#nothing to show for it. only pictures i took now. sigh

[furioussouls]

LADS boys as strict professors who only have a soft spot for their wife

with [chubby reader]

Warnings: tooth- rotting fluff, chubby fem! reader

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, they are from the game "love and deepspace" by InFold. All lore references and worldbuilding belong solely to the creators.

requested by a sweet anon (hope it lived up to your expectations :3)

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Xavier:

Xavier's students know their professor to be the best hunter to ever exist; he was agile, capable, strategic, strong and yet gentle in the face of danger. He's open to every single question, he won't make you feel bad about yourself for asking even the most obvious questions and adds enough physical practice to balance out his thorough lectures. However, he's also one of the more intimidating professors that teaches the new generation of hunters; he'll disarm threats in the blink of an eye while his face remained the same neutral expression. His students have never seen a person fight as well as he has. He's not the type of man you'd want to piss off. Sometimes when they're staring into his emotionless face, they feel an icy shudder run down their backs.

Xavier stood in front of his students in his usual business casual attire and explained the proper strategy of defending oneself in a battle where everything seemed hopeless.

"Let's assume you're in the middle of a battle and you're too exhausted or hurt to continue, what's the next step? Yes, you." Xavier nodded at one student, who was raising his hand.

"You need to try to adapt your fighting style to your current level of exhaustion and you must-"

"No", Xavier interrupted the student quietly and looked through the room to find somebody else willing to participate but nobody else raised their hand. Xavier sighed softly and ran his hand through his blonde hair.

"Retreat. If you're too exhausted to keep fighting, you must retreat. If you're unable to because you're surrounded or in the middle of a dangerous situation- trust in your partner. They're supposed to back you up and be dependable."

His students looked at each other in confusion. Trust your partner? That's the answer?

One student raised their brow and hesitantly lifted their hand. Xavier noticed the hand and perked up. He took off his round glasses and pointed with them to the student, who raised their hand.

"Excuse me if I'm overstepping, Professor, but who was your partner?" The student asked some of the other ones looked up at him curiously.

"Ah", Xavier exclaimed and slowly blushed a beet- red. The sides of his mouth tugged up until his mouth split into a soft grin. His pearly white teeth were exposed and he scratched the back of his neck. "Well, that would be my wife. We were partners- I mean we still are. But in more ways than one now." He stammered and cleared his throat.

"Is she a good hunter?", asked one student.

"Oh yes, she is. She's so capable and strong, cute as well. Our fighting styles complete each other so well and we always depend on each other during battles. It's a great feeling to trust your partner this freely." He gushed with a soft smile. He opened up his phone and showed the lockscreen picture of you; it was your cute chubby self wrapped in the lanky arms of Xavier.

Some of his students giggled, which caused Xavier to blush and clear his throat. He put his phone away and continued with his lecture. The students that believed Xavier to be the craziest alpha male hunter are now upset that their hero is nothing more than a little puppy for his wife.

Zayne:

Zayne stood in front of his nervous students. He was dressed up in a suit, not one bit out of place; his black hair sitting perfectly, his black tie sitting smugly against his chest. Even his shoes were clean and polished. He really was as perfect as people made him out to be. He was one of the youngest cardiac surgeons at Akso hospital and is holding lectures about the human heart. Zayne sighed and pushed his glasses closer to his face with his long, scarred fingers.

"I understand some of you had questions about the assignment", said Zayne, his voice soft and deep.

One student hesitantly raised their hands and swallowed when Zayne raised his hand toward him and nodded. "Well the material is a bit.. difficult to understand, since we're only in our second semester."

Zayne tilted his head and seemed to consider his students words, his eyebrows furrowed so hard that a wrinkle formed in between them. The student swallowed, he hoped he hadn't ruined his chances with one of the most influencial doctors of his time.

"I understand the feedback, but I am not sure how much easier I can make it for you. The material is very limited. I shall look for better ones but I can't promise-", a soft knock interrupted Zayne and he turned towards the door.

"Excuse me, Professor Zayne?", your round body walked through the door with a bento box. Zayne's strict face softened immediately and he called out your name. "What are you doing here?", he asked you softly as his cheeks bloomed into a soft pink. You handed him his bento box and told him that you would go on a mission for a few days and that you wanted to see him off in person.

Zayne swallowed and the side of his mouth gently tugged up as he looked at the box. "Thank you very much, dear."

Dear? His students jaw dropped and they looked at each other in disbelief. Did that just really happen? Did Dr. Professor Zayne just call you dear while blushing? You waved at the students and they waved back at you incredulously.

Zayne cleared his throat and nodded "We were just talking about the assignment I assigned. Apparently it's.. too complicated."

You raised an eyebrow at him "Well, I hope you took their criticism seriously. I'll be off then. Have fun, guys", you winked at them and walked out the door.

Zayne cleared his throat and smoothed over his shirt after he sat his bento box down on the table. "I'll find some easier reading material for you and readjust the difficulty level of the assignment", he agreed softly and smiled at your lunchbox.

His students chuckled amonst themselves. Hopefully you'd drop by more often. They certainly wouldn't mind.

Rafayel:

Rafayel stood in front of his students' paintings and examined them with furrowed eyebrows. He hated this process, because art is not something that can just be graded like any other subject. It is deeply individual and personal to everybody and it feels wrong to grade such personal pieces. However, he is so damn bored with all these pieces. They're all missing that little something, of course all of these drawings are objectively good; a nice understanding of colour theory and shadows and applying different techniques and methods. All of it was good, but it was artficial and it felt too clean. Not authentic enough.

Rafayel sighed and raked his beautiful hands through his fluffy hair. He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling.

Some of his students rolled their eyes at his familiar dramatic antics and others gulped and fidgeted nervously with their fingers. They all knew of Rafayel, of course. He was one of the most popular artists of his time and his works are phenomenal. It would be horrible if a brilliant man like him were to tell his young, sweet students how horrific their art is.

Rafayel stood up and walked through the room. He was as graceful as a gazelle, his button up shirt tugged neatly into his black pants.

"All of you have passed, you were all good.", he exclaimed in a bored tone.

The fidgeting stopped and the students looked up at him with in shock. "Really?"

"Yes. All of you have a great understanding of your preferred style and you did well", he yawned and turned to face all of his students "However, I'm not impressed. You have all passed this final, so create something better for me. This one won't be graded and it has no deadline. Just create something for me, something that really inspires you. Not something you can just paint well. Find a muse and paint it multiple times in different art styles and mediums, let your creativity flow. None of my students will turn out to be just a conventially acceptable artist." Rafayel shuddered at the thought and looked at the faces of his students.

One of them raised their hand "What would be a good example of a muse?"

Rafayel hummed and tapped his finger on the table "Anything you want; music, sadness, your dog, nature, your fashion style... people. My muse would be my wife." Rafayel smiled softly and rummaged through his bag. He pulled out his notebook and revealed you; he painted and drew you in many different art styles, backgrounds and positions. Your plush body always wore a soft blue gown, and your hair was styled the same way. His art looked real. Not necessarily because he was painting you in Realism, but more because of thelove and passion he felt for you.

Rafayel smiled softly and gently stroked over the pages. "This is what I want from you."

Sylus:

Sylus was a business professor. He wasn't necessarily a mean professor, but my god was he intimidating. Sylus stood in front of his students in his all black outfit. His piercingly red eyes stared into the crowd and he smirked softly.

"Hmmm", he hummed, his voice husky and gravelly. "Nobody knows the answer to my question?

"I thought it might be answer a)", a voice squeaked out and Sylus checked his notes and nodded at the student. "Very good, thats the right answer."

Sylus knows he comes off as a strict man, he really isn't though. He's also a very forgiving grader but he also knows his attitude comes off as intimidating to his students, even if he doesn't mean to be.

Sylus' phone chimed three times and he looked down; 'My sweetie' was calling. A bright smile spread on his face and he turned to his students "Excuse me, it's my wife. Hello, sweetie. Yes, I folded the laundry before I left. It should be on your bed. I left some of them on the heater so your sweater would be warm and cozy for you. Yes, the oversized one. You're welcome, honey. How was your day so far? Oh, good. I saw you packed me lunch before you left, thank you. You're the best wife one could ask for. Oh what I'm doing right now? I'm supposed to hold a lecture and answer questions", A few beats passed and Sylus chuckled deeply at your embarassed and quick rambles and turned to his students. "Alright, alright. My wife says I'm supposed to hang up now, so I'll do that. Goodbye, sweetie. I'll see you later. I love you", he hangs up his phone and smiled.

"She sounds lovely, doesn't she? I hope you all will experience the love that she has for me." Sylus said dreamily and looked back down on his answers. "Does anybody know the answer to the next question?"

Some of his students looked at each other and giggled loudly. More students started to participate during his lectures now and Sylus thankfully fell into a more comfortable rhythm with his students, and it was all thanks to you. You make everything better, you seriously do.

Caleb:

Caleb is a Professor of Flight Engineering and is licensed to give his students their pilot certificate. He is known as "the iciest Pilot and Professor" amongst his students. He teaches them both the practical and the theoretical experience that they need. Caleb is not a mean Professor, but he's definitely a strict one. He allows no disrespect towards himself or any of his students and expects his students to give their best at all times. If that "best" is only 60%, then he'll only expect 60% from you, but nothing less.

Caleb stood in front of his exhausted student. He stared at him neutrally, but not unkindly and asked "What's this piece of the engine called?" Caleb pointed at the tiny piece of metal.

His student sighed, his shoulders sagged and went back into the push-up position.

"20 push-ups, this time. You can do better than this, next week I'll ask you the same questions so study harder, alright?", Caleb turned around and asked his other students the some questions as well.

The same student walked in the park later in the afternoon with his girlfriend. He looked around and pointed at two people "Look, babe! That's my Professor Caleb." Both of them walked towards Caleb and his student's jaw dropped.

Caleb was... smiling? His lips were stretched into a bright smile as he twirled your thick body around. He looked up at you and grinned like a lovesick fool, his eyes only one step away from turning into two little hearts. Your hand was wrapped around his necklace and you pulled him closer to you like a dog and he chuckled and buried his face in your shoulder. Calebs nose gently traced along your collarbone and his strong hands wrapped around as the warm spring breeze gently drifted over your hair. The sun shone over the both of you and lit your faces up. The two of you looked straight out of a painting.

Caleb noticed his student and smiled at him and his girlfriend "Hello". You turned around and smiled at the two as well and looked up at Caleb in confusion. "That's my student", Caleb explained and kissed your forehead. You smiled and them and held out your hand "Hi, I'm his wife."

His student looked at you incredulously and shook your hand.

[yelenabemylova]

birthday - jeong yunho x fem!reader

summary: celebrating the clock hitting midnight on your boyfriend's birthday with dancing (suggested listening), and cake, 1.6k wc

warnings: so much tooth rotting fluff, suggestive ending, calling yunho 'pup', he cries a little (of happiness)

latest yunho fic // ateez masterlist

yunho had been performing on stage tonight, which gave you the perfect opportunity to go shopping for his birthday. even though he assured you over and over he didn't need you to get him anything, you wanted to show him how much you loved him regardless.

unfortunately, he had another concert scheduled on his birthday, so you wouldn't get to spend much of the day with him, but you promised you'd make it up to him afterwards. this was your first time celebrating his birthday together, so you wanted it to be special.

as the door to your apartment opened, you jumped a little, not expecting yunho and yeosang to be back so early. scrambling to hide the wrapping paper and presents under the kitchen table, you greeted them both with a hug, and gave your boyfriend a quick kiss on the cheek.

“so, how was the show?” you asked the pair, who looked utterly exhausted. “yeosang got me a birthday cake!” yunho perked up as he lay his bag down on the counter, pulling out a white box. “only a little one, for tonight. i didn't want to interfere with any official plans,” yeosang was glad he bought the smaller size, noticing your visible sigh of relief.

“ah, ah,” yeosang swatted yunho's hands away from the knife block, “it's not your birthday yet,” he pointed to the clock. the blonde sighed dramatically, sitting on one of the wooden chairs and pretending to faint, the back of his hand covering his forehead.

giggling at his antics, you took his hand in yours, gently brushing your lips against his fingertips, causing the tips of his ears to blush a dark red. “i’ll be back at midnight, don't cut the cake without me!” yeosang went to go shower, giving the two of you some space.

yunho walked over to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water as you jumped up to sit on the counter. he tilted his head back as he drank, his throat bobbing each time he swallowed. slowly, he made his way over to you, gently parting your knees to stand between them.

“hi,” his voice was but a mere whisper, tickling the inside of your ear. “hi,” you suddenly felt shy under his gaze, looking down instead. frowning, he placed his finger under your chin, tilting your head up and admiring your bashful grin, subconsciously mimicking your expression.

the atmosphere in the kitchen felt almost fuzzy, the clock seemingly frozen in time as you studied the details speckled within each other's irises. you noticed the light from behind you highlighting the flecks of different colours in his eyes, shimmering as though magic was attempting to escape them.

suddenly, the cuckoo clock startled the two of you, announcing that it was now midnight. “happy birthday, pup,” you pressed your lips against yunho's, feeling his cheeks heat up at the pet name.

“thank you, jagiya,” he rested his forehead against yours, catching his breath. “should we call yeosang in to cut the cake?” you asked him, glancing towards his closed door. yunho shook his head, “not yet, just want to be with you first.”

you were quick to pull your phone out, connecting to the speakers and playing ‘reflecting light’ by paloma fellowes, a tune he recognised from the first few notes, “it's our song,” he muttered, feeling his heart burst. jumping off the counter, you held out your hand, “care to dance, jeong yunho?”

the smile that took over his face was endearing, the tilt of his head nothing short of adorable. he placed his hand in yours, resting his chin atop the crown of your head as he pulled you into him. his arm around your waist was secure, and he held your hand close to his chest.

yeosang walked out of his room momentarily, spotting the romantic moment and snapping a quick picture. he turned off the lights, allowing the window to be your only source of illumination.

together, you swayed in the moonlight, giving yeosang a quick smile of appreciation before he disappeared back into his room, allowing you to have your moment with each other. “i love you,” you rested your head against your boyfriend's chest, hearing his heartbeat speed up at your confession.

no matter how many times you told him, he'd still feel as lovesick as he did the first time he heard you say it. “i love you, pretty girl,” he responded, just as he did when you initially declared your feelings for him. never had he felt such a strong pull to someone before, and the feeling only intensified with each passing day.

as the song drew to a close, you picked up the vase from underneath the table, taking out the bouquet of flowers and handing it to him. his eyes immediately filled with tears, and panic coursed through your veins at the sight.

“i’m so sorry, i don't know what i was-” he interrupted your nervous rambling with the most passionate kiss you had ever shared with him, every ounce of his heart being poured into this one moment, quieting your racing thoughts. “nobody has ever given me flowers before, thank you,” he grabbed your shoulders and kissed you again, “thank you.”

his reaction was touching, and you couldn't imagine why nobody had given the most romantic loverboy flowers before. “i picked an assortment of your favourites,” you grinned up at him, admiring the way he looked between you and the arrangement in his hand.

carefully, he placed them into the vase now back on the table, and cupped your face in his hands, “this is the most thoughtful gift i’ve ever received,” he leaned down to press his lips to your forehead, a tear slipping from his eyes and landing on the side of your face.

you stood on your tiptoes to gently wipe his tears from his wet cheeks with your thumbs, brushing his eyelids with your lips. the gratitude you both felt for each other in that moment radiated throughout the room, and it felt as if pure feelings alone could cast a spell of eternal adoration.

the lights blinded you momentarily when yeosang turned them back on, yunho instinctively raising his hand to cover your eyes and giving yeosang a stern look. the younger of the two raised his hands in silent defence, giggling at yunho's fake air punch.

your boyfriend removed his hand from your face, giving you a soft peck between your eyes before skipping over to the fridge to pull out his cake. yeosang offered him a knife, but yunho shook his head, allowing him to cut the cake for him.

“wait, we need to put candles on first,” you remembered, rushing over to the cabinet and pulling out a small box. placing the numbers on the cake, you lit the wicks and watched yunho make his wish before gently blowing over the flames.

yeosang cut you all a piece of the cake, walking over to answer the door to see who had knocked at this hour. “what did you wish for?” you asked yunho as he pulled you into his side, cheering as the six boys walked into the kitchen, wishing him a happy birthday.

“i can't tell you, or it won't come true,” he winked at you, before walking over to hug all of his fellow group members. you chuckled to yourself, also going over to greet the boys, “you're all just in time for some cake!” they all immediately flocked around the table, begging yeosang to cut them each a slice.

yunho was staring at you from across the room, and when you noticed, the both of you blushed and looked away, embarrassed. “hey! birthday boy first!” you told yeosang, shooing the others away from the cake until your boyfriend claimed his piece.

he sat down on a chair, pulling you into his lap. holding up his plastic fork to your mouth, he offered you some cake, “for my beautiful angel, who has already made this the most special birthday of my life.” you felt your cheeks burn at his words, quickly accepting his offer, you ate the cake on his fork, before burying your face in the crook of his neck.

“i’m so glad you're happy, pup,” you gently scratched the back of his neck, feeling the blood rush to it as you spoke. he offered you a strawberry from his plate, a little cream on the edge of it. the mischievous grin on your face went unnoticed by him as you quickly darted to scoop up the cream with your finger, dabbing it on the tip of his nose.

his fake pout caused your heart to melt, and you gently kissed away the cream, yunho seizing the opportunity to place some on your nose instead. “jeong yunho!” you exclaimed, for he misjudged the amount on his finger before he swiped it onto you, dropping a considerable amount onto your t-shirt.

“oh no,” he drew out his words, “now you have to take it off.” lightly hitting his arm, you climbed off of his lap and went into his room, looking for a clean shirt of his to change into. you pulled the dirty one over your head, discarding it into the laundry basket before rummaging through yunho's wardrobe.

a pair of arms circling around your waist made you jump, but your boyfriend's touch was familiar enough to you to recognise it. “hi, jagi,” he turned you around in his arms, his grip on your waist strong. “hi, yuyu,” you stared up at him through your lashes, feeling a little shy when his eyes darted down to glance at your bra-clad chest.

he licked his lips, and his pupils were slowly darkening his previously vibrant irises as he took in your figure, “can i have my wish now?”

please reblog, it really helps us authors !!

[yall-batman-fanfic]

She’s Not My Girlfriend | Bruce Wayne/Batman x OC!Magician

Synopsis: Bruce has brought Vivian over to many events during their relationship, and right after they got married—the first one—he forgets that Gotham doesn’t know they were married.

Lights flashing, people shouting “Mr. Wayne!” “Bruce Wayne!” and cameras pointing at the direction of the car. Though it was just a small gala, it felt like the entire world was watching them, and maybe it was because she was sure to see Gotham News and the Daily Planet live cameras there, and not to mention the hosts that would soon post videos, photos, and surprise interviews that would happen in that short walk to the building.

How does a walk to the event hall feel like forever just to get inside?

The sudden kiss on her cheek broke Vivian from her reverie and turned to Bruce who was smiling at her reassuringly.

“You ready, Mrs. Wayne?” He asked.

Vivian blushed and turned down to her finger. For tonight, she only wore her engagement ring despite them already being married—on paper and in the eyes of Alfred, Dick, Clark, Diana, and Lois—but because it was a secret wedding, they had to hide their wedding bands and keep the fact that they were still not legally husband and wife.

“Ready, Mr. Pryor,” Vivian smiled.

Bruce leaned in and kissed her, this time on her lips, and he held her cheek and craned his head to the side to kiss her properly and deeply. Vivian was sure that the cameras outside could see a silhouette of them kissing and were taking as many shots as possible.

“Maybe I should have Alfred take us home instead?” Vivian jokes.

“Not a bad idea. Maybe we should,” Bruce continued to kiss her. “We should be on our honeymoon by now. Not work or going to galas and parties.”

“In a month, Mr. Wayne. Once we’re Gotham official,” Vivian laughed and kissed him one last time before beckoning him to open the door.

The moment he did, Vivian sighed and thought: they should have brought Dick.

Stepping out of the car, Vivian took Bruce’s hand and held on tight to it as they walked the red carpet, passing many photographers and reporters, until they had to stop and let the crowd have their pictures. The entire time, Bruce either held her hand or had an arm around her waist to show their strong and loving relationship, that is until he was called by many reporters to answer some questions.

“Mr. Wayne, Mr. Wayne! A word about Queen Industries’ move in expanding their defense line? I heard they’re tapping into one of Wayne Enterprises’ biggest clients. What does WE have to say about that?” 

Seeing it was a business question, Vivian had Bruce approach the reporter alone as she stood at the back. If it were any fluff-piece question about their engagement or wedding plans, she would go with him but if it was about their work, she would let him go at it alone just as he would let her take the center camera alone for questions about her work.

As Bruce gave his answer regarding the supposed heated competition between Queen Industries and Wayne Enterprises, Vivian was called by one of the reporters.

“Vivian Pryor! What are you wearing for your wedding?” 

“Have you decided what the venue will be and when’s the date?”

“Is it a private wedding or are you inviting big names?”

With those questions she was planning to wear nothing to her wedding and have it in their bedroom with only herself and her husband, but she pushed back the snarky response and approached them with a smile and give an answer: “Really? Wedding talks?” 

“It’s what the people want,” the reporter shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Vivian sighed. “But just as our publicist told us, I can’t say anything about the wedding just yet.”

“Is Richard Grayson going to be a part of it?”

“If Dick made the announcement, then he’s sure going to be there.”

After a couple of more questions, Vivian stepped back and waited for Bruce to finish with his interviews and shots for the cameras. In the middle of it, she heard someone call out: “Can we get one with your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Bruce called out to that person as he looked for Vivian. It was when they met eyes that Bruce realized his mistake.

“Right, sorry, man. I mean your fiance,” said the photographer.

Vivian let out a sigh of relief as she went to Bruce’s side and whispered to his year, “That was a close call. I wonder who Ronnie would say if we let everyone know about it here?”

“She’ll be having a field day and my ear will fall off from the endless sermons,” Bruce kissed her cheek. “How long again?”

“A month… then I get to be Mrs. Pryor-Wayne, officially.”

“And we’ll be on our honeymoon.”

~ * ~

Back in the manor, as soon as they went in, they were greeted by Dick who was looking at them with a teasing grin on his face and was still wearing his Robin uniform.

“I saw that,” Dick said to them.

“Really? You don’t say,” Vivian sighed.

“And I thought you don’t make mistakes,” Dick told Bruce.

“I said I can’t make mistakes, doesn’t mean I don’t,” Bruce grumbled.

“AHA!” 

“Okay, okay,” Vivian came between the two men. “You. Bed. Now,” she told Dick.

“Come on, Vivian!” Dick whined. 

“It’s early in the morning now. Go, you have school tomorrow! And stop teasing Bruce, you know he doesn’t have that patience.”

“Fine. Night!” Dick walked up the stairs and disappeared down the hall. 

Walking towards Bruce, who was pouring her a glass of scotch, she wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed her cheek onto his back. Bruce smiled in her embrace, his smile grew when he felt the wedding band on around her finger. She’s conjured it with magic from her jewelry box in their bedroom. She knew how much he loves seeing her wear it, and how it turns him on too. And maybe that was her plan because the next he knew, Vivian was unbuckling his belt and reading in his trousers to palm him through his underwear.

“Is that why you had Dick go to bed?” Bruce chuckled. He placed down the glass and held her arm to lead her further down, while his other hand held leverage on the wall in front of him.

“You kept whining about our honeymoon, I thought why not I give you a little teaser,” Vivian purred in his ear. He could only imagine her getting on her toes just to reach over his shoulder.

He let out a breathy groan when she slipped her hand in his underwear and started to rub him with a pressured grip and ran her thumb over the head. 

They stayed there, by the wall, Bruce holding onto the wall as she gave him a hand job. His grip on the table and on her arm became the only leverage he had. He tried not to be too hard on his hold on her, he didn’t want to leave any bruises, but he didn’t know where to hold onto. Then he came, a lot in her hand.

Vivian didn’t stop rubbing him until his spasms stopped, and only then did she pull her hand out and licked her fingers that were covered with his cum. 

“So, do you want to take this up stairs, here, or the stairs?” Vivian offered, as she continued to suck on her fingers to clean them.

In a swift motion, Bruce had her off the ground, her legs wrapped around him as he settled them on the couch. “Here,” he said. “I can’t wait that long.”

“I can get us there now,” Vivian smirked as he started to unzip her dress and have the top fall, showing her breasts to him.

“It’ll take too long,” he said as ran his thumb over one of her nipples. 

“It’ll only take a second,” she moaned as he continued to toy with her breasts.

“Not fast enough,” he moved his hand under her dress and moved her underwear to the side. “I’m not the only one who's enjoying this.”

“What can I say? What you told that reporter earlier turned me on,” She kissed him deeply.

“And I thought I was the one who wasn’t patient.”

“Shut up, Wayne,” she lowered herself around him, taking him fully, she didn’t stop until he was completely inside her. “You’re not the only one who wants to jump on our honeymoon.”

“A month, Pryor. We have a month left,” he mocked her with her own words.

Vivian started to move her hips, sending shocks of pleasure around them. “Say it again?”

“What?”

“Am I your girlfriend, Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce smirked, “No, you’re not,” he released her hair from its styled bun and grabbed a fistful of her hair and said, “You’re my wife,” and kissed her fiercely. 

[alphalesbian]

.

[alienzil]

Nanny Danny

“That is a whole ass baby,” was the only thought running through Lex Luthor’s head when the scientist proudly showed him the tube containing Project KR. It was not remotely the sort of thing he would normally think and most definitely not what he had expected to be thinking the first time he saw the clone.

He’d been pleased when he’d read the reports indicating the success of KR after years of failures. Lex had poured millions of dollars and literally his own blood into ensuring a clone of the alien could be made, one that would be under his total control instead of the unknown aspirations of Superman.  He’d wanted to see the fruits of his labors personally but this…

It. No, not an it. He scrunched his tiny face and smacked his lips and…did he smirk? Was that HIS SMIRK on that baby’s face?! No. No. Babies this small didn’t smile or smirk. They passed gas and their sleep deprived and addled parents mistook it for an intelligent response. He’d heard enough inane conversations in the Lexcorp office about the various progeny of his employees to pick up on that but still. This child had Kryptonian DNA, not to mention his own contribution. Surely, he was far more advanced than the dribbling potato shaped lump of an infant whose pictures he’d been forced to smile and nod over when Mark from accounting had rudely shoved them in his face at the last quarterly budget meeting. Yes, that was definitely a smirk. His, that was his smirk.

“So as you can see its growth is well within expected parameters and we’re planning to start phase one of accelerating the maturation process tomorrow once the testing is do-”

“Take him out.”

“Sir? The testing can all be accomplished while it remains in the tube. There’s no need to-”

“I said, take him out. The project is cancelled.”

“What?! Mr. Luthor you can’t!”

“I think you’ll find I can. Now get me my son.”

*****

Two years later

“Call them again”

“Sir, I’ve called them seven times. They won’t answer.”

“Then call another agency!”

“There isn’t another agency, Sir”

Lex glared at his assistant who stared back at him impassively. Mercy stood by the door staring off into the distance and pretending she didn’t notice him being bested by his own secretary.

He stopped himself from shouting again and took a deep breath before asking, “Then what, exactly, do you propose I do Mrs. Anderson? Adjust my entire schedule around naptimes? Find a toddler size lab coat and safety goggles and bring my son with me to tour the new clean energy project on Thursday? Perhaps buy a tiny business suit while I’m at it for the next board meeting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything of the sort, Mr. Luthor. I’m telling you that no childcare agency in Metropolis will return my calls anymore. Most won’t even answer.  You’ve gone through 27 nannies in the last 3 months. You need someone better suited to your son’s…special needs.”

Lex snorted. “Special needs might be a bit of understatement. He can lift a car over his head and his favorite word right now is No.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Thank you for…clarifying the situation, Marjorie. If there’s nothing else, you can leave.”

His secretary didn’t move. She looked at him like she was waiting for something and now that he was paying attention, he saw she was holding a file.  “Did you have a suggestion?”

Looking pleased with herself she responded, “Actually, yes, I did.”

“Well?”

She set the file on his desk and flipped it open. He looked down at the first page and raised an eyebrow, “What am I looking at here?”

“This,” she responded pulling out the top set of papers and spreading them out, “is the employee file and background check for Daniel J. Fenton, an intern that started in our engineering department about 4 months ago. He has one sibling, two parents and several close friends he regularly meets with. His current supervisor has nothing but good things to say about him and reports he gets along well with all his coworkers.”

She set out the next set of papers, neatly arranging them on the desk to be easily seen. “These are newspaper articles and screenshots of social media posts regarding a small town vigilante locally known as Phantom. The same small town, Mr. Fenton is from coincidentally. Also coincidentally, Phantom made his first appearance only a few weeks after Mr. Fenton was involved in a minor accident in his parent’s home laboratory when he was 14, the medical records for the incident are included.”

“Hmm,” Lex said observing several photos of Phantom and a younger Fenton arranged in order of similar poses and facial expressions and printed out side by side.

“Finally,” she said handing him the last set of papers directly, “this would be a report from the lab Mr. Fenton works in from an incident that happened yesterday. A test with a new protype went wrong and started a fire. Everyone evacuated per protocol when the alarms went off but one of the other interns was working on a programming issue off to the side of the lab while wearing headphones and didn’t hear the alarm or notice the fire. Mr. Fenton noticed his absence and returned to the lab to get him out.” She stopped talking and let him look at the last several pages in the file, a series of photographs of the lab.

“Is this ice?”

“Yes, it is. It’s several inches thick and covers half of the lab. It completely put out the fire leaving minimal damage.”

“This machine was moved?”

“It was. It was very close to the flames and would have required replacement if exposed to extreme heat or cold. That particular piece of equipment also weighs several thousand pounds and was bolted to the floor.”

Lex read through everything in detail then clasped his hands under his chin and stared at the photo of Daniel Fenton for several moments before turning back to his waiting secretary.

“Have HR send Mr. Fenton up. I’d like to offer him a promotion.”

[sleepyjuice]

toxic!rafe will blow your phone up the second you post something on instagram that he’s ‘iffy’ about.

you posted a photo dump which consisted of some random photos of the beach, some of your friends, one of you and rafe of course, but the one that had rafe seeing red was the last slide, which was you in a bikini. he texted you several times at first, and while you were literally typing your response, he called you. your fingers were typing so fast to respond to him that you accidentally declined the call, and he did not like that. you immediately went to call him back, but another text from rafe rolled in, saying ‘fuck you don’t talk to me we’re done’ you sighed loudly, knowing damn well he was talking out of his ass right now, so you sat back and waited for the inevitable next string of texts to roll in. which they did, only seconds later.

rafe <3: do you get off on making me mad or something

rafe <3: like i’m racking my brain trying to understand why you do the things you do and that’s all i can come up with

rafe <3: and i see at least 4 guys have already liked your post like that’s crazy to me?? thought i told you to block all the guys that followed you?? of course you didn’t

rafe <3: also who even took that pic of you??? bc i know damn well it wasn’t me so who the fuck you posing for with your fucking ass and tits out? WHAT THE FUCK

rafe <3: DO NOT PUT YOUR SHIT ON DO NOT DISTURB answer me rn.

rafe <3: nah it’s cool actually i’m gonna go hit up my other gfs so you have a good night.

you rolled your eyes at that last text, deciding to fully turn your phone off. you knew he would likely try to text or call you again very soon but you didn’t want to deal with it right now. this wasn’t your first rodeo, you knew nothing you could say to him right now would calm him down, so letting him freak out on his own was the best method to his madness.

three hours had passed since you turned your phone off. you had caught up on some reading and turned on your current favorite show, but found yourself interrupted by a knock at your front door. you expected it to be rafe, but instead it was a large bouquet of your favorite flowers and a gift bag. you glanced around to see if rafe was lurking around, but saw nothing. when he freaked out over text and was able to reread his actions, he usually waited a bit longer to show his face as opposed to a verbal argument.

you brought the flowers inside and set them on the counter before grabbing the card attached to the side of the bouquet.

sorry we argued. you are so beautiful and i love you so much. got you a little gift and sent you some money for food and i set your appointment with your nail girl for tomorrow at 10. love you forever baby -rafe

you couldn’t help but smile just a little. the flowers were beautiful and the note was pretty sweet, so you chose to ignore the part where he said ‘we argued.’ you didn’t get a word in, but you let it slide. especially after you opened the gift bag to see the new dior bag you had been wanting.

you hurried to turn on your phone, immediately seeing a $500 apple payment from rafe as well as a new text from a few minutes ago.

rafe <3: hope you like the flowers and bag baby. love you! :)

you: i love them. thanks rafe, love you too

rafe <3: good to hear. lmk what you end up getting for dinner and i’ll pick you up tomorrow to take you to your nail apt. can’t wait to see you baby

you would order yourself dinner that was obviously way less than $500, but you would send rafe a picture and thank him again. you’d facetime him before bed and conversation flowed like nothing had even happened just hours before. he’d ask you what color nails you were getting, tell you funny stories about the old men at the country club and excitedly plan what you two were going to do the next day. the cycle seemed like it would never end, but you often forgot about the bad when he was talking so sweetly to you and all you could think about was how excited you were to see him tomorrow.

[cowgirlvi]

mdni. sub-bottom jinx. fem-top reader. strap-on usage. size kink. vaginal sex. squirting. rough sex.

jinx masterlist

word count: 1.9k

the first time jinx tries to ride your strap, she’s cocky—naively convinced that she’ll be a natural at it. but more than anything, she’s determined to put on a show for you, determined to turn you into a fucked-out mess for a change. she pictures herself bouncing in your lap, playing with her small tits as she grinds down against you, making your head spin with the pace she sets, riding your cock so hard that the friction against your clit would rival that of a vibrator.

despite only being in a relationship with jinx for a month now, she has taken your strap before—many, many times, actually—but always in the same way; laying there while you pleasured her, while you set the tempo, while you took care of her every need like a pampered princess.

and that’s the problem.

she began to feel useless—and, predictably, she got in her own head, wondered if you found her boring. how can it be fun for you to fuck her pussy every night and receive nothing in return?

so that’s when she decided, the next time the two of you had sex, she would get on top. she would take the initiative to make both of you feel good. she would be particularly skilled at riding cock.

now, in the present, she watches from the bed as you adjust the harness on your hips, teeth worrying her bottom lip. she’s already naked, already soaked, but suddenly, she’s unsure. should she sweetly ask to ride your cock? wait until round two? shove you down and take what she wants?

“you ready, baby?” you ask, crawling over her lithe body.

biting the bullet, jinx abruptly shoves your shoulders until you’re splayed on your back. she’s quick to throw one of her legs over your hips, her pussy sitting flush against your strap, soaking it with her juices already. you’ve only been together a month, but jinx has the wettest pussy you’ve ever seen.

“want to ride you,” she mumbles, her usual bravado cracking—shy in a way you’ve never seen from her before.

”are you sure that’s a good idea? you’ve never done that before.”

she stiffens, eyes narrowing, “i can take it.” 

sighing, you say, “just—maybe i should finger you some more? make sure you’re stretched enough?” 

“i said i’m ready,” and she’s already reaching for your strap, rubbing it against her soaked folds in long, deliberate strokes.

such an eager thing, the little minx. jinx is grinding against your cock with animalistic fervor, rolling her hips like a whore desperate to be fucked—which she is, you suppose. her slutty cunt is always in need of constant attention; always needing her hole to be stuffed full, her clit to be sucked on like a jolly rancher.

“aughh, unghh, fuck—“ she’s moaning noisily now, front teeth digging into her candy-red lips. but she’s determined, not going to let her own girlfriend dismiss her as some lazy, passive fucktoy.

so, jinx rises up on her knees and holds your strap beneath her, ready to impale herself on the length in its entirety. your cock looks monstrous in comparison to her tiny body.

”go slow,” you warn her and she scoffs.

the girthy shaft and bulbous head completely dwarf her small folds. she’s so wet that her pussy makes an obscene squelching noise when the head tries to pop inside her. however, the strap barely breaches her entrance before it falls against your stomach with a wet plap. her pussy is too small to fit your cock, and you’re wondering how you managed to stuff her full so many times before.

her brows are furrowed in concentration when she brings the head of your strap to her pussy again. she’s rocking and circling her hips, trying to coax her stubborn body into submission. again, your strap won’t go in. her pussy is fluttering and gripping at nothing, waiting to be filled. “shit, it’s too big,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “i can’t… it’s—fuck!”

one of your hands reaches up to palm jinx’s breast, the one with her blue, cloudy tattoos decorating the skin around her nipple. you rub her tit with your thumb in light strokes. “just relax, babe.” the hard peak of her nipple pebbles beneath your touch and jinx gasps. “let your body open up for me.”

she takes a shuddering breath, her owlish eyes squeezing shut as she focuses on the sensation of your thumb circling her nipple. slowly, she starts to relax, and at the same time she presses the head against her opening again. this time, the head slips inside her and she makes a noise of triumph.

from this angle—being impaled on your length all by herself—it feels impossibly bigger than it has in the past. despite this, jinx keeps rocking her hips gently, sucking more of your strap inside.

“hnng, fuck!” jinx pants. only half of your strap is inside her at this point and you wonder if that’s all she’ll be able to take.

her stomach and thighs clench with the exertion of holding herself up, so you move both your hands to her wide hips, stroking them soothingly where her hipbones protrude. 

she slides down further, only a quarter of your cock left. jinx whines whorishly while feeling herself stretch around your thick strap. her pink, gummy walls are clenching obscenely, her inner muscles fluttering around the stocky length. you wish you could actually feel her powerful contractions around you—her wetness, the warmth of her insides.

”oh fuck, oh shit—it’s so… so fucking big,” she whimpers. her lips are swollen and red from her biting them.

”can’t take it, baby?” you tease breathlessly, rubbing her hips. “your pussy looks fucking ruined.”

jinx shoots you a glare but it’s far from intimidating, not with her hazy, cockdrunk eyes.

stubbornly, she forces the rest of your strap inside her, her ass colliding against your thighs with a slap. and suddenly, jinx freezes in place. she’s trembling, that much is obvious, goosebump erupting all over her skin. she’s never felt so full before, so utterly stuffed and stretched and split open. the head of your strap is nestled deep inside her, kissing her cervix and making her toes curl against your bedsheets. jinx can feel every ridge and vein etched into the silicone; the texture feels deliciously abrasive against her sensitive walls.

jinx attempts to roll her hips once, before she freezes in place again. her nails are digging painfully into your breasts and you’ve never seen such a fucked-out look on her face before.

”mmffuck! aghh—holy shit, i—i can’t—it’s too much!”

what a sight she is, shaking and trembling and whining on your cock, so sensitive and stuffed full that she can’t even move. her brain is turning to mush, tongue sticking out dumbly while she pants. she’s gasping like a fish out of water, harsh and desperate.

“fuck, baby. you look fucked stupid and i haven’t even done anything yet,” you murmur, mesmerized.

”it’s so—so deep, aghh! so big, i feel so full,” jinx babbles mindlessly, her words tumbling out in a rush of pleasure and disbelief. you want to grip onto her small waist and piston your cock inside her, make her more dumb than she already is.

“i’m gonna help you move, sweetheart. gonna make you feel good,” you promise. you feel pussydrunk—high off the view of jinx stretched so wide around your strap. it’s completely obscene and it might be the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.

you grip onto the plush fat of her hips and slowly lift jinx off your strap. she moans and babbles the entire time, feeling the silicone drag against her walls, until you slam her back down on your cock. her mouth falls open in a silent scream, her eyes roll back in her head, her eyelids fluttering as she struggles to keep them open. her tongue lolls out again stupidly, drool dripping down her chin as she pants and whines, completely out of her mind with pleasure. the sight of her, so fucked out and dazed, sends a dark thrill through you, a primal surge of lust that makes you want to ruin her completely.

you lift her off your strap once more and then allow gravity to pull her down—repeating this over and over again—and you grind up against her when she’s buried to the hilt each time, getting impossibly deeper.

”so sexy, baby—ah fuck, fuck, you hot little bitch.”

your strap is pressing just right against your clit, making you squirm and unintentionally thrusting your hips, forcing the strap further inside your girlfriend. you smack her ass hard, the sound echoing throughout your bedroom, and jinx sobs.

you start to thrust harder, faster, gripping jinx’s hips tightly as you piston up into her. the bed creaks and groans beneath the two of you, the headboard slamming against the wall with each brutal drive of your hips.

jinx face-plants into your chest. all she can do is lay against your pillowy breasts and take what you give her. the wet, obscene sound of flesh slapping against flesh fills the room, punctuated by jinx’s high, breathy cries. your eyes burn with a feral intensity as you stare at her ass rippling over her shoulder.

”that’s it, princess. take it, take it.” and you rub jinx’s back lovingly and gently, despite the fact that you’re destroying her pussy right now.

you set a brutal, punishing pace, planting your feet against the bed so you can fuck up into her with abandon. the thick head of your strap slams against jinx’s cervix with each savage thrust and the wet, indecent sounds of jinx’s pussy being split open echos throughout the room.

“fuck me, ngh, fuck me, fuck me—ohhh!” the only thing jinx can focus on is the repetitive motion of your cock fucking deep inside her. she feels like a cocksleeve for you to use—she is a cocksleeve.

suddenly, her back arches like a cat, her chest pressed flush against your own as her body goes rigid, stiffening like a bowstring pulled taut before releasing. her pussy spasms and clenches around the thick length invading her body, along with a keening wail as her pussy squirts between your two bodies.

”mmmf—oh, shit—! please, aghhhff!” jinx squeals like a pig, her body shaking and convulsing through the force of her climax. she clings to you like a drowning woman, and her juices gush out around your strap with a powerful force, her body humping against yours while she rides out her orgasm—which applies immense pressure to your clit through your strap.

your own orgasm hits you like a freight train, the pleasure white-hot and all-consuming. there’s so much blood pumping in your ears that you can’t even hear the noises you’re making, but you assume they’re nothing short of animalistic. your throat is sore, you think you screamed but you’re not quite sure. the pleasure is so intense that it momentarily short-circuits all your senses. you’ve never come this hard before, never felt an orgasm this earth-shattering, and it makes you question the very fabrics of your reality. 

jinx’s pussy milks the toy for all it’s worth before she calms down and becomes boneless on top of you. all you can hear is static as your own orgasm subsides, your sweaty skin sticking to one another. you pepper kisses along jinx’s face, her neck, her collarbones, while your hearts are pounding in tandem. you murmur words of praise and adoration against her skin—despite your tongue feeling heavy and clumsy in your mouth—and jinx hums in response.

the thick, musky scent of sex hangs heavy in the air, a tangible reminder of the carnal act you’ve just engaged in.

(2/2/25)

[nikovraskol]

so with the crack baby, what if the og timeline finds their phone?? Like they're going through it and seeing their whole life and achievements, maybe even the notes app with all their thoughts and feelings..

Ohhhh and then the 2nd timeline sneaking into their room and finding all those trophies?? Damian being forced to recognize that maybe his sibling does have some sort of brain..

masterlist

keep the requests coming gang i'm trying to procrasinate the next chapter

i imagine like dick just sat in your room, literally over anylysing everything just to get a peek at the kind of person you were outside of the nervous, starry-eyed youthling who'd trail behind him and then he stumbles upon your phone.

literal jackpot, he guesses your password on the third try because he put in your birthday (how careless), and he goes through EVERY app. he goes through your social media, your games, he even goes through your ubereats app to see what kind of food you like!

he goes through your notes app and it's just essays upon essays how you feel a suffocating cavity in your chest or how you want to get closer to them, how you want them to look back and then as the notes progress and you get older, hitting the eighteen mark, how you loath them.

he sighs, sighs again before sending some notes about how cool you think your family is and how you want to spend time with them to himself, and then he finally shows the others.

each of them respectively crying throwing up, analysing every single thing you've said, oh you misspelled something? noted. you accidentally forgot to you the correct tense? noted. you put in a shopping list in between your rants? noted.

i imagine them literally ANNOTATING your emotions (LMAO), they just want to understand you, they have nothing to remember you by, no face, no memories, nothing of the real you.

so sure, while it hurts to read about how you wish you could scrub yourself clean of bruce's dna, it's nice to read about you.

and they will, obviously, print out every selfie you've ever took. any group photos will be cropped, they'll hang up your pictures everywhere, like a guest comes over and there's just a massive, framed picture of you smiling at the camera with a bunch of cropped heads around you. OR you in school, like a massive grin on your face as you do something mischevious but it's kind of blurry and also there's a massive red X on the person besides you.

as for the second timeline, i think this is really interesting -- especially because you're trying to mind your business, live your life, maybe you went out for a walk and you're tired, eager to get to bed.

so you walk in your room and, well, your whole family's just sprawled around your box room, your medals and trophies scattered about as they each take it in deeply.

"i wasn't aware you were so profficient at science." damian adresses you, staring at an obnoxiously bright 'first place!' certificate in his hands, your name sprawled across it. how unexpected, perhaps you're not as useless as you seem. no, this is high-school level so sure, he's impressed, but he doubts bioenergetics will help you in the real world, aka, the vigilante occupation, aka, something you will NEVER try.

tim is assessing all the dates, "you did these both at the same time? ..impressive." he nods towards you, and you have to physically stop yourself from cringing. like, sure, 10 years ago you'd be running up the walls at this attention. but you're tired! and completely uninterested now that you've grown up.

"can you guys fu--" you're cut off by bruce putting a hand on your shoulder and nodding, subtly trying to hide the fact that he's having alfred lug all the pictures of you on podiums or on stage into his room. you just look so cute :( if he ignores the way your eyes are gleaming with tears or how you're the only one without a parent standing behind you.

jason lurking around, an unnaturally soft expression as he watches videos of you singing as a youthling -- you have to stop yourself from viscerally reacting AGAIN. why is he even here? he doesn't live here! speaking of people who don't live here--

"wow! why didn't you tell me you like gymnastics? i would've loved to support you! dick smiles, tracing the lines on your medal with the utmost care.

"i did tell you, you didn't care -- in fact, one time you promised me you'd come to my tournament but obviously didn't show up, i cried so hard i was disqualified."

"... i don't like this game anymore."

[bluetimeombre]

・❥ 'Are you Hugh down under?' p2

You and Hugh were the stars of the biggest movie, Wolverine and Ladypool, and fans love the two of you.

[Here's p2, thank you for loving the last one and being as obsessed as I am. I hope i got everyone on the tag list and the second part to Ladypool and Wolverine is on its way. Again this isn't proof read, this is just vibes. There's some sexual innuendos and sexist comments that Hugh is at the rescue for. Also, i'm British so half of these interviews just end up being British icons]

part one

You and Hugh being in love for twenty-five minutes (part two)

2017, Y/N heart monitor

You were doing an interview for your latest movie with Nick Grimshaw on BBC radio one. It was a new thing he'd come up with, trying it with you for the first time as you were hooked up to a heart rate monitor.

'Is it working?' asked Nick. 'Is she alive?'

You help him put the stickers onto you. 'It's like, there's nothing there,' you joke with them.

'She's a robot.'

The beeping began and it found your heart beating at a steady pace, a good start.

'So, I'm going to show you a series of images and we're just gonna see how you react to these images, ok?' he asked.

You grin, nerves kicking in. 'Ok.' It could have been anything. And boy were you right.

Some of them were fine, easy, normal. A picture of a co-star the heart rate was fine, a pair of shoes that you wore a lot, a picture of cash and an ex that had it risen but not alarmingly.

'And finally,' Nick picked up an image. 'Hugh Jackman! How does he make you feel?'

Your cheeks go red and you laugh. 'I hate you all so much, um, Hugh Jackman?' you were too busy laughing. Once you had made a joke about Wolverine and how good looking he was, now it was following you everywhere.

'Heartbeats rising!' Nick cheered as you covered your face. 'Heartbeats the highest it's ever been, eighty-five, up to ninety! One hundred!' he claps.

You bang your head on the table, finally finding control over yourself. 'I can't believe you all.'

Nick slid the picture over to you. 'Here, you can take that one home with you.'

'Thanks. He looks great there, doesn't he?' you say. 'A classic, Hugh Jackman picture.'

'Yeah, you like it?' he teased.

You grinned. 'That's going on my wall when I get home.'

The Graham Norton show

You and Hugh had walked out, waving at the adorning crowd that cheered as you took the sofa.

‘Hello! Hello!’ Graham called.

The two of you looked the pair as you smiled and sat next to each other in spite of the space on the sofa.

‘Sofa to ourselves, i like that,’ you say, lying back.

‘The other guests were too intimidated,’ said Graham. ‘Now, was the walk out ok for you guys, Hugh, are you happy?’ He asked.

Hugh frowned. The crowd laughed. ‘It was very good, thank you.’

‘Because, is it true- and Y/N correct me if I’m wrong, you had a specific song you walked out onto set with?’ He asked.

Immediately knowing what he was talking about, you laugh while Hugh hangs his head and sighs.

You sat straight and took to explaining while patting his back. ‘You see, it’s very tough for Hugh to get into character as Wolverine sometimes. So the only way was to get him out the trailer was to play a specific song.’

‘Ok, ok so shall we do it again, this time with the song?’ Graham proposed. He ushered you both backstage, Hugh squeezing your shoulders as you went.

‘Whatta a man’ by salt and pepper started playing and you led the way out for Hugh who danced his way out. The crowd clapped along as Hugh shows his moves and ended with dipping.

‘Oh wonderful!’ Graham called as the two of you took your seats again.

For the rest of the interview thing went very smoothly.

‘Now is is true that the first time you met, Hugh, you didn’t actually meet Y/N?’

Hugh again huffed and shook his head. ‘This show is all to embarrass me, isn’t it?’

‘Makes a change honestly,’ you say.

Hugh looked back to you and started to tell the story. Through out, his body had moved toward you, his entire presence facing you despite talking out to everyone. ‘When I first walked on set, you know, at the ready, I was very excited to be there and even more excited to meet this wonderful lady here. And I got suited up, you know, went to hair and makeup and one of our first shots was quite a challenging one, a big stunt.’

‘Big,’ you agreed, taking a sip of your drink. You knew where the story was going.

‘Yea, so anyway, I walk over to Y/N whose already in her suit. Looks great by the way. Anyway so I start introducing myself and saying hello and how thankful I am for being here, a real heart to heart you know-‘ he says, ‘and then Y/N walked in and i realized I’d been speaking to her stunt double the whole time- whole time!’

The crowd laugh as do you, almost choking on your drink.

Wolverine and Ladypool press:

You and Hugh sat with each other all day doing press. You kept it light with jokes between the two of you, working through the people and questions.

One particular interviewer just had to get his answers though. ‘So your suit,’ he starts, looking to you. ‘It’s very tight and eventuated several parts of you, did you find that hard to manoeuvre around?’

Hugh answered before you had the chance to open your mouth. ‘I found it very easy to move around in. You know, first x-men movie, not so much but these suits, are perfect.’

The guy chuckled, it was clearly forced but you thanked Hugh for taking the question, patting his knee. ‘Can you wear like panties with them or thongs, cause they are skin tight.’

‘I’ll take this one!’ Said Hugh again. ‘I go commando, but that’s just because I like it.’

‘He does, he does like it,’ you nod, grinning. ‘He’s going commando right now actually.’

The guy tried one more time to ask you a question about the suit. At this rate, your entire body turned to face Hugh. ‘Do you feel sexy in the suit?’ He asked you.

‘Very,’ said Hugh.

After that, Hugh made several vulgar comments when you were alone, but luckily for you, Hugh was your own superhero.

Buzzfeed quiz

'Hello!' you greet the camera, holding your phone to your chest. 'I'm something-something Jackman.'

'And i'm the greatest actress of all time,' said Hugh.

You deflated, looking at him. 'Oh, well now I just look like a dick.'

'No, it's ok,' he shrugged. 'One of us has to look like a dick.'

The two of you were doing quizzes for Buzzfeed, answering if you're more Ladypool or Wolverine. Although you were sat next to each other, you'd both craned your bodies back so the other couldn't see what you were putting in, like it was a test.

'We're really competitive with each other,' Hugh told the crew.

'Yeah, not with anybody else, but I have to- I just have to prove i'm better than Hugh Jackman at something,' you said.

'Who are you hoping to get?' asked the lady behind the camera.

'Oh, Ladypool, obviously,' you said.

Hugh nodded along, watching you. (Did this man ever not look at you?) 'I wouldn't be angry about getting Ladypool either.'

You tut. 'So quick to betray yourself.'

If you could have a super power, what would you chose?

You read through the options. 'I think telekinesis,' you said. 'Mainly just because I'm lazy and it would be so easy to pick up the tv remote or close the curtains. Very practical.'

'Yeah, that's a good one,' Hugh hummed about it for longer. 'Maybe healing ability.'

You roll your eyes, throwing your head back. 'That's such a Wolverine answer!'

'I know, but I'm getting old, be nice for things to not hurt a lot,' he said.

Who's your favourite MCU character?

Hugh scanned the options. 'I er, don't see Wolverine on here?' he looked around at the crew behind the camera's shaking his head.

'Can't get the staff these days- oh my god Spider-Man's on here!' you cheered, distracted.

'She loves Spider-Man,' Hugh told the camera.

'I do. I really do,' you agreed. 'If it wasn't gonna be Wolvie, it was gonna be Spidey,' you look into the camera, holding your phone to your ear, mimicking for Andrew Garfield to call you.

Hugh dragged his finger of his neck in a cutting off motion if he ever did.

Who do you pick to be your road-trip buddy?

'You have to pick the Wolverine, c'mon,' Hugh nudged you.

You looked through the options which all considered x-men. You hesitated, humming. 'I dunno.'

'We had great fun in the car!'

A red blush took over your cheeks as you re-called the multiple, multiple takes you and Hugh had to do. Hugh saw this and draped his arm over the back of your chair.

'Yeah, but that was- that was different, this is a roadtrip not a porn video in a car,' you joked. 'And Wolverine's like so serious, Rogue, she's so fun.'

'Woah, woah,' Hugh paused everything. 'Rogue is great, don't get me wrong. But who's better!' he pointed at himself. 'Wolverine's not grumpy with you, he loves you!'

You look over at him, grinning sweetly. 'No, you love me and it's judging your character.' For five minutes, the two of you argued over who you'd rather have as a road-trip buddy. Most of it got sped up during the video. 'Ok, fine, I pick Wolverine. Who are you picking?'

'Charles,' said Hugh even though Ladypool was on the list.

You faced the camera, mouth hung open as Hugh laughed loudly and gave you a side hug, assuring you it was a joke but he still clicked on Charles!

Which musical number would you want to perform with your 'Wolverine and Ladypool' cast mate?

'Oh, some great choices!' boasted Hugh as he read through them all.

You smile at him, eyes softening. 'You've awakened the musical theatre beast.'

'Y/n, there's so many good choices! What do we pick?!' he grabbed your hand and squeezed as you watched him with joy.

There was a few choices: 'Love is an Open Door,' from Frozen, 'The other side,' which Hugh obviously did for The Greatest showman. But there was also 'The Love Melody' from Moulin Rouge and 'You're the one that I want,' from Grease and when you both saw that you gave each other a look and knew which one you were picking.

By the end when your results came up you cheered and punched the air, practically jumping out you seat. 'Ladypool! God, this felt like my audition for the character all over again,' you wipe pretend sweat from your brows. 'What did you get?'

Hugh showed you his phone. 'Ladypool! I got Ladypool!'

'We're so alike!' you entwined your fingers. Slowly and dramatically the two of you leant in, pretending you were going in for what would have been a very wet kiss before you both pulled back and explained your answers.

You and Hugh with Alison Hammond again!

The interview with the two of you and Alison Hammond was pretty much the two of you flirting and Alison fangirling. Fans couldn't stop editing it together.

'Ok so obviously there's been a lot of competition between the two of you, so we need to settle who's better once and for all,' said Alison. 'So i've got a series of challenges for the two of you to complete but there's a twist.'

'We're naked!' said Hugh causing you to laugh. 'No, sorry.'

Alison handed you both each a boxing glove. 'I want you to put one on each and sign your autographs, which ever is close wins the point.'

'You're on, Jackman,' you said, already sliding your hand into the boxing glove.

Hugh gave you a cocky smile. 'I am so gonna win this, you know why? Cause you've given me a right boxing glove, but i'm left-handed!' he quickly got to scribbling his autograph.

'Fuck!' you cursed, struggling with your own. (It was bleeped out on this morning).

When you handed them both back to Alison it was obvious who the winner was. 'Thanks for this guys, it'll do numbers on Ebay.'

The two of you practically topple on each other with how hard you laugh.

Next you had to try to open a bottle of water with your gloves on and pour it into glasses and try drinking from it, both of which you failed at. Then the two of you just started fighting each other so Alison called it off like she was your teacher in a rowdy class.

'So, as I am a morning presenter, I thought I'd see how good the two of you would be if you had your own Hugh and Y/N morning show- so here's some guards, scoot closer, scoot closer,' said Alison.

The two of you took the cards and moved your chairs together until your thighs were pressed together. You waited for your cue before the two of you began your audition for your own morning show.

Hugh threw his arm around your shoulder, drawing you in.

'No, Hugh,' you denied, 'we must be professional on tv!'

Alison cackled. 'Yeah, you wouldn't do that on tv.'

Hugh looked offended at the both of you. 'We're re-defining what it means!'

You push him off you and hit him with your cards.

Hugh assesses the camera. 'Where's the shot? Above our chests, perfect, so I can do this.' And he puts his hand on your thigh, sprawling it out as you bite your lip to stop the grin.

'I'm taking this audition seriously, Hugh!'

Finally, the two of you start, acting as if it was a real morning show while Alison gave you pointers.

'Did you have a good weekend?' Hugh asked you (in reality all your weekends had been spent in his company) 'What did you get up to?'

You shrug. 'Nothing much.'

'No,' he interrupted causing you and Alison to laugh. 'When I ask a generic how was your weekend, you have to tell me a great funny story that we've set up before. So, Y/N, what did you do on your weekend?'

'I went fishing,' you said the first thing that popped into your head.

'Did you fall in?' he asked.

'I fell in.'

'That's hilarious!' the way he said it and the way he looked into the camera, caring about it just made you laugh so bad. 'Don't go anywhere, we'll see you after the break!' you were still laughing when Hugh wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled into your neck, making kissing noises and hiding behind the cards.

Even more at the premier

You and Hugh stood next to each other, him keeping an arm around your waist as you both listened to the interviewer ask you questions.

'So, Y/N, we found this interview from 2017 and we thought Hugh might like to take a look at it,' they said, pulling out their phone and clicking on a video.

As soon as it started playing, you knew what it was. 'Oh god.' you hid yourself, turning to Hugh as he watched.

It was the famous heart-rate monitor interview, where, when you saw a picture of a shirtless Hugh Jackman, your heart-rate spiked higher than any other picture.

Hugh was smiling the whole time and beamed at you when the video finished. 'You have that effect on me,' he assured you, leaning his head on top of yours and smiling at the interviewer.

'Y/N, do you still feel that way when you look at him now?' they asked.

'More,' you said, speaking loudly over all the noise. 'I feel it ten times more.'

And fans, anyone, could see how much the two of you were in love. Whether it was just flirting or if it was real, it was there and everyone was happy for you.

As the two of you walked off, the camera followed you. Hugh's head was bowed low, seemingly taking low to you as his arm remained around your waist and yours came up to rub his back up and down. He laughed loudly at something you had said before dropping a kiss to the top of your head and continuing on the journey.

(there probably won't be part three but I'm working on another compilation with you and Hugh)

taglist (thank you all!): @geeksareunique, @angstdaddy, @tranquilty, @gotta-go-now, @pear-1206, @chronicallybubbly

[anashins]

King of the Streets

Pairing: street racer!Jaehyun x journalist!reader

Genre: street racing au, action, drama, romance, slow burn, smut

Word Count: 28k (I just can't write short stories, I'm sorry)

Summary: The moment you find yourself hiding in the backseat of a sports car that's illegally racing through the city, you just know this story will finally catapult you to the top of your journalism career. But there are a few things you haven't reckoned: How personal this story will eventually turn - and the driver's sheer insatiable craving for lollipops. And for you.

A/N: I started this after Jaehyun admitted he would have liked to become an F1 racer if the idol-path wouldn't have worked out for him. I spiraled and this is the outcome - I hope you have fun reading it as much as I had writing it!

“It’s been three years since I’ve started working here, and-”

“Unfortunately, this doesn’t matter, miss.”

For an entire week, you had prepared yourself for this meeting with your editor-in-chief. You had written down all your achievements from when you were an intern to your current position. 

And he had the nerve to tell you it all didn’t matter?

It had been three very long years with too many nights spent in the office to meet a deadline you were not responsible for, trips all across the country on your own account for stories that hadn’t even made it into the magazine, and work meetings where no one had bothered listening to your ideas and input.

After all the hard work and sleepless hours you had poured into your dedicated passion, it was unfathomable to you how he didn’t even bother bringing up the slightest interest in what you had to say, and it showed all over face in the form of widened eyes and slightly parted lips.

“Others have started prior to you and they’re in the exact same position,” your chief editor said, swaying in his chair. The city’s skyline spread behind him like a painting as the sun was setting, and more than once had you already imagined yourself in that spot. “What makes you think you’re better than any of them?”

An imaginary note popped up in your head. You got this, you were prepared for this. “I’m one of the firsts to go and one of the last to leave, I wrote the most clicked article on our website - to this day. I offer input to everyone who hasn’t got something going on, my personal and professional network that I’ve built throughout the past years is wide and strong. I’m the first one to take on suggested topics, the number of articles I publish per month is the highest out of all editors, I’m always up-to-date, I live for this job.”

The middle-aged man leaned forward and propped his elbows against the glass table, inspecting you thoroughly while you were bracing yourself to elaborate every bullet point. But he only said, 

“No, I don’t think so.”

You were flabbergasted. “Pardon me?”

“I don’t think you actually live for this job,” he explained calmly. “For that, it takes more than research and cranking out as many articles as possible just because your writing is good. It is, trust me, but the stories lack emotion and graspable actions. Right now, you’re only sitting in front of the computer, writing from your imagination. You don’t live the stories, you’re not in them.”

“I take trips across the country to attend events, I participate in every press conference possible, I-”

Again, he interrupted you, “Hara got in contact with a designer and walked for his show as an amateur model. Dal went to the rooftop of the highest building in this city and took pictures that even made it into television.”

“But that is illegal,” you commented. “Hara smuggled herself in when one of the models fell sick and Dal nearly got caught by the police.”

“And we would’ve bailed for all of them.” He sighed deeply as if annoyed by repeating himself. “See, this is what I’m trying to say, miss. The writing that you’re delivering is clean and conformable to law. When I read your articles, I’m well informed, but nothing sticks in my head. We’re a magazine, not a newspaper. Nobody wants to read about the opening of a new restaurant when they can read about things they will never be able to experience themselves. You have to dive in the story, be in the story to make people believe they’re in them too when they read it.”

You were quite taken aback as you noticed he remained polite when all he wanted to say was, “So, my stories are too boring, not sensational.”

The editor-in-chief let out another long sigh and fell back into his chair. “You have a trademark, but you have to get out of your secure shell to actually go somewhere, otherwise you’re going to get stuck.”

You were a goody two-shoes was what he tried to tell you. You were on the top when it was about writing, grammar and quantity, but your stories didn’t attract anyone’s interest, and if that wasn’t the case, then you could write as many perfect articles as you wanted - you would never get a higher position.

You inhaled deeply. “So, what do you suggest I’d do?”

His answer was clear, “Look for a story that will change lives. Write a story that will leave people breathless, and you’re getting the position of a senior editor. Because miss, you’re one of the most capable journalists here, but you don’t only need to be capable, you need to be a storyteller. If you can do this, propose the topic to me next week. If it’s what I expected, it will make headlines in the next issue and secure your new position.”

If only it were so easy.

____

You were sitting in the fast food restaurant with your notebook opened in front of you. Every single page was blank even though you had been there for several hours already, the ballpen in your hand having barely moved ever since.

“Do you want to order something else?”

“I’m good, thank you.”

You could only imagine the eyeroll the waitress let out when she turned away from you after not getting another order for two hours. But you were already short of cash this month and wouldn’t get paid for another week. 

Another reason why you needed the senior position: as a regular editor, you could barely get by. Why were journalists underpaid anyway when they were the source of daily news and this connected the world? You had never understood.

Many ideas had flown into your head, from working a day in a job that was notorious to interviewing an infamous inmate, but none of these were exciting or extraordinary enough like it was expected of you. The topics that you came up with didn’t immediately peak interest when you researched about what your fellow editors had ever written about. And what you found left you nearly speechless and doubting yourself.

Yes, you had always been tame, reserved, a goody two-shoes. That was why your mind was also not expanding to the way it was expected of reporters. Perhaps, you were not made for this job as you could also not quite learn how to do it right. 

Should you perhaps change to newspapers after all? But the open positions were always so rare and you had wanted to start at your current magazine because it was the most famous in the country…

“Where are you going after this?”

“I’m going to watch the race, Falcon against Antelope!”

“They’re set for tonight? I didn’t know!”

“Pscht, not so loud!”

Since you already lost focus and let other people’s voices into your mind, you could also pack your things and go home. You were already so done for the day.

“Can I come with you? It’s been so long since the last time I went.”

“Sure. They’ll start at midnight, so we have to hurry.”

You zipped up your handbag and threw a few bills on the table, already with one arm up the sleeve of your jacket when you perked up your ears.

“Falcon will make a comeback, so tonight there will be a lot of cash flowing!”

“Wow!”

You cleared up your throat and walked up to the two young women on the nearby table whose conversation you had been partially involuntarily listening to for the last minute. Despite your attention only shifting to them much later, you got the gist of the entire story. 

It was about illegal street racing, you had read an article about it a few months ago in which the alias Falcon had also been mentioned along with another animal that you had forgotten. 

The Falcon was only stuck in your mind, because there had been an accident caused by him, and ever since then, the police were paying even more attention to these kinds of illegal activities. The fact that there would be a race tonight must be a well hidden secret. 

“Excuse me, I overheard you’re also going to watch the race?” you feigned knowledge and quickly made up a story that would get them to talk. “Can you tell me where exactly they’ll start? I was going to meet my friend here who’s got all the info, but she’s not arrived yet and I’m afraid I’m gonna be late.”

They looked at you in wonder, then in amazement. One of them, apparently the better informed one, then nodded eagerly before describing the exact spot to you. “I guess it’s going to be quite full since it’s the first one with Falcon since the… incident. So everyone wants to see him. They’ll start at the industrial park at midnight.”

You nodded. “Thank you. Maybe we’ll see each other there.” You waited a bit until they had left the restaurant and then pondered whether to join or not. 

There had already been many articles written about the Falcon and street racing in common, but since the most controversial racer would make a comeback, this race would be a special one, perhaps even kept secret to a point where no other media outlet knew about it. There was a slim chance that you were going to be the only reporter, so regardless of your current struggles, you had to take this opportunity.

Yes, an article about the Falcon’s comeback was good, but that was by far not enough for the story of your lifetime. It was better than nothing though, a beginning. And who knew what could come out of it. 

As a journalist, you had learned that you were better off going and had something expected to write about rather than not going and missing on unexpected happenings.

So you headed to the industrial park.

____

When you arrived at the destination, you spotted a crowd that had formed in a wide, clear space between two buildings. There were about fifty spectators that had gathered, divided into different groups of various sizes, lights coming from the street lamps all around the place. 

Through the gaps between the cliques that all seemed too engaged with each other to notice how lost you were, you discovered a group of men that marked themselves off everyone else.

It wasn’t particularly the way they were dressed as they all wore black leather, but rather the presence they radiated. But you couldn’t deny the fact that all of them were equally overly handsome, just in a way you wouldn’t be drawn to. You weren’t intimidated, you were scared to the bones, and you immediately wanted to turn on your heels and run right back home.

You weren’t much informed about the topic of illegal street racing aside from the few articles you had read. You only knew that it was one of the most dangerous underground activities that had cost a few lives already, of drivers and passerbyers almost equally. It was macabre that articles like these gained the most attention, clicks and sales.

Although you weren’t quite passionate about this kind of topic let alone approved of it, it was the best that you could come up with for now. You wanted to prove to your editor-in-chief that you were willing to take risks, willing to leave your comfort zone for the job - even if this wasn’t going to be the final story.

But now that you were right in the middle of this happening, you were getting cold feet. This wasn’t right. If you were caught as a spectator, would the police detain you too? And would your boss truly bail you out?

“Place your bet!”

You flinched when a young man popped up right next to you with a tablet in his hand, looking at you with expectant eyes.

“Pardon?”

“Place your bet!” he repeated. “Falcon against Antelope.”

“Oh, I only came to watch,” you waved aside. “But thank you!”

“You’re here for the first time, am I right?” The guy’s eyes narrowed. “Place. Your. Bet. This is how we’re financing this all. No money, no races.”

This wasn’t a question anymore, this was a demand, and you figured that if you were going to remain undercover, you had to play along and pretend to be like everyone else, even though you didn’t know the rules to this game. The guy was scanning you from head to toe, and it took you everything to restrain yourself from shaking when you took the tablet into your hands. 

You had changed your mind entirely by now. You just wanted to be out of here as fast as possible, no matter what the editor-in-chief might say about this lost opportunity. It just wasn’t worth all this stress and fear. After all, you were quite attached to your life and a clear criminal report. It wasn’t that bad to be a goody two-shoes.

Still, you had to place a bet before you could vanish so that the guy would stop bothering you, so you scanned the display laying in your palms.

There were two columns, one belonged to the Falcon, the other to the Antelope. Each column was divided into different cells with the name and the amount of money one betted. No one had placed a single bet on the Falcon. 

What was there to lose when the money would be gone from you one way or another since you were going to leave right after this anyway? You wouldn’t win a single penny.

So you placed a fake name and 70.000 Won for the Falcon, which was ironically the lowest bid for the Antelope. You noticed that most of the other people had betted much more, making you wonder about the total amount the winner could collect. But 70.000 Won was already very much for you, so you stuck with that.

“The Falcon, huh?” The guy grinned. “Risky, but I like the way you think. We only accept cash. Today it’s 20 million won so far for the winner, and ten percent of it gets split between the right betters depending on their bets. Maybe you’re lucky tonight and win ten percent of the entire amount yourself.”

You were holding yourself back letting out an audible gasp as it truly sounded tempting, and instead reached into your bag and pulled out your purse. 70.000 Won was a small price for your life, and you couldn’t wait to finally leave and never turn back. How high were the chances the Falcon was going to win anyway when nobody believed he would?

The guy grinned when he collected your money. “Interesting. It’s going to be an interesting race today. Good luck!”

He then went on to bother someone else all while you checked your surroundings for a hidden, but secure exit. Since you had used a fake name and only one person had seen your real face up close, it would be easy getting away unnoticed. 

And you did. 

Sliding along the buildings with your back pressed into the outer walls, nobody paid attention to you since the race was about to begin and a turmoil broke out shortly after your bet. You had been weighing yourself in safety, currently hiding in a blind, dark spot in the entrance of a different building with the street to freedom in sight when you suddenly heard male voices speaking up.

“Ready, Jaehyun?”

“More than you are.”

You froze on the spot when you saw several tall figures coming in your direction, their bodies illuminated by the street lamps, and you recognized the intimidating men dressed all in black leather who had been right in the middle of the crowd shortly before. 

You couldn’t go back or forth, because either side was illuminated and would set the spotlight right on you, and flight forward would mean running directly into their arms. You could only push the door to the building behind you open and…

You found yourself standing in some kind of huge factory hall where only two cars were parked, the rest was entirely empty. Who in their right mind would rent a whole factory building for only two cars? Yes, they were expensive sports cars from what you could tell, the kind of ones that would catch everyone’s attention on the streets because of how luxurious and tuned they were… but an entire hall?

You were still processing and connecting all of this new information when the same door through which you had entered got pushed open again, and in walked all men that you had run from shortly before.

Your heart suddenly lept, and you feared that this was what a heart attack might feel like, yet you were very much still alive as you were able to desperately look for a spot to hide again while they hadn’t discovered your presence yet, but lingered by the entrance with the focus on two of them talking.

Out of reflex, as one of them turned into your direction, you fell to your knees and hid behind one of the cars - the matte black one -, suppressing a gasp the moment this exact car unlocked with a sound and flash from afar.

“I’m not afraid of you. I pity you.”

You needed a new spot to remain hidden with footsteps approaching this vehicle. Right now.

“And why would that be, Jaehyun?”

You had to think of something safe, but there was barely time anymore.

“Because you’re going to lose the race today.”

No way in hell.

There was no way in hell these were the racing cars! But of course, now everything made sense as to why those cars were being kept here, you just had been in too much of a panic to have connected the dots.

How you found yourself inside that matte, black car at this moment of realization, you couldn’t tell. Just like you couldn’t tell how you could have hoped to get out of this situation unnoticed all while hiding in a crouching position in the backseat with the only way to escape being visibly passing by these men.

If only you had stayed behind the car or under the car if you were to be discovered anyway, you could have somehow talked yourself out of this situation. But how were you going to explain you had actually sneaked into a racing vehicle? Out of all the dumb things you had ever done, this made it to the top of your list. 

You flinched and threw yourself down into the small legroom between the driver’s seat and backseat, when you heard the door in front of you open and a figure seated himself behind the steering wheel.

No way this was your situation now!

Everything was better than ending up inside one of these cars, hearing it start and rolling out of the hall.

This… this situation couldn’t be real.

If you just stayed crouched in the legroom, not giving away a single tone or making a single move, maybe you still had a chance to survive this ride unnoticed. How you would handle this situation when you returned and had to reveal yourself if you didn’t want to be locked inside that car until you died of thirst… that was something you didn’t want to think about yet.

After a few feet, the car came to a stop in the clearing among the spectators, and you made yourself even smaller in case someone might want to get a look inside. By the way the crowd cheered and rejoiced, you hoped that the racer was the Antelope for god knows which reason. They were both racers with the intention to win by all means.

The noise got louder, went from muffled to clear, and you realized the driver had pulled down the window.

“Everything ready?” A male voice.

“I’m ready,” was the driver’s dry answer, a deep voice with a calming, soft undertone. 

The engine was raving up, and you were tucked between the passenger’s seat and the backseat in a hole that was too tight, but because of that it was also the safest spot for the ride as there was no room to move anyway. Turning your head against the window at the opposite of you, you only saw light that flooded in and nothing else.

Dear god, you found yourself praying for the first time in your life, please let me live.

“Jaehyun, do you hear me?”

You flinched when you heard another voice.

“Clear and loud.”

“Only ten seconds left.”

“Okay.”

Was he communicating through a two-way radio with someone? You hadn’t expected this race to be so well-planned and coordinated. Was it always like this? This was an interesting and not widely known point. You only hoped your memory would keep all this information saved as you for sure wouldn’t be able to take out your notebook and write everything down now. 

This was the journalist inside you taking the upper hand again. If you were already in this situation, you were going to write the hell out of it. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity you would never get again, the exact situation your editor-in-chief had talked about.

This was going to be your headline story. You only hoped what he had promised was true and your company would really bail you out if it came down to this. Or pay for hospital bills. There was no way you would be able to leave unscathed, physically and emotionally.

“Three!” the crowd yelled that you could also hear in the car as though you were standing among them.

“Two!” Your fingers gripped onto leather and something metallic, you couldn’t really tell. 

“One!” You closed your eyes.

“GO!”

How equally unlucky and lucky you were to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or right place at the right time, it depended.

____

You were absolutely not safe in your hiding spot as expected. You got tossed and flung into every direction possible, and if it weren’t for the narrow space in which you had tucked yourself in, you believed that you would have been hurled into the seat right next to the driver already. 

But you were gripping hard onto the cushions like your life depended on it just to prevent this from happening as the car sped through the streets and took every curve with such a sharp edge, you were amazed the vehicle didn’t drive on one side only by then. In your location, you weren’t quite able to catch the car’s speed, but only guessed by the street lights flashing by in less than a single second, which was, in your non-existent experience, quite much.

While the driver was talking to the person at the other end of the radio who was giving him directions and tips, navigating him away from police controls and crowded locations, you started to feel a bit braver with no more sharp curve having come in miles anymore. Most likely, you were on the highway now.

So you slowly arose and got on your knees. Curiosity eventually had gotten the better of you, and you wondered what the world outside looked like. In the end, no matter how you would come out of this, you had to make sure it must have been all worth it. 

You had to come to the conclusion that if you moved a bit higher to look out of the window, he might spot your head from his position if he looked in the rear window. With a muted curse, you crouched back down, but instantly got hit by another idea. Dragging the phone out of your handbag was quite an act when you barely couldn’t move, but once you had managed to do so, you inwardly hyped yourself up.

You turned on the camera and pressed the record button, then imperceptibly motioned the phone over your head and let the upper part peek out of your lair with the camera facing out of the window. If he would look, then he would barely see anything, probably mistake the black edge of your phone for a shadow or a part of the car’s interior.

When suddenly a ringing tone broke through the silence inside the car though, you nearly let your device fall with a gasp. You thought you had the ringtone silenced for the entire day already, how was it possible?!

“Hello,” the driver suddenly greeted, and only then it took a load off your mind. It wasn’t your phone that had rung.

“Jaehyun, when will you come home?” The female voice sounded playful, childish. A kid? Perhaps a teenager even?

“Why are you still awake?” The driver named Jaehyun chided with feigned sternness, of whom you still didn’t know what he looked like and whether he was the Falcon or the Antelope. “It’s past midnight and you have school tomorrow.”

“I was waiting for you to come home.”

“But I won’t be home for another hour. It’s going to be late tonight.” The driver sighed, and he sounded very regretful. “I’m sorry.”

“Jaehyun, are you currently racing?”

Silence followed, and suddenly, you felt like you were going to overhear something no one else was supposed to eavesdrop. Like an intruder - which you technically and obviously were since this was obviously a conversation between two family members. 

The driver repeated, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I won’t tell mom. I’ll tell her you’re studying in the library again.”

A yawn followed on the other side, and suddenly, you heard the driver snicker. Somehow, it didn’t fit his attitude that you had gotten a glimpse at earlier. Even his responses to the person at the other side of the radio had always been short and curt. But to this young person, he was entirely different.

“I will wait for you. Mom said I shouldn’t, but I cannot sleep if I don’t know you’re home.”

“I’ll come home safe.”

“Promise?”

“Promise, sis. I will always come home safe.”

Your arm that was holding the phone quietly slipped back into your lap, and you stayed silent for a very long time after they had hung up. This was so wrong. You had signed up for an adventure, not to listen to an intimate conversation between siblings that somehow also warmed your heart. 

If you had learned anything from it, then it was that the driver was indeed a kind person deep within. It didn’t matter what he did, for what he did it and who he was in the end, Antelope or Falcon. They were people with stories, and if you were the journalist you claimed to be, you needed to look at both sides of the coin and bring out everyone’s own perception.

Wasn’t this what your editor-in-chief wanted? A headline that didn’t go “Illegal street racer makes a comeback! We are the first ones to interview him” but rather “He risked it all for his little sister, and now he’s back - read here about the tragic backstory of one of Seoul’s most dangerous men!” or something along these lines.

After you had gathered yourself again, you looked at your phone while the roads started to turn bumpier now. You assumed you had reached the outskirts and were hopefully on the way back to where it had all started. Gosh, you prayed for that, even though you hadn’t come up with a plan to explain your situation at all yet.

The video on your phone showed you exactly what you had expected to see: nothing but a blur of whites and black. Great. It was useless. But what had you even expected?

“We have a problem.”

You perked up your ears as you heard the other familiar voice through the radio.

“What is it?” the driver grumbled. “Not long and we’ll…” He paused, and even with the missing eye contact, you sensed how the mood had suddenly shifted. “I haven’t seen him in  a while…”

“Exactly. There is an undercover police car underway, the informants have just told us, and it’ll stop right where you have to pass through. The Antelope apparently knew about this and already took another route.”

Antelope?! You knew you didn’t want to judge, but out of all possibilities which was 50/50, of course you would have ended up in the Falcon’s aka Jaehyun’s car, the very same person you had mindlessly betted on. What were the odds?

The Falcon snorted. “Now, will you tell me he didn’t set this up himself?”

“No accusations now. Let’s think about what’s best to do. We’re currently in Gangdong-Gu, you somehow have to leave the highway.”

“There is no possibility,” he growled back. “It’s a suburb, there is no way I can pass through it on time and unnoticed for me to win the race.”

“I’ll navigate you the best I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The streets are so short and narrow, it will take too long and is too complicated.”

“You can’t get caught by the police, Jaehyun. And they’re almost right in front of you. It’s better to-”

“Don’t!” he cut the person on the other end off. “I won’t give up. Not this time again. I need this win and money, you know that. It’s my comeback and reputation that I have to restore.”

“But what your family needs is you, more than money or your reputation.”

Silence. Your front teeth sank deep into your bottom lip as you were quarreling with yourself in silence. You knew what was right and what was wrong, what was legal and what was illegal, and what you were currently doing with the driver was far from being within the law as a matter of fact. 

But his little sister wanted him to come home so that she could go to sleep…

“HEY!” you screamed and suddenly appeared from behind his driver’s seat.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

The car swerved to the left, hurling you out of your lair and right into the edge of the backseat with a dull pain that shot from your stomach right into every limb. You gasped for air.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?” Despite you still not being able to face him, you got a glimpse of his face when you looked at it through the rear window. Clear anger and also shock was written all over it. You couldn’t blame him. “ANSWER TO ME NOW!”

“Don’t… have time,” you breathed and rubbed your back, getting on your knees and slowly rising from your position. “Gangdong-Gu… that’s where I grew up. I know this place inside out. I’ll navigate you.”

“Jaehyun, who is that with you in your car? That’s a rule violation!”

“I don’t fucking know who this is!” he yelled again, but not as loud as before, and before he could react to your actions, you had already crawled over the expensive interior and settled yourself in the passenger’s seat. “Who are you?!”

With a click, you fastened the seatbelt and looked out of the window. You knew exactly where you were now. “Take the second exit from here. We will pass by within the next two minutes. You will have to drive through a part of the neighborhood to change highways, but you’ll be fine at this hour. Once you have changed motorways, you’ll even reach the destination quicker. Is that a rule violation too? Taking a shortcut through the suburbs?”

You tilted your head and met his flabbergasted expression as he was staring at you with equal intensity where also curiosity was mirrored. “Uhm… usually we avoid that to not accidentally hurt any passerbyers. But…”

“It’s not a violation of the rules,” the person on the radio jumped in quickly. “It’s just unethical and something we would not like to risk.”

“Okay, thanks radio-guy.”

“Welcome, uhm… intruder-lady?”

“I did not intrude!”

“Well, how the fuck would you call this?” the Falcon interrupted.

“I don’t have time to explain now.” Your arm shot up and you pointed at a sign. “Take this exit! Right now!”

From the corner of your eyes, you clearly saw him struggling whether to trust you or not. Fair enough. You were a stranger that had hidden in his car and were now only popping up when it was about winning or losing. If anything, you could have been smuggled in by the Antelope’s team as well. No wonder he was doubting whether he could trust you.

“Screw it.”

You got thrown to the left when he suddenly swerved and left the highway according to your instruction. With your right hand, you grabbed the handle under the window for stability, once again questioning all your life choices. But you had thought long and clear about this. Having decided on helping him would result in the best outcome for your situation.

“Three rules,” he suddenly said when he drove into the neighborhood.

You shook off all your fears, speaking confidently, “I’m listening.” 

“First. No word to anyone about what’s happening and what you’re doing right now. Nobody can know you’re in here.”

Why did he sound so intimidating? “Got it.”

“Second, you will lead me through this neighborhood without any incidents. Slow, steady and clear, you’ll be the navigator, the guy at the other side helps you from afar. One wrong turn, one accident or even the danger of one, and one late instruction, and I’ll kick you out of the car right there and then.”

No pressure, no pressure at all, you thought ironically to yourself. “Got it.”

“And third,” a voice on the radio chirped, “Don’t forget to have fun!”

“Shut up, Taeyong.”

“Third,” the Falcon repeated, “when we’re back at the venue, you’ll stay hidden inside here until someone comes and gets you.”

What would happen after, you didn’t dare to ask. Surely, they wouldn’t get rid of you… right? Either way, your fate had been sealed the moment you decided to come watch the race, so you gulped silently and gave a final nod.

The car came to a halt in front of a very familiar street. Everything was dark, empty and quiet. You took a deep breather and the Falcon’s head snapped in your direction. When you faced each other the next moment, you took a spare second to study his face.

If he weren’t in a racing car, you could imagine him very well sitting in a café, sipping coffee and typing something into his laptop, maybe even wearing glasses and ordinary street clothes, possibly even joggers. 

He was just a normal dude under all these leather clothes that made him appear very tough, emphasized by this constant scowl on his face that was - admittedly - very handsome. After years in your field of expertise, you could read people very well and only seldomly were you wrong.

“Ready?” he asked, not breaking eye contact.

Neither did you. “Ready.”

The adrenaline flushed through your veins the moment he hit the gas pedal.

____

“Didn’t you sleep much last night?” your co-worker asked when you yawned for the nth time that morning.

What were you supposed to answer? 

“I only got home at 4am last night, because I was street racing?”

So instead, you said, “I just couldn’t fall asleep, don’t worry.”

Nobody would believe you. And yet, these were the stories that everyone sought after. But only one ride was not resourceful enough and didn't contain enough substance for a decent plot. You needed the people behind it, the backgrounds and the experiences. 

But after you had gotten out of the car, these people have made it very clear to you that you shouldn’t appear in a race ever again, not even as a spectator, and that your lips needed to be sealed for eternity. The fact that they had let you go without any consequences was only out of mercy because you had contributed to the victory - with a violation of rules though. 

You had learned pretty quickly though that most of the time, they ignored these rules as long as nobody got hurt as physical incidents that included innocents were the highest breach of violation - just like the Antelope who had apparently cheated like the Falcon had assumed. But since nobody got proof, there hadn’t been more consequences than a few verbal attacks. As long as nobody had seen you inside the car and could prove it somehow, you were fine. 

The only person that had thanked and had been nice to you was the Falcon’s navigator, Taeyong. He had even looked very sorry for what you had been through when he had opened the door to the car and you stepped out of the hideout between the backseat and passenger’s seat with shaking legs.

The Falcon hadn’t even looked at you twice when you walked out of the building - with all the money. Yes, surprisingly, they had still given you ten percent of the prize money. It was all rightfully yours since you had been the only one betting on the Falcon. Your bet had been officially registered and you had won, so it was fair and according to the rules that you would get what you earned, Taeyong had explained. 

Deep down, you sensed that he only didn’t want to admit they wouldn’t have won without you, and this was them paying off their debt. After all, you hadn’t given out your real name, so they could have just said the betting person vanished. But you didn’t push the topic and saw it as hush money that you luckily needed anyway, and accepted it. Racers had a very high sense of ethics, you had learned by now. A thank you from the Falcon wouldn’t have hurt though. But instead, he had said you should never appear in front of his eyes ever again. What a rude man.

“Okay,” your co-worker said, “shall we go through the index for the next issue and compare the page numbers? Two pairs of eyes work better than just one.”

“Sure! Let me get the notes about what the editor-in-chief said. There were some important points he mentioned that had changed…”

You reached into your handbag to look for your notebook when at that moment, the telephone on your desk rang and showed the lobby’s shortcut number.

“There is someone waiting here for you, miss.”

“Alright, I’ll come downstairs.”

You wondered whether you had actually missed a meeting or an interview that you had set up for a story, but nothing actually came into your mind when you took the elevator and rode downstairs to the lobby. 

At the front desk, you asked the lady where your visitor was waiting since you hadn’t spotted a familiar face as you passed by the waiting area. When she pointed at a figure sitting on the couch, slumped on the cushion, you needed to blink twice to match the face with your memories.

“You?!” you then called out when you stood in front of the young man.

He wore a snapback, glasses, joggers and a loose long sleeve. Between his lips, he carried a white stick, and you already wanted to call him out that smoking was not allowed in here when you realized that the stick was too thin to be a cigarette. It turned out to actually be a lollipop. When your gaze fell to his feet, you were able to count every single naked toe as he wore slippers. You were right. He normally didn’t look like this nighttime-self at all. During the daytime, he was just a normal guy who appeared to have just gotten out of bed.

When the Falcon arose from his seat, he didn’t even greet you. Instead, he took the lollipop out of his mouth, round and red, and just thrusted a notebook into your hands. Your notebook - the one you had wanted to fetch from your handbag earlier and which you needed for the meeting with your editor-in-chief later. You had been so sure that it was in your handbag this entire time!

“This was still in the backseat of my car. Take better care of your belongings. And don’t put your business cards everywhere. It’s not everyone’s business where you work or what your contact information is.” He then shrugged, made the lollipop disappear between his lips again and turned aside to walk past you, but you held him back by his arm. 

“Wait!”

Slowly, he shifted his head back to you and asked lazily, but clearly despite the sweet in his mouth, “What is it now?” 

He shook your grip off, but you just bluntly asked the question that had been on your mind this entire morning, “Let me ride with you one more time, please?”

He drew his brows together as if you had just asked the dumbest thing a woman your age could ask a man. And apparently, judging by his answer, you had done exactly that. 

“Are you nuts?”

“You see, I’m a journa-”

“You people really think you’re superior,” he scowled, and you were taken aback. “Making money off of people’s personal stories, aren’t you guys embarrassed? I shouldn’t have returned your notebook at all. You’re all just selfish bastards.”

With a lowly look at you, the Falcon put more distance between you two, and although you were frozen on the spot and dumbfounded at first, you didn’t want to let him leave like this. Clearly, he had a prejudice about you journalists that you had to resolve. 

“I’m not one of those journalists that make money off other people!” you told him when you had caught up with him, but by then you were already outside on the streets. “I tell real, verified stories, and only what people allow me to write! Only the truth!” He didn’t reply, but just continued walking, and you decided to follow him. “I’ve never lied or done anything without consent to write my stories. And that is what my editor-in-chief is always criticizing since this apparently holds me back from getting a promotion. In his eyes, I’m a goody two-shoes who doesn’t take any risks. But the truth is… I can’t do that, I’m fine that way! I want to tell the stories with people, I don’t want to tell stories against people! And I think you guys’ story is one very worth telling!”

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and you nearly ran into him from behind. One a few inches separated you from each other when he turned around to you and dropped his head to lock gazes with you. “I don’t think what happened yesterday with you breaking into my car was something a goody two-shoes would actually do, but a ruthless journalist.”

You let out a desperate cry. “I told you over and over again, I just wanted to watch the race, then changed my mind and wanted to go home when you guys appeared, and then I panicked! That wasn’t planned, and regarding how close I was to dying, I would choose to not do that again. Which is why I’m asking you formally for permission.”

The Falcon remained silent and inwardly, you raised your hopes up. If you could tell a great story in cooperation with him under an alias and his other friends, that would definitely secure your promotion. 

“No.”

Then, he continued his way.

“But why?” You quickly caught up to him again. “I wouldn’t tell you guys’ real names and only write what you want to have written.”

“I don’t have a story to tell except that we like racing.”

“But there must already be a story to that, right?” you tried again, keeping up with his steps this time. “Why did you start? How did you start? How did you learn all this, how do you feel when you’re in the car, how does this whole teamwork function, do your other friends and family know and what do they think about it… I have so many questions!”

“No word about my family,” he interrupted you, the candy now in his hand to speak more insistently, and it didn’t sound like a warning at this point, it sounded more like a threat. “Whatever you heard in the car, you better forget about it.”

A soft spot - you had already discovered that. It was none of your business if he didn’t want to let you in as a stranger, but you also couldn’t stop wondering. “I already got that memo yesterday. But-”

Again, he cut you off. “Great. And if I still catch you publishing an article on what happened yesterday or what you eavesdropped… well, I know where you work and live thanks to your negligence. Goodbye.”

He put the lollipop back into his mouth and disappeared in the crowd. You were tired of chasing after him again, and truth to be told, you could understand his point. Taking a deep breath in, you settled with the fact that you had to change your topic, the promotion gone from your sight again.

Of course you could have written the article without any additional info or the reveal that you were in the car yourself, but then it would only be that, an article. But you wanted a story.

_____

You were scrolling through the internet, looking for new jobs.

You figured that if you were to stick with your old position, you could as well try your luck somewhere else. Perhaps, there were open positions on the same level as your missed promotion for which you could prove that you were qualified or that didn’t require you to do illegal and unethical things.

There were only two days left until you had to hand in your proposal for the story that would cover the next issue, and you still hadn’t come up with something else. 

By now, you could also pack your things and leave the city since living in the countryside didn’t sound so bad after all. Sitting by the window all day, watching nature? A dream. But you had chosen to return and to stay in the capital on purpose, a quiet, secluded life didn’t suit your current ideals. You were a writer after all, always seeking for new stories to tell, and you believed Seoul told endless ones.

The ringing doorbell had you spin around on your chair. Your room was small, but it offered enough space for all necessities that only one person needed, which was why you rarely had visitors. And as far as you remembered, you hadn’t invited anyone over.

“Who is there?” you asked carefully as you approached the door.

“It’s me.”

You furrowed. “Who?”

“Me.” Pause. “Jaehyun.”

The Falcon. Lollipop-dude. What could he possibly want after your last argument?

You opened the door, and there he stood in front of you, hair slicked back and donned all in black leather - a stark contrast to a few days ago, safe from the lollipop spinning in his mouth. 

He peeked through the halfway opened door. “It’s tiny in here.”

You snapped, “Well, nobody asked you to come.”

“Can I come in anyway? We need to talk.”

“I didn’t write anything!”

He rolled his eyes as you opened the door. “I know, that’s not why I came here.”

You closed the entrance door behind you and watched him standing in your room, a bit too big for your furniture, and also a bit lost in this environment. You struggled biting down a snicker, because this picture was just so surreal.

“What is it?” he grumbled.

You folded your arms in front of your chest and shrugged. “Nothing. So tell me, what do you want from me that even made you come to my home?”

The Falcon turned around to your desk and stretched out his arm, taking something into his hand that must be your notebook he had returned to you. Holding it up, he showed it to you with his back still facing you and asked, “You still want to write this story of yours?”

Perplexed, you could only nod, but as you realized he couldn’t witness your confirmation, you quickly agreed vocally, “Yes! Yes, of course!” 

“Three rules,” he then started before slowly shifting back into your sight, the lollipop still in his mouth, and you noted that everything for him came with terms and conditions. How exhausting, three rules again. “You won’t use anyone’s real names. You will only write what I allow you to write. You won’t mention my family or my background. I am allowed to read the entire thing before you publish it.”

“Those are four rules tho,” you remarked, and his eyes narrowed. 

The lollipop stopped spinning in his mouth. “I’m outta here.”

“I agree, I agree!” you corrected yourself. “I agree with all the rules!”

“Fine.” He handed you over your notebook. “Now get dressed, we’re going racing. I hope you have black clothes and a leather jacket, because this…” He pointed at your light pink pajamas in which you had changed into as soon as you came home, “is not it.”

Your eyes widened. “Now?”

“Now,” he repeated.

You hesitated.

“Your last chance,” he pushed.

“I’ll get changed.”

____

“I thought I was going to be in the car.”

“Didn’t Jaehyun tell you?” Taeyong asked with a cocked brow.

“Tell me what?”

“That guy…” He touched his forehead and pointed at the seat next to him, urging you to sit down in front of the three monitors standing on the desk. “We need you to navigate.”

“Navigate what?”

“What did you two talk about on your ride here?”

You heaved up your shoulders and let them down again. “Actually nothing.”

The ride in the Falcon’s car to this suburb had been quiet with him focusing on driving and you concentrating on what you could make this story revolve around. No, you had barely talked and had each lived in their own mind.

“You’re going to navigate the race. Basically be his co-driver, but from here, not from inside the car like last time,” Taeyong explained thoughtfully with a smile. “Basically, you’ll do my job, I’ll only be your co-navigator and the team’s manager fully again.”

“Navigator? Eh? I thought I was only going to stay here, writing. Maybe even get the chance to be inside the car again, but since it’s against the official rules, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Wait, he really didn’t tell you anything?” You were both equally confused.

“So I’m not just… observing?”

“Absolutely not.” Taeyong determinedly shook his head. “To be part of the team means to contribute something, and for you to write this story about us, you will also have to do your part. Actually, no outsider is allowed to be with the team during the race, because the risk of cheating and manipulation is too high, so this was the only option. Jaehyun has already fallen out of grace, we cannot allow something negative to be associated with him again when his reputation is just getting repaired.”

You wanted to know why the Falcon had fallen out of grace in the first place, but you came to the conclusion that it was not your time to ask just yet. 

“And why me then? Aren’t you guys enough?” You tried to conceal your rising panic. “I can just sit here and write if I’m not allowed inside the car. Maybe do some cleaning of the vehicle before you start or do some promotion work. Something I can actually do. Nobody will notice I don’t have a fixed role in the team. Besides, I don’t even know how to navigate.”

Taeyong tilted his head, his smile growing wider. “But you’ve done an exceptionally good job last time. It doesn’t matter who navigates, the person just has to be good.”

You felt your cheeks getting warm by this compliment. “I barely did anything…”

“And yet, it was enough for him to win after such a long time and have people start betting on him again. He really needs the money, so you better help him win as many races as possible in return for getting a good story.”

Why did it sound like a threat despite his sweet smile? 

You sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“Take this.” 

Taeyong handed you a headset and instructed you to wear it which would connect your voice to the radio in Jaehyun’s car. Through the first monitor, you had the dashcam’s point of view, which gave you the feeling of being directly in the passenger’s seat, that was not bad. The second monitor showed the car’s location in the city with all streets and buildings through a GPS while the third showed another map but with different red dots spread across the screen.

“Those are police stations and control points.” Taeyong let the tip of his index finger glide over the screen. “... of the ones we know. Spotting cars following Jaehyun as well as unplanned control points popping up will be another challenge. And these devices are police scanners. As you can guess from the name alone…”

At first, you had been excited, but as you got everything explained and shown, it dawned on you how close the driver and the navigator actually had to work, and that the driver had to trust the navigator literally with his life. You didn’t feel very comfortable with that much responsibility weighing on your shoulders. What if something went wrong and he got caught by the police? Would you land in jail then too? 

“Today, it’s going to be a cannonball run with two others, meaning Jaehyun will start here, but finish at the other side of the city where most of the spectators are waiting. That’s why there is barely anyone here right now. Of course they want to see the winner. As opposed to last time’s run, this is about time rather than bringing as much distance between the cars as possible. And you know how much the sum is that you can win?” Taeyong’s sweet smile got replaced by a wicked grin. “40 million won.”

“I can’t do this, I’m sorry!”

You jumped out of your seat and ran towards the door, opening it up. The starting point was somewhere in the suburbs where you had never been before, but you didn’t care as you pulled out your phone once you inhaled fresh air that filled your heated lungs, ready to call a taxi.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

A huge figure blocked your way, and it only took you one look to first smell his lollipop, then recognize him. Damn, did he ever finish that sweet or did he have an entire stash in his pockets?

“I’m going home!”

“And why would you do that?”

“Because you lied to me! I can’t do this!”

Instead of talking you out of it, the Falcon raised his brows, then laughed, revealing his teeth between the red lollipop. “I knew it. Once a chickenshit, always a chickenshit.”

“A what?!” Your mouth stood agape, wondering whether you had heard right. “How can you say that?”

“I’m only speaking the truth. The first time, you also wanted to escape had it not been for us coming in your direction and forcing you to get into the car, right?”

You faltered. “Hm… okay, yes… but…”

He tilted his head and shrugged. “You dream about big stories, but this is what they will always stay for you: a dream. And you know why?” The Falcon leaned in, and you felt the sudden urge to withdraw, but you were completely petrified. “Because you don’t have the courage and the will to actually make your dreams come true. You're a big talker, a dreamer to put it nicely, but you’re not a doer, someone who gets shit done. I, in comparison, get shit done. And this is why I'm doing what I’m doing and you’re only watching from the sidelines, not being able to type down this story of yours like the goody two-shoes you are. Ever thought about the fact that you won’t get this promotion because you don’t deserve it?”

You weren’t aware that you had been holding your breath the entire time. Only when he approached you further and whispered in your ear, “Now go home, we don’t need someone like you here, we can do it without you”, you were able to exhale again, blood irregularly pumping through your veins while you clenched your fists.

With a fierce gaze thrown at him, you spun around on your heel, opened the door to the hall and yelled, “Taeyong, give me the headset and tell me what to do. For this round, I feel more comfortable with you next to me.” You threw one last look behind you at Jaehyun before you continued, “And next time, I’ll do it all myself.”

The door fell shut behind you, but you could have sworn that you saw the Falcon smiling. 

This time though, genuinely. And perhaps partly relieved.

____

You were still shaking when you found yourself sitting in the Falcon’s car again, heading home in the middle of the night after your first race as a co-navigator. The other team members had brought you to the finish line in their car with them to celebrate, but there was not much reason for you to do so as of now. The shock was still sitting deeply with you.

“Everything okay?” the Falcon asked, but it still sounded like coming from another planet as your ears were ringing. “What are you even upset about? We won.”

“What I’m upset about?” you called out. “There could have been so many instances that could have gone totally wrong!”

“But nothing went wrong. Why are you always such a scaredy cat?” You didn’t look at him but straight out of the window. His eye roll was very visible in front of you though. “Just calm down, it’s irritating me.”

“I know everything ended well, but just imagine if a police car had suddenly pulled up. Or if someone had crossed the streets. Inside the car, it was exciting, but as an official navigator, you have so much responsibility…”

“Just enjoy the victory and the amount of money we’re going to share with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?” He murmured something about goody two-shoes again, but by now you were good at ignoring that. “Geez, did you ever have one single day in your life that you could freely enjoy without having a stick so far up your ass? Your poor boyfriend.”

It was the most nonchalant way in which you had ever witnessed the Falcon talk, even though he had mostly said nonsense. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.”

You gasped. “Excu-”

The next moment, you tasted something sweet on your tongue. “Close your mouth and suck.”

Instinctively, you did as you had been told as you didn’t know how else to react. The Falcon kept driving the car through the city with his eyes fixated on the road in front of him as though he hadn’t just pulled the lollipop out of his mouth and nearly shoved it straight down your throat.

“Sugar helps me calm down and the motions I need to make distract me from unwanted thoughts,” he admitted, and his voice suddenly sounded so vulnerable that you didn’t dare to respond. “I think you need that now too.”

You slumped back into your seat, suddenly very quiet. You tried not to think much about the fact that his saliva was now in your mouth too, and that you didn’t feel repulsed at the thought at all. He had been right after all. Your hands were not shaking anymore.

“The fact that I participate in those races is because I need the money,” he continued and you somehow sensed that he was currently glad that you weren’t able to look him straight in the face in case you caught his true emotions mirrored there. “And I wanted you to be my navigator, because you had done a very good job the first time around. During the races, you appear to be panicked and disheveled, but you are actually calm and collected, always knowing what you’re doing and never doubting yourself. From the first moment on, I saw much potential in you, and I needed someone like that to strengthen my team.”

“... to win the races,” you finished what he probably thought to himself in silence.

“Exactly.”

“So to you, it’s all about winning?” Your mouth tasted sweet with each syllable, and only now you recognized which flavor that was: cherry. “You wanted me in your team, because you assumed I could contribute to your series of wins?”

“That’s my only life goal. Winning as many games as possible for the money.”

You didn’t know why his answer bothered you. Weren’t you also only on board because you needed to write about this experience to ensure you climb the ladder of success which would eventually also result in money and fame? You weren’t much different from each other. He probably was only a bit more reckless in money making than you.

“I understand,” you agreed when it eventually clicked. He was trying to fool you again, so you corrected yourself, “No, I don’t understand. The way you spoke to your sister… it’s not only about money for you.”

The Falcon scoffed. “Why do you feel the need to peg me as some kind of deep character? Because I don’t fit the narrative of your story?”

This stung. Most likely because he was right. People wanted to read about deep characters, if not about a hero, then about an antagonist who told them how he had become an antagonist. But nobody wanted to read about a greedy, selfish person.

“So the main character of my story is only after money,” you concluded dryly.

“Yes, this is something you can mention in your story. The person you write about is a selfish jerk who only thinks about money.” He let out a laugh, but it rather sounded rather bitter than genuine. “I know it’s not that very deep of a story, but never told you that what you would get was interesting.”

The lollipop clicked against your teeth as you replied, “No worries. I’m a professional.”

He wanted to make himself fit his very own narrative, and you needed him to fit your own narrative. Right now, there was no character to your story.

At home, despite the ungodly hour and your clash of interests, you typed down a summary of your story and handed it in the very next day, even before the deadline. This would be your story, one way or another. You were going to make the best out of it, with the Falcon’s cooperation or without.

____

“He is very popular,” you remarked.

“Oh, he sure is.” Taeyong thrusted a drink into your hand. “He just doesn’t like this attention at all.”

You watched the Falcon getting approached by both men and women who were desperate to talk to him while you watched with your new team from the sidelines. After another race together that the Falcon had won, Taeyong had invited you to something like an after party in some other team member’s big house. You had to work the next morning and didn’t want to stay long, but you supposed you had to do it for the experience and more substance for your article. The more you had to write about, the better.

“Can you imagine that only a few months ago, it was entirely different? Everybody hated him.”

“Hm?” You snapped your head to Taeyong. “Because of the accident he was involved in?”

The look in his eyes was impenetrable, but it softened when he watched his friend. “Yes, but the details to that… I’m sure he’ll tell you himself when he feels the time is right.”

Admittedly, you knew quite a bit already by just going around and talking to people, you were just keeping it a secret since you didn’t want to come off to the team as too nosy or pushy. But none of the spectators you had come to have a short conversation with knew exactly what kind of accident that had been. You had tried really hard to gather all the information, but they just differed too much from each other.

When one assumed the Falcon had hit someone with his car and drove away, the second guessed he had run into someone, but brought them to the hospital. And the third option, and that was the worst, those people believed he had killed someone in that accident. The newspapers that had reported on this case hadn’t mentioned anything more. Just the fact that the Falcon had caused an accident in a suburb that involved an innocent passerby. And that was still enough to fall out of grace in this community, that was how high their ethical standards were.

You wondered why, with such an incident happening that involved all kinds of trope that would make people drawn to it, there hadn’t been any follow-up reports by newspapers and magazines.

Taeyong had once let slip that Jaehyun had only been able to make a comeback after this incident because he had challenged the Cheetah. Apparently, nobody ever did that. And now you were even more curious about the Cheetah, the Falcon’s biggest opponent. 

From what you had heard, officially and unofficially, he won all the races and was nearly untouchable. He only challenged someone just to show off how remarkable he was, but nobody ever challenged him. That was an unspoken rule - except for when you wanted to set yourself up for humiliation. And the Falcon had done exactly that.

You looked at your team which was already top notch with a driver who was nearly impeccable. You couldn’t imagine a team that was better. Apart from the one you worked the closest with, Taeyong, there was Johnny, the mechanic, and the one which they call the investigator, though you just believed that he was a hacker in reality - Yuta. 

You had seen and worked with them before all the time, but getting to know them privately in peace made you realize one thing: These were all just normal guys who knew each other from university with a not so legal side hustle. They were splitting the winner’s entire sum equally among all of them, and even if they didn’t want that much as the Falcon was the one driving and inheriting the most dangerous part, the latter always insisted on it, claiming they weren’t a work environment, but friends. 

The fact that you were now a part of this close knit group, made you feel a bit awkward as you didn’t know them that well yet, but the other fact that they had welcomed you with open arms, safe from the Falcon so far though, and already saw you as one of them, warmed your heart. 

Even though the money had sounded very tempting as well and you surely always got your fair share of the work that paid more than a few bills, you were surprised how little it meant to you in the end. You couldn’t really pinpoint it. The races with the team… the preparation, the process, the talks in between, the shared laughter, the banter… you enjoyed this way much more than holding the money in your hands by the next day. It meant so less when everything else hoarded a much bigger feeling that was still so unfamiliar to you, but very overwhelming. 

“Ah, there he is,” Johnny whispered to you and pointed at a tall guy, surrounded by other young men and a woman. “The Cheetah and his team.”

“That’s the Cheetah?” you asked. “The one he’s challenged?”

“The best racer out there and someone Jaehyun could never beat, someone no one usually challenges and beats.” There it was. Now, you didn’t need to feign lack of knowledge anymore. “Hopefully, until now. It’s about a lot of money and the people are already anticipating it. It’s gonna be the race of the year. Maybe, Jaehyun will take his crown.”

You hadn’t known it was going to be this big and anticipated. Now, you also understood why people had welcomed the Falcon back despite whatever everyone imagined the accident to have involved. The best and most popular racer against the underdog who had fallen deep, wanting to rise again? That surely made a headline.

“The woman in that team, is she also a navigator?”

“Yes.” Taeyong nodded. “Women are mostly navigators, there rarely are female racers. As of today, I only know of two who are still active. But it’s really hard to recruit women for your team, no matter which position.”

“Because the job is illegal and hard?”

He nodded again. “Women usually don’t want to be involved in illegal activities.”

“... I can relate.”

All eyes now landed on you and you shrugged. “I just really need this promotion, you know that, guys. Just once in life, I want to be fortunate and successful.”

You were glad you could be totally open with them and not get judged, because you all were here for the same reason. This illegal sport benefitted all of you in some way.

“Just like I need money to finance my studies,” Taeyong said. 

And Yuta added, “I really want to found my own company in the future.”

“And one day, I really want to move back to the US,” Johnny finished.

You were only people with dreams and ambitions. If you did things like these with all the precautions and didn’t hurt anyone, no matter how selfish or selfless, then was it really wrong to chase after your longings? You still gave the Falcon the benefit of doubt over the incident. Your team was fair and good, you wanted to believe so hard in every single one of them.

Knowing his friends and what they did for each other, you now were a hundred percent sure that there was a deep reason the Falcon always put his life on line too, and that he wasn’t as reckless and as money-hungry as he had first made himself out to be. None of them were.

Taeyong studied to help out his family, because his father couldn’t work anymore. Yuta wanted to open up a company, because his family got robbed of theirs. Johnny wanted to go back to the US to take care of his mom.

“I first thought it all boiled down to money, that glued you together,” you thought out loud. “But I was so wrong.”

It was way more than about money. It was about friendship, family and dreams. Of some things, you had only ever heard of and never experienced yourself - and most likely never would. And as this thought settled, you realized that you were the one doing all this solely for fame. You were the selfish, money-fixated person in this group. You were the one wrong here.

“It all comes down to trust in the end,” Johnny complemented. “Without a tight-knit team that doesn’t trust each other, you cannot make it.”

“But why me?” You frowned. “I didn’t do anything to earn your trust. I’m just here, because you caught me.”

“Oh, but you did win our trust!” Taeyong then objected and Johnny and Yuta nodded along. “With the way you helped Jaehyun when you were stuck in his car, that was the first race he had won after a long while and which has restored his reputation. You didn’t help him because of the money, I heard the entire thing.”

They trusted you? Why was your chest grabbed by a feeling so overwhelming like it was going to explode at any moment? Perhaps, at this point, you could imagine being friends with them too eventually… if they wanted to still have someone as selfish as you around.

“I didn’t want to see him lose,” you reluctantly answered. “At that moment, I didn’t think about a story. I just cared for his sister… and for him.”

Because you never had had the experience of being in a real family, you wanted to protect everyone that still had one. You remembered the phone call the Falcon had made, that he had promised to always come back to her. Basically, you still knew nothing about him, but what you knew was that he was way more than he made himself out to be. 

You didn’t need to invent a story about him to fit your narrative. He had fitted it all along. You saw it clearly now.

“Okay, enough with the long faces, guys!”

Johnny threw his arms around all of you and huddled you all together.

“You’re suffocating me,” Yuta complained, though the playfulness clearly stood out in his voice.

“People are looking,” Taeyong worried, but you couldn’t help but to chuckle.

“So what?” Johnny let you all go again and shrugged. “How about a round of drinks for us? I think we all need it now.”

“I’ll get the drinks.”

You all shifted your head in unison and saw the Falcon having moved to your group, no sign of other people anymore, although you could have sworn he was swarmed by them only a few minutes ago.

“What about your fans?” you wanted to know from him and joked, “They all got an autograph already?”

His reply was dry with a gaze just as similar, “I told them to leave me alone.”

“Jeez, Jaehyun,” Taeyong complained, “with a behavior like this, no one is going to bet on you in the future.”

“They shouldn’t bet on who’s the nicest anyway.”

Yes, the Falcon wouldn’t be the winner of a be-nice-award. But when he volunteered to get the drinks and naturally included you, you figured that he didn’t need to voice his kindness. He rather showed it.

____

“Why will you drive me home? Didn’t you drink?”

“Because it’s late and dark, and I need to go home too. And of course I didn’t drink alcoholic beverages this entire time, are you nuts? Now, get in.”

You looked out of the passenger’s seat’s window when the car started rolling, lights flashing by in a blur as you drove through the streets at a normal speed, and yawned. “The party was just getting to be fun, you didn’t have to leave with me.”

“Just take this free ride, will you?”

“Okay.”

You listened to the Falcon’s lollipop clicking against his teeth when he moved it in his mouth and you yawned again. 

“I spotted the Cheetah earlier tonight,” you said. “What’s the deal with this big race that’s coming up?”

“So the guys told you, hm.” The movements of the lollipop stick stopped. “Our history runs deep. To sum it up quickly: I can win against anyone, but never against him. I need to break this curse.”

“I get it,” you declared and leaned back in your seat. “You never beat him, so the rage waves just get stacked on top of each other, and the more races you lose, the more you want to win. Just like we journalists fight to have our stories be headliners every month and there is always this one person who snatches them the majority of the time.”

The Falcon sighed. “A weird and out of place comparison, but I guess you’re not entirely wrong.”

You seamlessly continued, “When was your first race against him?”

“I guess when I turned 21. That’s when I started racing.”

“Wow, so many years and no win against him? It must be frustrating.”

“Yeah, just rub more salt into the wound,” he muttered, a bit offended, “but as I said, this is going to end in a few weeks. He won’t be Kind of the Streets anymore. It will be me who will take the crown.”

“King of the Streets?” You asked. “Is that the official title?”

“Just a label we throw around in the community every now and then, but nobody gets literally crowned, if you know what I mean. He’s just been inheriting this title forever, and I’m sick of it.”

“Did you only start because you wanted to win the title?”

“What? Of course not! I started because my fa-” He stopped. “Hey, I know what you’re doing!”

You giggled. “Don’t worry. I didn’t ask you as a journalist, I ask you as your teammate, your navigator. We have made rules and I will stick to them. Is it too much to ask for, getting to know you? We spend so much time with each other, we trust each other, don’t we?”

He became silent. You got him. “I guess so.”

This reply surprised you very much as you hadn’t expected it. But you regained your composure very quickly despite the feeling still lingering in your chest. “How many siblings do you have... Jaehyun?”

It was the first time that you vocally said and thought about his real name. You had been avoiding it, but you couldn’t keep calling him the Falcon. He was human too, although he would remain anonymous in your story.

Jeahyun paused, but eventually replied, “You already know of my younger sister. She’s the only one. I live with her and my mom.”

“How old is your sister?”

“She’s fourteen.”

“So, in middle school.”

“Exactly.”

Where was his father that he had nearly mentioned? You wanted to ask this and much more, but the way his voice had changed by the end, you knew that this was it for today. And it was okay. He should only share what he felt like sharing. Instead, you decided to tell him more about yourself.

“I live alone. My parents divorced when I was a little child, and since my mom moved abroad with a new man directly after, I stayed with my dad. But he was addicted to booze. I had to grow up fast, because whatever role a parent usually played, he wasn’t in the position to take over it. One day, when I was the same age as your sister, he didn’t come home.”

Jaehyun breathed in deeply, and you sensed that he was about to drop a comment, but held himself back from doing so at the last second. You were unsure whether this was a sign to continue or not, but you did anyway.

“He got caught in a hit and run accident. He was the driver. Despite me telling him every day to cut out on the booze or at least never get into the car with alcohol in his system, he always did. And on that fateful day, he took an entire family with him.”

Having this story sealed in your heart for such a long time, you didn’t expect the syllables to fall from your lips so smoothly as though you were retelling someone else’s past and not your personal one. After all these years, you felt nothing anymore.

“Your question from before we got into the car…” Jaehyun started, but refrained himself from ending the sentence.

“If you had drunk something, I wouldn’t have gotten in the car with you. And If you had drunk something during a race, I would have quit right away.” You smiled mildly. “I’m relieved your addiction is lollipops.”

“Why had you agreed on being my navigator?” was Jaehyun’s next question. “You should resent people like me.”

“I can’t resent the world just because I resent my father. I want you to always come home to your sister like you promised her.”

He fell into silence. Perhaps, you had crossed a line, perhaps not. But you wanted him to know that you cared. You collected stories every day from different people and they all affected you, every single fate, more or less. But for him, you didn't care like a journalist for a subject. You cared like a friend.

“I want that too,” Jaehyun eventually responded. “Always coming back home to her.”

You smiled. “Then let’s work together well.”

____

With every race, you got calmer and more professional, and even though you had lost two races so far - as constant wins were an exception anyway except for when you were called the Cheetah - Jaehyun won with you, his team, almost all races, and he rose to the top again, shining as the Falcon in all his glory.

You still weren’t able to shake off your nervousness and slight panic entirely, but you got better in managing those feelings and most importantly, you didn't let it seep through the headset for Jaehyun to feel.

Through the next races, your connection only got stronger as you figured out a way to work silently and peacefully with each other. You even bonded over unfunny jokes and small conversations you held in the car when he drove you home, which he always insisted on - most likely because you were a woman and it was usually the middle of the night.

Jaehyun’s car was his safe space, because he knew whatever you talked about, even though most of the time it wasn’t even something important, it would never leave his vehicle without his permission.

“I never drink alcohol,” he suddenly told you on one of these rides home when you both got out of the car as you had decided to make a short stopover. “I never know when my sister or mom will need me since my father is not here anymore.”

It was the first time in a long while you talked about something other than the races, teams, your job and other trivial things. You had rarely talked about his personal topics ever since that one time. You were happy to hear that you finally reached this point again, and the conversation was even opened up by him.

Jaehyun seated himself on the car’s hood and you carefully crawled up to him. He made space for you and reached out his hand when you teetered, securing you while you settled right next to him. After having taken your place, you followed his gaze and encountered a view that you hadn’t seen before.

He had wanted to drive out of the city after this race just to clear his head, and you had complied despite this late hour. Now, you were watching the sunrise from the top of a hill on an early summer morning, wondering how a moment like this, that you had never dreamed of before, was suddenly making you so happy.

“Where is your father?” you finally dared to ask, because the moment felt right.

“In prison for fraud,” Jaehyun deadpanned. “He committed a huge tax evasion crime with his own company, not only taking the business down, but all of our savings as well along with the family’s reputation.”

You were shocked. “I don’t know what to say… I’m so sorry, that’s horrible.”

“He consciously did that, knowing exactly the outcome of his actions, what it’d cause us, what it would make of us.” His blood was boiling, it was palpable. “And now, my mother is working two jobs just to make the ends meet and pay off the debt because of this selfish, money-hungry bastard.”

Jaehyun… was he racing to support his family too, just like his friends? Because a son who described his father as a selfish, money-hungry bastard couldn’t be one himself.

“I guess we both grew up with father figures we couldn’t really rely on.”

On top of the car were sitting two people with inner children that had been abandoned by their parents at some point. But you both had learned to make it through life without them. Screw them, you were going to make it better than your parents.

“I don’t want my sister to grow up thinking all men are like our father. I’m not the perfect example for an older brother, but I would do everything to give her the life she wants, such as illegal car racing just to open up the possibility to her of enrolling into her preferred university.”

So that was why and always, it was about winning races for him. Even though he had claimed otherwise in the beginning, he was not someone superficial who only cared about fame, you had always known. He cared about his family, and friends. And, as someone who hadn’t grown up with the first, it was pretty touching that a brother would do that for his sister. Nobody had ever done that for you and you didn’t have someone who would even consider doing this for you, too. 

“You sister must be really proud of you.” You smiled. “You’re a good person, Jaehyun.”

Suddenly, he turned cold. “Easy for you to say, knowing only this side of me.”

These words hurt you after spending quite a lot of time with each other. 

You had gotten to know his friends and now some of his backstory. You knew you were in no position to feel this way considering that he didn’t see you as his friend yet apparently. Still, it stung somehow.

“When I was your sister’s age, I would have loved to have an older brother by my side who cares so much about me. I was all alone, but your sister has you. Whether you see yourself as a good person or not, Jaehyun, it doesn’t matter to your sister at all. You’re good in her book, that’s enough.”

“I appreciate you saying that.” He was being sincere, judging by his voice. “My sister doesn’t endorse my… side hustle. But she accepts it without a complaint, because she knows that’s what gets us through. My mom on the other hand… You know how moms are. So we keep it a secret from .”

No, you actually didn’t. And Jaehyun only realized that when he saw how your face fell. “I shouldn’t h-”

Yet, you tried to overplay it with a shrug and a wave. “It’s okay. It slips off most people’s mind, because having a family is something we suggest everyone has. I don’t blame anyone for thinking the same about me.”

“It’s not okay, I’m sorry for speaking so nonchalantly,” Jaehyun replied determinedly, taking you aback. “I will pay more attention to what I’m saying from now on.”

Nobody had ever reacted that way to such a sand trap. You were really surprised how understanding he actually was.  “It’s not like I grew up not knowing what a family should be like,” you continued. “I saw it in the foster family that took me in until I left high school. I saw it in my friend’s family who I spent most days with. I saw it walking through the mall passing by parents with their happy children. I know exactly what it should be like having a family, I just never had one of my own.” You dropped your head, tilting the corners of your lips slightly upwards. “But one day, I dream of having one and do it all better.”

The silence that followed made you realize how bright outside it had already gotten, and also that you had just confessed your deepest wish to someone who didn’t even consider you his friend. It had something slightly embarrassing, but also comforting, because you knew he would understand you nonetheless.

But Jaehyun didn’t say anything back directly, and you felt a bit lost. It wasn’t like you didn’t feel validated or overlooked, the gaze in his eyes reflected nothing but understanding after all. Perhaps, he just wasn’t as good at expressing his thoughts as you. And that was fine as you were a writer after all. As long as you could comprehend what seemed to go on his head, you were fine with the way you communicated. It was this fine bond between the racer and the navigator.

“Get up, we’re getting breakfast,” Jaehyun eventually prompted. 

It sounded great after a good race so you didn’t complain. “Okay!”

Jaehyun was already back on the ground while you still struggled getting off the hood without slipping. That was until you felt two strong hands gripping onto your sides and heaving you up as though you were as light as a feather. You could have sworn when you got inside the car, his hand lingered on your waist a bit longer than it needed to. But it could all have been in your tired mind as well.

____

You hadn’t known breakfast would be taken in Jaehyun’s house.

“Please come in and eat, dear, we have enough!”

His mother was a cordial person whose smile brightened up the entire home upon entering. You instantly felt welcomed by her cheerful personality.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” you greeted her back and kind of awkwardly followed her into the kitchen where she had already set up the entire breakfast table for four people after Jaehyun had called her from the car to inform them they would have a guest over.

Different main and side dishes were presented, and you didn’t know where to look let alone what to eat first. You could tell Jaehyun’s mother had gone beyond and above to prepare this breakfast as he had given you a heads up that she usually left very early and came home late just to sleep the little time she had remaining. Yet, she never failed to eat breakfast with her children or at least make food for them every single day. That was motherly love.

You suddenly felt a wave of warmth spreading through your body. She wasn’t your own mother, but right now, you felt very much like part of a family you had never gotten to experience yourself. And Jaehyun had wanted to show you.

Tears welled up behind your eyes as you took a seat at the opposite of him, and you tried to hide your sentiment, yet still sneaked a look at him. His soft gaze, he hid behind his long fringe. His caring demeanor, he hid behind his rough words. His apparent worries, he hid behind a long scowl. But this was all a facade for what he truly was: a loving son and brother and so much more than a money-hungry, selfish racer. 

“Did you guys study hard for the exams the entire night?” Jaehyun’s mom asked and you tilted your head in confusion. 

“Yes, mom,” Jaehyun replied. “But she’s not a student anymore, I just picked her up on her way to work.”

She turned to you. “Really? What occupation do you inherit, dear?”

You looked into Jaehyun’s direction for approval, but he remained silent and nodded, so you told the truth, “I’m a journalist.”

“Really?” She clapped into her hands and laughed. “Jiyeong wants to become a journalist too!”

Before you could ask who Jiyeong was, a female voice already asked, “What’s with me?”

She didn’t look much like her brother. In fact, from the moment you saw her, you thought she was the spitting image of her mother, both very beautiful. 

“Jaehyun’s friend here is a journalist, Jiyeong. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Really?” Jiyeong’s eyes started to sparkle and she approached you, seating herself right next to you. “I’m editor-in-chief at our school’s newspaper! Where do you work? I read almost all newspapers and magazines on a daily basis.”

While you were explaining to Jiyoung what articles were written by you of which she indeed remembered one or two, their mother placed rice in each of your bowls along with Jaehyun’s help.

You now knew why he had wanted specifically you and came back to recruit you not only once, but twice. The first time, he had most likely not thought about involving you yet. With his sister being into journalism, he knew how important your notebook was to you and genuinely only wanted to return it. The second time, he actually came around and wondered why not combine your talent for navigation with your occupation and get at least something out of your deal, not only for you, but for him - and his little sister - too.

“My dream is to attend Ehwa Woman’s university,” Jiyoung told you when you all started eating. “Where did you study?”

You smiled. It had been your dream to go to Ehwa too. But you didn't have money or relatives who could have supported you, so you attended a university far away from Seoul that was cheap in comparison. “I went to Chonnam University in Gwangju.”

“And you came back here and made it so far! I really look up to you!”

You flushed as you had always felt inferior to your colleagues who had attended the big and popular universities in Seoul, but Jaehyun’s sister not judging you by that but complimenting your actual skills touched you very much.

“Now, let her eat, Jiyeong! She hasn’t even come to touch her food yet! Please dig in, dear before it gets cold!”

It was your first breakfast together with loving people in many, many years.

When you stood outside with Jaehyun, waiting for his sister to get her backpack for school so that he could drive her there, you told him, “Thank you for introducing me to your mom and sister. I know why you did that.”

Because he wanted to show you what it felt like to have an actual, loving family. Because he wanted to show you that your work was never for vain. He had eventually become your friend, and you his. Yes, friend. But you didn’t speak it out.

“When I found out that you were a journalist, I immediately thought great, I need to introduce you to my sister!... But journalists also destroyed my life by writing articles not only about my dad’s crimes, but also about me,” Jaehyun explained, and you nodded, knowing it was about the mystery incident he had yet to tell you. “My sister never lost focus of her dream though. She told me she wanted to be one of the good ones, no defamation, always after the truth. So when you told me you were one of these people too, I thought that maybe, I can trust you after all, even with my life.”

“And you can!” You touched his arm in a gesture of comfort, and although his eyes widened, he didn’t pull away. “I stand by what we’ve promised to each other. I won’t publish anything without your consent. And if there is anything in the past that I have to clear up for you and your family, I will do so too.”

“Mhmm.” You saw him struggling through his mien, but he didn’t respond, apparently still needing to make his mind up. If so, you let him. 

“So, what do you study? You never told me.”

“Nothing.” He heaved his shoulders and slowly dropped them again.

You frowned. “But didn’t you-”

“I dropped out last semester right after the incident.”

“But your mo-”

“- doesn’t know. Neither does my sister.”

You didn’t want to judge, that was not your job, as a journalist and as a friend. So you asked, “Why?” although you could most likely already make out the answer.

“We can’t afford it as of right now, so I’m postponing my graduation. I definitely want to return, but as always, it boils down to money,” Jaehyun clarified. “I want to do it better than my father. I want to found my own company too and provide to my family the life they deserve. Even if the path to this aim might not be all legal, I promised to myself to leave this part of me behind once I’m there.”

“...And I will do everything in my might to win every race for as long as we’re working together, Jaehyun.”

“For my sister? Or for your story?”

“Not only for me, but also for your sister,” you repeated, “for your mom and for y-”

You swallowed the last part, but the way his features softened suddenly, he might have understood nonetheless, and it made your heart flutter. Perhaps, in his eyes, you were now friends as well.

____

“There is nothing personal in this story.”

You felt defeated. You had hoped, with handing in your first draft, your editor-in-chief would be totally invested in the story as well, encouraging you to continue and maybe even compliment you on the premise. Instead, while reading through all the pages with you sitting anxiously in front of him, his facial expression had fallen more and more.

“What do you mean?”

“The beginning is very intriguing with you sitting in the car, racing with him. It’s perfect, the reader gets thrown right into the story. But after that?” He shrugged and threw the papers back on his desk. “Nothing. No feelings, no emotions, just scenery description and a lot of theoretical stuff. Nobody cares about how the navigation system works or how the cars are tuned.”

“Oh, I thought it might be interesting to read how the team stays connected and what makes the cars so special.”

“Nobody cares,” he retorted dryly. “That’s not the stories people like to read. They can google all that stuff.”

Although it hurt your feelings, you had to silently admit that he was right. You hadn't given much away in the article about how Yuta worked behind the scenes or what the navigation system was really capable of according to Taeyong, but had to google a lot of things yourself too. You had wanted to give as little personal details away as possible, but apparently, it was too less. Your article was just boring.

“There is no common thread,” he criticized sharply. “Do you want to write about yourself being involved, about the sports in common or about the Falcon? Because right now, it’s all of this and nothing at the same time. If you’re that involved, write about what you do, how you learned it, about your feelings during the races. If you write about the sports, interview other teams, the spectators, dive into the history. If you center the plot around the Falcon, what’s his background, what does he race for, what’s his aim?”

You exactly sensed which direction he wanted to push you. “I’ll write abo-”

“I think,” he cut you off, “if you want to make it a headliner, you have to focus on the Falcon.” There it was. “Why did the Falcon really pause for so long? Is it true that he had caused an accident during a race? What really happened back then? How did he regain his fame? What made people change their minds? And most importantly, is he going to win and what will he do with the prize money? These are the questions that intrigues the reader. They want emotions, passion, they need to feel something while reason. Right now, everything I’m feeling is my hunger since it’s almost lunchtime.”

You purposely overheard his subtle taunt. “Those are very personal questions that he doesn’t want to talk about.”

“Well, then make him.”

You kept it to yourself that you already knew most answers. “As journalists, we also have to respect the people’s privacy and opinions.”

“Then make the entire story anonymous with all the personal information gathered,” he proposed. “It’s not less personal, but no names are given away.”

“I already plan on doing that.”

“So what’s the problem?” 

”People will still know, that’s how known he is. I cannot reveal things he doesn’t want me to reveal.”

Either way, anonymous, with his alias or even real name written in the article - it would hurt him all the same. It was his personal story, his family, his friends. It made him beautifully human, but also painfully fragile. It was his story to tell when the time was right, when he decided to do so, not you.

“Very well.” Your boss got up from his seat and took his jacket. “You can publish it like this if you want. I guess for a nice closing story at the end of the magazine, it's enough.”

For the first time in your life, you were having a clash of interest. There it was in front of you, your dream job position, so close if you were only selfish enough. And behind you stood the man whose trust you had just gained, begging you to respect his past wounds. What would you do?

____

It wasn’t easy, balancing racing by night and working by day. Oftentimes, you didn’t get more than four hours of sleep, spending time at home after work just to shower, change and then leave for a race again. You didn’t complain. You never did, because you enjoyed it very much. The newly formed friendship between you and Jaehyun’s team was something that brightened up your day as you had never experienced this kind of bond before. But you also didn’t leave your aim out of sight.

With Jaehyun’s rising popularity though also came people who voiced out their doubts about him even louder. You had just finished this night’s race and were waiting for Jaehyun to take you home, already looking forward to a bit of alone time with him, when you overheard a group of young men passing by.

“I don’t care what others think or whether he’s popular,” one of them said. “As long as he’s staying silent, he’s guilty in my book.”

“In mine too,” the second chimed in. “Why has he never said anything on that topic? And now, only because he’s winning so often and challenged the Cheetah, everybody seems to have forgotten about it? Bullshit.”

Your fingers clenched by the time the third one commented, “Don’t worry guys, he’ll fall out of grace as far as he has fallen. It’s always like this.”

“Hey!” Now, you couldn’t listen to this conversation any longer and stepped out of your dark corner. “Do you feel proud, talking like this about a person you don’t know?”

They stopped in their tracks and turned around to you. “And who are you?”

“Oh, I think she’s their navigator!”

One of them stepped in front of you and grinned. “Then, you must know the truth if you’re in the team and fight for him so desperately, right?”

The other two followed suit and laughed in unison. “Or are you in love with him and would defend him even though he’s guilty?”

You realized that you actually didn’t care about the truth anymore. You didn’t care when or whether Jaehyun would tell you one day at all. But that didn’t withhold you from defending him like your life depended on it. Someone who loved his family and friends so dearly, who always paid much attention to the street and passerbyers, who had to talk you into taking a detour just because there was a crowd of people he had to race by… you would always defend your racer.

“The truth is none of your business,” you said confidently. “Do I ask about what mistakes you’ve made? A person I do not know personally? What has this got anything to do with his performance anyway? Either you bet on him or you don’t, but nobody forces you. He doesn’t need your dumbass opinions to win, he doesn’t even know who you are.”

“Hey…”

You couldn’t tell who had spoken up, but you didn’t care much as you just hit your stride. “How about you get in the car and try to do the things these racers do? I bet you wouldn’t even last a few minutes on these streets. It must be so peaceful, watching from the sidelines with your big mouths as long as you’re not the ones in action, am I right?”

“Hey!”

Little did you know that the voice had come from behind you. Only when you felt an arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to a chest whose scent smelled very familiar, it dawned on you that no one in the group had tried to speak up, but it had been Jaehyun who was standing behind you, most likely all this time already.

But he wasn’t mad, even though your cheeks were burning. “Listen to my girl. If you dare to raise your voice against her again, you’ll be the ones the newspapers will be writing about the next day. Understood? Now, good riddance.” One opened their mouth to retort, but Jaehyun didn’t let him. “I SAID GOOD RIDDANCE!”

They were out of your sight quicker than you could process, and Jaehyun let go of your shoulder the same moment. 

“Come,” he urged you, and you silently followed him to the car. “I have to show you something.”

After you were driving for a little while all in awkward silence, you finally dared to ask, “Where are we going?”

“I’ll show you the truth.”

From the way his lollipop clicked against his teeth, you could only sense Jaehyun’s anxiety, and you wondered what got him so worked up even though he had won the race. You could only think of one reason. Perhaps, today was the day.

“Does it have something to do with what happened back then?”

“Yes.”

“Did I say something wrong earlier?”

Immediately, the clicking noises stopped, but he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “You’ve gotten everything wrong.”

Your stomach dropped and you suddenly felt so nauseous. “Jaehyun… what was wrong about it?”

He was visibly upset now. “How can you say all these things about me?”

“These.. things? What did I say that was wrong? I don’t understand. I meant every word and I don’t care whether you heard them or not, because they are the truth.”

“You don’t know the truth.” He added, “Yet.”

“Even if… There was nothing wrong with what I said. You don’t need them to win, you don’t need spectators and betters. You only need yourself and your team. Everything else doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t reply, but kept his eyes fixated on the street in front of him. Not much talking, but many kilometers later, you suddenly came to a halt in a narrow street under a light post in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs. To your left and right were single family houses and nobody was in your field of vision at this ungodly hour.

“Is this…?”

He took the lollipop out of his mouth and inhaled deeply. “This is where it happened.”

“Oh. Jaehyun…” You had been prepared to be taken here, but now that you were actually at the location, you didn’t know what to say.

“This is the spot where I collided with a pedestrian.” Even though he didn’t stutter or pause, you still realized how much mental strength it had taken him to not only bring you here, but to also speak about the incident - probably for the first time ever since it had happened. “He didn’t die on the spot. He survived, actually. That much, I know after I asked around in the hospital. I don’t know who he was, where he was going, whether he had family or other people who cared. I just called for an ambulance, drove my car away and remained hidden until they arrived. Then, I fled. This is the truth.”

You couldn’t deny that you were relieved he didn’t do a hit and run. You were also relieved that nobody had died and that the truth behind the accident was something that wouldn’t shake your friendship to the core. Of course it was bad, and he knew it himself. He’d always known and deeply regretted it, every single day. You saw it clearly now.

“I believe you.”

In moments of panic, humans were indeed most likely to do things they were not proud of, things totally wrong they wished to change later if only they could travel back in time. Things, they would have handled differently if they hadn’t panicked or were too scared. Jaehyun wasn’t an exception, although the baggage he had to carry was heavier than most else’s.

Humans were not perfect. For him, it all started with his not so perfect father and the not so perfect life he was living, leading him to do not so perfect things to save what was still salvageable. 

“For one hot minute,” Jaehyun continued, “I really thought about leaving him there and fleeing as fast as possible. I couldn’t go to jail like my father and leave my mom and sister all to themselves, dropping them entirely too. I couldn’t get caught, so I did my best to prevent this.” He laughed, bitterly. “After all, I am what people think of me. So your words mean nothing.”

“My words mean nothing?” It hurt. “It’s easy to tell someone how to behave when the incident has already taken place. But at the end of the day, we can never be sure how we, ourselves, would have reacted or what we would have thought at that moment. You thought about your mom and sister, but you thought about the accident victim too. You wanted to do the best for both. So you reacted accordingly to what was best in your mind.”

“Still, I’m not the person you painted me to be. I nearly killed someone in a race. And you know why? Because I thought taking a shortcut through a neighborhood would make me win the race back then. It’s not forbidden, but this is the reason we racers usually never do that.”

That was why he had been so reluctant to go through your neighborhood at your very first accidental race together. And he still wouldn’t, no matter how much he trusted you. What had happened back then was still sitting deep within him - justifiably.

“I am running illegal races with you,” you started. “I have always known that you wouldn’t work with the law. And I am neither! So what does that make us?”

He sank his head and placed his hands on his lap. “You speak so highly of me, but in reality, I am a very bad person.”

“You’ve introduced me to your sister and mother, Jaehyun. If this is where a bad person grows up, then the entire world is rotten and beyond the point of saving. But people like you give me hope.”

“Why would a person like me give you hope?”

“Because, despite your situation, you still have so much love inside of you that expresses itself in so many forms. That’s why you’re loved too, by many people.”

Silence engulfed you, and you thought that Jaehyun would drive away after sometime again, but he didn’t, so you accompanied him in this quietness as long as it helped him process the past.

“You know why I wanted to take this shortcut?” he eventually spoke up quietly, and you shook your head. “Because I wanted to end the race abruptly and rush home… That night, my sister got very sick and my mom wasn’t home. I already announced that I would drop out before it happened.”

That was something the newspapers and no one else had ever mentioned. Of course, people always focus on sensational facts. It was easier to tell a story and transfer emotions when the main feeling an article would lure out was hate against someone. 

It still had been a crime, this was a fact. And he could still go to jail for that. But you believed that the man who cared about his family so much and who was able to care about strangers too, was still very much haunted by his past, far more than he wanted to let slip through his facade. 

If he hadn’t had a family to take care of, things would be entirely different. But he trusted you enough now to tell you all this and not fear that you would go behind his back.

My girl… you remembered. Had he truly meant it? Had you proven to him your undeniable loyalty just earlier?

“Jaehyun…”

Slowly, your hand wandered to his lap on top of his. Against your expectations, he grabbed yours and squeezed it tightly.

____

When Jaehyun wanted to drop you off at your building much later, the tension between you was still palpable, and you didn’t know how to make it vanish. 

Perhaps, only time was needed - for him to believe that nothing had changed between you, and for you to settle with the fact that the guy who caused your heart to jump, just only a little bit, had done something grave in the past that you had to work through as well. After all, it still had been a crime.

“Jaehyun…” You wanted to end the night on a positive note, but he didn’t let you finish the sentence.

“Our ways will part here and now.”

You thought you had misheard. “Pardon?”

“I can’t demand a goody two-shoes like you to help a criminal like me,” he said coldly and stiffened in his seat. “And I surely won’t help a goody two-shoes like you write about my criminal record anymore now that the truth was inevitable to come forward with. So it ends here. Now.”

You knew where this rooted from: doubt and guilt. But during your entire career path, you had dealt with a lot of people who suddenly changed their minds on a topic or got cold feet.

“That won’t happen, Jaehyun,” you claimed. “You don’t have another navigator as good as me, no one and nothing can come close to the connection that you and I have.”

“It’ll be fine,” he obliged. “Now, go.”

“No,” you refused. “I will stay.”

“I SAID GO!”

“AND I SAID I WILL STAY!”

“Gosh!” he yelled. “Why can’t you be obedient for once towards me and leave before I hurt you too?!”

You both froze when it dawned on you what he had just said. You almost didn’t dare, yet you had to make sure that what he had said was indeed real.

“You’re afraid to hurt me?”

“I deceive my mom when it comes down to my activities and my studies. If she ever finds out, she’ll be hurt. I hurt my sister by not always being there for her whenever she needs me. I hurt my team for expecting them to be there for me although they have their own struggles. And I hurt you, because I cannot be the person you expect me to be. I only hurt the people I love.”

You took a deep breather and waited a few heartbeats in case Jaehyun wanted to chase you away again. But he didn’t. He just sat there in the driver’s seat, shoulders slumped, bangs messily falling into his eyes and the lollipop stick not moving a bit. 

“You want to protect your overworked mom from more worries, you want to provide a good future for your sister, and you split the win evenly among the team for them to help their families too. If I don’t expect a friend to be exactly like this, then what else?” you confessed.

But Jaehyun didn’t like this answer, it was written all over his face. You were scared that you had said something wrong.

“Friends?” he suddenly croaked.

“Yeah, friends,” you repeated slowly. “Aren’t we… friends?”

You had seen him as your friend all along, though one who made your cheeks warm when he called you “my girl” and your heart swell when he touched you. But now, it hurt you that he had never felt even the slightest of the same connection. Fair enough, everyone needed their own space, and with Jaehyun’s past, it was his own right to decide whether to ever make friends again.

You had just hoped…

Cherry.

That was the taste of Jaehyun’s lollipop, he never chose another flavor.

Though, it tasted different from his own lips than from the candy directly.

You were asking yourself how this sweet taste could calm him down when all it did to you at this moment was making your heart race and nearly jump out of your chest. Perhaps, because this time, you tasted the lollipop’s sweetness on his tongue rather than in your own mouth, and he made sure that you experienced every taste bud this flavor had to offer. 

Lollipops were very sweet already, and although Jaehyun was a fast and restless street racer, his kisses were much sweeter than candy. Admittedly, you hadn’t expected him to possess this side, but now that you thought about it, the signs had already been there whenever you observed him eating the candy.

Jaehyun’s fingers curled on your back when you motioned forward, away from your seat and more into his welcoming hug. The dashboard between you hindered you from embracing fully, causing you both to giggle at some point, but you continued kissing with your arms slung around his neck, for very long even after the cherry taste had vanished.

You weren’t hurt anymore over the fact that Jaehyun didn’t see you as his friend. You had never been friends. You had always been more than that.

____

Jaehyun’s victim had been a 45-year-old party chairman - that much you had found out through your connection to different journalists and a few demanding calls. The fact that after the incident, only silence followed and no details were revealed, not even about the gender and the age of the victim, had gotten your alarm bells ringing. And now you knew why. 

A famous politician involved in a street racing accident, but no one had mentioned his name? Something was not right with this story, you didn’t need to be a professional to recognize this.

“I need his record,” you then said at the hospital’s reception. 

Your editor-in-chief had given you this employee’s contact, assuring you she was more lenient in data protection when she saw the right amount of money. And your boss had been very happy to pay her the requested amount the moment you told him what you were after.

“This is exactly the kind of story I was looking for,” he had complimented you. “Good job. Now, go after it.”

You had left the building right away, making your way to the hospital the chairman had been admitted to after the accident.

“Here is a copy of his record,” the woman at the reception whispered to you. “All is well, he got out after two weeks. There is one interesting thing though… but look for yourself.”

“Thank you.”

You took the papers, and too excited to drive all the way back to the office, you looked through them right then and there after having found a quiet spot in the waiting room.

There was nothing abnormal at first for a car accident. It had left him with deep grazes, a dislocated arm, two broken ribs and a concussion. It sounded quite bad, but very mild for the fact that a car had hit him, and not at all life-threatening. So the accident had not been that severe as Jaehyun had made out to be in his panic.

Perhaps, that was the reason the party chairman had never been named in the news. But on the other hand… newspapers got to write articles about important politicians all the time, and just this once, his name had been left out? This didn’t sound like something a newspaper would do under these circumstances. 

The more important the name, the more clicks and sales the news generated. They must have been bribed to keep his name entirely out of all news revolving around this incident. You were wondering yourself why. Given all facts, no matter how macabre it sounded, this kind of accident would even play into the party’s hands. 

A very important politician who got hit by a street racer and admitted to the hospital with fractures? It would even be a headliner with the conclusion to go harder after such illegal activities.

Everything just doesn’t sound right. Something was being kept buried that no one should know about and could possibly threaten the party’s reputation. That much, you were already sure of.

… but what could it be?

You gasped when your eyes passed the passage that gave you a single answer to all your questions.

Patient was heavily intoxicated.

Whether it were drugs or alcohol, you didn’t know. But you were going to find out soon as you returned back to the office and made a call to the police.

____

“How high is the possibility that this program is actually a virus?” you asked and looked over Yuta’s shoulder who was currently typing something into his laptop. 

“Very low, but it’s still new, so we never know what will happen anyway,” Taeyong answered on his friend’s behalf and stretched out on Yuta’s bed in whose home you had  all gathered today. “Can’t you detect it if it’s one?”

“What do you think I’m currently trying to do here?” Yuta rolled his eyes. “I’m a programming student, not a wizard.”

“Okay, sorry? Jeez.”

“Doyoung said that with this program, you will also get the coordinates of all cars in your ten kilometer radius that use a GPS, so you can plan the route and the car’s speed even more predictively,” Yuta explained instead. “I’m still trying to figure out how.”

“The race is in two weeks. You should hurry.”

“I know, Taeyong. You think these last weeks I’ve only been sitting around?” Yuta gave his friend a scowl. “If it’s a new program, even used before its beta phase, it’s not so easy.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Okay, enough guys!” you interrupted their bickering. “Taeyong let Yuta work and peace and rather go through the city's plan for next week with me to mark all new construction sites, okay?”

In unison, they both said, “Fine.”

Taeyong turned to you while you started your own laptop to leave Yuta alone, and Jaehyun and Johnny were currently outside to maintain his car. You felt so included like never before in your life.

You’ve always said you didn’t grow up with a family. But sometimes, a family wasn’t something that you necessarily grew up with. Family also didn’t need to be bonded by blood. Sometimes, you lost family along the way, sometimes you gained one. And everyone would always welcome you into their family.

In your case, you gained a family in the form of a strong friendship that you had never experienced before in your life. Sitting here, analyzing maps with Taeyong while Yuta was silently typing away and Johnny and Jaehyun would soon come upstairs to talk about the next race after which you would all order food and then watch a movie together…

This was your own definition of family. This feeling of being cared for, trusted and loved without expecting anything in return, so much that it almost felt like your heart was going to burst. Your team was your family.

“I want to show you a place,” Jaehyun said when you were sitting in his car when all the work was done later that evening.

“Don’t you need to go home as usual?”

“My sister is having a sleepover at a friend’s house.” He smiled. “So I think my mom will enjoy a little more alone time to rest better.”

“Okay, then let’s go!”

Jaehyun stopped the car only much later after you had driven up a mound with a path so narrow, you feared the vehicle wouldn’t make it despite all its tuning. But against your expectations, you arrived at the top in that very same car, and the view over the entire city was splendid.

“I didn’t know such a place existed!” you called out and ran around the viewing place. “Jaehyun, I can see the entire city, and we’re not even on a mountain!”

“Do you like it?” he asked, following suit.

“I love it!”

“And I-”

“Hm?” You turned around to him with the biggest smile on your face. “What is it?”

He shook his head with a soft look on his face. “Nothing.” Then, he stepped close to you and hugged you from behind. “I’m happy you love it. It’s my favorite place. After the incident with my father happened, my sister and I came here a lot, because it made us forget reality for quite a while.”

“Thank you for sharing this special place with me.” You felt him kissing the nape of your neck and you shuddered pleasantly. “It really means a lot.”

The true meaning of it was revealed to you by him right after, “I spent most of the time here before my comeback. I wanted to give up on racing entirely. One night, I didn’t come home and my sister went to look for me which took her all night. I lost track of time, and I probably felt so ashamed returning to my family. When My sister found me here at the early hours of dawn, looking like a ghost and having cried all the way to this place, I knew that I had to do everything to protect my family. That’s when I dropped out of university and decided to race again. One day, I don’t want to do this anymore. One day, I’ll be free.”

You loosened yourself from his hug, shifted around and embraced him now from the front, body to body. “You’ll be one day, Jaehyun.” He gently brushed his fingers through your hair. “One day, you can provide your family the life they deserve and can finally live the one you have dreamed about as well.”

“But do I deserve it after everything that I’ve done?” He sounded full of doubts. “I’m not sure.”

You responded, quite confidently, “You do.”

“Actually,” Jaehyun changed the topic, “This car was my dad’s. He owned two, a big, elegant one to show off at work, and this one for his free time. It’s the only thing that was left, because it was registered to my mom’s name before I changed it to mine.”

You were curious about one topic. “Why did you never sell it? You only started racing after his arrest, right? Why have you never exchanged it for money?”

“I thought about it, a lot, in fact,” he clarified. “Maintaining a car is a very expensive hobby, after all. Apart from the fact that races became my source of income as it makes money fast and much, I think a part of me can’t also fully let go of my father.” He chuckled, but rather bitter and full of regret. “Isn’t it ironic? I think of it like my father repaying the debts he caused. It's satisfying.”

A wicked thought, but you liked the way he thought about it.

“Hey,” you then said, grinning, “do you want to get back at him once more?”

____

“Close your mouth and suck.”

This time, Jaehyun didn’t mean the lollipop he had put into your mouth, but something entirely else. 

Luckily, the front seats of his car were able to be raised back all the way, so he was now lying almost flat on his back, his hands gently but determinedly having guided your head to his loin while you were sitting between his angled legs. You did as you had been told and sucked him off like a lollipop. 

Your arms were propped up against the edges of the seat with your head bobbing up and down in a regular rhythm, but your tongue did the most work whenever you paused your neck movements just to indulge him with your proficiency.

“Jesus Christ,” Jaehyun cursed and put his forearm over his face so that his facial expressions would be hidden from you. It was like he didn’t want you to know how much control you had over him, but this was for no avail anyway as his swearing gave it all away, “No fucking way…”

It was certainly not your first time sucking him off, so it wasn’t like you didn’t know what he looked like enjoying this kind of pleasure. You found it rather cute how he still thought he could hide this side of him from you. 

Your tongue rolled over the tip of his dick, leaving a trace of saliva where it passed. Making sure you covered every angle with your motions, you halted them when you opened your mouth entirely and slowly took in the majority of his length until you felt like you couldn’t do more.

Jaehyun let out a groan that made you smile inwardly, and it only got louder when you let him pass by your lips, but didn’t let him slip out entirely. Instead, you sucked on the tip like the cherry lollipop he often offered you. 

You made sure to alternate between sucking and taking him into your mouth almost entirely, and when your left hand wandered to his warm thigh, you felt how tense he had become due to the arousal you made him feel. Instead of letting your hand go back though, Jaehyun stretched out his own to grab your fingers and intertwined them.

His nails dug into your skin and his thighs became very tense, closing around the sides of your face when his release was near. He came in a long spur directly into your mouth, and you swallowed it all down, including cleaning him up - with your tongue of course.

Jaehyun reached out to your face while you were licking over your lips, and you smiled at each other before his own gradually grew more wicked.

“You know what?”

“What?” You wiped with the back of your hand over your lips.

“I also never had sex in this car. Wanna change that?”

He didn’t need to ask twice.

Although it was still very narrow in the vehicle, Jaehyun had swiftly managed to change your positions so that you were now lying underneath him and he was kneeling in front of you in a crouched position. You giggled amusedly when you watched him taking off his shirt as he tried to do so without bumping into anything, but this had been an impossible task from the very beginning. Luckily, you had undressed yourself before already, so that he didn’t need to take care of that part too.

You assumed Jaehyun still needed a bit of time until he could go in fully again, but what would come before that, you had never expected. Your fingers were desperately gripping onto the door handle while your other hand was holding onto the seat belt that slowly dug into your flesh. But this slight pain passed by you almost unnoticeably when another feeling had taken control over your entire body and mind already.

You had already experienced how skillful Jaehyun was with his tongue whenever you kissed, which was long before indicated by the way he played with lollipops in his mouth. Of course he would put this skill into use elsewhere too. 

But that he would be this good… You shuddered again when you came the second time in the span of a few minutes after Jaehyun had draped his hot, wet tongue all along your folds, causing your back to lift off from the seat and moaning his name over and over again.

And even then, he didn’t stop. He came to face you after cleaning off his mouth, and kissed you for a long time until you had entirely calmed down before he crawled back to his original position and squeezed his fingers into your bum again to bring it closer to his face. 

With the tip of his tongue, he searched for the sensitive bundle of nerves, and you indicated that he had found it when you let out a light squeal. His lips enclosed the bud and you felt all your blood vanishing from your face when he started sucking on it. Oh god, you thought to yourself, you were surely going to pass out.

But he didn’t let you cum this time. Before you released, Jaehyun stopped and flipped you onto your stomach as swiftly as the narrow space allowed him to. Instinctively, you had already brought your bum up to give him better access, and you bit down into the flesh of your arm on which you had your chin rested when you felt him sliding into you from behind in one long motion.

The sound of his groin slapping against your cheeks mixed with your moans filled the car, and luckily, you had been the only ones on this view point at such a later hour. You had only had sex with Jaehyun once in your home, and you had never defined what that was between you. Maybe, you were too dense to speak it out and too naive to actually believe it, but you loved him.

Ironically, you only realized that when you decided to change positions and Jaehyun was constantly bumping his head on the ceiling and you got on top. You were settled on his hips, his length buried deep inside you, but you didn’t move yet.

You let your fingertips wander over his chest, taking your time, and he suddenly grabbed them, led them to his mouth and kissed the tips. When you gazes locked, you were sure. 

Yes, you loved him. With all his flaws, his burdens and his past. Perhaps, you had never experienced this kind of love, which was why you had always been reluctant and unsure, but if this wasn’t love, you didn’t know what was. You just hoped that at one point, he would come to feel this way about you too.

“What is it?” he asked with worry when you made no intention of continuing. “Is something wrong? You want to stop?”

But you shook your head. “It’s just… I don’t want this moment to pass.”

Even in the semi-darkness, you encountered Jaehyun’s smile. “I feel the same way.”

Slowly, you raised your hips and slowly came back down to his groin. Jaehyun tried very hard to remain in eye contact with you, but when you did that several times more, he lost his composure again. You propped your hands up against his hard chest and picked up your pace, slamming onto him over and over again in a fast pace.

When you ran out of breath, you alternated the fast motions with sitting on his lap and just letting your hips rotate in different directions and forms, which very much pleased Jaehyun as well by the way he didn’t stop moaning at this part as well.

With time though, your stamina gave in, you slumped over him, eventually let yourself fall onto his chest, because you were too exhausted to go on anymore.

“Want me to finish?” he asked and stroked your shoulder to which you could only give a slight nod.

He kept you locked to his hips with his hands holding onto your sides very tightly and started thrusting upwards. You felt like he had knocked all the air out of your lungs, that was much much power he still possessed. Luckily, for you, you didn’t need to do anything anymore.

He was holding you as you laid on top of him, biting into his shoulder as he thrusted in and out of you with much force, which you really liked. Your thighs tensed around his sides and you whimpered gibberish into his ear, so close to cumming again.

Jaehyun let you release yourself first with a suppressed scream that partly still found a way to escape your lips, and your entire body shook as you felt your high flooding to every fiber of your body. He himself didn’t take much longer and you held him while he experienced his own orgasm, pressing you so close to him as though he was afraid of being parted from you ever again.

When you were getting dressed, he suddenly dropped, “I could get used to it.”

“Doing nasty things in your dad’s old car?” you joked.

But his expression remained serious. “No.”

You didn’t know what he meant.

____

You had written two different versions of Jaehyun’s story.

The first was the one he had read himself and approved of. There were only a few details and personal information sprinkled in here and there about the Falcon while you were trying to fill the emotional gaps with anecdotes and quotes from the other team members under an alias that they were willing to share. You were even successful in interviewing a few spectators and it would include the outcome of the race. 

Overall, the less personal and official version gave a good overview over this illegal sport, and you were truly satisfied with this tame version. It was sufficient enough, intriguing enough and informative as well as emotional enough. At other magazines, the story would have made the headlines, you were sure of that. But for the magazine you worked for, enough was only good enough. You had to be better than enough, you had to exceed.

With this version of the Falcon’s story, you certainly weren’t. It wasn’t headline-material like your editor-in-chief expected after all the work you had put into it.

So you had written another version of this story. 

One in which you talked about the Falcon’s past, his family, what had really happened back then before his career arose again and the relationships between you all. Yes, even between the two of you. And you had even come forward with the truth about the politician after hard research. This version of the story was personal and vulnerable, and it was the truth.

Jaehyun had gotten to read it as the first and only one. 

“It wasn’t.. entirely my fault?” he had asked in disbelief when you gave him the story to read.

You had wanted to wait until you had gotten your facts straight, had enough proof, and then came over to his house to lay it out all in front of him. First, you were unsure whether he would like it, to have had you dig deep into his past. 

But if he came to hate you and started to hate himself less instead, then it would have been worth it nonetheless. From one moment to the other though, you clearly saw in his eyes how much of a burden got lifted off his shoulder. Sure, the fact that the politician had been intoxicated didn’t change the fact that Jaehyun was way over the tempo limit, but he hadn’t been the only one at fault.

The politician had been intoxicated with drugs to the point of not being able to walk properly and had remained in the middle of the street, too far gone to think and speak straightly when Jaehyun had passed by.

“No, it wasn’t entirely your fault,” you assured him.

And with that certainty, you both decided to move past this as this case - to both parties luck, fortunately - had long been decided to be buried under the rug anyway. 

Jaehyun didn’t come to hate you, you felt it in the way he hugged you close and never seemed to let you go after this revelation. He was, in fact, utterly grateful that you had never let go of this topic.

It was a step closer to him being free. From the very beginning, you knew which version you would publish after the race against the Cheetah. You had begged your boss to postpone the release for another month for you to include this race, and he had happily agreed - even to hold off the senior editor position.

____

“Are you nervous?”

You looked at Taeyong who took the seat next to you. Somehow, you weren’t nervous at all, even though tonight was Jaehyun’s big race against the Cheetah with so much money involved unlike ever before.

Later, you would also finish up the story with the outcome of the race and send it over still this night for the entire country to read. Perhaps, you were more nervous about this than the competition itself since you fully trusted your gained skills and Jaehyun himself. You wouldn’t treat this other than all the races before.

“I’m cool so far,” you said. “I just don’t know if it’s good or bad.”

“I hope it’s good. Jaehyun is probably more nervous than he lets slip.”

“I can hear you.” It was Jaehyun’s voice through your headsets.

“Good!” Taeyong exclaimed. “This wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

You giggled just in the moment Yuta came over to you and put a usb on your desk. Just a few days before, you both had figured out how the new navigation system worked. 

“Just plug it in and do as I told you.”

You nodded and reached for the stick. There were only ten minutes remaining. You had never seen this many people wanting to watch a race before and the tension was sizzling, not only between the teams, but between the spectators too. As far as you had heard, the bets were almost equally split as though no one could decide who would win in their eyes. The Cheetah’s team was in another building, and you wondered whether they were still nervous with the amount of times they had already won so war.

“Hey,” you suddenly heard Jaehyun through the headphones.

“Yes?”

Apparently, he had muted himself for Taeyong since he didn’t respond, but typed something into the computer and then turned around to talk to Johnny and Yuta.

“If something happens,” Jaehyun spoke, “no matter what, will you be with me until the end?”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean it.”

You frowned. “Mean what?”

He sighed deeply as if he was struggling inwardly trying to find the right words. “Will you be with me… until the end?”

“Of course!” you replied happily.

“No! I mean... shit.”

What did he want? “I don’t get it.” 

“I love you.”

You were stunned. 

It was the first time he had said this to you. The first time someone had said this to you. For how long had he been feeling this way already? Was there a chance he’d been in love with you for as long as you loved him too? You were long lost for words and before you could even inhale to say something back, Taeyong was by your side again.

“You guys ready?”

“Yes,” Jaehyun answered quickly as though nothing had ever happened.

“Then get ready.”

____

The moment the race started, you got to witness with your own eyes why the Cheetah was called the Cheetah. Jaehyun was already a remarkable racer, but his rival was immaculate. 

You wouldn’t be Jaehyun’s navigator though if you hadn’t grown together throughout the past weeks. You were his additional eyes, ears and mind. Whatever he lacked or hadn't perfected, you carried out together, making him even stronger so that as of right now, he could easily take it on the Cheetah. You were going to win, that was how much trust you had in you both.

Midway through the race though, which was a real head-to-head contest that had eventually shaken off a part of your tranquility and replaced it with a bit of nervousness because of a few instances from which you quickly recovered nonetheless, Jaehyun started to panic.

“Shit, we didn’t see this coming!” 

He complained about a construction site that had not been on your screen, but only popped up now. As of this instance, he was in advance, being in front of the Cheetah. Now, it was on you for how long he could hold that position.

“Don’t worry,” you tried to calm Jaehyun down while your heart raced almost as fast as the car itself right now. “I got you.”

“Why didn’t the new navigation system that Yuta gave you see it coming?” It sounded almost like an accusation and Taeyong shot a meaningful look at you from the side. “There are construction vehicles all around it!”

“Hey.” You didn’t raise your voice, you just wanted Jaehyun to snap out of his mental deadlock since he was too into it. “Stay calm.”

Sometimes, this happened. And if he was too panicked, he’d lose focus and make mistakes. That was why you were here. By now, you knew how to handle them and not let him irritate you or vice versa.

“I’m sorry.” Jaehyun had instant regrets. “I just want to win, I need to win.”

“I know. But to win, you have to trust me.”

You could only imagine his fingers gripping onto the steering wheel like his life depended on it, the knuckles first turning red, then white. 

“I can’t lose,” he breathed and repeated like a mantra, “I can’t lose.”

On the screen, you perceived that he wasn’t as fast and sharp with his driving anymore, the Cheetah drawing closer to erase the remaining meters between the two cars. The vehicles appeared on the screen as dots on a map, the two that represented the racing cars now almost melting into one. Your entire team had gathered around you and were listening to you speak, only you and Taeyong knowing the details of your driver’s panic so far. 

“You won’t lose, because I’m here with you, Jaehyun,” you assured him slowly, aware that in such kind of situations, you had to pretend to be calm to keep the driver at peace, even though you were tense as hell too. “It’s me, okay? I love you too, and I will be with you until the end. I know the meaning of this now, and of course I will.”

Silence - not only on the other side of the headset, but also in the hall among your team.

“Please say something,” you addressed to Jaehyun while ignoring all the other members’ grins. “This is kind of really embarrassing now.”

“I-I… I can’t,” he stuttered. “I’m… too happy.”

You smiled. Even though you were only connected via voice and there were other people standing behind you, you felt more connected to Jaehyun like never before. 

“Are you ready to win this game with me now?” you asked him.

You felt his confident grin in every fiber of your body, it had given him the boost he needed. "Absolutely." 

“Hey, we’re here too!” Johnny interrupted you. “What about us?”

“Get lost.” Jaehyun returned back to his grumble, but everyone knew that he didn’t mean it this way.

When you all broke out into a laughter together that lifted off the tension, even just a little bit, you finally felt like you had long reached the finish line. Not in terms of the race, but in terms of other things. 

Trust, friendship and even love.

Because even if you had been among them only for a few weeks, you couldn’t imagine a better feeling than the warmth they caused you to experience right now with Johnny putting his hand on your shoulder in a comforting gesture, Taeyong smiling at you as he pointed at something on the screen, and Yuta rolling his eyes, seemingly not minding, but silently enjoying the entire situation.

This was it. This was your family. There was no deeper connection than you had with your team. You were going to win.

____

And you did.

Jaehyun crossed the finish line first.

Jaehyun won against the Cheetah.

Jaehyun was crowned King of the Streets.

…

But he didn’t last on the throne for long. 

Only eight hours.

____

“King of the Streets” 

… was the headline of your story that you finished late at night and sent over to your editor-in-chief so that it could still be printed for next month’s issue with the intention to be published the morning after.

____

“Congratulations.”

“Pardon?”

You were sitting in your boss’ office, the same chair, the same desk, the same window and the same view in sight. A few weeks ago, this had meant everything to you. You had wanted this, so badly, and you would have done everything for it. Now, it meant nothing anymore.

You hadn’t seen the new issue yet, that was not why you had come here. In your hands, you were holding a notice, but it had got nothing to do with what you had handed in the night before.

“‘King of the Streets’? I couldn’t have thought of a better title.” Your boss the issue in front of your eyes, but you rarely paid attention to it. “It’s great that you went with the way of leaving out the guy’s real name and even the politician’s name. Honestly, if I didn’t know who it was myself, I wouldn’t be able to guess. Now, people will get invested and do some digging. Congratulations on your promotion to senior editor!”

“Pardon?” you repeated.

You hadn’t written about the politician as agreed on. In fact, you had left out the entire storyline about the incident. That was why you had been so sure the story wouldn’t make headlines, and in your hands you were actually holding your resignation notice. You didn’t want to become senior editor. You wanted to quit.

With trembling hands, you reached out to the newest issue and looked at the headline. Indeed, this was your title “King of the Streets” with a stock photo that showed cars by night in front of a skyline. Your breath shortened when you searched for the right page and you felt like the air was being cut in your lungs when you stumbled over the story and started reading.

This was not your article. At least not the one that had been supposed to get published. It was the one only Jaehyun had gotten to read earlier, his very own, personal version. You felt sick in your stomach. How was this possible? Had you been hacked? Had someone secretly gotten access to your laptop?

“I… I sent you this?” Your voice shook with each syllable.

The editor-in-chief nodded. “Only a few minutes before the boring, second one. Of course I went with the first one. Who wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t send you this!” you nearly screamed. “How could you have published this?!”’

“Please calm down, Miss. This was sent from your very own email.”

“Show me,” you demanded and smacked the issue back on the desk. “Show me the mail!”

He sighed deeply and murmured something about short term memory, but you didn’t care much about his shenanigans anymore. Either way, today was the last day you’d ever interact. You’d just leave, what could he possibly do about it?

When your ex-boss shifted the desktop into your direction, you directly noticed, “This is not my work mail.”

It was your usual mailing name from a random provider, but neither your work mail address or your private one. Everything was similar except for the domain, indicating that someone had made this up on purpose.

“Yes, but I figured you might be using another mail, because you weren’t at home or didn’t have access. It was the big competition, so it was possible, right? Aside from that, this is your topic and writing style, even signed with your name. How could I have doubted it? I mean… this is your story after all, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

There was nothing you could say to defend yourself in front of him. You had written this all yourself, and the fact that it had gotten leaked wasn’t his problem.  But someone else’s…

“I have to go,” you said.

“Well, when will you come back? We have to talk about your new position’s details.”

You laughed bitterly and didn’t forget to drop the letter on his desk. “I won’t come back.”

You didn’t care about your belongings. You just grabbed your bag, jacket and laptop and left the office without saying goodbye to anyone. The only thing on your mind right now was that you had to talk to Jaehyun and explain everything to him.

The more surprised you were to find him already sitting in the lobby. You were stunned, but as you continued your movements towards him, Jaehyun looked up, and your blood froze. He wore the biggest scowl on his face, and hidden behind it was the one emotion that hurt you the most: disappointment.

“Jaeh-”

“How could you?!” he yelled and arose from the coach, but he didn’t approach you. “I trusted you!”

You were assured it wasn’t because he was afraid he'd lose himself. He just couldn’t look you in the eyes as disappointment came forward more and more, revealing his true feelings. He couldn’t keep the angry facade up for much longer upon meeting you, the person he loved. But you still saw. Jaehyun was utterly hurt, and it was caused by this very same person.

You didn’t need to explain yourself, it wouldn’t change anything. You had betrayed and disappointed him like his father had, and there was no excuse for it. His entire past and deepest conflits had just been revealed to the country, and even though it wasn’t you who had published the story, you were the one who had written it.

Telling Jaehyun that it hadn’t been sent in by you wouldn’t change a single thing. The deed had already been done and there was no going back. You were just another person he had entirely lost faith and trust in, and there was no way for it to be restored. At least not right now, not immediately.

Jaehyun clenched his fists and pressed through gritted teeth, “You promised to me, I trusted you.”

Every syllable he directed at you pierced directly through your heart. You shouldn’t have written anything in the first place, it should have just stayed between the two of you. What had you thought while writing all of this? That you were doing him a favor? For what? No, it wouldn’t change anything, and it wouldn’t make him less sad and disappointed if he knew that you weren’t the person who had published it.

So you simply said, “I’m sorry, I should have never written this story.” 

“I’ve always known you journalists were selfish bastards after all,” he hissed.

No heartbreak that you had ever experienced before came close to what you were feeling right now. At this point, you thought that you had been left by so many people in your life that you would need to entirely shut down.

Jaehyun didn’t speak it out, but you certainly sensed that he was going to leave you now, too. This was what you got for always being so nosy, for wanting so much and giving everything for it. In the end, when you reached your aim, everything didn’t matter when you lost every person that meant the world to you along the way.

“Get lost! Keep out of my sight and don’t ever dare talking to me again!”

When Jaehyun turned around without looking at you one more time, it felt like you were dying. So many people had walked out of your life already, and the man you loved the most being one of them hadn’t been in your book before. But now, it was very much real. It felt hurtfully real.

“Miss, are you okay?” the receptionist asked when she was approaching you.

You hadn’t noticed how your notebook had fallen on the floor, paper flying around everywhere. You were still looking after Jaehyun, petrified, while the young woman started to collect the sheets by your feet, but you barely noticed her. How was one to function, when they had lost what they loved the most?

Not much later, the receptionist was holding your arm after you had broken down crying in the middle of all your belongings. There was no one else anymore who could have emotionally supported you anyway, so who did it now was irrelevant to you.It didn’t help one bit though.

____

“Jiyeong?”

“Can I come in?”

It had been two weeks since Jaehyun had walked out of your life and you quit your job. Every minute of the day, you were hoping that he would come by to talk it all out. Not once had you hoped that his sister would do so instead of him.

“Sure.”

When she took off her shoes, walked past your small entrance and into your room, her eyes widened. “Why the many moving boxes? Are you…”

“I’ll be going away.”

“Where to?”

You smiled, but remained quiet, and Jiyeong immediately understood. 

You didn’t want her to know and no one else either. Not because you were afraid that she or someone else would tell anyone, but because telling anyone at all would open the possibility of getting haunted by your past again. And this time, you just really wanted a clean cut.

“When are you leaving?” she asked instead, not even mildly offended to your relief.

“Next week.”

“I wish you all the best.”

“Thank you, Jiyeong. I really appreciate that.”

“Please don’t say this so easily.” Her expression changed into a pained one. “You’ll hate me from now on.”

“Why would I possibly hate you?”

She didn’t reply immediately, but nervously stepped from one foot on the other. She barely dared to look into your eyes, kneading her fingers nervously. “Because it was me.”

You were confused. “What?”

Even a bit quieter, she confessed, “It was me who sent the story to your boss.”

You were lost for words and still in hope you had heard wrong. “You sent the published story to my magazine that night?”

Slowly, Jiyeong nodded. “Yes. I found the story still open on my brother’s laptop when I went into his room to look for a charger. I couldn’t look past it, I really needed to read it. And it was so beautiful. My brother is just so deeply misunderstood, I was so relieved someone else saw it. So I wanted the entire country to know too.”

It was a lot for you to take in, and you still couldn’t believe this was real. “Did you create a fake mail account in my name and send it to my boss this way?”

“Yes. The mail from you with the article was still open, so it was easy to secure a similar address. I just acted on my personal intentions and disregarded your and my family’s feelings. I didn’t know what I would cause by doing that. I didn’t know I would not only get our mother worried, but hurt my brother and you too. I deeply apologize.”

“Jiyeong…”

“I thought,” she interrupted you, “I thought everyone would finally see my brother the way my mom, I, his friends and you see him. That he’s more than all that people paint him to be, and that the incident back then was different from everyone’s make up story. Never have I thought that I would not only ruin the lives of the people involved too, the least his or yours. I tried to change it up and make it as anonymous as possible, but I’m only writing in school, I don't have any real life experience, I’m still a child. I didn’t want all  that, that was not supposed to happen! What was I thinking?!”

Her voice gradually grew louder and more upset, and when she hit the last sentence, she was close to tears. 

You remembered the time when you were a teenager. There had been some grave mistakes you had made and many words you had said that you would want to have taken back immediately, but the deed had already been done and feelings had been hurt, including yours. Sometimes, the guilt gnawed on you like a parasite that never stopped being hungry.

You had never wanted to become a person who made someone else live with that feeling forever. In front of you just stood a teenage girl who had wanted to do the right thing and who just didn’t know what the right thing was. So you stretched out your arms and pulled her into an embrace. Jiyeon begged you over and over again to not hate her or her brother. You loved both of them dearly, how could you?

When she left after sharing a bottle of ice cream with you to soothe your both shaken up feelings, you also learned that Jaehyun had been informed about Jiyeong’s misconduct directly after he had come home the day the story was published - so two weeks ago.

This entire time, he knew. He had known all along and he never contacted you.

You hoped so badly that Jaehyun would still come. You were even still holding onto the slightest sliver of hope the day you moved away from Seoul, until the moment you closed your empty apartment door behind you.

But he never came.

It was just as you thought: It didn’t change anything, whether you or anyone else had sent in the story. The outcome would have always been the same.

So, if Jaehyun had decided to move on, then you would too.

Even though you had lived one of the best times of your life in that city, now it bearded nothing but a sorrowful past and broken dreams. 

You wanted to move on, too.

____

2 years later

Moving out of a city didn’t simultaneously mean continuing on.

You had first needed to learn how to start life all over again.

It hadn’t been easy to begin again in Daejeon. It had taken quite a bit of time to find an affordable apartment, although the city was much less populated than the capital. It had even taken you much longer to find a job that fitted you more than the last one, and only recently had you settled with a new friend group.

Overall, life was going pretty well for you now.

Were it not for the fact that you still missed Jaehyun with every fiber of your heart.

After your published story, many newspapers had made follow up articles, even leaking the party chairman’s name. Of course he had then been fired from his position and the party would not make it to be one of those with the highest votes anymore. 

Not a word was lost about the Falcon though. It was like he had never existed.

But you knew better.

Jaehyun had stopped street racing entirely and had enrolled back into university for his last year. He had taken the last race’s prize money to pay off the family’s debt - his entire team had left their amount to help him out this time, including you. This had allowed him to sell his car and start working part time in an electric shop. 

It hadn’t been by far as much as he had earned as a racer, but they had made ends meet with honest work.

You were wholeheartedly happy for him when Taeyong had told you all this one day when you had met in Daejong a year ago.

“He misses you very much too,” he had said, and you had smiled lightly.

“I thought he hated me.”

“Did you forget what he said during his last race?”

That he loved you. 

“I will never forget.”

Jaehyun had won the biggest race in his whole career, but he still wasn’t entirely free. Being crowned King of the Streets, having won a lot of money and becoming popular as well as getting your love - all that hadn’t set him free from his past.

“But now, it doesn’t matter anymore,” you had added, speaking to Taeyong.

He had wanted more time not only for, but also with his mom and sister. Being a good son and brother like his father could have never been.

Jaehyun couldn't put his life on hold to leave his family eventually, too. You had understood, so you had quietly accepted all this, letting him go and focus on the things he saw as important now. Where it had been racing and winning before, his priorities had entirely shifted.

If your love wasn’t part of this anymore but had made him realize this, then what more could you ask for?

By now, another year later, Jaehyun must have graduated from university already and his sister must be a sophomore in high school. Every now and then, you thought about them and prayed for their safety, but your life wasn’t on hold anymore.

“Miss, your interview partner is waiting in the lobby.”

“Okay, thank you.”

You took your notebook from your desk and walked out of your office. The room wasn’t as big as the one in your old company and the view was not as splendid, but you were editor-in-chief for the city's biggest magazine. You could write about things you really cared about like politics and things going on in town, nobody pressured you to cover topics that required you to do criminal things.

The company fitted your personality, your morals. It was perfect for you. 

A week ago, you had gotten a request from someone who claimed to have a really good story for you. Even after telling the person via mail that your magazine didn’t take on this kind of sensational story, the person was being persistent, so you gave in and were open to hear what they had to say.

“Good morning, I-”

The last words got stuck in your throat and your breath caught simultaneously. You let your notebook nearly slip from your hands upon encountering your today’s interview partner.

“Good morning.”

He smiled the smile you had lured out of him only after a few weeks of knowing each other. In these two years, he hadn’t changed one bit. He looked more mature and admittedly also more relaxed, the scowl entirely gone. His clothes had changed into more sophisticated ones as he wore black dress pants and a white button up.

“Life’s been treating you well,” he added. “I’m happy for you.”

His deep, soft voice let you nearly melt again, but you were a professional, so you regained your composure real quick. 

“I heard you have a really good story for me Mr. Jeong,” you smiled. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

____

Jaehyun wanted you to publish a story. 

This time, with him and with his name written all over it.

“I don’t want to hide anymore, I don’t want to have secrets. I want to come clear, not only with myself, my family and friends, but also with everyone involved. I’ve already gathered permission from everyone, and even though it admittedly took me very long to reach this conclusion, I’m a hundred percent sure I want to do it. And most importantly, I want you to do it.”

It would be his personal story, from his own point of view where he would talk about his past, his father’s wrongdoings, his struggles and what he had been up to since his final race. He asked you to sell this story to your old company for a wider audience and for a follow up. 

Legally, he weighed himself secure since he had talked to a few layers before making this decision. It was all for his conscience. If this helped Jaehyun finally move on entirely, then you would happily do it for him.

“Back then, during my last race, my navigator had never used the new system. I only found out much later.”

You paused your writing and looked up. You had settled yourselves in a conference room to work on this story without any interruptions. “Why did she never use it, Mr. Jeong?”

“She had so much faith and trust in our connection, she was sure she could do it without, that was how much she believed in me.”

You lowered your head and pretended to write, but out came only gibberish. Your heart was racing. You always fondly thought back to that time. “She must have been a real baddie,” you joked.

“She was.” The corners of Jaehyun’s lips curled upwards. “I don’t regret anything except for one thing.”

“Which is…?”

“Letting her go.”

You were asking yourself why you suddenly couldn’t see anymore as your vision was very blurry. When you wiped the back of your hand over your eyes, you realized that you had started crying, and the tears had stained the writing on your paper.

“I have one more question for you,” you only brought out.

“Yes?”

“Have you married yet, Mr. Jeong?”

The pause that followed almost tore you apart as you closed your eyes and prayed inwardly.

“I’ve been waiting for a special person to return to Seoul,” he nearly whispered. “When she didn’t, I went to search for her.”

You looked up to him, tears still burning on the brim, but somehow, you didn’t feel sad anymore. You felt more overwhelmed with this entire revelation that caused your heart to finally flutter again. 

You had never stopped loving Jaehyun.

“And… what if that person doesn’t want to go back to Seoul?”

Jaehyun stretched out his hand and laid his palm against your cheek, wiping away your tears. It felt so familiar and warm, a feeling you had deeply missed. Even though there was still a respectful distance between you that had built up in the past two years, the connection was as deep and intense as ever. 

It was at this moment that you realized Jaehyun had never stopped loving you too.

“Then, I’ll go wherever she goes.”

[2tarbell]

more trailer park!rafe drabbles i beg

maybe something with crybaby!reader too, like he comes home from a long ass day and she’s crying over the silliest thing ever.

but of course he makes her feel better.

love ur writing smm !!

he knew he was in for it when he came home and she wasn’t waiting patiently for him. if he didn’t know any better, rafe would assume the quaint trailer was empty — but the call you shared earlier on his lunch break detailed your plans around the house for the day, so there was no fuckin’ reason for it be as quiet as it was.

his confusion turned to concern when he heard little sniffles and sobs coming from the bathroom. rafe dropped his keys in the bowl and hurried off further into the trailer, in search of his girl.

pushing the bathroom door open with a rough hand, his mind went to the worst places when he saw her crumpled up on the floor. instantly he scooped her up onto the counter. his voice was a flurry of sounds she couldn’t decipher through her tears. the warm cadence she’s become so familiar with instantly providing some relief.

“hey, hey, baby — look at me, you hurt?” his hands are moving fast, holding her cheeks and checking for any injuries to that beautiful face.

she could only shake her head, hiccuping and trying to speak between sobs.

“rafe— dad— daddy—“

he hums and looks over her body. blue eyes checking off a list of what’s ‘normal’. when he finds nothing bleeding or falling off — that intense gaze finds hers, urging her to calm down.

his voice cooed, low and rumbly in a way that always soothes her, “shh, dad’s here, what happened? hm? someone — someone do somethin’ t’you or—“

“muh — my nails!” she interrupted, voice a petulant mumble.

rafe froze, mouth agape and eyes blinking in confusion. he looked down and took her smaller hands in his. turning them over and feeling the smooth skin. no cuts, no bruises—

the fact that he didn’t immediately know what she was talking about sends her into another spiral. yanking her hands from his and covering her eyes as sobs shook her shoulders.

“okay, okay, can’t help if you’re cryin’. talk t’me— what about your nails, honey?”

she sniffs and thrusts them in his face, rafe now seeing something out of the ordinary — chipped baby blue polish.

“wanted— wanted to paint them f’you. ‘cuz— ‘cuz s’the same color as your eyes but forgot they weren’t dry yet so i tried to make dinner and— and i ruined them!”

everyday the universe was testing his patience.

a sharp sigh out of his nose and rafe let his head fall forward. relief and disbelief pooled in his chest. she was this worked up over nail polish?

a low grumble of her name ceased her tears until they were just little sniffles of sadness. any other person and rafe would’ve been out the door with a specific finger showing his annoyance. but this was his person, his precious girl, and if she was this worked up over nail polish — he was going to indulge her. he picked up his head, eyes tired from a long days work but soft in a way meant just for her. he spoke in that way that makes her all fuzzy for him.

“jesus christ, that’s— yeah, okay. baby, ‘m— ‘m sorry. y’just wanted t’do somethin’ sweet f’dad, yeah?”

hook, line, and sinker. reader huffed and nodded as she leaned forward into his chest. her little gasps punctuated his cooing. within minutes, she was putty in his arms, nuzzling closer and closer. rafe littered kisses over her hair, gently rocking her until her head lifted off his chest. wet cheeks and a red nose greeted him and he couldn’t stop the adoring coo from falling out as he wiped her face.

“thereee you are— my sweet girl… better now?”

she nodded at his words, almost hypnotized by the gentle tone of his voice. a little hiccup fell out when she caught sight of her messy nails, but rafe quickly shushed her.

“shh, no more cryin’. y’gotta be a big girl, a’ight? c’mon, whaddaya need?”

she wished she had a picture of this big man patiently painting and blowing on her nails — that matched his eyes.

[teddypines]

Thunderstorm

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sumary: Cute moment with Batmom!reader and Damian who is afraid of thunderstorm.

Batmom!reader x Damain, Fem!reader (Use of she/her pronounce)

Note: I don't know Batman lore like i know mcu lore. Everything i know is from the cartoon's i watched as a kid and the fanfic's and webtoon i read. So if somthings are out of charachter, i'm sorry. Also the other boy's live at home i don't care if it isn't canon.

Art/picture is from Pintrest, credits go to whoever made it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damian always acted like he was an adult, because in his eyes he thought he was, even when Y/N knew the boy was far from being an adult. She always tried to give him small moments that normal kids his age had in an attempt to make up for the things Talia had done in the past. This included letting him come to her if he needed, no matter the time or place.

It was just a normal Friday night in the Wayne household. Y/N was cuddled up to Bruce’s side on the couch. Jason and Dick to her right both bickering about which guy the girl on tv would end up with. Tim was curled up in his blanket on the chair, tiredly typing away on his laptop and Damian was trying to stay close to Bruce’s side but didn’t want to make it obvious that he wanted to cuddle. The rain outside made for a cozy feel for the whole moment, it made Y/N happy. The kids and Bruce are safe at home with her and not out on patrol or fighting crime. 

Y/N sighed as the tv show Jason and Dick were watching was finally over. So she took the remote and quickly turned the channels to look at the weather forecast. “Owh, boy looks like we are going to have a thunderstorm tonight. Good thing I don't have to worry about you all being out.” Y/N said before switching channels again. The fact that it was going to storm didn’t really bother Bruce or the boy’s. Except for Damian, he was stressed internally, but he didn’t want his brothers to know. They would probably laugh if they knew he was scared of a thunderstorm. Y/N looked over at Damian. “Everything okay, Dami?” She asked, the troubled look on Damian’s face made her worry. “Y-yes, I'm fine. Nothing to worry about, just tired.” Damian rambled back at Y/N. 

“I think I might go to bed too,” Tim said after Jason left the living room. He closed his laptop and wiggled out of his blanket. He made his way over to Y/N and Bruce, Y/N already opening her arms for Tim. “Night night, Pumpkin” Y/N said to Tim when he was safely in her arms. “Goodnight, momma. Night, dad. Love you” Tim answered, staying in Y/N’s arms for a little while. “We love you too, Pumpkin” Y/N said in between kisses she placed on Tim’s head. Bruce wrapped his arm around Tim too, but only for a moment. “Now off to bed, Pumpkin, don’t want you to fall asleep here again” Y/N said which made Tim reluctantly pull away. Soon After Dick said his goodnights too and left the living room with Tim. 

“I bet little Dami is just scared of the thunderstorm.” Jason commented as he leaned back against the couch, a small smirk spread across his face. "No! I am not scared!” Damian yepped back at Jason, he pouted a bit after. Bruce held back a small laugh at Damian’s pouty face which earned him a jab in the side form Y/N.

“Don’t tease your brother like that, Jay bird and Dami, it's okay if you're scared of thunderstorms” Y/N said hoping to resolve the small situation. Jason grumbled a bit before getting off the couch. "Fine! I'm off to bed.” He wanted to quickly disappear, but Y/N didn’t let him. “Night night, Jay bird” She said with a smile. Jason groaned and quickly hugged her. “Night mom” He whispered to Y/N.

“You should go to bed soon too, Dami, and if the storm scares you it’s okay to come to us. We’ll protect you from the storm” Y/N said in an attempt to sooth Damian’s worry about the upcoming thunderstorm. She reached over Bruce and gently ran a hand over Damian’s head. “I’ll be fine, no need to worry” Damian answered a bit distant. He didn’t want Y/N (or Bruce) to worry about him. “Just know we’re there when you do need us” Bruce said to Damian in a stern but reassuring way. Damain just nodded his head and pulled off the couch. “I’ll be fine, night”

It did upset Y/N just a bit that Damian didn’t get his usual good night hug, but she knew he would be by her side the moment the thunder storm started. Bruce pulled Y/N on top of him and kissed her cheek. “He’ll be back, love” 

<----------------------------------------------------------------------->

The thunderstorm started around 1:30 AM, just when Y/N found a comfy position next to Bruce. The thunder wasn’t as bad in the beginning, but got worse after 20 minutes. After one particular loud thunder Y/N awoke to the weight shifting on the bed. She opened her eyes and was met with a very scared Damian. “Umi? C-can i stay with you and… and dad?” Damian stuttered through his tears. "Always, baby” Y/N answered. She pulled away from Bruce’s side and turned over so Damian could cuddle against her. “I see you brought mister Moo” Y/N pointed at the plush cow in Damian’s arms. “Maybe…” He whispered, busying himself with finding the best way to lay next to Y/N. Wanting to be as close to her as he could. He slowly closed his eyes but flinched when another thunder strike was heard. 

“Shhh, it’s okay Dami, you're safe in bed with us. No need to be scared, Thor is just a bit extra mad at Loki tonight.” Y/N whispered to Damian. a reassuring hand was placed on Damian’s back. Damian shifted his head to look up at Y/N. “What?” Y/N laughed a bit. “You heard me. Thor is mad at Loki, that’s why the thunder is so loud tonight. Loki probably stabbed him again or tricked him by being a cute snake.” Y/N explained as Damian listened. He knew that what Y/N said was just based on stories and myths, but he liked it. Made the thunderstorm less scary. “Really? Why would Loki do that?” He asked. “Well, Loki really likes attention and sometimes he thinks he doesn’t get enough of it, so he asks for attention. But he does it in the only way he knows how, by being a little shit head and stabbing Thor or tricking the others.” Y/N explained. Bruce groaned a bit as he heard Y/N talk. He turned over and saw Damian hiding against her. 

“Or Thor just stubbed his toe.” Bruce added while propping his arm underneath his head. “Yes, that is possible too” Y/N answered with a small nod of her head. Damian laughed a bit and yawned. “I like that one better, big oof stubbing his toe.”

“Yeah, see now the thunder isn’t so bad is it?” Y/N asked as she yawned as well. Damian only nodded his head in answer. The storm outside was still going on, but Thor just stubbed his toe so that made the thunder more understandable. It was a story, but the story helped Damian feel less scared. 

“Alright, love you” Y/N promised before drifting off to sleep. Bruce smiled at the two. He placed gentle kisses on both their heads before falling asleep as well.

Y/N smiled as she watched Damian fall asleep against her. She turned her head to look at Bruce. “Out like a light,” She said. Bruce smiled and tried to lay back down next to Y/N. “Yeah, but he’s taking all of the comfy spots on the bed” Y/N rolled her eyes and held out her hand for Bruce to hold. “Tomorrow night you can sleep against me again.” Y/N reassured Bruce while he held onto her hand. “Fine, but I expect extra cuddles then!”

[kashverse]

hihi another request, can you do one where babykuna is spending a day with her uncle choso? it could be anything really, go to a park or play salon or baking or painting or even play dress-up! i could see choso making a custom matching outfits and kunapapa is just jealous he doesn't have a matching outfit with his baby girl.

thank youuu <3

if there is one thing choso understands in his line of work as uncle "chocho" to babykuna, it’s that every single day is a grind. not just in the business sense—no, no, no. this is the real world, where survival depends on working hard and playing harder.

and by "playing harder," he means getting absolutely swindled at the mall by a six-year-old and her unhinged ideas.

in the span of 24 hours, babykuna and choso now have:

matching deftones t-shirts—except the album cover of ‘around the fur’ has been horrifically swapped out with a 0.5x picture of babykuna's face, making her look like a cryptid mid-screech.

matching temporary tattoos—$20 per spray-on tattoo, an absolute scam, but babykuna had sparkly eyes when she picked out the designs, so what was he supposed to do? say no? ridiculous.

freshly painted nails—babykuna’s nails were pink with tiny skull stickers; choso’s were black with glitter. because, in her words, “you need to be sparkly and scary, uncle chocho.”

choso had just accepted his fate, proudly wearing his t-shirt and admiring his nails, when they walked through the front door.

enter sukuna.

sukuna, who had one expectation when his brother babysat his kid: to not be personally attacked by what he sees when he gets home. instead, he’s greeted by his daughter parading her new drip and his brother-in-law looking like a deftones fan who got lost in the hello kitty section of a hot topic.

“what. the. fuck.”

babykuna threw her arms up. "PAPA! LOOK!" she twirled around, showing off her custom t-shirt with her own terrifyingly distorted face. “we MATCH!” sukuna’s eye twitched. "oh, do you? huh. isn't that nice. isn't that—ABSOLUTELY UNFAIR."

choso blinked. "uh."

sukuna gestured wildly at babykuna, then back at choso, then back at babykuna. "why do you match with ‘chocho’ but not me?!"

babykuna gasped. “OH MY GOD, YOU’RE RIGHT!” choso, sensing danger, took a defensive step back. “listen, man, she—”

"shut up, choso. shut the fuck up, choso." sukuna rubbed his temples, betrayed. "first, my own daughter—MY OWN DAUGHTER—matches with my dumbass brother before me, and now you’re telling me that i’m the only one without a stupid ass t-shirt?!"

babykuna, to her credit, looked genuinely apologetic. “papa… i can make you one too?” sukuna sighed dramatically, dragging a hand down his face. "oh, now i get a t-shirt. now."

babykuna nodded earnestly. "yes! with an ugly picture of you, just like me!"

choso let out a quiet snort. big mistake.

sukuna turned to him immediately. “what the hell are you laughing at, you glittery dumbass?” choso, who now regretted his entire day at the mall, cleared his throat. “...nothing.”

sukuna exhaled through his nose, like an aggressive bull preparing to charge. "where’s baby? at least he wouldn’t betray me like this."

that was when baby the orange tabby casually walked by, decked out in a tiny version of babykuna and choso’s t-shirts, tail flicking behind him like a king among peasants. sukuna's soul left his body.

"YOU DRAGGED THE CAT INTO THIS?!"

[vampzity]

my eyes only | K.HJ

★ DAY FOURTEEN: NUDES WITH HONGJOONG ★

pairing: bf! hongjoong x f! reader

as hongjoong is stuck working late in the studio, you’re left with nothing but boredom to keep you company. it doesn’t hurt to send a spicy “i miss you” photo does it? what about a video?

[warnings]: MDNI 18+ !!!, smut, nudes, masturbation, clit play, pet names (baby, pretty girl), use of toys (dildo)

word count: 1.3k

⚠️PLEASE NOTE: pictures in this story DO NOT depict what MC looks like body wise!! it’s just for the plot so ofc just insert yourself as always ^^ ty ty !

Hongjoong stared at the ceiling in defeat as the clock struck 2 am. He was far from done with the last track of their upcoming album and was already growing tired. His booming amounts of inspiration were slowly fading as the night progressed and he felt defeated.

Meanwhile you sat in the bathtub aching for his touch, his warmth. You had trouble sleeping as Hongjoong wasn’t there to wrap his arms around you and bring you comfort, but you understood how important his work was. It wasn’t something you wanted to interrupt especially if he was stuck in a zone he tried to stay in.

So here you were, waiting and waiting. You’ve watched tv, you tried to distract yourself with countless minutes of scrolling but to no avail. Now you sat in a bathtub, alone, waiting for when he would finally come home to you.

[2:03 AM] You: when are you coming home? I’m so lonely 🙁

[2:04 AM] Captain 🖤: I’m not sure baby, I’ve hit a dead end.

You sighed to yourself, knowing it meant he wasn’t leaving that studio any time soon. You’ve always heard of writers block for books, for english majors, but never for song writers or producers.

Perhaps he just needed to take his mind off it and refresh. But god, you were so horny.

[2:06 AM] You: well maybe you should take a break?

[2:07 AM] You: *1 attachment*

Hongjoong picked up his phone, eyebrow raised as he wondered what it was you could’ve sent him. Maybe it was a funny video, some random meme you found whilst scrolling on twitter to cheer him up a bit.

Oh no, it definitely wasn’t that. It was far from anything he could’ve been thinking— perhaps even the last thing on his mind this late at night.

[2:07 AM] You:

Hongjoong felt his dick twitch in his pants as he stared at your wet legs. He imagined what your cunt would look like under all that water, begging for it to be touched— touched by him. He rubbed his clothed cock softly, feeling his bulge grow at your sudden message.

[2:11 AM] Captain 🖤: Bathing this late? 😳

You smiled, feeling your heart pound. You rarely took a moment to send anything this risqué to Hongjoong, but when you did it sure made your body heat up.

You got out of the bath, drying yourself off and wrapping yourself with a towel. Hongjoong waited eagerly for your response, unsure whether to expect another photo or just a plain response from you.

[2:15 AM] You: is it wrong for a girl to send a photo when her dear boyfriend is missed ?🙁

You looked in the mirror, fixing the bath towel just slightly for him to see enough of your chest, even if it was merely a shadow of cleavage. You held the phone out in front of you, snapping a quick picture and sending it him as you walked out of the bathroom and into your shared room to change.

[2:16 AM] You:

Hongjoong quickly clicked on your message, rolling his eyes playfully at the photo. He continued to rub his clothed cock softly, practically drooling at much you liked to tease him.

[2:18 AM] Captain🖤: Baby stop teasing me. Show me how pretty you are.

Your face flushed red as you thought about his cock and how badly you wished to feel it while he leaked all over your hands. You slipped on some casual lingerie for him, admiring yourself in the mirror before texting him back.

[2:20 AM] You: but what’s the fun in that :(

You stood there for a moment, biting your lip softly.

[2:20 AM] You: i wish i was there to see the look on your face Joongie.

Hongjoong sighed to himself, placing his phone down. He pulled his member out of his pants, rubbing the tip of his cock slowly. He threw his head back, stroking himself gently as he thought of your body. He wished he was home with you, feeling your curves as he thrusted himself into you.

[2:25 AM] Captain🖤: If you keep teasing me, you won’t get anything when I come home to you.

You giggled, holding your phone out in front of you to take a picture.

[2:28 AM] You: ay eye, captain 😉

[2:28 AM] You:

Hongjoong’s eyes widened as his strokes grew faster. His cock leaking onto his fingertips as his veins pulsated.

“Fuck. You’re so pretty.” he spoke to himself.

You stuck your hand into your underwear, running your fingers against your clit softly. You moaned softly, arching your back as your bud reacted to the sensation. You fastened your pace, thinking of his hands working your cunt as you laid there and submit to him.

You quickly pulled off your panties, pointing the phone to your sopping folds. You played with your slick, whimpering as it webbed around your fingers. You snapped a picture, sending it to Hongjoong immediately.

[2:35 AM] You: *1 Attachment*

[2:35 AM] You: i wish these were your hands :( feels so good

Hongjoong admired your soaked folds, how it glistened in the flash of your camera. He let out a loud groan, covering his cock with his pre cum as he imagine himself inside of you.

[2:37 AM] Captain 🖤: Look at my pretty girl.

[2:38 AM] Captain 🖤: Send a video for me, please baby.

You dug into your drawer, pulling something out from it. You laid back in bed, pressing it against your cunt softly. A soft hum came from you as you pushed it inside of you. You moved it slowly, imagining it was his cock inside of you as it hit your sweet spot.

You held your phone in front of your cunt, the flash capturing your slicked folds as the toy moved in and out of you. You moaned softly, making sure the video caught sound of you enjoying yourself just for him. You hit send, continuing to play with yourself as you ached to cum.

[2:45 AM] You: *2 Videos*

[2:46 AM] You: come home joongie, she misses you.

Hongjoong played the video, watching as you fucked yourself slowly. Your breathless moans and whispers were music to his ears, making him go haywire as he tried to keep his composure. His strokes grew faster, feeling all that built up pressure within his cock as he watched your swollen cunt cum all over the toy.

He couldn’t take it anymore and he was sure he’d regret it tomorrow, but he needed you. He gave up trying to resist it.

You phone buzzed next to you, the familiar ringtone letting you know it was your beloved boyfriend.

“Hi baby. How’s work?”

Your sweet succulent voice made his breath hitch as he heard the faint sound of your cunt being played with in the background.

“Cut the shit.” Hongjoong quickly put his member away, getting up from the desk as he saved his progress on the computer and turned it off.

“I’m coming home. Be ready for me when I get there.”

Your heart skipped a beat as you heard the lust in his voice, making you stop what you were doing. Chills ran up your spine as you thought of what he could possibly do to you, especially after all the teasing you’ve done.

“You’re hearing me, right baby?”

Hongjoong packed up his things, his mind still racing with thoughts of you and your body, how much you missed and craved for his touch.

“Mhm. Loud and clear.”

A smug smile appeared on his face as he grabbed his keys, turning off the lights in the studio.

“Good. I have a lot to give for someone who likes to be a tease.”

back to valentine’s masterlist

a/n: and that concludes our 14 days of kinks!! ty all sm for joining me on this little event of mine! ive added some extra days to the masterlist so def check those out if you’re interested! :3

taglist: @dvrktvnnel @h4untedgrl @rvereri @scarfac3 @jjongibears @kittykat-25 @yyaurii @hwasddeongbyeoli @joonezra @honeyhwaaa @potentialgay @dollywoo @losrpark @motherseonghwa23 @inniesfanblog @stephanieeeyang @galaxy4489 @nickgurl4life @fangirljas929 @desirehorizon @channiesluvrclub @katsukis1wife @unbel1ve4ble @sojuxxi @bbykaixx @nopension @bbdeongi

★ if you were apart of the taglist for this event & would like to be added permanently, pls comment to let me know!

OR fill out the more detailed form here! :))

[niwaart]

SEE WHAT I CAN DO.

NEGLECTED READER X BATFAM

<part1> <part2> <part3> <part4>

She looked at the big house in front of her Coldly , the mansion looked dark and scary from the outside, a nice man named Alfred greeted her, he told her that her father was busy but he would meet her for dinner, Alfred took her on a tour around the mansion, and showed her her new room, Alfred was the only one talking, Y/N didn't say a word, she just looked at the place coldly, what was her supposed reaction? Happiness? To hell with happiness, her mother passed away two days ago, and then she was dragged here according to what the police said that this is her father's house, the rich and spoiled man Bruce Wayne, she doesn't want to be here, she wants to stay in her mother's apartment, does she have to be 18 to be independent? This is unfair. Alfred was still babbling about where her room was and that Bruce's room was close by but what worried Y/N was how long it would take for him to shut up. After more than two hours of talking, Alfred took her to the kitchen and asked her if she wanted something to eat, Y/N shook her head no, she wasn't in the mood to eat. She stood up and went up to the second floor, to her new room, Alfred had put her bag in the room, she entered her room that she would not get used to, took her bag and started taking out her things and some of her mother's things, but what she was looking for was her mother's computer, she put it on the table and turned it on. Seeing the wallpaper of the main screen made her close her eyes trying to stop the tears, that was the first picture she took of her and her mother after buying the computer, she cursed Gotham and everyone in it for what happened to her mother, she did not care if Batman could not come in time, she did not care that he tried, the important thing is that he failed! He failed! A simple mission and he failed!! If he was a man, he would have come to her and apologized!! If he was a person with morals, he would have brought her mother's body to her!! But he is just a coward in black clothes.... Y/N took a deep breath, she has to calm down, this will not get her anywhere except a headache. She entered the password into the computer and started browsing the daily news like her daily routine before, the news of Gotham full of patients, there is nothing good in the news except the name of Bruce Wayne who does nothing but smile and throw his money, he says he helps and gives charity to those in need but Gotham is still poor and he is richer... His hand is useless, his words are unimportant, and his stupid ambitions are under his feet. Y/N sighed then closed the computer and lay down on her new bed, it is cold and she does not like that, she closed her eyes to sleep, she has to bear this place, maybe her situation is better than others, so staying silent and bearing it since no one bothers her is the best solution....

She woke up from the knock on the door, she looked around the room, she wished this was a dream and she would wake up in her old room… Alfred was outside asking if she was asleep or not, Y/N got up and opened the door, Alfred said that dinner was ready, and that Bruce… her father was waiting for her downstairs… Well, it was time to see the spoiled brat. Y/N followed Alfred down into the dining room, Alfred opened the door for her as he let her in. Y/N wouldn't say anything about her father's appearance, the same pictures she saw, the appearance of a rich boy, what was missing now was his stupid smile. Y/N sat at the table in front of him, Bruce was leading the table from the right, and Y/N was leading the table from the left, they were facing each other. Y/N didn't say hello or say anything, she was just silent, she wouldn't talk to this spoiled brat. Likewise, Bruce looked at her without saying a word, as if he was waiting for her to speak first, but that would not happen. Alfred, who saw this strange atmosphere, immediately began to serve dinner. Y/N looked at the food in front of her unwillingly. She had not eaten since morning, but she was not hungry. She took the glass of water and drank it. Alfred asked her if the food did not suit her, but Y/N was just silent, until the spoiled boy uttered his first words since she arrived. "Isn't it rude not to answer? Alfred has put his effort into preparing this dinner for you." Y/N looked at the spoiled boy who was supposed to be her father. All Y/N did was look at him coldly, not as if his words did anything to her. They all talk nonsense. No one says anything of value.

Alfred tried to lighten the mood by saying that it was okay, that the little miss might not be hungry now and that he would save the food for another time, and this silence continued until Bruce finished his meal and left, as for Y/N, she just looked at him coldly, and as soon as he left she got up and went back to her room, she decided to go back to sleep, there was nothing here worth staying awake for, and the next day she was feeling the effects of hunger, her body was heavy, and she was feeling a little dizzy, so she decided to make breakfast for her, this is her father's house right? So no one has the right to prevent her from using the kitchen, after washing her face and combing her hair she went downstairs and headed to the kitchen, it seems that Alfred is already awake, Y/N didn't care she wouldn't let an old man prevent her from entering the kitchen, and her cold entrance Alfred welcomed her, and asked her if she wanted anything but as expected Y/N didn't answer and just went to check what was inside the fridge, as expected, many things are in the kitchen, after all this is the house of the spoiled boy, she took the easiest thing for her, fruits, apples, oranges and strawberries, Alfred asked her if she was hungry and that he would make her breakfast but was met with silence again, Y/N washed the fruits and looked for the place where the knives usually are, she saw a knife on the table it looked clean so she didn't hesitate to take it and sat on the chair and started cutting, Alfred was hovering around her worried that she would hurt herself, after she finished cutting she started eating with satisfaction, Alfred put a glass of water for her and she didn't hesitated this time and drank it.

While she was eating the fruits, the spoiled boy decided to make another appearance. Alfred welcomed him and Bruce responded. Y/N didn't care about their conversation. In fact, Y/N found the spoiled boy's voice worse than his voice in news. She made a mental note to take her headphones with her the next time she left her room. Bruce sat next to her... not next to her but two chairs away from her, Alfred brought him coffee and breakfast, and the morning was silent like the previous night... and this continued throughout the week, she prepared the food herself, she didn't like it when someone other than her mother prepared food for her, so she wouldn't eat unless she prepared it, even if it was simple, and after a month or less since Y/N had been in the new place, the spoiled boy decided to adopt a child, a child who had lost his parents during a circus show, and bring him home, Y/N felt sorry for him, he had lost someone dear too, but these feelings had disappeared, and the reason for this was when Y/N tried to talk to him, Y/N hadn't spoken or spoken a single word since she had been in this house , and she wasn't planning to talk to the boy named Richard and she wouldn't be able to ease his pain, but she would understand him, she would support him, after all they had lost their family, Y/N sat next to him in the living room and she was holding in her hand a jigsaw puzzle, her mother had bought her for her fifth birthday, so She wanted to play this game with him, this game is silent, it doesn't need words, so it's very suitable for these times but as soon as she sat down and wanted to show him the game he jumped up and screamed like a madman saying "Don't come near me!! I have enough problems to go through by myself! Get away from me, you and your father! After all you are the daughter of a billionaire you won't understand anything, you live like a princess here!!" Y/N looked at him in shock, a princess? A billionaire's daughter? Y/N grabbed the puzzle box forcefully and angrily and slapped him in the face. What Y/N saw now, the boy's reaction was further proof that the people of Gotham are a bunch of filth, Richard stood in shock, holding his cheek, Y/N didn't care if it hurt or not and turned back to her room, there was one thing she would never forget from her mother, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, he wanted to confront her angrily, so she was going to confront him angrily too.

Chapter Two in about three days, do not hesitate to ask or request!

[prael]

Day 10: Gambit

Nmixx Lily x male reader smut

words: 3,300 12 Days of Praelmas Masterlist

"Ah Fuck," Lily sighed, fiddling with her hair.

Stylists spent hours doing her hair, makeup, nails, clothes, all for the camera. Lily just knows how good she looked today. The stylists did their jobs, but she did hers too. She put her face into that angle that she knew drove people crazy. She is a professional, even if she wishes she wasn't.

She waited for hours backstage. Lily waited and waited. They all did. All of the group were just sitting there, in that green room, playing on their phones. There wasn't much to do except wait, take a nap, or eat snacks if the managers would let them. If Lily had her way, she'd eat nothing but those little chocolate-covered pretzels. “They're so good,” she always tells you.

Eventually, she had to get up on stage, stand around and smile. Then came the dance and the singing, that stuff. The usual routine, the usual performance, the same one they'd done hundreds of times. It was a dance that was burned into her muscle memory. She didn't have to think, it was like she wasn't even in control of her own body. She hit every fucking note like the pro that she is, and everyone cheered.

It's not that Lily is ungrateful. She is grateful! She knows she has a lot. But... she just couldn't help but feel a bit unsatisfied.

Like there is some huge hole inside her, and she just can't seem to fill it.

Like there's some other way she's supposed to be living.

The rest of the show goes as expected. People clap. Everyone takes pictures and videos. And they're off the stage. It's a short ride back to their apartment. They eat, they shower, they go to sleep.

Most of them do, anyway.

Lily is pulling on a hoodie and sweatpants. She is putting on a hat and pulling it low over her eyes before fitting a face mask over her mouth and nose. Lily doesn't look at herself in the mirror, and she leaves her phone in the apartment, keeping only her wallet on her as she leaves. She finds your car where it's always parked. Lily doesn't know what she'd do if you weren't waiting for her there.

"Hi, babe," you greet her. "Good day?"

"Yeah, sure," Lily grumbles, rolling her eyes. She is in a pissy mood, but that's nothing new these days. It takes time for her to adjust to being free again and to be happy now that you're around. She isn't angry at you. Lily's angry at everything else. She knows that you know that, too.

"What do you want to do?" You ask her.

"I just want to get drunk," she sighs. She's still in a bad mood. You know what will help with that.

You know it's not the answer. The bottom of a bottle never solves anything. Yet, you still took the time earlier in the day to pick up her favourite bottle of wine, and you know it's waiting for her at your apartment.

So that's where you take her. She's a little less tense once you get her inside. She's kicking off her shoes at the door, pulling off her mask and tossing it away, throwing off the hat, her hair falling free to her shoulders. Her eyes close, and she lets out a long sigh. It's almost like she can finally relax here. Like the tension can drain away and she can just... stop.

"Lily, babe, you know I love you so this comes from a good place, and I know you love singing and dancing, but you don't have to be an idol if it makes you so unhappy." You say to her. She's looking at you like she wants to scream at you. She knows that she can scream at you, that you'd take it. That's what she loves about you.

But she doesn't scream, Lily only contemplates what you have said. She takes her time, letting her anger subside, her body relax and her mind to calm down. "I can't just leave. I don't even want to leave. I just want a break." Lily doesn't know how else to put it. "Like, maybe if I got hurt, or sick, or even pregnant. They'd make me take time off."

You know that Lily is only half-serious, but she sounds like she's thought this over before, and she has.

"You'd be a cute mom." You tell her, and she is bright red in an instant, the blush on her cheeks darkening her face.

"Hell yeah, I can fulfil my dream of being a milf," Lily playfully says, and for the first time today, she cracks a genuine smile before heading for the wine rack. She quickly finds her favourite.

"I'll be the stay-at-home dad while mommy is out strutting her stuff on stage." You tease, wrapping your arms around Lily's waist, holding her from behind.

She chuckles and pours the wine into the glass. "Imagine the controversy too. A big middle finger to all those delulu fans." Lily is giggling to herself as she drinks. "That'd make it so worth it. They'd lose their minds."

"Everyone would go insane. An active idol having a kid? That'd be crazy." You add to the conversation. Lily is looking at you with this smirk that is so uniquely her. She looks a bit like the devil when she does it, but it is so fucking cute at the same time.

Lily turns to you with the straightest of faces. In an uncharacteristically deadpan tone, she says, "Put a baby in me." Her lips twitch. You know that she's fighting the urge to smile.

You can't help it. You laugh, and you kiss her. Lily's mouth is warm from the wine. She is sweet and fragrant. She tastes so damn good.

"Put a baby in me!" She laughs into your mouth, but she is still trying to kiss you, and you're still trying to kiss her. It's all very chaotic. Your hands are still on her waist, her fingers on her glass, and she's trying to press herself against you, and you're trying to press against her.

She puts down the wine and then her arms are around your neck. "Come on," she says between kisses, "let's make a baby." It's ridiculous. This is ridiculous. Lily knows it's ridiculous, but that's why it's funny, and why you're still kissing each other. Her fingers are running through your hair and you're grabbing at her ass. She's pulling away just to smile at you, and you can't help but smile back at her. Lily is a ray of sunshine.

"Fuck," she whispers as you lean in, and you kiss her again. "Come on," she repeats and then starts pulling at your shirt. You help her take it off, tossing it away, not caring where it lands. "We're gonna make a baby, right?" She's looking into your eyes, and you can see how eager she is. "You're gonna cum in me?"

The two of you are no strangers to a little bit of roleplay, but this feels like it has transcended the norm. It feels different, it feels real, it feels serious, even if it isn't. Is it?

"Yes," you say, kissing her neck. "Yes," you say, kissing her collarbones. "Yes," you whisper as you pull her hoodie up and over her head.

She's not wearing anything underneath. She's never been much of a fan of bras or underwear. You love seeing her like this, bare, naked. She has the most beautiful pair of breasts, the perfect size for her petite body. She is all smooth curves and long, elegant lines, like the figure of a woman that has been drawn and then come to life.

"I'm not joking," Lily whispers into your ear as she wraps her arms around you. Her soft breasts are pressing against you, and she is kissing you on your neck and shoulders. "I want a break. I'm so sick and tired of it." Her hot breath is in your ear and she gently bites the lobe. "I want to be a mother."

"Fuck, Lily..." You breathe as your hands slip into her sweats and find her ass. Firm flesh and smooth skin. Her hips press into your body, and her hand comes down to your cock. She's groping you through your pants and she is squeezing and rubbing and tugging, and it's making you so hard.

"It's not the first time we've talked about kids. We want one. Why wait?" She asks you as she slips her hand into your pants and grabs hold of your cock, pumping it. Lily's hands are so soft, so warm.

"It's insane. You could be forced to leave the group," you remind her. But you can feel it, too, that desire. It is growing in you, just as surely as you are in Lily's palm. It's like she's cast a spell over you and you're falling into some deep trance.

"I know," she groans into your mouth, "I wouldn't be the first to leave, though." She reminds you, her voice growing breathless and excited. Her eyes are half-lidded. You can tell how aroused she is, and it's only making you harder.

"You'd really risk it?" You ask, squeezing her ass.

"I need this." Lily insists, looking at you. Her eyes are pleading. You can't say no to that face. You'd do anything for her, and you'd never deny her anything.

She's pulling down your pants and your underwear at the same time, and she is sinking to her knees before you. Her hands are holding your cock, stroking and fondling, her fingers dancing over the length of your dick and the swell of your balls.

Lily is looking at you. Her lips are parted, her tongue running along them, leaving a trail of spit behind. "Please," she whispers, and then she's licking you, tasting you, teasing you.

Your fingers are threading through her hair and you are holding her head steady as you guide yourself into her mouth. You watch her lips wrap around your cock as she takes it in her mouth, inch by inch.

Her tongue is pressing against the underside of your dick as she slowly slides forward. Lily takes more and more of you into her mouth, the hot, wet, heat of her throat taking the very last inch. She moans around your cock and you feel her tongue swirling around you as you start thrusting. She is sucking and swallowing around your cock. You're watching her head bob as she works your length, taking you to the very base, her lips kissing your crotch. She pulls off of you and takes a deep breath and she looks at you. There is a trail of spit on her chin, connecting to your cock.

"I want a baby," Lily repeats. You don't think she has ever been so insistent on something before. Her hands come to your hips as she pulls you to her, and she takes your cock back into her mouth, sucking you and bobbing her head. She's taking you in all the way and gagging on your dick. Her eyes are closed as she focuses on sucking you off, and her fingers dig into your flesh as she holds onto you.

"You're going to be such a good mommy," you tell her, and you hear her moan in response.

Lily's head keeps bobbing and you keep thrusting, meeting in the middle. You are so deep down her throat, the tip of your cock kissing the back of it and you're throbbing. You're trying to weigh it up in your head, possibly the biggest decision of your life and it's fighting for brainpower with having your soul sucked out of your cock. It's hard to concentrate.

Lily's tongue swirls and her cheeks cave in as she sucks. Her eyes are open now, and she's looking up at you, pleading, begging for you to let her have her way. Even with your cock between them, the corners of her lips turn up into a smirk. She pulls away and gasps for air, saliva dripping down her chin.

She's still stroking you off as you groan and your legs tremble, but she isn't finished. Lily stands back up and looks you in the eye. She's still stroking your cock in her hands, pumping up and down. Her thumb rubs the tip, teasing and playing. "Put it in me, please."

"Are you sure about this?" You ask her one last time, but you're already pushing her sweatpants away from her hips, and down to the floor.

"Absolutely," Lily says and turns away. She bends over and braces herself on the kitchen counter, arching her back. Such a beautiful, elegant posture. The defined muscles of her back lead down to her cute, perfect ass. A smooth curve of soft skin, firm and pert, but inviting. Your hand comes down, caressing and squeezing that lovely ass. Her hips rock as she presses into your touch.

Lily reaches a hand back and her fingers find her pussy, rubbing and stroking. She is spreading her lower lips and showing off her wet hole. "I'm ready." She moans.

Your fingers slip into her cunt and you're thrusting, plunging into her. She is hot, and slick, her walls clenching. She feels amazing and you're desperate to get inside of her, to fuck her. Lily gasps and her hips rock against your hand as she pushes herself onto your fingers. Her hair swings wildly and her mouth is hanging open. Her breasts sway as her body writhes, her stomach flexing and her hips bucking.

"Fuck," she breathes, and her voice is low, and her tone is desperate. She is panting, her breath ragged and laboured. "Fuck me."

Your hand slips from Lily's pussy, leaving her feeling empty, wanting, needing more. Your hands come down to her hips and you're pulling her to you, your cock resting between her cheeks, hard and throbbing and aching to be inside her. "Tell me what you want." You insist. Your fingers dig into the flesh of her ass, spreading and revealing. You're rocking your hips, teasing her.

"I want you to breed me," she insists, craning her neck back to look at you. Her face is flushed. She is sweating. Her body is burning up, feverishly hot, her skin glistening and shining in the light. She looks so damn sexy, and she knows it. "Please, fuck a baby into me," she moans and turns back away, closing her eyes.

You line yourself up with her entrance, rubbing your tip against her. This is the final line, and once you cross it, there's no going back. You push yourself into her, her cunt spreading open for you as you sink in. She's tight around your cock, squeezing, milking, trying to pull you in.

Lily is gasping and moaning as you push into her, inch by inch. You reach the base of your shaft, her ass pressed against your body. "Yes!" She hisses. Her hands grip the counter, her fingers clawing into it.

"You like that?" You ask, and you begin to pull out of her.

"Please, more." She moans. "Please, fuck me," Lily begs.

Your fingers dig into the flesh of her hips as you hold her in place. Your hips are rocking, pulling back. You're leaving her, almost, only the head of your cock still inside of her, and you're pushing yourself back inside of her, fucking into her. Your pace is slow, but each thrust is powerful. She's squeezing and clenching, trying to pull you in further.

"I'm going to fill you up, babe," you promise, leaning down to whisper in Lily's ear as she lays over the kitchen counter, your bodies connected.

Lily moans, "Please," she gasps, pushing her hips back into your body as you thrust. "Breed me like the daddy you are." Her voice is low, her tone husky and breathless, and her words pure filth.

Your hand is coming down, smacking her on her ass and she is crying out, a sharp gasp of surprise. Her hips rock as she presses onto you, trying to meet your thrusts and pull you deeper inside of her.

"Fuck," she moans and you can hear the smile on her lips, and you're smacking her again, the loud slap of skin-on-skin ringing out in the room.

"Is this what you wanted?" You ask, fucking into her, picking up speed and intensity. Your body is smacking against hers, and her body is shaking.

"Harder, Daddy," Lily moans. Your hand comes down, hitting her ass, leaving a mark on the firm skin. You're thrusting, pounding, pulling back and slamming into her again and again. Her hand comes back, reaching around, her fingers digging into your hips. She wants to keep you inside her. "Please, don't stop."

You are pushing into her, fucking her hard. Her breasts are shaking and her stomach is tensing, and her hips are bucking back and forth as you thrust in and out of her. Her hair is flying everywhere as she throws her head back, a look of ecstasy on her face. Her lips are parted, her tongue running across them as she pants. You know that she is close to orgasm. "Cum in me," Lily gasps. Her eyes are rolling back, her body shaking and her hips bucking, her pussy clenching and pulsing. She is on the verge.

You're so close, so very close, and you know that you're going to cum. Your balls are tight, and you're aching for release. Your cock is throbbing, your legs trembling. You can feel the pressure building inside you. "Fuck, I'm gonna cum." You grunt. Your thrusts become more and more intense, your fingers digging into Lily's flesh.

"Do it," she moans. "Fill me up, make me pregnant."

You thrust, pushing in as deep as possible and holding it there, and you cum. Your cock pulses, your balls twitching as your seed floods into Lily. Your cum spills out and fills her up. You keep thrusting, rocking your hips against hers as you keep shooting, and it feels like an endless stream, an eternity of bliss. There's a finality to it. This is it. You've committed. There's no going back. Lily's pussy is milking your cock, squeezing and clenching around it as you pump her full of cum. It feels so damn good.

"Oh, god," Lily groans, and her body is shaking, and she is crying out in pure bliss as she cums with your cock deep inside her. All of her muscles flex as she writhes in pleasure. She's gasping, panting, her body convulsing. You're not sure you've ever seen Lily cum so hard, so intensely. You're holding her, pulling her tight to your body, keeping her steady as she quivers.

"Fuck," she breathes as she finally calms down, her body going limp in your arms. You're both panting, catching your breaths. You're still inside of her, and she clenches her pussy around your softening cock. "We have to keep doing this. Until we're sure I'm pregnant."

It is a nice image. The two of you fucking over the kitchen counter, or in bed, or on the couch, every chance you get. Cumming raw into her pussy over and over again. And once she's got a baby in her, you can fuck like this some more, you can keep making her feel this way. You can be happy.

"Yeah, we do," you agree. This was the right choice, the only choice. You love her. "Come here, mommy." You tell Lily, and she is giggling as she turns and wraps her arms around your neck and kisses you.