What just happened?

Part two is available here.

[xoxochb]

⋆·˚ ༘ * in between

warnings: tooth rotting fluff, pls see a dentist! pairing: whipped! luke castellan x daughter of iris

there was only one daughter of iris at camp and the head counselor of hermes cabin was hopelessly in love with her. everyone at camp could see it through luke’s actions and longing glances. whether he was bringing you a plate after you skipped a meal, lingering hugs, kisses to your forehead before parting, eye contact from across the bonfire, or even after the fires when you would get sleepy despite luke being wide awake he would leave with you to assure you got back to cabin eleven safely. the problem was that everyone seemed to see it but you. luke thought throughout all of this you would have figured it out by now but you seemed to be oblivious to everything which was frustrating

but he could never hate you. you could have brutally murdered him and luke would for sure forgive you for it. It was impossible to feel anything but love towards you; you with your bright smile and gorgeous irises, he swore he always say rainbows in your pupils. and how could he forget how incredibly talented you were? luke saw the paintings you had made, often he watched you paint them first hand even. you were surely nothing like he’s ever seen before. in the midst of his daydreams, luke didn’t realize you had sat with him at hermes table until you snapped your fingers, coming back to reality almost instantly. his cheeks go pink

“welcome back, castellan” you say, voice sweet as honey

“what’s that?” luke inquires, eyeing the sweet treat in your hands, a cupcake with pink frosting. your eyes sparkle and you smile widely

“it’s a cupcake, of course! I made them this morning I want you to try the first one”

you hold out the cupcake and luke takes it from your grasp. “you made this?”

you nod proudly. “yep. tell me how you like it”

luke takes a bite from the sweet treat and you nervously await a response. once he finishes the first bite he takes another bite from it, then finishes the last after that

“do you like it?”

luke nods and then begins, “like it? I love it, they’re great!”

your worried expression falls and revealed you squeal. “you really think so?”

“of course I do”

“great! I’m gonna get you another, be right back”

you hurried up from your seat and skipped off back to the kitchen. luke hated when you were away. even if it was times such as now when he knew you would be right back he couldn’t help the ache in his heart whenever he watched you walk away. luke recalls the time you were assigned a quest by your mother, you were away for a week. a long, dreadful week. you came back disoriented and scratched up. for the first five days you were back no visitors were allowed to see you but luke had found his way in, persuading the apollo kids to let him sit with you until you woke up. luke castellan didn’t cry often but when he saw you hurt and limp lying in the infirmary bed he couldn’t help the tears brewing in his eyes

when you woke up that afternoon he was happy to be your first sight. luke recalls you smiling regardless of the immense pain you were in, his heart warming instantly knowing you would be alright

you were released and cared six days after, yet still instructed to take it easy meaning all you could do was lay in bed (you could do more than that but luke forced you to lay down and relax. he brought you meals and read your favorite books to you all while you insisted you were fine). a few days later he asked you for details about your quest, adding a ‘only if you want to’ because he’d never want to pressure you into doing something you were uncomfortable with. you told him it was fine and explained what happened to you. luke remembers you bursting into a sob talking about the horrific time you and spent alone. luke hated seeing you cry more than anything. you were usually full of sunshine and rainbows, probably the happiest and most positive person he knew and it physically and mentally pained him to see you like this

he pulled you into his arms and ran a hand through your hair, whispering sweet nothings into your ear until your breathing steadied and you feel into a deep slumber. when you woke in the morning you apologized profusely for crying in front of him, but luke assured you that it was fine

that following night luke couldn’t sleep, the memory of you sleeping in his arms replaying in his mind. he called out to you in the darkness to find you were awake as well and hesitantly he asks you to lay with him again. you happily got comfortable beside him, curling into his arms again. neither of you slept that night, you talked until the sun came up in the morning and the campers started waking. that was luke’s dearest memory

you arrive back at hermes table minutes later with the full tray of cupcakes, this time sitting beside luke. you hand him a second cupcake, this time with yellow frosting, he eats it quickly. you take a cupcake yourself and eat it, realizing it had indeed been a delicious sweet treat

“you were right, these are good!” you beam

luke mirrors your smile, turning to you. “I’d never lie to you, sunny”

you laugh. “that’s good to know”

luke gives you a soft smile. he so badly wants to close the gap, your pink lips tempting. “why’d you want me to try your first cupcake?”

your brows furrow. “because you’re my… best friend and-”

you stop yourself before you go further. you were hopelessly in love with luke castellan and you weren’t going to let yourself destroy your friendship like this because you knew he didn’t like you. luke was popular at camp, loved and admired by everyone

and you didn’t have anything special so why would he like you of all people? sure, maybe you made good cupcakes and you could paint but why would a boy like that? luke had tons of other options, tons of better options. like the apollo kids who were good at archery, healing, and archery, or the demeter kids who grew beautiful gardens, the hephaestus kids who could built wonderful contraptions. your abilities were nothing compared to all the others

“and…?” luke encourages you to finish

your cheeks redden and your voice goes quite “nothing”

luke doesn’t know how he mustered up the confidence. three words, three syllables. maybe it just slipped out. he didn’t even know if you liked him back but luke hated going every day seeing you without telling you how he felt. your eyes widen and luke worries that he messed up. if you didn’t reciprocate that meant you would hate him and you’d never speak to him again and you’d never be friends again-

“luke”

now his face reddens

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

you repeat his name again. he looks you in the eye this time

“I don’t understand”

“what do you mean?”

you sigh. “why you ‘love’ me. I don’t understand why”

“because you’re you!”

“that’s the point. I’m not like the other girls, they can all do great things and all I do is make cupcakes!” you throw your hands up dramatically

“I love your cupcakes, you know that”

“you can’t like me” you stand up from your seat, luke copies your action and holds your hands to calm you

“I can- I do! gods, I am so in love with you and it pains me that you can’t see it”

“luke, I love you too, believe me when I say that. but I just think you deserve better than me”

“y/n” luke places a hand on your jaw, making you look up at him. your eyes boring into his nearly make his knees give out “if I kiss you will that be enough proof that I actually love you?”

“I’ve never kissed anyone before” you whisper, blushing

luke chuckles softly. “I haven’t either”

hesitantly (and painfully slow) you lean in both at once until your lips meet at last, spark’s flying instantly. the kiss starts slow, calm. but years of pining begin pooling out, luke’s free hand settles on your waist underneath your shirt. you wrap your arms around his neck, twirling a finger around his dark curls, savoring the moment and luke does just the same

[mrmeowski]

˚✧𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐏𝐭. 𝟐/𝟐✧˚

Synopsis: You never imagined that after a year in this place, you'd be carrying the kid of some celestial being. To be honest, you were terrified; you had no idea this would happen, and he had never discussed it. You hesitated initially to tell him, but as things became too difficult to conceal, you gave in and informed him of the news, unsure how he'd take it.

CW: Slight angst, Lesson 76 spoiler [End part of Simeon's], faintly mentions breeding kink [Michael]

Word Count: 4.6k

Characters: 🧡༻✧ Barbatos [746] 💜༻✧ Diavolo [692] 🧡༻✧ Mephistopheles [599] 💜༻✧ Michael [692] 🧡༻✧ Raphael [690] 💜༻✧ Simeon [728] 🧡༻✧ Solomon [520] Surprise Pregnancy Pt. 1/2»

⋇⊰BARBATOS⊱⋇

The ever-vigilant butler detected a problem before you even noticed it. Barbatos has become accustomed to your regular visits to the Demon Lord's Castle and is always at the entryway to greet you. So when your customary arrival time passed, he patiently waited; perhaps something came up and you had to delay. However, his patience has dwindled, and his wait has become longer.

Before he was able to figure it out on his own, you sent a message indicating that you were feeling nauseated and were unable to make it to the castle. He scowled; this wasn't enough; people don't go around feeling ill for no cause. Because you insisted on leaving the matter and not taking it seriously, he knew you wouldn't bring more information. So he took action, using his ability to see into the past. The Young Master instructed him not to use this incredible talent whenever he felt like it, but when it came to you... it is necessary.

He wanted to know whether he had put something on your food that made you feel that way, but he came up empty-handed because everything he provided you, drinks and food, was in excellent condition. He considered other details that he had overlooked in the past, such as whether you or someone else touched you and caused you to have the illness. Again, nothing came to pass. Feeling defeated, he instead looked ahead to see if your illness worsens.

His fear came to be, it intensified to the point that you began to vomit. Still, he can't find the source of your nausea. Until a specific day, you had a positive pregnancy test. The demon butler's blood went cold. He needed to take a breather but wanted to know if things went well in the end. A human pregnant with a demon child is not and never will be safe for the mother! So, even if he didn't want to, he went forward, further into the future. He witnessed all feasible branches, all of which resulted in your death, the kid's death, or, worst of all, both dying.

The butler doesn't realize he's crying and he needs to stop. He had always been so strong and composed, but now he was a wreck. Despite the sadness and pain, he saw a ray of hope. A path that allows you to both survive and thrive. He needed to direct you and his child there. Abandoning all of his duties for a short while—Diavolo must understood his reasoning—he went to the House of Lamentation without asking for permission to enter then straight to your room.

He was the one who informed you of your pregnancy. You had no idea—you didn't even suspect it! His red bulging eyes indicated that he had seen something, and if he wanted to keep his young one, it had to be nice. You simply trusted him throughout the future voyage. After the revelation, you very much lived at the Demon Lord's Castle, much to the dismay of the brothers, with the exception of Lucifer. The Demon Prince and the firstborn were the only ones who knew about this.

The butler still performs his young master's tasks, much to the latter's dismay, as he had advocated devoting his time completely to you, but your demon persisted. You always have herbal tea along with foods that are soothing for you and your child. But, despite all of this delight, he occasionally wonders about the road he has chosen, fearing that if he makes one mistake, he will ruin everything.

But he doesn't have to worry any longer, because you were under ideal conditions, at least for a human bearing a demon child. Even though he has seen everything and has a torture chamber in the castle's depths, he can't bring himself to look at your pained countenance and those troubled gasps. He felt his stomach twist and spin as it does when he sees rodents, but this time it was far worse. He hoped for a happy ending and to see his little one in your arms. He did everything correctly, and there was nothing—

He opened his eyes and heard a wail, but it wasn't from you; it was from a child. Then a nurse approached him and congratulated him, but he paid them little heed. His eyes fixed on your shape, beaming at him, and there in your eyes was his little one. He couldn't be happier.

⋇⊰DIAVOLO⊱⋇

You didn't know how to tell him; you were afraid, afraid of what the people would think. From the start, there were concerns about Diavolo's ability to reign especially given his young age—for a demon. If his heir is half-human, the kingdom will judge him! All of these things make your head pound, and even though the Demon Prince is preoccupied with paperwork, he knows something's been bothering you.

When you told him the news, he fell silent, and his smile couldn't help but flatten. That look, he was upset, and it was evident he did not want the baby. It saddens you, but you fully understand him. So you suggested not keeping the child, which surprised him. He can see in your eyes that you are going against your own statements, so he asks you why you didn't want to have the child. Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn't help but smile when he heard your explanation.

The prince is unconcerned about what his people think of him; he can withstand any backlash from those lowly demons! But... he does worry about your health. A human carrying a demon spawn is never safe, but his genealogy includes one of the most powerful demons in existence. He knew killing it was the wisest option, but he also wanted to keep this young. If things had gone differently, this would have been the joyous day of his life.

So, even though the odds are stacked against you, he entrusts his most loyal butler to guide him and you all the way. Being assured by the latter that there is a chance, you persisted in keeping the child. The demon prince could never be against you, and he did leave the option for you; even if he hadn't, his response would have been the same as yours.

Since everything is settled, he throws a large celebration to inform the Devildom that there will be an heir to the throne. You were against it when he originally told you, but after witnessing how deflated he became, you gave in and let the man be. After all, if someone is brave enough to abduct or worse, attack you, you know you're in capable hands. In addition, you have the seven brothers' pacts.

He connects you with the best doctors in Devildom and even transports you back to your realm, for reasons you don't question. It bothers him, but he can't abandon all of his obligations to this kingdom, and because he knows Barbatos wouldn't have enough time to care for you, he entrusts his right-hand man to do so when he can't. Your lover does his best to be there for you, especially during the last few months.

He absolutely loves to feel your baby bump, especially when his little one's active and kicking. It implies that they are healthy and alive whilst you're in great condition. He can't get enough of it, so sometimes you have to stop him, and he pouts, which makes you feel horrible so you'll let him continue, then the cycle begins. These are the instances when he forgets the consequences of keeping the child.

When you go into labor, there are already far too many nurses available to assist you. Throughout, he sat by you, playing with your hair and telling you that you were doing well. He may appear calm on the outside, but deep inside, he is terrified. Even though he knew the butler would not fail him, he began to question Barbatos' perceptions. The prince lost his mother when she gave birth to him, and he can't bear losing you.

Everything went silent until his ears caught up with the cries of his young. He couldn't breathe, his heart was about to burst as he clutched the child. He makes certain you are well and alive, which you are, and he feels so... blessed to have started a family with you without dire consequences. His childhood was sheltered and lonely; he will not repeat his father's mistakes. He'll make sure his young can go out and see the world, to have many, genuine friends.

⋇⊰MEPHISTOPHELES⊱⋇

The man choked on the Hell Coffee you prepared for him, nearly spitting it on the paperwork. With wide eyes, he peered around the room, asking that there be cameras and that someone cry, "Got you!" but none of that happened. He was scared; why wouldn't he be? You are bearing his child; it is a demonic child! If you hadn't soothed him, he might have fainted right there and then.

After calming down, he felt... quite good, perhaps even great. Knowing that it was his child, not Lucifer's, he felt awful that Diavolo had taken a liking to you, but at this point, he didn't pay attention to them. His thoughts were completely on you and his upcoming child. He had always had a soft place for children and had considered having one with you, even if it was adopted, after watching how you interact with Luke. So this was absolutely wonderful, and it was his own blood!

With claims that he is richer than the Demon Prince, there was no need to worry about the cost of baby clothes and toys. He was pleased to be shopping at the mall, and it felt surreal that it was actually happening. You should expect nothing less than the best treatment from him and his employees. If one of them dares to touch you in the wrong way, they should wish for a speedy death since he will not be the only one who wants to hear their cries.

Rubs it hard on Lucifer, enraging him, but he can't do anything since you'll stop him, making Mephisto even more smug. In addition to gloating to the Avatar of Pride, he reads about demonic-human pregnancy but finds little information on it. However, if this is successful, he will ask for your permission to publish it in the newspaper. He sincerely hopes it works out, but he is afraid he may lose you, the baby, or both.

If he isn't available—due to work or family obligations—he'll have his salamander with you so you have a piece of him on your side. He is confident you will take good care of the adorable salamander! Perhaps you can educate him on how to behave, as the demon cannot seem to. When he is there, he'll be glued to your side, wherever you are, he's just one step behind you ready to buy you something or pounce at anyone and anything.

Feeling the baby bump is still surreal to him; he feels like he'll waking up in a dream. But then he feels his little love kick and move, and he realizes... he knows it's all true, and this will be a new exciting chapter in his life.

His fear had surfaced; he had always pushed it aside, focusing solely on the brilliant sight of this strange pregnancy. He was uneasy whenever you gasped in pain, but he stayed by your side even when he wanted to vomit or pass out. It was a long and difficult process, but it was all worthwhile, and he is so proud to have stayed by your side, all the while commenting on how well you were doing and that everything will be alright.

As he carried his little demon, he whispered a quiet vow into their ears. He may be unable to perform his duties as Diavolo's right-hand man, but he will ensure that he is the perfect father for his child. He will not fail this time; he has a new purpose, one that can only be achieved by him, not Lucifer or anyone else.

⋇⊰MICHAEL⊱⋇

He may or may not have laughed in your face when you delivered him the news, believing it was a cruel joke and that you wanted him to feel something. But when you kept silent with a wounded expression on your face, he realized you weren't joking. He felt his heart plummet; first and foremost, he had no idea this was conceivable! There were only a few instances when he indulged himself with you, and in those handful of times he somehow... created life in you?

Despite the shocking revelations, Michael is unable to refuse the child, but he also cannot risk losing you. He was still in denial, asking you whether you were mistaken and that... It isn't his child—saying that pains him—and you didn't respond; instead, you gave him a look to dismiss the concept.

Your relationship with him has always been kept private; if it were to be revealed, he would fear the sanctions that his Father would impose on him, particularly on you. He knew he'd be the one to shoulder the repercussions, but now that you bear his child, he's not sure. He can be guaranteed that at least one person will come to his help. Simeon.

The angel may not like him, but he doesn't care; as long as your life is in danger, he knows Simeon would aid, and the man does. Unfortunately, he is unable to be present at all times to care for you, so he delegated responsibility to Raphael. Whenever he has the chance, he'll immediately be by your side, asking how you're doing and if everything is okay. He is overjoyed to learn that there's a path you and his little angel will live a flourishing life.

Being as strong as he is, even in his absence, he can be confident that the protective blessing he bestowed upon you will be activated when danger approaches. Absolutely babies you; he is known to exhaust people that were beneath him with a slew of responsibilities, yet when it comes to you, he won't even let you lift a finger for assistance. Especially today, given your current situation. It can be a strain at times, but you can't stop him; he appears to enjoy doing these things for you, and it's his way of showing you how important you are, as does this child.

During his break, he'd read about parenting since he knew nothing about it. When he discovered that the baby could hear outside voices even while in the womb, he began telling your stories about him and the brothers as well as Simeon and Raphael. He would go on and on, and if given the opportunity, he would stay with you all day, but he cannot abandon the Celestial Realm's responsibilities.

When the bump becomes evident, he seems unable to move his gaze away from it. His hands remained on them, feeling his child's kicks and movements. He has never thought about love or family, and he is unaware that he is capable of having children. Whenever Father makes an angel, they are his younger sibling and he is their older brother, never their father. He can't put into words the emotions that are stirring inside him. Fear and excitement were obvious... however, there was something else with them. It was... a thrill to see you carry his child and his alone. He sort of wants to put another...

He hasn't paid attention to it since the day came. He flew down to Devildom under the cover of the Demon Prince, hoping to speak with him. Although they did discuss RAD, the genuine explanation is that you are giving birth. He stayed at your side, but he was struggling; he hadn't been exposed to much pain, and the most recent was The Fall, which occurred centuries ago.

As soon as his little angel was born, the man squealed, the most composed and feared angel squeaked like a rat when he saw the second most beautiful being. He cradled his little dove with such care and affection. What a miracle... and his mind cannot help but recall his earlier desires.

⋇⊰RAPHAEL⊱⋇

You needed to tell him somewhere quiet so he would feel at ease; this is where the child was made, the garden grounds of Purgatory. He was a little perplexed, as you could see in his eyes, and when you broke the news, he fell silent. The air from his lungs was removed. He was afraid. I'm terrified of what can happen, and I'm worried about you. That gaze shattered your heart, and you suggested not keeping the child, but to your surprise, he declined. He is scared, but he knows there is hope, and there is only one way to find it: he knows of an angel who would not snitch on Michael or his Father, and who also admired you.

Simeon was thrilled with the news, but Raphael knew deep down that the latter did not take it well, as seen by the faint quiver in the angel's eyes. Nevertheless, he assisted them in taking the situation directly to the Demon Prince. This made him nervous, but it was the only way to secure your safety while carrying this miracle of a child. He held out hope while he waited for the butler to discover such a passage, and there it was.

Despite being in the Devildom, Michael would still load him with a slew of tasks, so he couldn't always attend to you, much to his dismay. Sometimes he takes the fall and slacks a little; the other angels can handle it, and he has other problems to attend to—he's having his own child, which no one expected! You always surprise them. It was fate that Lucifer chose you as the other human exchange student.

The seraphim has long been known as someone not to mess with unless you want to be pelted with spears. He was protective of you back then, but not overwhelming; nevertheless, this cannot be stated today. As a small nuisance, he is prepared to spear down the lesser demons. He does not allow anyone other than the demon and angel brethren to come near you. He'd be right behind you, giving them a filthy look.

He has always struggled to express himself verbally, therefore he does so through his actions. Even if he's worn out, he'll do anything for you, such as carry heavy objects, he may not be the finest cook, but he'll give it his best shot. He put in so much effort that you could see him reading about pregnancy, the dos and don'ts. It's rather adorable. There is one thing he can accomplish with words: sing. He enjoys singing for the brothers back then, and he enjoys it even more now with you and his child. His voice is so calming that it sometimes puts you to sleep.

Because he does not want the others to find out and the news to spread to the Celestial Realm, relocating you to the palace grounds and returning you to the human realm is the best option for both of you. Ah, but don't worry, he'll be your guardian angel when you return home—he promises. You insisted on safeguarding your child instead, but he declined because you were still more important to him, and it has been shown that angels can... reproduce with humans so it's not something to worry about that much.

Your labor day was a nightmare for the nurses, as your beloved stood behind them, observing every movement they made like a hawk with its prey, only he had a spear. He was prepared to tear the nurses apart if they made even the smallest error. You wanted to beg him to settle down, but the pain was tremendous, consuming your entire being.

He only dropped the spear when he saw his baby was born. He let you hold them first, adoring his child, noticing all the similarities between you and him, it was a fine piece of art. Even if you'll be leaving this realm soon, he promises his child that he will be there for them when they need him the most and that he will give his life to protect them and you.

⋇⊰SIMEON⊱⋇

When the results come back positive, you won't believe it. You had no idea how to tell him, let alone that it was conceivable to have children with an angel. But when you told him, there was a great smile on his face, but it was evident that he wasn't sure. Your connection has always been kept private; if words were leaked back into the Celestial Realm, he fears what may happen. However, it was too late; he was too in love with you, and there was no turning back. Then again, Simeon was never too concerned with his realm's rules...

Since his kind doesn't procreate as humans and demons do, they're wielded into life by his Father, so this was a miracle and... a curse. He doesn't know what will happen. If you'd be safe he could be normal. So he seeks the help of the Demon Prince and his utmost royal butler. He knew doesn't sit right with the prince but if it was about you, he knew Diavolo would help him and his intuitions were right.

Barbatos anticipated a road where you and your kid would be secure, but the residual fear haunts him. How could he explain this to Luke and Raphael? If a young kid comes around calling him dad, he's done for. He is adamant that you and his child would not be affected but in his case... it will not be the same.

There were no major changes in how he treated you since he has always been a gentleman to you. Even if there isn't a bump, his hand can't help but touch and feel your stomach; vaguely, he can sense the essence of life. He still can't believe he'll be starting a family with you. He has written about this—not exactly you and him, but characters loosely based on the two of you. Back then, he believed it was an impossible fantasy, but love always finds a way.

Only a few people, including those who aided along with Lucifer, are aware of this revelation. He needed to understand why you were spending so much time in the Purgatory. Solomon caught up on your regular trips, but he didn't mind because you'd been spending the majority of your time with the brothers. Luke and Raphael, on the other hand, were completely unaware of it.

As the months passed and you felt it more and more, the bumps became more visible and difficult to hide. You stayed in the Demon Prince's palace grounds until the child was born to reduce the possibility of the story spreading. When the young is born, you will be sent back to your world; you have overstayed your welcome in Devildom, and it is about time. This... it pained the angel that he wouldn't be able to visit you and his child as frequently, but he knew it would be safer.

When the dreaded day had come, he was only able to watch the first part until he feels a bit to faint and had to leave. He feels guilty that he can't be there but even if he was he knew he'd faint on the floor and only cause more trouble and stress for the nurse as well as you which he doesn't want. Minutes had passed and the nurse came outside before she could say anything he rushed for the room.

He breathed a sigh of relief, there you were, and his little angel. It was a sight that he'd cherish until his own demise. He held the kids so gently like they were feathers. Even if he could not be always present in their lives, he promised them that he'd give them the best life he could. Speaking of which, you only stayed at the Devildom for a week before... you needed to leave. No one was there but the four who knew.

But it doesn't end there; not long after you return to your realm. There came a knock on the door, and your angel appeared. He seemed a little too happy. That's when he revealed that he had become human, just like you. You questioned him how and what he did, but he didn't answer. He simply hugged and twirled you in his arms. You felt horrible, but also... good. Finally, you would be together with nothing keeping you back.

⋇⊰SOLOMON⊱⋇

He wasn't even surprised when you told him the news; he seemed to be expecting it. You assumed he'd be concerned, but the broad grin on his face says otherwise. He never considered having a family until he met you. It was then that he realized he would have the finest future with you.

He always passively aggressively rubs it into all of the brothers, especially the eldest, whenever he gets the chance. He's way too cocky when people get envious or annoyed, knowing they can't hurt him because of you. No matter how many times you beg him to stop, he continues to do it, this time behind your back. The only way you learn about it is when a white-haired demon comes to you and complains about your lover's teasing.

Protecting you had become his pastime, and he had even forgotten that he had cast the protective magic for you. Said hobby only grew following the news, bordering on overprotectiveness. He'd be busy searching for and manufacturing remedies to help you get through the adventure. He reads about parenting because he hasn't had any experience with children in a long time—except for Luke but he's an angel and not a human.

Because Asmo is displeased with the sorcerer, Solomon commands begs him to assist you and him to purchase baby clothes and toys! The Avatar of Lust was left with no other choice, but in the end, he appreciated it, as did your significant other.

There is one thing that your partner believes will be the ideal method to express his love for you:... Cooking for you! You claimed you nearly fainted at those remarks. You pleaded with him to take culinary lessons from Barbatos or to at least follow the recipes exactly and not add anything else. That kind of upsets him, but he had heard that when pregnant, one's sense of smell and taste intensifies, so he disregarded it as his meals being more 'spicy' than usual.

But even then, you had to triple—quadruple that he didn't add anything or that he didn't mix salt and sugar like the last time. You can't dismiss him, especially because he seemed to be pleased with what he has made, so you gave in... Surprisingly, it was edible; while the flavor is still a little odd, you can eat it! He must be taking your situation very seriously, which makes you happy.

Since you're back in the human realm, he thinks you and your child are the prettiest home and husband material—but don't count his cooking abilities, even if they improve. You're frightened he'll revert to his old ways.

The sorcerer is well prepared for the labor; the smallest sign and you're straight to the hospital bed. He did his best to calm down and soothe you; unlike the others, he is much better at keeping his cool. He's ecstatic to hold his tiny darling, his smile so wide it hurts as he slowly rocks the bundle of joy. He can't believe that you and he created something so gorgeous, the again the mother is magnificent.

Request» Masterlist»

[alphabetboyluvr]

HUSH | MYG - TWO

pairing: rockstar!yoongi x female reader | mutual disdain - lovers (but also strangers - lovers? kinda?)

premise: in which you work for your brothers band by day and accidentally anonymously sext his bandmate on the regular by night! whoops !!

wc: 10k

for more details, pls see the master list (x)

note from holly: if you've read hush over on wattpad, then you've already seen this! sorry!! but this is everything that was on wattpad--the next upload will be 100% fresh hehe

warnings: alcohol, foul language, creepy men in bars, sexting (minimal!! very brief!), yoongi is both an asshole and a good guy, oc and yoongi are dumb!! and argumentative!! we learn a teeny tiny bit more lore for the night that never was!!

the app (x) | the band (x) | part one (x)

minors dni!!!

GOLDEN CLOSET STUDIO Big Hit Ent, Yongsan-gu

"Back again so soon?" Jungkook grins when you traipse into his studio the next morning. 

Slumping down onto the sofa with a groan, you get comfortable like it's a second home to you. Only just gone midday, you're exhausted. You'll tell anyone who asks that you went out for a morning run, but you'll be lying through your teeth.

See, what made you tired may have given flushed cheeks, but sadly no cardio was involved. Just some pixels. Words. Another goddamn video call of a bedroom you know so damn well but have never stepped foot within. From his belly button down, you'd recognise your Damocles boys in a heartbeat. Wonder if you'd be able to tell if you saw him in the wild, fully clothed. 

You doubt it.

No, what's made you so tired isn't the things that get you up in the morning, but rather the things that keep you up all night.

Or just 'thing'.

A singular.

You're not sure you want to classify him as a person, because currently he's just pixels on a screen - but the images those pixels so often make? The dirty words that form in negative spaces just for you to see?

Yeah. You think that he's too good to be true. Can't be a real man.

"Meeting," you mumble into the cushion of the chair. "You know how many logistics are involved in taking you guys on tour? It's mad."

"Logistics?" He snorts, knowing your job has nothing to do with that side of the business.

"I'm shadowing," you reply. "Jinyu sweet-talked someone she knows in that department. Following one of the planners around for the week."

"Really tryna work your way up, huh?" Jungkook asks, before quietly musing, "Hope Jinyu'll sweet-talk me some time."

He's not wrong. About working your way up, that is. Jinyu will never sweet-talk him.

Big Hit is a great stepping stone - an industry outlier, built from the ground up - but you don't want to be in your brother's shadow for too long. 

You fear it'll look like you're complacent; as if you want an easy life that you don't have to work hard for. Get some experience, get a good reference, and get out; that's the plan. Maybe work somewhere overseas, away from the confines of your family name.

You don't entertain Jungkook's musings, instead opting to shuffle a little further into his sofa. It's leather and still smells brand new - not because it is, but because Jungkook is meticulous in his cleaning regimes. Will probably wipe it down after you leave. Is perhaps the neatest rockstar you've ever known - not that you know all that many. 

And that's exactly your issue; even if you want to get out of Seokjin's shadow, you've no idea where to turn to. Bright light saturates everything else. Here, you're hidden. Safe. Comfortable.

Well, comfortable except for one particular thorn in your side.

"Get your song sorted with Yoongi last night?" You ask, genuinely curious about it. You're also incredibly nosey, and Yoongi is a dick. What you'd like to hear is that he's annoyed and frustrated, because that's how he makes you feel. 

It's selfish to think that way. The album cycle is well and truly underway, and the boys are cramming every spare moment into perfecting it. You aren't too aware of the process, you just know that Yoongi speaks to you even less now that the stress is mounting.

They're made for the stage. Would spend all day every day performing, if it was sustainable. Don't enjoy the downtime - but you think it's because the slowness of it all interferes with their live fast, die young bullshit.

Jungkook shakes his head. "It's missing something. Can't figure out what. We're gonna leave it until after the Europe dates. Hopefully will have found some inspiration over there."

You accept his answer without a response. Know that any advice you could give would be redundant. You don't know the first thing about music production, and think it would be a waste of energy to float ideas for a song you've not even heard.

"Think Yoongi needs to rest," Jungkook muses a little mindlessly. "Was here till stupid o'clock last night."

You mumble a response, and Jungkook takes it as an indication to continue.

"Last email he sent was at like, what? Three in the morning? How his brain could've still been working, I've no idea."

"He's a night owl," you hum, as if it's a new discovery. "Works better that way. It's like you work best after a good sleep. He works best a little sleep-deprived."

"Yeah but how?!"

"I dunno. Brain science. Ask Yoongi. He probably knows. Psychology n shit."

Jungkook just rolls his eyes. He won't be asking Yoongi.

Just like he also won't be asking Yoongi if he wants to join you all for drinks later that evening. 

That job? Yeah, that's up to you.

Neither you, Jimin, nor Jungkook wanna ask Yoongi, mainly because you all know he'll just say 'no.' What's the point?

A fierce battle of rock-paper-scissors had been fought earlier that evening, and you'd been the poor sod declared as the loser.

Already half a bottle down, they're drinking in Jungkook's studio (even if Hoseok strictly forbode it the last time they got legless at work (as if his orders have ever stopped them from doing anything they wanted)) when you finally meet them again. 

They're getting a headstart on the evening's festivities.

It's nothing special. Just a chance for them all to hang out properly after the Seoul shows.

They rarely ever 'hang out', 'cause work often feels like that anyway. It's only when they take a break that they realise how much they enjoy each other's company. A few days rest from one another is always welcome - but exceed three days, and they start to get withdrawal symptoms.

"Ready to go?" You ask, but are met with curt shakes of their heads.

Jimin passes you the bottle of beer he's been nursing on. As you take a swig, he reminds you, "You've not asked Yoongi yet."

Lips pressed to the rim of the bottle, you roll your eyes. Have half a mind to backwash in retaliation, but you don't fancy bickering this early on in the night.

Shaking your head, you swallow down the froth. "He'll say no."

"Buuuuut," Jungkook sings, as if he thinks he can serenade you into asking Yoongi. "What if he says yes?"

"Well, one of you can ask!" You whine. Yoongi's studio is the last place you want to go to - especially after the messages he sent you last night, warning you about your relationship with Jungkook. "Give him your doe eyes, Kook. It'll work."

A game of rock, paper, scissors is legally binding, though. Jungkook tells you so. Says if you don't go and ask Yoongi, he'll be forced to take you to court.

"I've got Big Hit lawyers," he reminds you.

"Is this a threat?!"

"Yep. Now go ask Yoongi!"

You argue a little longer. Jimin takes two shots during that time. Jungkook interpretive dances whenever you make a compelling statement as to why you shouldn't be the one asking. You frown whenever he does the robot.

And so, mainly to get away from any more of Jungkook's bizarre hip-gyrations, you traipse down to the end of the corridor, where Yoongi's so-called Genius Lab resides.

The wait at his door is awkward. You question yourself, what you'll say, how you should stand. First impressions are everything, and if he's greeted with shitty energy, he'll give it back in return. You know him well enough to know this for a fact.

After a lifetime of waiting (27 seconds, to be exact), there's a mechanical whir of the lock coming undone.

"Hey," you offer a smile as you're greeted with his typical face of thunder. "Been sent to retrieve you. We're going out tonight. All of us."

He knows the plans. Is in the group chat. Ignored the messages for a reason.

His stare is a little frosty but not unkind. Just uninterested. "Can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Both?"

You might be deluding yourself, but you think he smiles slightly when he says that.

"Ah, but you can and you will go to the ball, Cinders," you joke, giving him a small curtsy. "All work no play makes Yoongi a dull boy."

You're joking, but you believe it. He's been miserable the last few months. Keeps himself hauled up in his studio when they're not on the road, and avoids social interaction like the plague. It maddens you. How is he gonna write songs about life and the importance of living one, if he won't let himself do the same?

He's hard to read as he sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. Shakes his head, then opens his door a little wider. Encourages you into his space.

A candle burns on his desk, faintly vanilla in its scent, making it feel far cosier than actually is. The room is sullen; dark greys and little else. In fact, it surprises you he's gone for such a pretty cream candle. LED lights that are hidden in the walls glow a deep blue, and it's no wonder he's so miserable. There's no passion in his little pit. No life. Just him, some screens, and the whir of computer fans.

"Will you give something a listen?" He asks, quite clearly seeing you as a last resort - but when you hit rock bottom, the only direction you can go in is up. He knows you're not musical, not like Jin, but perhaps he needs the ear of a consumer, not a creator. "Been wracking my brain trying to think of what this needs. Have listened to it so many times that nothing sounds right anymore. I just- Could you?" He pauses. Looks quite uncomfortable when he adds, "Please?"

You assume the file up on the central screen is the song he's been working on with Jungkook, so you oblige. Kick your shoes off and leave them by the mat. It's been a while since you've been given the luxury of access to the Genius Lab. You used to know the code.

Things with Yoongi used to be different, though.

Not much has changed within his four dark walls since then. He's gained a new painted canvas in the corner of the room, stacked behind the existing ones. It's deep navy blue. Sort of like him, you think. The blue continues. Illuminates his work area. No wonder he never sleeps. The mood lighting is cold. Alert. Is bound to fuck with his brain.

There are more speakers than you can fathom, and switchboards you can't even begin to understand. The programs that Yoongi's running on his computers are familiar, though. You've seen them enough times to get a rough idea of the composition. Can see tabs labelled for Jin's vocals.

Yoongi turns his chair as the door clicks shut, automatic lock whirring into place. There was a time when that sound would have excited you. Not for any lewd, scandalous reason - just for the fact there used to be a time, many moons ago, when you thought Min Yoongi was the hottest man to have ever graced the earth.

And can you blame yourself?

His midnight hair gracefully frames his face, perfectly waved, dark eyes stark against his pale complexion. His skin is dewy, cheeks a little puffy from his lack of sleep and the fact all he has in his system is an iced americano and blue Powerade - yet still, his features are sharp. A white shirt hangs off his broad shoulders, dainty bracelets sitting on his pretty wrists.

Every bit the heartthrob, he's only gotten better with age - but you've grown up, too. Are wiser now. Understand that devastatingly handsome men will always inevitably devastate you, too.

It's for that reason Min Yoongi doesn't bother you in the same ways that he used to. That, and the night that never was.

As you said, devastatingly handsome men will only ever devastate you, too. He's proven that point already.

He points to his chair. "Sit."

The way he's so demanding with his tone annoys you. You shake your head. Choose to stand. "It's cool. Just play the song."

You don't mean to be so sharp. So curt. You're just thinking about how unbearable he's been recently - especially last night. He'd left you on read. Obviously wasn't happy with your response, not that you care.

"Please don't be difficult," he says softly. "Just sit so you can listen properly."

Why your stature could possibly impact your ears and their ability to listen, you'll never know - but you don't argue. As much as Yoongi's contempt for you these days annoys you, you don't want to make it any worse than it already is.

The leather of his chair is warm from his perch. Kind of nice how despite his cool demeanour, he's always a little toasty. He brings the heat of Daegu with him wherever he goes.

"I'm all ears," you tell him, and watch as he presses down on the play button.

"It's not the full song," he says over the melody of an upbeat track. "You'll know the bit I mean though. It's like, not bad, but-"

"Yoongi, shush," you smile, making sure you catch his eye as you do so. Don't want him to think you're snapping. You just wanna hear the sections he's uncertain about in context with the rest of the song.

Quiet as the track begins to echo out, there's an uncharacteristically quaint piano faintly guiding the track. You know he plays, but it's rare for it to be a focal part of the songs he creates.

You understand immediately which section Yoongi's having trouble with - not because it sounds bad, just because the drop before the final chorus doesn't hit quite right. It builds and builds but the arrival at the final chorus is underwhelming.

"Rewind it a bit," you say, wanting to hear it again. Confirm that it's the right part.

Yoongi does as you ask, leaning over you slightly, and says, "Somethings off, right?"

Nodding, you listen for a third time. "Take away the guitar," you say.

He does. It's better, but still not right.

"Maybe you've overcomplicated it?" you muse, thinking that he needs to strip it back entirely, but not wanting to offend him.

"Hmm," he hums. "You think?"

He mutes a few more layers on the track. Plays it again. It's getting there.

"Better, right?" you ask.

He nods as he stands up straight, listening to it over again. Frowns. "Still not quite there."

"I think it might benefit from some distance," you suggest. "Come out with us tonight. Get your mind off this track. Might even get some inspiration."

Shaking his head, he watches as you stand and head towards the door. He's not been out with you since the night that never was. Doesn't enjoy the prospect of risking it all after a couple of drinks inevitably turns into a couple of bottles again - of which he knows it will. If you and Jimin are together, it will be messy. Just how it goes. Throw Jungkook and Tae into the mix? Disaster waiting to happen.

"Look," you sigh. "I know it's not really your thing - but the rest of the boys are game. They all want you there. Just think about it, okay?"

He purses his lips together. Smiles, and turns to face his computer screen once more. "Thanks for your help."

And just like that, you're dismissed. Considering the way he'd messaged you about Jungkook the day before, it went pretty well, you think. Try not to dwell on the fact he couldn't be less interested even if he tried.

It's funny, 'cause as Yoongi stews in his chair, rocking ever so gently, he sighs. Shakes his head. Grumbles to himself quietly: "'they all want you there'... but do you want me there?"

The boys aren't so disappointed when you return with no Yoongi behind you. They all knew what his answer would be, and only sent you so they didn't have to deal with his rejection.

"Took your time," Jimin notes.

You shrug. Deadpan. "Yeah, sorry, got distracted. Too busy shagging him."

"Really?!"

"No, of course not," you laugh, as if it's the funniest suggestion in the world. You sort of think it is. "Nah, he just wouldn't be convinced."

And so it comes as a surprise to everyone when Yoongi shows up at Jimin's place a couple of hours later with a bottle of whisky in hand.

"Shut the fuck up," is all he says as he walks into an absolute commotion, practically everyone in the room elated by his decision to join in. He hides his smile poorly, occasionally letting his teeth show despite his protests.

From the sofa, you catch his eye. Nod. He bunches up his face a little. Nods back - but is quickly distracted by Jimin holding up a clear shot glass filled with fuck knows what. You, too, find yourself distracted by chatter with the rest of the boys and a couple of the girls from the artist liaison team.

In the corner of the room, your phone is plugged into a charger. It's been there since you arrived. You've no need to check it - but you can never leave it too long.

You smile, butterflies kissing your tummy and making their way through your body when you eventually check it.

D4m0cl3s: got a work thing tonight, so probably won't be able to message much gonna be thinkin' about u tho don't miss me too much, clemmie x

The smile is hard to hide. You blame it on the alcohol.

Kind of like how Yoongi smiles half an hour later when he checks his own phone.

Cl3m3ntin3: been a busy bee today, sorry :( all work, no play? :( it'll make you dull, damocles boy x

But then he watches you as you laugh with Jungkook about something trivial. Reads over his messages again. Shakes his head.

Remembers you trying to convince him to join for the evening. How you'd called him Cinders. Told him that all work and no play made him dull.

His heart thuds in his chest. He swallows harshly. Pours a whisky. Swallows that, too.

Breathes a sigh of relief as he taps through a message - 'it's a play thing for work. promise i'll behave x' - and watches your phone after it's marked as 'delivered' in his chat feed.

Your phone is screen-up on the kitchen counter, just within his line of vision. It doesn't light up. Doesn't vibrate. Receives no message.

"Thank fuck," he mumbles, the sinking feeling in his chest lifting as he grabs a fresh whisky.

He quickly walks away from the scene of a crime that never was. Sort of like the night that never was. Is so pleased, in fact, that he's happy to sit beside you on the sofa as Jungkook sets up a drinking game with Jin.

Silly, really, how a few drinks seem to make him forget the concept of 'do not disturb' mode.

"Hey," you smile and he comes to sit down. "Glad you made it."

"Me too," he nods, lips thin, chin dimpling as a shy smile graces his face. He's a little whisky tipsy. Doesn't feel the need to keep such a strict distance from you, now.

"To a good night," you raise your glass to him, and he reciprocates. Clinks them together.

"To a good night."

STAIRWAY BAR Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-Gu

♪ // You First (Re: Remi Wolf)- Paramore

"You're never gonna be this young and this hot again," Jimin slurs after a few too many lemon drops. It's his third time making this point, because it's the third time you've shooed away a guy trying to make a move on you.

They've all been perfectly fine. Nice enough guys, you're sure, but you aren't interested in random hookups. The night really isn't about that. All you want to do is let your hair down with the boys you've known for most of your life.

As Jimin whines about the fact no one is ready to move onto a club yet, bored of the bar, part of you considers the novel idea that one of the men in your rejection pile could have been your Damocles boy. A funny thing to think about, really. He did say he was busy tonight. Said it was for work, but everyone knows how rowdy work dinners can get after the boss leaves.

He could be here. Could have his tail between his legs. Could be looking at you right now, without a clue.

The reality of that wouldn't please you, for it would mean he's out there searching for other women.

While he'd be well within his right to, you selfishly find that that you don't want him to. In fact, all you wanna do is send him a message. Let him know you're thinking of him. That you wish you were at home right now, alone in your sheets with nothing but an internet connection and that damn app to keep you company.

You're with friends, though. Can't open the app without fear of endless ridicule - and not to mention the fact your brother is with you. Not worth it.

As you come to join them, a fresh drink in your hand, you're easily distracted. Are brought back to reality by your favourite people. Neon lights on the ceiling, and relics of time spent in the bar pinned to the walls. Photobooth pictures, foreign currency. Life is embedded into the seams of this place, and it's reassuring, in a way. Makes your dependency on your Damocles boy a lot less intense. You can forget him. Live life. Neglect to check your phone.

"Objection!" Jungkook chimes, following you and Jimin to the corner booth of the bar where the rest of your friends sit. "Older women are, like, so hot. So damn hot. Damn." And then he's thinking to himself. Brows furrowed, pouty lips whistling out a hearty sigh as he shakes his head. Thinks about Jinyu. A couple of the older women at the record company. About Jimin's mother. Laughs. Nods. "Yeah, older women are where it's at."

Both of you look at him with an air of confusion, and yet neither of you question it.

"What did I miss?" Jin beams when he rejoins you, as a member of the bar staff follows him with a bottle of Ciroc resting in an ice bucket. Another staff member will soon bring you cans of drink to use as mixers, but you know damn well these boys will be shotting it down straight.

The bottle won't be on the house, but you know Jin will have charged it back to the company. Will get a bollocking from Hoseok the next time he's in the office. Doesn't care, cause he knows the band makes the record company more money than anyone else on the roster at the moment. The way he sees it, it's their money anyway.

"Jungkook's just declared his love for older ladies," Taehyung deadpans from the sofa opposite yours. "Nothing new."

"Better older than younger," Jin asserts, playfully pushing against your forehead as he walks past you and back to his seat.

As much as you're your own person, you're still his little sister, and the rest of his unruly group of friends will do well to remember that.

Jungkook snorts. Throws a smirk in your direction. "I can make exceptions."

"And I can get away with murder, Kook," Jin assures him - and he's probably right. As much as they like to play into the rock and roll lifestyle, they've got power. Fame. Something that hides them just as much as it projects them. "Don't even think about it."

There's laughter and chatter amongst everyone at such a declaration, but you can't help but wonder if a certain pair of eyes glanced your way upon hearing that.

It's not like Yoongi doesn't know Jin harbours such feelings. Told you the exact same thing, once: that Jin'd murder Jungkook if anything ever happened between the pair of you.

But you also remember what came next.

Even if it's never been spoken about since, you know that remembers, too. The way he refused to reply to your last text is testament to it.

See, he's been avoiding you since long before you got your little job with the company. Would turn down plans if you were in attendance. Declined invites to dinner, and bailed on drinks. Once you started working in such close proximity, it was harder to keep his distance, and so he built up walls.

They're steep, and they're topped with barbed wire. Impenetrable, or so it would seem.

Climbing has never been a strong point of yours, and scaling walls doesn't feel like a pastime you'd enjoy very much, so Yoongi's safe distance from you is kept. He's feline, in that way; how he'll stalk up trees and sit in amongst the branches, peering down at you. Out of reach, holding all the cards.

Flicking your eyes across to him, you find him embroiled in conversation with Namjoon. He's laughing, which admittedly does make you smile. It's been so long since you've been afforded the luxury of witnessing such a thing.

But you're torn from your thoughts by a sudden, sharp tug on your wrist, and don't even realise Jimin is dragging you out of your seat until you're already stumbling behind him. With a shrill yelp and soft giggle, you let him pull you to the stairs that lead up from the basement bar to the earthly realm above.

"C'mon," Jimin calls behind himself, as if you have any choice in the matter. He's got a death grip on you. You're coming along whether you like it or not. "The rest of them are being boring. I wanna dance."

"Maybe I was enjoying being boring!" You argue just for the sake of it, tapping at your pockets to make sure you've still got your phone with you. Not for any particular reason. Just to be safe. Totally not because you fear losing your only contact with your virtual lover. Nothing like that at all.

"Tough," Jimin asserts, not caring where you both end up just as long as there is a dancefloor and a dark corner.

It isn't for any sinister reason, but just because he isn't looking to be the life and soul of the party. His face isn't recognised in the same way that the other boys are, but it doesn't matter. He attracts attention regardless. Goes with the territory of having a face like his. Irresistible to men and women alike. You're yet to meet anyone who doesn't think he's the most beautiful man alive - though Jin certainly does take issue with such a title being awarded to anyone else but him.

But just like Jin, there's a magnetism about Jimin. Moths to a flame, the rest of the boys follow suit and head up towards the street. The entire area code is a cluster of bars and hole-in-the-wall food joints. It's made for this time of the night, when the clouds are shielding the eyes of the moon from all sorts of sin, just a few stray stars guiding the way.

Light pollution bleeds upwards and out. Even if you know the stars are there, you can't see them - and it's not like you get the chance to check either way, for Jimin's already pulling you down the stairs to another basement bar.

This one is larger - two stories. Quieter on the first floor, it's the second level where he wants to be.

A planner in both professional and personal life, even though he seems erratic and all out of order, Jimin has everything under control. Knows the managers of most (if not all) of the bars on this street. Called a favour in this afternoon for one of the downstairs booths, just adjacent to the dancefloor, to be roped off & reserved. Knew that some of the boys would, in his mind, be 'boring', but still wanted everyone together. It's the best of both worlds. He can dance, and they can talk, or whatever they wanna do.

♪ // Desert Eagle - Silica Gel

Min Yoongi doesn't dance. He drinks. He observes. He watches the debauchery unfold from a safe distance, much like he does with you. Sometimes - not always - he thinks. Ponders. Wonders if maybe he's wasting his time by not indulging in the same way other people do. If he's missing out. Considers perhaps his friends are right to revel in such mindless frivolities.

He doesn't debate his choices often, but as he gets comfortable in this new place, he can't help it. Thinks word must have gotten out about their planned attendance, 'cause he notices far more eyes on them than normal. Far more women vying for their attention. Men, too. Whether it be sex or status, their intrigue is always fuelled by something.

The rest of the boys revel in it.

Yoongi doesn't care for it - but there's a reputation to uphold. A brand image that being spotted in clubs and getting up to no good only helps. Seals them as the real deal. Gets them out of the bracket of 'posers' or manufactured, not that it really fuckin' matters.

There are two girls to each of them. Supply and demand. There aren't enough of The Scouts to go around, but people will share. Will take all they can get. Sharp eyeliner, pretty hair, the girls all have their wits about them, and it's potentially the worst part of it all - they're making the conscious, informed choice to lower themselves to a standard well beneath their worth.

The club stinks of sticky liquor and smoke, but beneath the veil they're all wearing the same perfume. Whatever's currently being marketed as 'irresistible' to men. Was vanilla a few years ago. Yoongi is certain it's something muskier now, but isn't sure what. Makes no difference to him.

There's only one perfume he knows he really likes, and has trained himself to despise it by association.

It's a shame that he hasn't trained himself to stop looking in your direction whenever he thinks of you. Is part of the reason he doesn't like drinking around you. Makes such stupid mistakes. His malevolent mask fails to hide him. The facade slips.

Tongue resting in the corner of his mouth, he doesn't realise he's staring. Eyes dark as they watch you with Jimin, Yoongi wonders if you've always had that tattoo just above your elbow. It's small, and dainty. Hard to make out from where he is, but when your arms are in the air, he's fixated on it. Thinks it must be new.

But then your arms drop to rest on Jimin's shoulders, and he's reminded of what you look like when you're all hot and bothered. Reminded of that night. The one that never was. Haunted by the rivulet of sweat that had trickled down your skin in a sauna that neither of you had any business being inside; just you and him in a silent descent into sin, and the smirk on your lips as his eyes had followed the droplet down your body.

His attention is yanked from you when an ice cube lands in his lap. Glacing across to the direction it came from as he pushes it to the floor, Yoongi scowls at Jungkook. "The fuck was that for?"

"Remember the rules," Jungkook smirks. "Look, but don't touch."

"Wasn't fuckin' looking," Yoongi sneers, completely ignorant of the women vying for his attention. "Was just thinking Jimin needs to to sober up. Man's a state. And unlike you, I wouldn't touch her if humanity depended on it."

"I'm a man of the people," Jungkook teases. "If repopulating the earth was my duty, I'd do it. Can't believe you wouldn't."

"She's got where she is today through sheer nepotism and audacity alone," Yoongi counters. "Doesn't have the kinda genes you'd wanna repopulate the earth with."

"Foul," Taehyung laughs. He's the only one of the boys without women hanging off him. Is stern and authoritative in his rejection of their advances; not yet married but wears a ring around his finger to let them know he's deadly serious. Landed himself in hot water a few months back after photos of him talking to a girl outside a bar - no matter how innocently - circulated online. A bad angle and misrepresentation of events had almost decimated the one thing he cares about more than the band: his relationship. Refuses to ever let it happen again. "Absolutely foul, Yoongi. You know you don't mean that."

"He just needs to get laid," Jungkook chimes in. "Has been celibate for so long he's forgotten how good sex is. Used to be a time he'd fuck anything willing with a pulse-"

It's not untrue. He was reckless in his youth - but aren't we all?

"Yeah, and then I grew up, Kook," Yoongi says with little to no emotion, getting to his feet. Taps his pocket to check for his phone, and then taps the other for his wallet. All there. "Should try it."

When Yoongi looks back up to the crowd, you're gone. He rolls his eyes. Shakes his head. Is almost mentally berating you, as if you've done something wrong - but you haven't, and he damn well knows it.

Perhaps that's the most frustrating part of it all: everything falls back on him. The awkwardness. The cold shoulders. The night that never was. If he would have just made more sensible choices back then, things could be easier now.

It's not that things are hard, as such - just that they aren't how they used to be. Rose-tinted glasses, and all that.

Over by the bar, there's a haze around you: clouded judgement, misted intentions.

The smallest things put a smile on your face, thanks to the alcohol in your veins. Could be the song that's already been played three times coming on yet again. Could be witnessing some random guy get pied by every single girl he approaches. Could be the way your vodka orange takes like juice. Anything and everything feels light. Airy. Breezy.

"What's so funny?" Some guy asks, leaning in a little closer to you - and just like that, your mood is soured. You're not here to make friends, but rather spend time with your pre-existing ones, and judging by the look on his face, he's hoping for a little more than friendship.

"Oh, nothing," you smile politely, crossing your arms over your chest as you angle your body away from his. Hope that he'll get the message.

He does. Just doesn't like it very much.

"No need to be a bitch," he sneers under his breath just loud enough for you to hear.

Normally, you'd leave it. Let him have his little tantrum. Be a big baby.

But you were in such a good mood, and you're annoyed that he's ruined it.

Wanna ruin his, too.

Snapping back to face him, you're about to launch into a tirade, but you come face-to-face with a chest that looks far too good in a simple T-shirt and find yourself faltering, instead.

Yoongi looks down at you, eyes dark, scowl ever-present. Says nothing. Just nods. You think he's asking if you're okay - so you nod back. Won't get into a debate over the fact you were perfectly fine, and have no issue asserting your boundaries with strangers.

Shoulders broad, the guy who had been bothering you is entirely eclipsed by Yoongi.

Glancing across to the bar staff, Yoongi nods. "Hibiki." Glances down at you. Checks the colour of your glass. It's obscured by the bar lights, but he knows it isn't dark enough to be coke, and remembers your order from before things got complicated. Figures some things haven't changed. Looks back towards the server. "Vodka Orange." Passes over his card. Says nothing to you. Just keeps his eyes on yours.

There's a subtle blush dusting his cheeks. The heat, you think. It's unnoticeable for the most part, but sometimes the lights hit him just right, and you're reminded of how warm he can be. How inviting.

He's always been impressive. Taller in sheer presence than he is in stature. Even back in high school, his nature was domineering. Respected. Lips gently parted, you're unable to move. Suddenly, nothing is funny anymore. It's heavy. Thick. Suffocating. You're deaf to the bass of the music that thumps through your body. Ignorant of the people moving around you.

But then Yoongi's being offered his card back, and Jimin bounds on into you like a lost puppy finally finding its owner.

"For me?!" Jimin exclaims as the drinks are slid across the bar, passing the vodka orange to you and picking up Yoongi's whisky for himself.

Shaking yourself from the shackles of Yoongi's stare, you look down. Realign your mind. Glance back over and nod a silent thank you - but then you turn and leave the drink by the bar. Head for the bathrooms. Refuse to look back, so utterly perplexed by what on earth just happened.

In a frank, factual recount of the events, Yoongi just stood beside you and ordered a drink.

In your hysterical, deluded mind, Yoongi just stood beside you and opened the skies; let a flood of water torrent down. Drowned everyone in the process save for you - except you're the one gasping now as you stare yourself out in the bathroom mirror.

Phone still on don't disturb, you pull it from your pocket and check just in case he's thinking of you.

Not Yoongi, no. You push him out of your mind. Think of your Damocles boy. He's the one you wished had joined you at the bar. The one you've been yearning for all night.

And sure enough, he has been thinking of you, too.

D4m0cl3s: there are some weirdos out and about tonight, clem keep yourself safe for me, okay?

It's strange, how guilt needlessly creeps in so silently that you don't even realise it's there until an invisible hand is over your mouth. You're suffocating again, or so it would seem. Drowning, maybe. Perhaps Yoongi wasn't saving you at all; he was dragging you down instead.

You wish you were at home. Wish you weren't so drunk. Wish you could think straight. Wish your balance was a little better - but it's not, and as you try and think of a response that goes beyond 'i miss you' or a 'you should be here', you stumble a little. Lose your footing. Grab onto the sink to stop yourself from falling over entirely, only to send your phone crashing to the floor.

"Fuck," you curse, scrambling down to get it, only to be greeted with a fracture splintering right over the top of your front camera. Pulling up the app, it's very quickly clear that the camera absolutely ruined - but for the most part, your screen is okay. "Fuck."

You think it's a sign: go home.

Even if you're drunk, and you're in the business to make some bad decisions, you know that your Damocles boy is right. There are some weirdos about tonight, and as fucked up as it all seems, 'safe' feels a lot like a message thread with a man you've never met.

Instead of replying to him, you open up your thread with Jimin. Let him know you're going home. Make your way up the stairs and out of the bar without looking back. It's rare for you to cry when you drink, but it kind of feels like you will now, and for no good reason. Just had a little too much, that's all.

The light around fades from the invasive red of the club into the murky blue hues of the streets.

And yet, there's a lovely little red flag waiting by the top of the stairs, unaware of your decision to head home, too.

"You leaving already?" You chirp in surprise upon realising who it is.

The sound of your voice, and the fact it's addressing him, seems to take Yoongi by surprise when he turns to face you.

"I, uh," he pauses. Looks down. Seems to be a little flustered. You wonder what's going inside that head of his, but when his eyes meet yours again, you decide you're better off not knowing. "Can't be home too late. I'm sorta seeing someone. Gotta get back for them."

"Oh," you say quietly.

I'm seeing someone.

"Yeah."

It's not like it matters, it's just that you never expected to hear him say those words. He's married to his music. Always has been. Spends his nights in the studio, not sleeping next to someone else.

Or perhaps he doesn't anymore. Just goes to show how little you know of his life these days.

"That's nice," you chirp, swallowing down your surprise. "Yeah. That's really nice, actually. I'm pleased for you."

In a way, it makes sense. Perhaps his strangeness lately has been less to do with you and more to do with himself and the fact he genuinely doesn't care about the past anymore. Thoughts of the night that never was are genuinely reserved for your brain, and your brain alone. Have no place in his. His warning about Jungkook was due to lessons learned by him.

"And you?" He asks, noticing the slight discomfort in your tone. He wouldn't normally entertain such frivolous conversations with you, but he's only human. Alcohol still gets him a little loose-lipped, too. "What's new in your love life?"

You laugh, now. Good fuckin' question. Genuinely don't know how to describe your Damocles boy, or if you even want to.

"Nothing new."

"No?"

"No," you smile in such a way that Yoongi knows you're not telling the whole truth - but who is he to pry?

"Well," he says, then coughs to clear his throat. Look out to the street ahead of you both. It's full of drunk revellers, and you're certain at least half of them will have The Scouts in their playlists. Yoongi's position in the band means he's never front and centre, so no one notices him like this. If they do, they're being incredibly discreet about it. "I'm sure you'll meet someone soon."

"Maybe," you shrug, knocking your shoulder against his arm. "Be easier if you didn't stand in front of every guy who shows an interest in me."

"It was one guy," he laughs, knowing not to take you too seriously. "And you know he was a creep. Was just standing in for your brother."

"Yeah," you nod, not caring to counter him, or to remind him how fucked up it is to refer to himself like that. Folding your arms over your chest, you're regretting the lack of a coat. Had left it back at pre-drinks, because a little bit of liquor and you suddenly think you're a child of the sun. "You're right. Thanks for that."

"No worries," Yoongi shrugs. Is about to offer you his jacket, when a taxi rolls up. "This yours?"

"Yeah," you nod, recognising the number plate from the taxi you'd ordered via an app when you'd been in the bathroom. "Want a lift?"

He shakes his head. "Gotta head to the studio first."

"Yoongi, you're drunk," you laugh. "What did I tell you about all work?"

"Yeah, yeah, dull boy," he laughs too - but it's not you he's thinking of as he recites it. It's the girl he's heading home for that enters his mind, and how she'd said something similar. Shaking his head, he's confused at how easily thoughts of her intertwine with how easy it can be to joke with you. Puts it down to the alcohol. His head's a mess. "Inspiration doesn't wait. Let Jimin or someone know when you're home."

"Get in the cab," you insist at his need to be difficult. "I'll route it past the studio. Inspiration doesn't wait," you imitate a little childishly, which does get him smiling. "Better to get to it quickly, no?"

He looks around. Looks a little uncomfortable. You don't take it personally. He looks like this a lot of the time around you. Even before it all got weird.

Eventually, he sighs. Relents.

"Route it to yours," he says. "I'll carry on to the studio."

"Studio is closer," you tell him, knocking your head to the side, pulling open the door. "C'mon. The driver will leave if you don't hurry up."

"And Jin'll kill me if you get stolen," he reminds you, as if that would be likely to happen. Even if the taxi driver was a creep, there are cameras everywhere in places like this. You're as safe as can be. "You first. Non-negotiable."

"You're a tough bargainer," you hum with narrowed eyes. He is at least here, and not walking in the cold. Would have to cross the river to get to the studio, and the thought of any of them drunkenly walking along it alone scares you. "Fine. But you better not get stolen, either. Twitter would have a meltdown- no, Twitter would kill me if you get stolen."

"Shut up," he laughs. Knows The Scouts have a fanbase that could scare even political leaders into submission, if they really wanted to. "They don't even know who you are."

But Yoongi is forgetting who your brother is. Forgetting that there's a good reason why Jungkook has 'look but don't touch' etched into his brain. Forgetting that there are Twitter accounts dedicated to posting updates from your socials, just for a glimpse of The Scouts.

And as you let silence simmer into the taxi, not caring to keep up a conversation, you're none the wiser that those exact fan accounts are currently screaming into the void.

The Yoongi-dedicated update accounts, too.

In fact, the entire app is on fire - and it's not gonna be an easy one to put out.

03:31AM

D4m0cl3s: you still out, clem?

Cl3m3ntin3: why? miss me?

D4m0cl3s: never

Cl3m3ntin3: hmmm well in that case, yes i am x

D4m0cl3s: i think you're lying you answered far too quickly

Cl3m3ntin3: i think you should just admit that you miss me and u just caught me at a good time :/

D4m0cl3s: but i don't? and ur nose must be soooooo big pinocchio

Cl3m3ntin3: yeah you do you've missed me sooooo much tonight, havent you? bet you've been all mopey just thinking about me aaaaaaall night me & my proportionally sized nose x

D4m0cl3s: dunno what you mean

Cl3m3ntin3: well, are you home?

D4m0cl3s: almost

Cl3m3ntin3: not even home yet and already texting me... but you don't miss me? you're lucky you've got such a nice cock i wouldn't let your lies slide so easily if you didn't

D4m0cl3s: so you're only with me for my cock?

Cl3m3ntin3: i'm not with you

D4m0cl3s: ouch noted

Cl3m3ntin3: you're the one who refuses to have me, remember?

D4m0cl3s: you know it's not like that, clem

Cl3m3ntin3: i know, babe i'm just fucking with you figuratively (sadly) i'm with friends though - i'll let you know when i'm alone, alright?

D4m0cl3s: don't worry about me enjoy your night trouble message me in the morning, yeah?

Cl3m3ntin3: if this is a ploy to make me message you first, it wont work

D4m0cl3s: finei 'll message you

Cl3m3ntin3: keen

D4m0cl3s: you love it

Cl3m3ntin3: suuuure i do

D4m0cl3s: stay safe, babe drink water before bed

Cl3m3ntin3: you wanna drink some clementine juice before bed?

D4m0cl3s: i dont think they make clementine juice and no you know the rules sleep off the alcohol first then send me pictures of that gorgeous cunt in the morning, yeah?

Cl3m3ntin3: and what will i get in return?

D4m0cl3s: the video i've just taken of myself stroking my big hard cock just for you

Cl3m3ntin3: fuck send it now? pls x

D4m0cl3s: keen and no x

Cl3m3ntin3: c'monnnn :(

D4m0cl3s: in the morning, baby just know that i'm a little drunk but so fuckin' hard

Cl3m3ntin3: no whiskey dick? i'm impressed

D4m0cl3s: i'm thinking about you nothing will ever stop me from getting hard when im thinking about you

Cl3m3ntin3: watcha thinkin about? gimmie specifics x i wanna touch myself

D4m0cl3s: that pretty cunt of yours how fuckin' wet you get god i wanna fuck you nice and slow NO FUCK STOP TEMPTING ME YOU SIREN

Cl3m3ntin3: 🙁

D4m0cl3s: in the morning

Cl3m3ntin3: you promise?

D4m0cl3s: i promise, baby go spend time with your friends message me if you need anything

Cl3m3ntin3: your dick?

D4m0cl3s: anything other than that you'll get it in the morning, clemmie promise x

D4m0cl3s is offline

GENIUS LAB Big Hit Ent, Yongsan-gu

"All good?" Yoongi hums as the door to his studio clicks shut. 

He'd left the door on the latch so you could get back in when you went to the bathroom. Could have just given you the code, but he didn't want you to think he'd be making a habit of this. It's a limited-time offer. Not one that can be redeemed whenever you like. It's now, and now only.

"Yeah, yeah," you nod, pulling on the back of the spare desk chair Yoongi had rolled up beside his. You don't look at him, just at the screens as you tell a little white lie. "Just let Jimin know I was okay."

Yoongi grunts some sort of agreement, but doesn't vocalise a response as such.

It's not like a complete subversion of the truth. A text has been sent to your group chat. The one with just Jungkook and Jimin. No one else needs to know your business, as far as you're concerned.

It's just that a few more texts have been sent to your Damocles boy—but that's none of Yoongi's business. You're sure he wouldn't care to know.

You're also sure he's regretting the request for help bestowed upon you on the ride back. He'd mentioned the song he was going to work on, and you'd offered to lend an ear again. 

It's not an unheard-of thing. There are a couple of tracks on the last album that have been tweaked as a result of your ear, including their biggest single. You're not listed in the credits, but you never asked to be. Was just helping out a friend—even if said friend then decided to become an asshole when they started making a name for themselves.

You're tipsy, and so is Yoongi. It's easier to forget how fraught things have become when you're like this. You wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't had a few too many drinks. 

You also probably wouldn't be trending all over twitter, but you're still blissfully unaware of this.

"Same track as before, right?" You ask, kicking your shoes off to get a little more comfortable on the chair.

Again, words fail Yoongi. You're forced to decipher his small noises, 'cause it's all he tends to offer you. It's not like it's a uniquely you issue—the boys have learned to speak in Yoongi-code, too. 

"Okay, play it from the start," you tell him. "Show me what we're working with."

There's a cautious nature to the way Yoongi works. So preoccupied with creating perfection, he hates letting people hear his work before it's reached his self-imposed arbitrary standards. There's only a very small circle who gets the privilege of seeing how his brain works.

Despite his ever-present disdain for you, it seems like you're one of the lucky few. He'll never acknowledge this. Never admit that he favours your opinions, because he genuinely doesn't think he does.

You're frank with him. Will tell him how it is. Don't sugarcoat it. Aren't seeking his approval, so don't care to lick his ass just to keep him happy—not that he ever wants you to lick his ass. Could think of nothing worse. Not because he isn't into it, but because the thought of being with you repulses him in a way he can't quite describe. Even thinking about it makes him shudder.

But maybe that's the issue. Maybe the shudder is indicative of something else entirely.

"Yoongi?" You ask, drawing him from his thoughts. The song has finished, but he doesn't even really recall listening to it at all.

"Hm?" He hums. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"The lyrics," you say. "What's the song about? 'Cause at the moment, musically, it sounds like a heartbreak song and love song all at the same time, and I think that's what's confusing about it. It can't decide what it wants to be."

Yoongi frowns.

"It's not really either," he supposes.

In the dim lighting of his studio, Yoongi is at his very best. Focused, he's shrewd in his astute calculations. Can put together different sounds and construct melodies you wouldn't even be able to dream of. For all of his issues, there is one undeniable truth: the man is a musical genius.

It's why this is all so perplexing to him. He hates not knowing how to make things right. This is his job. It's what he excels at—and yet he's failing.

"Well, what's it about?" You softly ask, turning to look at him. "Do you have the lyrics?"

Guard clearly up, the way Yoongi looks at you is puzzling. Whatever he's written isn't something that he wants to share.

"What?" you laugh, trying to not make a big deal of things. You know how quickly he closes up, and can already sense it happening. "You told me you're seeing someone, remember? God forbid you accidentally expose the fact you're a human being with real feelings."

You half think he might smile.

He doesn't.

Instead, he reaches across his desk for a small black notebook. A little weathered, it's clearly seen a lot of thoughts in the past. The leather of the cover is tarnished, and there's a faded sticker from some instrument brand wrapping around the spine.

"Just don't ask any fuckin' questions," he grumbles.

Rolling your eyes, you gladly accept the book. Tuck your thumb between the pages where a natural divide occurs. It's testament to how long Yoongi has spent agonising over the same words.

His handwriting never changes much. Always messy. Always hard to decipher.

Or at least, it's hard for other people. You've never found it to be too taxing.

What's curious this time are the little doodles on the page. Blossoms and small fruits.

"Cherries?" You ask, chirping with a little curiosity. It's hard to work out exactly what they are, but cherries seem like the most likely thing.

Yoongi just grunts.

Getting anything from him is like getting blood from a stone.

"How the fuck do you have a functioning relationship?" You mutter, casting your eyes back down to his words. The way he refuses to converse with you is infuriating.

"I said no questions," he curtly reminds you.

The way you roll your eyes this time is far less kind. Tossing the book back down on the desk, you reach for your shoes and get to your feet without a word.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," you tell him, as your hand reaches for the door handle. "You asked me for help, Yoongi—but I can't do jack shit if you won't let me."

"Yeah, well, I didn't ask for critique on my relationship, did I?" He snaps back. Feels his skin get all hot. Clammy. Relationship. That's not how he'd define what he's got going on. He doesn't know why he did call it that. Doesn't know why he didn't just ignore you, when you're clearly trying to wind him up.

"You're impossible," you tell him, patience thin. The alcohol made it easier to be friendly with him, but it also makes it easier to fight, too.

"And you're unbearable!"

"Me?!" You say with such offense it almost surprises Yoongi. Turning around to fully face him, you let go of the the door handle. Let it whisper shut, the lock softly clicking into place. You're willingly trapped in the confines of his studio. Could just leave. Instead, you choose to fight. "Oh, you have some fucking nerve—"

"I thought you were going?" He cuts you off, responding to your change in position by getting to his feet too. He's not one for confrontation, but there's something about you that just gets under his skin. Makes him wanna fight right back. "So why don't you just fuckin' go?"

"I am," you assure him. You should have known that this would end in disaster. "But maybe if you channelled some of this pent-up frustration into your music, maybe you'd actually get somewhere."

"I don't need you telling me how to do my job," he sneers. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm doing perfectly fine without your unsolicited advice."

Unbelievable. Was he not the one who asked for your help? Repeatedly?

"Holy shit," you scornfully laugh. "Listen to yourself, you deluded prick! You asked—"

"Yeah, well if you didn't insist on sticking your big fuckin' Pinnochio nose into everything—"

"My big nose?! Oh, you are such an asshole."

"You're no fuckin' daisy, either," he snaps. Doesn't even really know why he's being so rude. Just knows he doesn't want to back down. Doesn't wanna let you win. "Just do us all a favour and quit before the tour. No one wants you there."

It's never been a secret that Yoongi harbours contempt for the way in which you got your jobs, but you know damn well that you've proven your worth. If it was anyone else saying these words, you'd probably be offended.

Instead, you just shake your head. Laugh. Walk a little closer just to piss him off. Encroach upon his personal space.

"Tell me, Yoongi," you say quietly, picking off a little dust from his shirt just to see how he reacts. To your surprise, he lets you. Just looks down at you. Watches to see what you'll do next. Eyes flicking up to his, the air between you is frightfully thin. "If I quit, how would you explain it to Jin? Hmm? Would you tell him the way you speak to me?"

"I've got nothing to hide," Yoongi replies just as quietly. There's an intimacy to be found somewhere hidden between your mutual disdain and heated anger. The kind of coldness that can only come from someone you once knew to be warm. "He knows you're a piece of work."

This does make you laugh. "Nothing to hide, huh?"

"Nothing," he says. His jaw is tense, and his eyes are even more so. "Nothing happened that night."

"Yoongi, I didn't even mention that night," you remind him with a smirk, pleased at your ability to get under his skin. 

That night has lingered with you both: the scent of damp cedar wood and the sensation of sweltering heat against your clammy skin. It's not the kind of thing you forget, even if you never speak of it. Not with Jimin, not with Jungkook, and especially not with Yoongi.

"Just get out of my studio," he growls, eyes centred on yours. He's unwavering in the way that he stares you out; unashamed and uncompromising.

"Gladly," you say as you pull away from him.

You're not gonna beg him to be cordial with you. This atmosphere is a product of his own creation, and as miserable as it is, he's gonna have to be the one to fix it. Both as stubborn as one another, you know damn well it's gonna stay like for a while.

The door slams shut. No amount of soundproofing can obscure the way Yoongi curses into the void left by you.

But right on time, as you reach the door that leads out onto the street, your phone vibrates in your pocket. It's a little longer than the vibration of your other apps, so you know exactly what it is. Who it is. Solace is found in the form of notifications from him. Satisfaction, too.

D4m0cl3s: fuck it i need you, now, clem

D4m0cl3s added new media to the chat!

end of part two

[holdinbacksecrets]

lake house — l.dh

situationship to almost lovers. short, sticky, and hopefully sweet. suggestive, 18+ wc: 1.2k

he’s the only one awake when you head downstairs for a glass of water.

moonlight paints the walls, brushes the end of the couch, and fails to give away any part of his tall frame sitting at the dining table.

he watches you walk past him wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. your braids fall down your back with a scarf wrapped around your head to prevent frizz. the sweet, familiar notes of your perfume linger in your wake.

he watches you stand on your tippy toes as the t-shirt clings to your curves while you reach for the highest shelf. when you’re about to climb onto the countertop, he speaks up.

“i don’t think you should do that if you aren’t wearing any underwear.”

the volume of donghyuck’s voice is quiet, just loud enough for you to hear, and he’s right. you aren’t wearing any underwear. you don’t bother commenting on the silence he existed in until this moment as it sets in he was likely watching you.

you fall back on your heels, motioning to him and then nodding to the displayed dishware out of reach. he runs his fingers through his hair before rising from the seat to help you. he approaches you slowly, and you wait for eyes to drop and collect a pretty view. they never do.

donghyuck extends a glass in one hand and a mug in the other—take your pick.

in the next moment, you’re filling the glass before he places the mug beneath the flowing faucet, standing so close that his warmth softens the coolness on your skin. someone left the window open, but it’s above a sleeping friend. there’s no use trying to close it.

you’re side by side, and it’s natural to rest your head against his frame in between sips and the necessary gulps. you want to know what he thinks about you. if the reason he was excited about this weekend has anything to do with seeing each other again.

the two of you are good at waiting and hoping the other will finally bend, wondering how long it’ll take before a give in. secretly, he never plans on waiting longer than four days. perhaps the fifth day once midnight strikes. you haven’t figured that out yet, giving in by day two or experiencing the relief when he calls on the third day. perhaps he’s lying about his little rule.

he sets the mug in the sink and brushes his thumb across the side of your neck, just above a constellation of moles. he’s kissed the spot more times than you can count, and the craving for his euphoria slithers beneath your skin, starting in your chest before coiling down your body.

you lift your glass again to fill your cheeks. he smiles at the sight. you’re adorable yet so incredibly sexy in this moment. donghyuck doubts you have any idea how easily you exist in the middle of his favorite venn diagram.

your glass joins his mug, and you look up at him. your height difference is exciting and comforting and leaves you feeling safe as can be in his presence. you daydream about the feeling of his chin on the top of your head, wondering how much time would pass before he’s kissing your hairline.

“come to bed with me?” his eyes widen for a moment, and you feel a wave of his vulnerability mist you in the darkness. the glowing light from the stove is all you have to work with. he’s nervous.

you nod, interlacing fingers with his and walking backwards for a moment before you turn to lead the way.

at the stairs, he walks beside you, hyper aware of your chosen pajamas and not wanting to see something you haven’t given him consent to view again. it’s been two weeks since he’s seen you naked.

donghyuck’s bedroom is three doors past yours. he got lucky with the window seat and angled ceiling. he feels so far removed from the rest of the house with a beautiful view of the water.

his bedding is plaid, and the room feels rustic in comparison to the delicate details within your own, accompanied by pastel blues and yellows.

you can see him much clearer in the soft glow from the nightstand’s lamp. he’s wearing black joggers you recognize and a white t-shirt. his hair is still damp and stubble peppers his chin. in an impulsive moment, you’re touching his face, tracing the shape of his nose, the contour of his cheek, and the arch of his brow before brushing your thumb across his lips. they part beneath your touch. you smile, existing in this feeling donghyuck always creates for you and remembering how unnatural it used to feel—surprised by the comfort despite your still short time in each other’s lives.

now, months have passed of getting to know—unraveling without judgment. his secrets are kept securely in your mind. vulnerable memories are cherished in your heart. the way he makes you feel is savored by your soul and replayed in your dreams. intimate explorations you’ve experienced together are reminisced in quiet moments when you’re alone, admiring the new, golden hues in your reflection.

he’s indulging in these wee hours of the morning with you. he hasn’t said anything since his hopeful question, and you’re ok with that. you feel like all the words are out in the open anyway. you believe they are when he leans forward to kiss you.

donghyuck pulls you against him. your chest meets the base of his sternum. you moan at the feeling of your mouths moving together, missing these soft collisions, but the kiss remains gentle and slow without urgency. his tongue is a ghost, barely meeting your own. his hands stay on either side of your face while your own grip his shirt.

donghyuck pulls away to explore your neck and jaw before his lips touch your eyelids. he smiles then. your heart is about to burst, and you wait for the final kiss that’s bound to find your lips.

and it does.

“i’ve missed you,” his words pass through an exhale.

he’s sitting on the bed while you stand between his legs with your fingers in his hair. your lips continuously meet his forehead, filling the void that grew during your time apart. donghyuck asks about your journey up and how the trip went. he tells you you can drive home with him—he insists you do.

when he rests his face against your stomach, you wonder if he’s ok. “hyuck?”

“mmm?”

“is something wrong?”

“just missed you. didn’t know if you’d be here. wish i would’ve asked.” he’s been in his head about you.

“you can always ask.”

“i know that.” if he picked up the phone, he would’ve told you he’s in love with you.

“we have the whole weekend together.”

“how long will it be before everyone is sick of us?” he had to kiss you. of course he wanted to, but the words were bubbling up again. every time he thought to pull away, they danced on his tongue.

“i’m in the clear—making banana bread in the morning. join me?”

“as long as you’re wearing pants.”

he feels your stomach tighten as you laugh, and it’s heaven. he squeezes your hip and leans back, rearranging the pillows so you can join him.

“i didn’t expect to run into anyone downstairs tonight, and i’m so used to living alone… but i’ll wear pants. don’t worry about that.” you lean in and kiss him as a promise, tucking your legs beneath the covers.

you fall asleep talking about the sky—you’re so excited to see the sunrise in the morning over the lake. donghyuck sets an alarm so you don’t miss it, traces i love you against your forearm to see what it feels like and falls asleep too.

[just-jordie-things]

blue orchids and white lies - nanami kento

word count: 5.2k warnings: none ? summary: nanami's never cared much for flowers until he steps foot in her shop and suddenly he's an avid gift giver of luxurious bouquets. a/n: this is for the anon that sent me a brainrot so good i blacked out, wrote this, and will prolly receive hate in the future as it's the only nanami piece i will (probably) ever write </3 ___

The first time Nanami Kento steps foot into that tiny flower shop, he treats it more as an errand than anything else.

Shoko was throwing a little get-together later that evening- something about a creepy discovery she’d made during an autopsy that excited her, truthfully Nanami tried not to pay too much attention to the gruesome details she’d shared- and he didn’t want to show up empty handed.  Utahime had already declared she was bringing the champagne, Gojo covered the catering from some fine dining restaurant Nanami had never even heard of, and it seemed as though flowers were the best he could come up with.

Still, being the thoughtful gentleman he was, he figured he might as well splurge on a well crafted bouquet, rather than the cheap banded wilting things at the grocery store.

Despite being right next door to his favorite bakery in Tokyo, he’d never had an interest to poke around the little shop.  There had never really been an occasion for him to buy flowers, and he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to pick some up just to freshen up his office or dining room table.  If anything, once the little bell above the door jingles to signal his entry, he feels incredibly out of place.  The shop is tiny, and covered nearly ceiling to floor in bright blooms of plants he’s never even seen before.

A soft but cheery “Welcome in!” comes from the wall where there are two clerks working away with nothing short of joy on their faces.  The first is cashing someone out at the register, handing over a plastic wrapped bundle of what he assumes are tulips but he’s not quite sure.  The other being the one who greeted him, and-

Nanami freezes, which is out of character enough to make his face feel warm and his heart stutter in his chest.  The other clerk, a woman who seemed to be playing rather than working on the bouquet before her.  As quick as she was to welcome the new customer, she was just as quick to return to rearranging the bundle of purple and white flowers before her.  She doesn’t even seem to notice the way Nanami stands in the doorway struck by awe as he watches her over-analyze the way each petal pushes against one another.

After a second too long of staring he realizes how creepy he’s being, and he makes a beeline for the opposite side of the shop, hoping no one around caught the way he’d shamelessly stared at a complete stranger, much less a woman simply trying to do her job.  She didn’t need some random customer ogling her- he wasn’t Gojo.

He pretends to glance over the array of pre-arranged bouquets on the far wall.  Pretend, as in technically he’s looking at them but he’s not really paying any attention.  His mind is still buzzing with that lingering haze of love at first sight wondrous surprise.  Eventually he settles for an arrangement of red roses.  Roses were always a safe bet to go with, right? It’s not like Shoko screamed ‘flower lover’ in her offputting demeanor.  As he’s carrying the bouquet to the front, he’s starting to second guess the whole thing.

Shoko would definitely smirk in his face for bringing such a silly gift to her party.  She’d probably start laughing if he told her that he was purposefully waiting for the pretty clerk who’d greeted him to cash him out- wait, what-?

“All set?” 

He tries to cover the way his eyes widen when she slides the project in her vase aside and beckons him to step up to his counter.  The other counter was completely open, and he could feel the way the second clerk stared at him in bewilderment as he’d ignored the universal sign for ‘my register is open’.  But Nanami is not as smooth as he’d like to be, and he can tell by the uptick in the corner of her mouth that she’s amused by his frozen stature.

“Yes- yeah, just this,” He feels like a teenager for stammering over his words, but she pays it no mind.  Her movements are overly gentle as she takes the bundle of roses from his hands, treating the bouquet with the utmost care, as though it were a newborn child.

His eyes glance down the nametag on her apron quickly, hoping she wouldn’t notice his sudden urge to put a name to the pretty face.  (y/n).  Certainly fitting.  Even her apron is embroidered with little colorful threads of cartoonish flowers.  Peeking at the apron of the other employee and finding nothing but a little bee pin secured next to their name tag, he wonders if she embroidered those flowers herself.

“These are beautiful, they’re going to love them,” She’s speaking again and Nanami finds himself standing up a little straighter.  “Would you like them wrapped up in a special way? I have tissue and ribbon” She offers with a smile that has all of the blood rushing towards his face.  He prays it’s not  noticeable.

“Uh- that’s probably not… no, I don’t think so” He replies awkwardly, and she can’t help but laugh a bit at his uncertainty.

“First time buying flowers for someone?” She asks, and he watches as she pulls open a drawer beside her and plucks out a sheet of white tissue paper with just the faintest bits of glitter sparkling on it.

“That obvious?” He mumbles, and he hopes it comes across more playful than embarrassed, but deep down, Nanami knows it’s the latter.

(y/n) chuckles again, expertly crafting the tissue to fit around the bouquet in a flattering way.  She makes it look easy, the way the paper folds to her will neatly.  It’s a simple task, but Nanami knows if he’d tried it himself, the tissue would wrinkle and it wouldn’t look nearly as flattering as she presents it.

“You’re not the first man to pick out the first bouquet of roses he sees,” SHe teases gently.  “No offense though, these are gorgeous.  I have to say I really outdid myself” 

“You grow them all yourself?” Nanami asks, and instantly regrets it.  Is that a stupid question? Do all florists grow their own supply? He hadn’t a clue on the inner workings of the flower market.

“I sure do!” Her reply is cheerful, and the question seems a little less stupid.  “There’s a greenhouse out back, but between you and me,” She lowers her voice like she’s about to tell him a grave secret.  Her eyes lock on his with an intensity Nanami thinks could rival Gojo’s.  “My best work comes from my own garden at home” She confesses.

Nanami can’t help the way it cracks a smile out of him, especially when she grins widely and finishes up his bouquet with a pretty string of red ribbon.  Even the way she curls it with the sharp edge of a pair of shears is done to perfection.  He really had to hand it to her for her craftsmanship.

He pays, making sure to tip a generous amount on the card reader, even if it is purely because she’d seemed to sweep him off his feet in less than two minutes of conversation.

“She’ll be very excited to receive these, they’re absolutely perfect” (y/n) says, handing the bouquet back to him with just as much grace as before.  Nanami finds himself moving slowly, careful not to crinkle a single edge of the tissue.

“I don’t know about that, I don’t think she even likes flowers,” Nanami says as he glances over the red petals smiling up at him.  The implication of the statement doesn’t hit him until a moment too late, and he looks back up at (y/n) almost too quickly, his eyes widened slightly as he tries to backtrack.  “She’s a friend- a, uh, colleague sort of friend.  She’s celebrating something and I… really didn’t know what to bring” It’s a lame explanation, and he finds himself fubbing the back of his neck and hoping he doesn’t come across like some slimy liar trying to cover his tracks.

“Oh! I see.  I just assumed, because, you know…” (y/n) laughs softly as she gestures to the roses.  Nanami follows the gesture before glancing back at her, his confusion evident.  “Cause roses are usually a symbol of romance.  Well, the symbol of romance, really” She explains.

His eyes widen further and she can’t help but laugh a little more.  Everything about her new customer amused her, and she didn’t usually spend so much time chatting with people that weren’t trying to chat with her, but she couldn’t help but want to drag the conversation on just a little bit longer.

“Oh god,” Nanami mutters, staring down at the roses with a newfound dislike for them.  “They’re going to laugh at me” 

“No, no, they won’t,” (y/n) quickly shakes her head.  “I’m sure your friend will think it’s sweet.  She’ll understand.  It’s a very kind gesture” 

He can tell just by looking at her that her words are genuine, she’s not just saying them to make him feel better.  Her eyes gleam as she nods at him encouragingly.

“Alright,” He sighs, giving the roses one last once over to make sure he’s not making a grave mistake.  “But if they laugh I’m not getting the fancy paper next time” 

Her cheeks bloom with color, next time, she repeats in her mind, and there’s an undeniable flutter in her chest at the sentiment.  She nods back at him with certainty.

“If they laugh, then I’ll help you pick out an appropriate bouquet, next time” She promises, and again he can’t explain it, but Nanami knows she absolutely means it.

His smile is soft, so unbelievably velvety soft as he nods and bids her a good day before making his way back out of the shop.

That night as expected, Shoko does make a weird face when he offers up the bouquet of flowers.  She gives him a tease he sees coming from a mile away- ‘Kento, flowers? I didn’t think you would know where to find these’- which makes the rest of the group laugh as well.  He decides he’ll gloss over that fact on his next visit to the flower shop. ___

His second visit to the flower shop, he realizes too late that he doesn’t have a decent reason for picking up a pricey bouquet of flowers.  As he wanders around aimlessly while (y/n’s) busy wrapping another pretty bundle for a customer, he thinks maybe she wouldn’t even ask what the occasion is.

“Hey,” 

And then she’s standing right next to him as he’s eyeing a clump of purple bundles that smells divine.  The smile on her face is one of clear recognition, and it makes his chest warm that she’d remember him, much less approach him first.

“So, what’s the special occasion this time?” 

And of course her first question is that one.  He would smack a hand to his face if it wasn’t so embarrassing.  She’s probably asking because he failed so miserably at picking out a proper bouquet last time, and he has to give her credit for offering him help, even though he’s struggling to come up with a half decent response.

But before he can stop himself, he’s saying,

“It’s my mom’s birthday” 

Which is an odd choice of lie.  He hadn’t seen his mother in years, and her birthday had passed months ago.  But that’s what he comes up with, and it’s not exactly the worst lie, but the cringe he makes as soon as it leaves his mouth isn’t all that hidden.

“That’s nice,” (y/n) beams at the thought.  “Do you know what she likes?” 

The way his face pales answers her question plenty, and she chuckles a bit as her eyes begin to wander the shop.  “No problem, I have just the thing,” She beckons him to follow her as she wanders off a bit.  “She’s an aquarius, so the safe bet is orchids,” 

He’s not even sure what she’s saying, but he nods along like he understands perfectly.

“I have these, if you like white,” She suggests, and he eyes the pretty thin stems with white flowers budding off of them.  Oh, so those were orchids.  Then her eyes light up, and without thinking, she reaches out and places a hand on his arm with her excitement.  “But I just brought in some blue ones from home, it was too cold to keep them there, would you like to see those?” 

He actually doesn’t need any flowers at all, so worrying about the color was far from his mind.

“Blue sounds lovely” He gives her a nod and as he thought she might, she grins before rushing off to the back of the shop.  He blames the way his skin tingles from where her tough had just left him even from under two layers of clothes.

As he slowly makes his way to the front to await her blue orchids, he glances around the shop a bit more.  Every single plant his eyes land on looks like they’ve been loved to the fullest extent.  Bright blooms of color cover every inch of space, every counter, shelf, and hook on the ceiling has a well loved clump of flowers occupying it.  Nanami can name roses and daisies, and he thinks the purple flowers he’d been eyeing earlier was lavender, but most of what fills this shop looks like a completely new plant he’d never discovered before. 

He wonders how much of her life (y/n’s) spent mastering her craft, because clearly, not a single sprout of life looks untouched or forgotten.

“Here you are,” She comes back out with a beam even wider than before as she holds up her precious blue orchids proudly.  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” 

He hums in agreement, his face warm as he barely even casts a glance at the bundle in her hands.  It might be obvious and cheesy, but he can’t exactly help it.

“Or were you looking at something else?” (y/n) asks, nodding to the hanging pot his eyes had been focused on before she’d come back out.  “The star jasmine is also lovely, but they can be tough to take care of at first” 

Again, he barely casts his gaze towards the pot before he’s turning back to her again, an amused little smile on his face.

“Could you really name every plant in here?” He asks, and he knows it’s a dumb question by the way she laughs, loudly, as if he’d made the funniest joke she’s heard in ages.

“Of course I could, it’s my job” She reminds him, and he nods, humming to himself thoughtfully as his gaze flickers across the shop.

“How about those then?” He points to a small pot of pinkish-purple flowers challengingly.  (y/n) glances at them before turning her attention back to him, raising a brow.

“Those would be cosmos” She says slowly, but matter of factly.  Nanami doesn’t necessarily have a way to fact check her, so he quickly points to another pot.

“And those?” 

“Gazanias” She barely had to look at them to give him her answer.

Nanami sighs as he turns back to her in defeat, and her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes.

“Not much fun of a game, is it?” She teases with a quiet laugh.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have underestimated you” He replies, and she shrugs a shoulder at him, her eyes falling to her prized blue orchids in her hands.  Absent-mindedly, she pokes and prods at a few stems, ensuring they were healthy before she passed them off to the handsome customer.

“It’s been a slow afternoon, you could have underestimated me a little longer if you’d like,” She says, only half joking.  Nanami breathes out a laugh of amusement.  He’s not sure if she’s flirting with him or just being playful, but from the way his heart skips a beat he certainly hopes she is flirting.  “Anyways,” (y/n) clears her throat, reminding herself to go back to the task at hand.  “I think your mother would adore these.  I certainly do” 

“Those it is, then” He affirms, and she eagerly circles around the counter, already gathering a few pieces of tissue paper she deemed pretty enough to pair with the rich blues of the flower.

“So now you’re a flower-gifting kind of guy, hm?” She asks him as she carefully wraps the thin sheets around the stems of the orchids.  “The roses must’ve gone over well, then?” 

Nanami chuckles, tucking his hands into his pockets.  More or less, he thinks.

“It might be a bit of a copout, if I’m being honest,” He admits.  “I don’t really know what else to give her.  But I’m an only child, so, I kind of have the responsibility to step it up” 

“That’s alright,” (y/n) hums, her focus completely on making sure the flowers are as presentable as can be.  “Flowers are always a thoughtful gift.  Especially mine, got it?” It’s the only time she looks up at him while wrapping up the orchids, a threatening expression on her face.  “Don’t go to the other shops in town, they’re sellouts, got it?” 

He laughs at her seriousness, before crossing his hand over his chest in an x motion.

“I didn’t know there was a flower shop turf war here in the shopping district” He muses.  (y/n) huffs as she carefully moves about a few stems so each one would fall just so.

“Well, there is,” She mumbles like an afterthought.  

There’s the tiniest of creases between her brows, and Nanami wants to tell her not to worry so much over this bouquet, seeing as he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with it once he’s home, but he has a feeling the sentiment would fall on deaf ears.  She seems quite lost in her arranging.

“And besides, I gotta make sure I have loyal customers, don’t I?” She adds once she’s finished, and her serious expression crumbles into one of softness as she gazes up at him again.

“Whatever it takes” Nanami hums in agreement.  He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too foolishly, but he’s not sure it helps his case. 

“What’s your name, anyways?” 

He’s not sure why, but the simple question takes him aback, as though it were as forward as asking for his phone number.  He hesitates too long, he knows by the way she lightly raises a brow at the way he pauses before he answers.

“Nanami, Kento” Even his answer is slow, but she hums and nods at him nonetheless, as though engraving it to memory on the spot.

“Nanami Kento,” 

She extends her hand as she repeats the name, and it takes every ounce of will he has left to keep a shiver from crawling down his spine.  He didn’t think his name could sound so sweet on another person’s voice before.  He raises his hand to shake hers politely, trying not to focus too hard on how soft her small hand feels when fitted against his.  His noticeably larger hand encases hers almost completely.

“I’m (y/l/n) (y/n),” She introduces, as if her name hadn’t been circling around his mind in the couple of weeks since he’d last been here.  “But everyone just calls me (y/n)” 

“Alright, (y/n),” He muses, and he wonders if she’d felt just as warm repeating his name as he did finally saying hers aloud.  “You can just call me Kento, then” 

She smiles, and the color in her cheeks is undeniable.  He almost forgets to release her hand.

Once the orchids are perfectly bundled up, she passes them across the counter, the tips of her fingers just barely brushing over his knuckles as they both handle the bouquet with great care.

“How much do I owe you for these?” 

“Oh, they’re on the house,” She waves a dismissive hand, and she can tell by the way he frowns that he’s going to argue, so she’s quick to keep speaking.  “They’re not even in inventory, they won’t be missed.  They’ll be of much better use as a gift to your mother, anyways” 

“I don’t consider that fair-” 

“I won’t accept a single cent,” She tells him boldly, her hands on her hips, and he wonders if this is her idea of scolding.  That cute furrow in her brow and the slight pout on her lips as she glares at him.  It’s downright adorable and yet again, she’s seized his heart.  “Now go, you can’t arrive late on your own mother’s birthday” She waves her hand in a shooing motion towards the door.

God, he’s going to hell for this lie.

“Alright, alright,” He chuckles as he backs away, slowly heading for the door.  “I’ll let you know how much she loves them” 

(y/n) leans across the counter as she watches him go, her face burning with her lingering blush as she shamelessly admires him while he’s not looking.

“Come back soon, Kento!” She calls just as he’s stepped out.

He turns just as the door shuts behind him, catching her eye through the front window.  She’s smiling with utter glee as she waves at him, and this time he can’t hold back his smile as he waves back. ___

The third time he enters the flower shop, he has a better lie in mind.  The ruse of gift giving had worked perfectly so far, he might as well stick with it.

“Nanami Kento!” 

(y/n) welcomes him by name as soon as he walks in, and a rush of warmth spreads over him so quickly he thinks the other clerk working beside her is chuckling to themselves because of him.

(y/n) says something to her coworker before coming around the corner to approach him properly.  Her hair is tied in a messy bun on top of her head today, and it appeared she’d had some fun with a few little flowers sticking out of it.  He smiles as he admires the adorable look before he greets her.

“Afternoon, (y/n),” He replies warmly.  “Do you actually do any real work here?” He asks, nodding to the endearingly chaotic hairstyle.

“It pays to have a job you enjoy, right?” She asks.  “What do you do? Are you a time traveler?” She giggles through the question, the sound tinkly and so, so cute he thinks his knees could give out.

When she gestures back at him, it dawns on him that he’s left his sunglasses on his face.  He’s quick to pluck them off and tuck them into the pocket on the inside of his jacket.

“They’re odd, I know” He says, and hopes she won’t press further questions.  He’s had to lie about enough, what he does for work is an enigma even to him some days.

“I like em,” She shrugs.  “They make your whole business man thing look a bit more… steampunk” She waves her hands around the rest of his attire, and he can’t help but chuckle as he glances down at himself.

When he’d gone into the workforce he found he had preferred a business casual look more than the stuffy scratchy collars of the typical sorcerer’s uniform.  He’d matured a lot in that time, too, and after outgrowing his… emo… phase, found that a little pop of collar looked better on him than being swamped in black.

What’s funny was that what she called business man, Gojo liked to call flashy.

“Steampunk?” He repeats curiously.  “In a good way or a bad way?” 

“Depends,” She shrugs again, eyeing him skeptically.  “Are you planning on buying a bouquet today?” 

“I was, yes” He nods.

“Then in a good way,” She grins, and when he rolls his eyes at her in good nature, she only laughs more.  “Well tell me, who’s the lucky recipient this time?”

If he could get away with it, he’d happily stare at the way she smiles at him for hours.  Her hands clasped behind her back, the way her pretty eyes peer up at him from under her lashes, small splashes of color swirling within (y/e/c) irises.  Nanami can’t recall the last time he’d taken such a strong favor over another person, and in this moment if you’d asked, he’d tell you he’d never felt anything of the sort.  But her lips are plump and glossy today, and seeing them curled upwards so warmly, and for him, it has him in a chokehold.

He was growing so fond of her he almost couldn’t stand it anymore.  He could almost see that line he was trying not to trip across, because if he did step over it and into the unknown freefall that was complete and utter adoration… the thought terrifies him.

The invisible rose colored glasses that remained perched on his nose drove him to murmuring out today’s white lie before thinking about the credibility of it.

“My sister,” He finally answers.  “She’s got a promotion at work, and now I know the perfect secret in gift giving for women-” 

“I thought you were an only child?” 

Her brow furrows just slightly as she interrupts him with her question, a curiosity flickering over her features that has Nanami paling in an instant.  A part of him wants to be flattered that she’d remembered such a minor detail about his life that he’d given her a couple of weeks ago, but the anxiety that encompasses him as she’s caught him in his lie is a far more looming feeling.  He can feel sweat prick on the back of his neck right away.

The longer he hesitates to answer, the more expectant the look on her face is.  Slowly her eyebrows begin to raise, and her head tilts to the side ever so slightly.

“I… I am,” He starts slowly, hoping to stall until he finds the right explanation.  “I don’t know why I said that, um, what I… what I meant to say…” Unfortunately, he was as bad at stalling as he is at lying.

Through his terrible stammering, (y/n’s) perplexed expression starts to morph into something else.  The corner of her lips quirk up before she bites back her smile, pressing her lips together in a thin line.  She tries to hide it, but her smile is evident in the way her cheekbones raise, and the corners of her eyes crinkle ever so slightly.  She’s amused.  And Nanami’s not sure what startles him more, being caught in the lie, or the way she’s entertained by his scrambling.

“Nanami Kento, if you want to pop in just to see me, you can,” She tells him, and when she speaks there’s no chance of concealing the way her smile brightens her entire face.  “You don’t have to make up a sister just to come in” 

There’s some relief in knowing she isn’t upset, but it’s quickly eaten up by his nerves from her blatant tease.  His collar feels hot on his neck, and he’s certain that as soon as he leaves, he’ll have to loosen his tie.

It doesn’t help that the other clerk in the store had been obviously watching the entire interaction behind a large display vase of carnations.  Here and there they’d been snickering into their hand, surely also entertained by how terrible at this Nanami is.

“You’re right, I… I don’t know why I did that,” He chuckles bashfully.  (y/n) only glows brighter upon him fessing up to it.  “I did just… want to come and see you” 

She rocks on her feet a few times, her cheeks beginning to bloom with color.

“Well I’m glad you did,” She admits softly.  “You’re my favorite customer, you know” 

Nanami cracks a smile at that, some of the nerves starting to melt away the more he entertains the idea of crossing the blurring line between them.

“That simply can’t be true, I’ve only ever bought one bouquet” He reminds her, and she laughs a bit at the reminder.

“Alright, so you’re a flaky customer, but my favorite nonetheless,” She compromises.  “Besides, you said you were picking one up today, no takesies backsies” 

“Are you five?” He chuckles, but she waves her hand dismissively, ignoring the comment completely.

“What are you looking for today, Kento?” She changes the subject.

He thinks to himself for a moment, eyes flickering around the shop to see what stuck out to him.

Nanami Kento wasn’t necessarily a shy man, but he wasn’t the man that made the bold move.  That would be Gojo.  He also wasn’t the one to play coy until the other party eventually gave in either.  That was Shoko’s move.  Even after having a few short relationships or flings throughout the years, he never really made the first move.  Things sort of just… happened.

Now, he thinks it might be just the right time to make the bold move.

He still has to take a deep breath before he does, though.

“Depends,” He muses, glancing back at her.  “Which do you like best? I want to give you the right arrangement before dinner”  ___

bonus: 

They’re standing at the entrance to her building when she finally brings up the elephant in the room that had followed them for the entire evening.

“You know, it’s pretty corny to give me flowers that I grew from my store” 

“It was a good line, sweetheart, I’m going to stand by that,” He chuckles back at her.  “And you picked them” He adds, gesturing to the pretty bouquet of lilies of the valley tucked carefully in her arm.

“Forgive me for not being able to turn down pretty flowers from a handsome man” She replies playfully, and for once he manages to maintain control of himself as he gives her a gentle smile.

“Do you flirt with all of your customers to keep them coming back?” He replies coolly, and the giggle that escapes her is anything but coy.  Just pure, genuine joy.

She settles the bouquet safely in her arms before tilting forward on the tips of her toes.  It does little to nothing to shorten their height difference, but she’s close enough now that Nanami can practically taste the strawberry on her breath left from their dessert.  Common sense escapes him briefly as he follows suit, bending closer almost all the way.  The sudden movement startles her, her eyes widening and falling to watch his lips, curious if he’d actually kiss her so suddenly.  She smiles when he pauses just before his lips could touch hers, and her gaze flickers back up to his eyes.

“No,” She answers his question in a breath of a whisper.  “Just my favorite ones” 

He chuckles a bit at the cheeky answer, but he’s over the playful banter.  His hand, calloused, but warm and welcoming, reaches out to her chin, fingers gently tipping her head upwards just a little more, before he slides his palm across her cheek.

The question is on the tip of his tongue, but her eyes are already fluttering shut and she’s already closing the remaining space between them.  He supposes when her lips blindly land on his, he doesn’t need to ask for permission to kiss her goodnight. ___

xoxo ~ jordie