#oh my GOD this came at such the perfect time!!!

[sinofwriting]

Insane Person - Max Verstappen (I ❤️ MILFS verse)

Words: 667 Summary: Max wants to be sure he can give Pan kids. (Part of the I ❤️ MILFS verse) Note(s): Takes place during the original I ❤️ MILFS fic, before Max finds out Pan’s age. Max is insane btw, this has been a blurb idea since I wrote the original fic and finally it has been written so enjoy, lol.

Masterlist | Support Me! | I ❤️ MILFS verse

“I’d love to give Logan a sibling or two.”

The words so soft had made his heart speed up as soon as he heard them and now thinking about them, letting them play on repeat.

It’s early in their relationship, though they haven’t yet talked about it yet, no matter how much Max is dying to do so. But Max wants to be the one that she gives Logan siblings with.

Which is why he’s sitting in front of his computer and looking at medical studies.

A lot of it is going over his head. The most schooling he sat through was the first four or five years of it. He can grasp engineering, anything to do with cars and their data, but medical terminology goes over his head.

He powers through, he doesn’t know Pan’s exact age, his mother would smack him over the head if he even thought to ask her age, but she’s got to to be mid to late thirties if not early forties considering Logan is twenty.

The studies say she’d be fine getting pregnant, shouldn’t have trouble conceiving, and his cheeks burn at the word, at the image it puts in his mind. They haven’t quite got their, but they’ve gotten close. They throw out the term geriatric pregnancy which makes him flinch because forty wasn’t old, at least not if you weren’t a driver and to see it be called something like that felt harsh, rude. Another one calls it advanced maternal age which really isn’t any better, but it’s just relieving to see that’s still possible. And then a study mentions that if people are having trouble conceiving that not only does the person birthing need to get checked, but both do and a new panic takes over his brain.

What if when it came time to try, he was the problem? It would really be his luck. Things had been going very well for the past few years, it would be his luck that he couldn’t give the woman he loves more kids.

And Logan wanted siblings, the panic grows as he remembers Logan chiming in that he’d love some siblings. Oh god, what if he failed in giving Logan siblings? He wanted the younger driver to like him, to really like him.

His fingers act quickly, wanting to know how he can know if he can have kids and the results make him blink because it couldn’t be that easy.

He just had to provide a sample in a cup?

Max’s brain struggles to compute that after just reading everything that women have to go through to get their fertility checked.

His hand goes to his phone, he rarely if ever called his doctor, but this was important.

He goes through the motions of confirming he is who he is, wondering how weird it must be for other people to do this for him before he finally gets asked why for the purpose of the appointment.

“I want to check to see if I can have kids.”

“Okay, are you and your partner having trouble conceiving?”

His cheeks burn, “We aren’t trying yet. I just want to make sure that it’s possible on my end.”

“Okay, it’s a simple procedure at our clinic and we could see you in the next three days if that works for you at any time we are open.”

“That’s perfect.”

“Alright, we’ll see you in a few days, Mr. Verstappen.”

He gets the results back five days after his appointment, an email sitting in his inbox, and he forces himself to take a deep breath before finally opening it.

There are words he doesn’t know, ones he doesn’t really want to think about, but there at the end, a note from his doctor that says everything looks great, and he shouldn’t have troubles getting someone pregnant and his fist goes in the air, a quiet but excited yes leaving him.

He could give Logan siblings and Pan more kids, thank fuck.

[hyukascampfire]

OKAYYY FINALLY I GET TO RN THIS. first of all, thank you so much for reading :,) just know that i read this so many times over. this was just the best notif to receive.

MC is also SO me. which means we are TWINSSSSS. i’m around the same age as her, and also just so sad to be letting childhood go. i tried writing that sadness out in MC, and i think the best thing ever is getting multiple messages abt how so many people relate to her. it means we’re all in this together. we’re not alone in our feelings, which is honestly the biggest comfort to me.

COMPLIMENTING MY MUSIC TASTEEE. you are the loml. AND you listened while reading. as intended. i literally could not be happier. i was feeling that playlist while writing🤤

and then you compiled all your favorite quotes here 😭 stop. i am so giddy. those are some of my favorite from the fic as well. especially “you clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. you refuse to acknowledge its end.” that one i am so proud of, for how incredibly powerfully it illustrates how i feel about this stage of my life. im glad that the stars aligned and my brain was in the right mood to put that on paper.

and oh my god, if that’s the same erin morgenstern as the night circus, i will absolutely be reading it. ABSOLUTELYYYY.

I LOVE FLORENCE + THE MACHINE. and ALSO dog days. i think our music tastes are lovers. dog days is so so so perfect. thank you so much for reading, kipo. i think you’ve made my whole life with this rb. i’m so deeply in love with the way this story came out. at first, it was just a few bare bones scenes, and it just kept on growing and growing and i really knew i had to see it out. i think it flourished so beautifully:,))

THE BLOCK OF TAGS hell yeah.

ribs playing at the ending and scott street and more than this during the confession oh shuffle had it OUT for you 😭 but i also think those songs at those specific scenes are PERFECT.

and yeah FUCK yeonjun!!! it was tough writing him like that 😕

IM SO PROUD OF THE MOTH SYMBOLISM. i wanted it to feel like, even when kai and MC were lost and confused and apart, they were never really alone, and there were perhaps bigger things at play here. or maybe even the instances of moths appearing were nothing more than coincidence (of course except for at the creek and during the confession). i want to leave it up to the reader to decide that.

OKAY I GOTTA CUT THIS RB OFF because it’s lagging to even type because it’s all so long. i wish i could say more omg i could talk about it forever with you. thank you so much for reading, like really so so so much. T^T

𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗

  ⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm

[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚

〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”  ˛ ､､

wc ➛ 17.9k

𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader

𝒢 ‎; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy

𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any

✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.  

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

⚝⭒ 

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

⚝⭒ 

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

⚝⭒ 

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms.Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket. 

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face. Though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

⚝⭒ 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

⚝⭒ 

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

⚝⭒ 

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

⚝⭒ 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

⚝⭒ 

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

⚝⭒ 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

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[p1astr81]

Second Place

In which: Lando can’t balance his work life and his personal life, and loses his girl as a result.

pairing: Lando Norris x pop star!reader

warnings: angst, all hurt/no comfort, use of y/n

‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ ‧

All night, you’d been glancing over to the vip section on the floor. With each look over, you’d hoped to see his smiling face magically appear, but it never came.

Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? Shocked? No.

This wasn’t the first incident. Last month, he forgot about two dates. Dates you planned on your own. And it’s almost everyday now that his phone goes to voicemail whenever you call him. Then you’d shoot him a text and he would get back to you hours later with a half-assed apology about being on the sim or studying data.

The two of you talked about it once. He promised to be better. To try harder. Spoiler alert: nothing changed.

Of course, you understood him. To an extent. You knew the stress he was under. Being expected to perform with absolute perfection week after week would put anyone under intense pressure.

You should know. You have been there. You are there, in the same situation with your own career. You’d been on tour. You were constantly tired, but still managed to make time for him.

On the other hand, it seemed Lando either didn’t care to make time for you, or couldn’t manage his time.

It didn’t matter either way. You were done with this. With him. You felt like he didn’t give a single fuck about you anymore and it was mentally draining you. Despite your desperate attempts at keeping your relationship afloat, the thin ice that was upholding the relationship had been slowly cracking over the last few months, and tonight was the fatal fissure. You were drowning in the ice cold water. Alone.

You sat in your dressing room, still in the sparkling dress you’d just run off stage in. You wiped the makeup from your face. The tears made that easier.

Lando cautiously opened the door, the guilt and regret settling heavy on his shoulders when he sees the state of you through the mirror. You make brief eye contact with him in the reflection, and continue as if you never saw him.

“Y/n,” he started, remorse dripping from his voice. You don’t reply. “Baby, I’m so sorry.” He apologized, but the words no longer meant anything to you. He’d said them so many times that they became insignificant.

He moved across the room to give you a hug. You dodge his touch, jumping from your seat. He looks hurt at the gesture, but for the first time, you can’t bring yourself to care about how he feels.

“Y/n, I fucked up. I know. Please,” he pleaded. Something between a scoff and a laugh came from your mouth. You wiped the tears from your face with the heel of your hand. “Your words don’t mean shit to me anymore.” Nothing was funny, but you laughed. You shook your head. “Do you know how hard this was? To get our schedules to line up like this?” You left a space for him to answer, but he said nothing. “I had to persuade my team for weeks, Lando. Weeks.” He just stared at you, his brows pulled together ever so slightly. “And you don’t even seem to care.” You threw your arms out to the side, your voice cracking.

“Don’t- don’t say that. I do care. I care about you.” He reached for you again, but you took a step back to avoid his grasp. “You do a pretty shit job of showing it.” You fire back.

Lando scoffed. “What do you want from me?!” He demanded. You take a deep breath. “To try. Like you said you would the first time we had this conversation, remember?” Your voice wobbles from the tears that you’re struggling to hold back.

Lando rolls his eyes. Turning away from you he muttered an, “oh my god,” as if you were crazy for thinking he was in the wrong. “This is insane. I have a job and it always comes first.” You cross your arms over your chest. “I have a job too, but the difference is: I make time for you.” You point an accusatory finger at him.

He shook his head. “You don’t get it. It’s not the same for you. No one is expecting you to be perfect every single weekend.”

That gets a laugh out of you. A hysterical breakdown that confused Lando. “You don’t think people expect perfection from me?” He doesn’t answer the question. “Get out. Get out. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to hear from you again. I’m done with you.”

It was Lando’s turn to laugh. The sound mocked you. “What? Over something as small as this? C’mon, you’re not being reasonable.” There it was again, the feeling that he was calling you crazy.

“It’s not about this one situation, it’s about the whole principle of the matter. You’re putting zero effort into this relationship and it’s killing me. And I don’t care if you think I’m being unreasonable because I’ve made up my mind. I’m done with you.” Lando stared, waiting for you to take back what you said, but it was never going to come. Lando scoffed a final time and left the dressing room.

While the weight of the relationship had been taken off your shoulders, your legs couldn’t uphold the weight of your heartbreak any longer. You fell to the floor, hugging your arms around yourself as your own sobs shook your body.

You didn’t hear the door open, but soon felt the arms of someone around you. “No,” you hiccup, pushing the person away, assuming it was Lando. “Hey, it’s just me.” The voice belonged to one of your backup dancers and close friend, and you settled into his arms as he comforted your broken form.

[planetpedri]

You can write one about Pau Cubarsi where he teaches her how to play soccer, a really cute moment pleasee

Only friend — Pau Cubarsí.

Pairing: Pau Cubarsí x Fem!Reader

Summary: Pau knew you hadn’t been doing good, so he came over to get you out of your room by forcing you to play footy!

Word count: 920+

Disclaimer/s: mostly fluff + me projecting gulps so lighttt angst

A/N: hi guys yes this is me projecting my problems into writing thats my bad honestly I HATE WINTER!!

“Get out of bed.” Pau insisted, standing in your doorway with pursed lips. The second you heard the door open, you’d already known it was him since your parents knew better than to open it without knocking.

Shaking your head, you pull the blanket over your head. “Pau, go away. I’m tired.”

“Tired?” Pau sighs, slipping off his shoes and entering your room. “It’s two in the afternoon. It’s time to get up. I have plans for us.”

The bed dips under his weight and you finally turn around to face him. Dark circles ring around your eyes as you look up at him. “I went to bed at five.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t care.”

“Wha—“ You don’t get to finish your sentence because Pau had looped his arms under you and pulled you out of bed. “Pau!”

“Get dressed. We’re going to the park.” He says sternly, setting you down and offering a small smile. “Quit pouting.” He chuckles, placing a small kiss on your lips.

Trudging towards your closet, you change into ‘park safe clothes’ while Pau waited downstairs with your parents. Once you slipped on shoes and did your hair, you stomped down the steps.

Pau sat up on the couch, watching as you rounded the corner with a grumpy expression. He grinning, standing and saying his goodbye’s to your parents.

Your parents adored Pau. Like.. adored, adored. So did you, of course, but to them Pau could never do any wrong. To you, he could. Making you get out of bed to do God knows what, was wrong.

“What are we even doing today?” You quirk an eyebrow, climbing into the passenger seat.

Pau’s mouth forms a devious, shit-eating grin. “I’m teaching you how to play football.”

Instantly you reached for the door handle. Pau, having much faster reflexes, locks the car doors. “Nuh-uh!” He laughs, “you can have aux, just come with me, okay?”

Chewing on your cheek, you let out a huff. “Fine. Only because I hate your music.” He nearly tried to defend himself, but stopped when he saw the look you were giving him.

The park was quiet today, which was lucky for you. Only a few families milled about and they were at the play sets. Pau reached for his ball in the back seat before getting out. When you begrudgingly got out, he wrapped an arm around your shoulder.

“This will be fun!” He insists, planting a kiss to your forehead. No matter how annoyed you may be, it was so hard to stay in that state when your boyfriend was just so.. perfect.

“Fun is going to the mall. Fun is not spraining your ankle because your boyfriend forgets he’s playing with his girlfriend and not his teammate.” You point at him accusatorially, which sends waves of guilt through him.

“I apologized for that a million times!” He groans, letting his hand drop to your hip. “I won’t do that again. Promise.”

Rolling your eyes with a small smirk, you chuckle. “Sure. Okay, put the damn ball down.”

Pau grins, setting the ball on the fresh grass. “What should we start with today?” He thinks out loud to himself, which you watch with your hands on your hips.

“Well shit, I don’t know.” You mumble, “oh! Oh! Remember last time when I did that one thing?”

The teens eyebrows pull together before it dawns on him. He nudges the ball, playing with it as he thinks. “Okay, yeah. You’re talking about when you kicked it behind you?”

Shaking your head vigorously, you use your hands while you explain, “nooo. Dribbling! I think thats what it’s called?”

Pau looks up from the ball to you, “yeah, that’s what it’s called. Okay, jog beside me and watch the ball, i’ll explain as I do it.”

Nodding, you and Pau set off in a slow jog, as you do so, he explains his tactics and you watch him move. “It’s easier to do when you’re in a full on run, but you should start off jogging, it’ll make it easier to learn.” He stops the ball, kicking it up into his hands before he sets it in yours. “You got this.”

Swirling the ball in your hands, you chew on your bottom lip. “Right. Super simple.” You mumble, psyching yourself up. “Alright, let’s go.”

Letting the ball drop to the grass, you do just as Pau described. You nearly stumble, but catch yourself and continue. Every so often, Pau gives you a new pointer, and you adjust to it.

Throughout your time learning how to play, Pau gives you compliments and praises;

“Yes! Yes just like that, you’re a natural!”

“See, you know what you’re doing!”

“Might as well start calling you Messi.” — That was teasing, which you’d flicked him for, eliciting a loud giggle from the boy.

After nearly an hour of non-stop playing, you slump onto the bar of the net, catching your breath. “How do you do this nearly every fucking day?” You gasp out, taking a large gulp of water to alleviate the pain.

Pau sits across from you, leaning back on his palms. “Nena [baby], i’ve been doing this since i could walk.” He says with an amused expression.

Your eyes roll, “true.” Taking another large gulp and jump to your feet. “Let’s go again!”

Pau looks up at you incredulously. “Again? Not even an hour ago you were complaining about me even bringing you here.”

“Yeah, well. Times change.” You grin, reaching for the ball.

likes , comments , and reblog’s are appreciated. lmk if you’d like to be tagged in future pau posts.

ᝰ.ᐟ tags @halfwayhearted @ar4ujos @sakashq @joaoflms @hrts4havertz @spidybaby @unx100to @n0vazsq

[taesanrot]

[vampire love] taesan x f!reader | 1.8k words established relationship, body worshipper!taesan, smut (making out, oral f. receiving, fingering) note. ty to anon who requested this! i loveee this song and literally listened to it on repeat while writing this lmao. @onedoornet

now playing: vampire love by lil tracy

"girl lay your body down on that fucking couch, open up your legs i'm gon work my mouth."

a miscellaneous romcom was playing in the background, the dull noise doing nothing to cover up the sound of your lips moving gingerly against taesan's. you were perched on his lap, knees trapping his legs as his hands rested on your hips, his fingers brushing under the hem of your tank. your hands were tangled in his soft hair, occasionally giving it a small tug just so you could hear him moan into your mouth.

your hands slid down his neck, trailing down his chest slowly. groaning loudly, taesan slid a hand into your hair, tilting your face so he could press his lips harder onto yours. his other hand snaked further around your waist, pulling you onto his lap so he could feel you against where he craved you most.

you lowered yourself onto the tent in his pants at a deliberately slow pace, smiling deviously at the way your boyfriend broke your kiss to moan and throw his head back against couch cushions. taesan has a strong will, but his resolve is something that you've quickly learned how to unravel. intimacy between the two of you is game of tug of war, the two of you fighting to subdue the other. you love the chase, the playful competitiveness that never leaves the two of you.

"god, you're perfect, y/n" he choked out as he felt your clothed warmth brush against him for what felt like the hundredth time. your scent hugged him like a blanket, and all he could see, think, and feel was you. you were satisfied by his dazed state, prideful as you whispered in his ear.

“oh yeah?” you smiled, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on his already decorated neck. he hummed in agreement, fingers coiling through your hair still.

“prove it.” at the sound of your teasing voice, taesan’s eyes darkened and he halted his movement and noises all at once. grabbing your hips, he shifted you off his lap, smiling at your noise of confusion. 

“since when are you getting brave, hmm baby?” taesan mumbled lowly, bringing a hand up to smooth down your hair. his hand travelled further, finger tracing the line of your neck and your collarbone. he laid his full palm against your shoulder as he lightly pushed, laying you down across the sofa. 

the growing anticipation swirled in your stomach as your boyfriend moved to hover above you, his warm palms dragging across your abdomen greedily. you loved when the demanding and wanting side of your boyfriend came out, when he acted like his only purpose was to make you feel good, when his hands stayed on your skin like a magnet.

his palms swirled over your soft skin. your thin tank top did nothing to cover you, the fabric wrinkling under taesan’s finger and sliding up so easily. one of his hands pressed against the armrest that your head was propped against. but before he could lean down to kiss you, you felt your head being pulled up.

taesan gently moved your head to place his hoodie against the firm arm rest, cushioning your head. the softer fabric dulled the slight discomfort that you hadn't even noticed until then. you giggled at the way he doted on you, even in the heat of the moment. 

"comfortable?" he asked gently, prompting a short nod from you. he could tell you were needy, hands sliding on his arms.

your boyfriend laid his lips on yours gingerly, arm wrapping around your waist to pull your body up and flush against him. you gasped into his mouth, fingers crumpling the fabric of his t-shirt as you pulled him even closer.

his fingers nimbly worked at your bra hook, and you heard it snap open. you felt him pull the fabric out from under your cami, sighing at the feelings of his fingertips on your bare skin. 

when his hands finally pressed into your plush boobs, taesan couldn’t hold back a loud moan from escaping his throat. you whined as his thumb circled your nipple at a tantalizing pace. he pulled away from your lips to bite down lightly on the skin on your neck, his warm tongue soothing the short lived sting you felt and drawing another whimper from you. 

you'd never let him know, but you loved the marks taesan left on you. your favorites were the ones where you could see the indent of his teeth pressing into you. you always returned the favor, decorating his neck like a prize.

you moved one hand to tangle into his hair again, fingernails tracing his scalp. you pressed your palm against the back of his neck in an effort to let him know how good he was making you feel. your other hand reached in the space between the two of you, finding taesan's. he could read you like a book, intertwining his fingers with yours and holding your hand tenderly as he bit and licked your soft skin.

you pulled your hand out of his hair to trail the pads of your fingers down his chest, fingers tracing over the bulge in his sweats. before you could even work on getting his sweatpants out of the way, taesan groaned and grabbed your hands, pinning them onto the armrest where your head rested.

"let me take care of you." your legs pressed together at the sound of his raspy voice, his hooded gaze making your skin burn. he brought one of your hands to his lips, kissing your palm tenderly. he left wet kisses from the tips of your fingers to your wrists.

"so beautiful, all for me." he placed another kiss in the crease of your elbow.

"always wanting to please me. always so good for me." his lips traced higher up your arm, until his warm breath was tickling your shoulders.

"wanna treat you the way you deserve. tonight is about you, baby." your panties were ruined, thighs rubbing together with every word that fell from his lips.

taesan gently pulled your arms through the straps of your tank, peeling the fabric off you gently. his fingers went downwards, slipping off your shorts and underwear just as delicately.

even though your eyes were closed, you could hear the small gasp that fell from his lips at the sight of you.

taesan was never not in awe of you, your body that only he was allowed to gaze upon. he wanted to fall to his knees whenever he got to see you like this, bare and waiting for him. your skin, your warmth, your soft whines, it called to him so incessantly. the world always seemed to disappear when he had you like this underneath him.

reaching out, taesan's hand cupped your breast so softly, like you'd vanish at any second. he lowered his mouth to your chest, lips deftly catching your nipple. his tongue played with the bud gently, sending waves of pleasure through you.

you reached aimlessly in between the two of you, arms slipping underneath his shirt. you wanted to feel his skin, to press your palms into the dip in his back. as he moved to your other boob, you took the opportunity to pull his tshirt up, prompting him to tug it off and throw it on the floor. as quickly as his body left yours, he was back on you, lips pressing open mouthed kisses to the swell of your breast.

hot breaths tickled the skin of your chest and abdomen, and you looked down to meet taesan’s eyes looking up at your from between your parted legs. his hands ran up and down your calves and thighs, soft moans leaving his mouth at the feeling of you underneath him. he pulled your calves over his shoulders, giggling as you looked away bashfully. your eyes screwed shut as he placed featherlight kisses along your inner thighs, softly biting the flesh occasionally.

taesan loved leaving hickeys on your inner thighs, and he took his sweet time as kissed and licked the tender skin, eyes closed in bliss.

“tae… stop teasing” you whined softly, hips moving slightly to try and give your aching clit any attention. the desperate lilt of your voice when straight to taesan’s dick, and with a soft groan he brought a single finger to swipe through your folds. your juices wrapped deliciously around his index finger.

pleasure bloomed in your lower abdomen as taesan finally parted your folds and tenderly placed his tongue against your clit. he kissed the bud before wrapping his swollen lips around it, making you moan loudly.

he flicked your sensitive bud with his tongue just the way you liked, finger pulling your skin up so he could hit the extra sensitive spot underneath. your hands tangled in his hair, head tilted back to press into the end of the sofa.

the knot in your stomach twisted again as his mouth moved lower, his wet tongue tracing the outside of your hole. with one last glance up at you, taesan pushed his tongue into you, basking in the loud whine that fell from your mouth. his tongue explored your soft walls, the gummy flesh clenching around him incessantly.

tears streamed down your face as he pressed his thumb into your swollen clit, rubbing tight circles at a pace that had you repeating his name over and over. your neck strained as you tilted your head back as far as you could, pressing into the armrest.

“feels too good … tae fuck!” your words were reduced to shaky sobs as you felt the knot in your stomach tighten.

your boyfriend’s mouth returned to your clit, sucking hard as he pushed a finger into your clenching hole. your fingers yanked his hair as he added another, his fingertips reaching the gummy spot that made you see stars.

your mouth fell open when he pressed his hand into your stomach, making you feel just how deep inside you his fingers were. your resolve was long gone, hips rutting against his face desperately. lewd noises filled the living room, not that you paid them any mind.

“please, gonna cum.” taesan groaned into you upon hearing your cries, fingers snapping upwards to hit your g-spot as he flicked your clit speedily. the familiar buildup creeped up on you, your stomach tensing and legs twitching uncontrollably

your entire body stilled and your mouth fell upon as your orgasm took over you, vision going white and warmth flooding your body. taesan kept his pace, fingers still pushing in and out of your gushing hole, white rings left on them.

he loved the way you looked when you were cumming. your fucked out expression was something that was burned into his mind.

opening your eyes, you were met with the sight of your boyfriend's fingers in his mouth, tasting the juices you left on him. you tugged his bicep, pulling him to lay on top of you again. he brushed some of your ruffled hair down, placing gentle kisses on your cheeks.

"how was that, baby?" he asked, head now resting on your chest as you petted his head softly.

smiling, you let your hands drift down the expanse of his back, nails scratching the skin lightly.

"why don't you let me show you?"

[winchesterwild78]

Thankful for You

Master List

Characters: Dean Winchester X Reader (wife), Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy, Cass, Jack

Warnings: Just a little holiday fluff.

A/N: Just a short story about Thanksgiving Day in the bunker. The reader and Dean are newly married and she wants their first Thanksgiving as a married couple to be perfect. 

I picked Dean instead of Jensen or any of his other characters, because Dean was the one who wouldn’t know what a traditional Thanksgiving would look like.

Does not follow the Supernatural story line. Used characters from the show, but all work is my own. I do not own the rights to these characters. 

Please don’t take my work. Reblogs and likes are appreciated.

Written fast and not edited, please overlook any errors. 

Minors DNI 18+

I woke up early, Dean’s arm laying loosely over my body. I slipped out of bed to our shared bathroom and took a quick shower. I needed to get the turkey on so it could be ready before everyone came over.

Dean and I had been married about 6 months and this was our first real Thanksgiving. Since he grew up in the hunting life, Thanksgiving wasn’t something he celebrated. I on the other hand always had the traditional Thanksgiving with all the food, football and family you could handle. 

I had bought a turkey, ham, rolls, yams, potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and of course pie. I knew I wouldn’t have time to bake all the pies, so I bought a few, but wanted to make Dean a cherry pie from scratch. 

I was thankful we had multiple ovens in the bunker, otherwise there was no way I could pull off roasting a turkey, making a ham and the pie in one day. 

After my shower I went into the kitchen and prepared the turkey. Once it was in the oven I started on the pie and ham. By the time Dean got up I was washing and peeling potatoes. 

He walked into the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. His arms were crossed over his firm chest, and his feet crossed at the ankles. He smiled as he watched me flit around the kitchen.

“Need any help, sweetheart.” His voice startled me. I looked up at him and bit my lip. God I was so incredibly lucky to have him. “Good morning, Dean. No, I'm okay right now.”

He crossed the room, came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned into his chest and he kissed my temple. “Do I smell pie?” He grinned. 

“Yes you do, but it’s in the oven. You have to wait.” Dean’s bottom lip poked out in a pout. I turned and faced him, placing my hands on his chest. “Dean, it’s not ready yet. You have to wait.” “Is that the only pie?” He asked with a smirk. 

“Now what do you think?” I said as I walked towards the counter. I held up the pumpkin pie and a grin spread across his face. He took three steps towards me and took the pie out of my hand with a chuckle. 

“Dean Winchester, give that back to me. That’s for later.” He laughed as he held it over my head. “What’s wrong sweetheart? Can’t reach it? You’re welcome to have it back if you can reach it.” 

“Oh you’re so mean.” We both were laughing and I kept jumping, trying to reach the pie. Sam appeared at the door and saw us playing around. He loved seeing his brother so happy. 

“Alright you two, get a room.” He said as he walked in to grab a coffee. “Sam, please tell your brother to give me back the pie. It’s for later.” Sam chuckled, threw his hands up in defeat, “You’re on your own shortstack. I thought you’d know by now to never get in the way of Dean and his pie.” 

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side, Sammy.” I said as I kept trying to get the pie. “Thanks baby brother.” Dean laughed.

“Alright, both of you, out of my kitchen. I have dinner to finish and you’re distracting me, Dean.” Dean placed the pie down, pulled me flush to him and kissed my lips. 

“God I love you, Y/N. I can’t believe you’re mine.” “I love you too, Dean, and you better believe it. Until my last breath, I’m yours.” 

Dean walked out of the kitchen and turned back to look at me again. His heart leaped in his chest. 

I finished getting the rest of the food prepared and I set the dining room table. Sam invited Eileen, Jack and Cass were coming, and of course Dean and I would be there. I was excited to have all of our family there to help celebrate Thanksgiving. 

As I stepped into mine and Dean’s room I found him sitting at his desk writing. I hadn’t seen him write in a long time. He told me when we first started dating he would write sometimes to help with his anxiety. 

“Hey, baby. I’m just gonna jump in the shower before everyone gets here.” I said as I stepped into the room. Dean looked up, “Okay sweetheart. I’ll be done here in a minute.” I lightly touched his shoulder, “Okay Dean.”

“Hey sweetheart?” I turned to look at Dean from the bathroom doorway, “Yes?” “I love you.” I smiled, “I love you too, Dean.”

About twenty minutes later I was showered, dressed and ready for dinner. When I walked into the room, Dean was gone and his journal was tucked away in its spot on the desk. I nervously bit my lip. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness creep into my heart. Dean was upset about something, but he was keeping it from me. I had worked so hard to get most of his walls down, it broke my heart to think there was something bothering him that he felt he couldn’t share with me. 

I took a deep breath and walked towards the dining room. Sam, Eileen, Cas and Jack were all there chatting. I looked around for Dean but didn’t see him. 

They all greeted me, “Hey Y/N. Everything looks delicious, are you ready to eat?” I smiled, “Sure, y’all dig in. I’m going to find Dean.” Sam looked up at me, “He’s in the garage.” I nodded and walked towards the garage. 

I heard Dean before I even got in the room. I walked over to Baby and saw Dean sitting in the car. His eyes met mine, “Damn.” He whispered, causing me to blush.

“Dean, dinner is ready. Let’s go eat.” Dean climbed out of the car and pulled me flush to him. “Look at how beautiful you look, sweetheart. I am one lucky man.” “Don’t you forget it, Mr. Winchester.” “I could never, Mrs. Winchester.” 

“Before we go, Y/N I wanted to talk to you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and bit my bottom lip, “Okay.” My voice barely a whisper. “I’ve done some pretty screwed up stuff in my life. I never thought I was worthy of anything, let alone love. Then I met you. I am thankful every single day I get to wake up next to you as your husband. You making this day special, this meal for us means so much to me. Nobody has ever loved me like you do. I know you saw me writing earlier, and I wanted to talk to you about that.” 

“Dean, you don’t have to. I know it’s how you deal with things in your head. Whatever you wrote, it’s okay if you keep it to yourself.” 

Dean stepped closer, “Baby I want to tell you. It’s about you, us.” “Okay, Dean. Whatever you have to say I can take it. No matter what it is.” My heart hammered in my chest. I was terrified and didn’t know why.

“Sweetheart, I’m ready.” I looked at him confused. “Ready to eat?” I asked. Dean chuckled, “No, well, yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m ready to start a family with you. I want us to have those babies we talked about. I want to leave this world a little better than we found it.” 

My breath hitched, “What? You really want to start a family?” “Yes, Y/N. I want to start a family with you. I can’t wait to see our babies and raise them by your side.” 

I threw my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist. “Yes, Dean! A thousand times yes! Let’s have a baby.” Dean kissed me deeply, “Wanna go start now?” He winked. 

“As much as I would, we do have a table full of guests who are hungry.” Dean chuckled, “You’re right. Let’s go eat. I can’t wait to get some of that pie you made.” “I can’t wait to start a family with you, Dean.” He grabbed my hand, “Me either, darlin’.” 

Dean and I walked into the dining room and greeted everyone. As I sat down and looked around the table at my family I smiled. I loved every single person sitting here with me, and I couldn’t wait to bring a little one into this family. 

We love each other deeply, protect completely, and never give up on each other. I know our baby will grow up loved, strong and protected.

As dinner started to wrap up, Sam and Eileen announced they were going to be getting married, Cas and Jack were rebuilding heaven, and Dean announced he and I were going to work on starting a family. 

Everyone was excited for us. Jack stepped close to me and whispered in my ear. I looked at him and he nodded. 

My heart fluttered. Later that night, Dean and I laid in bed, after a few times of trying and he held me tight. 

“Y/N, thank you for a wonderful day. I am so thankful for you.” “Dean, I am thankful for you too, and our baby.” 

Dean’s brain took a second to catch what I said. His eyes shot open and he propped himself up on his elbow, “What baby?” I looked at my husband, deep in his green eyes, “Jack told me tonight I’m pregnant, Dean. We’re pregnant.” 

“Oh my god, sweetheart. I’m gonna be a dad?” “Yes, Dean. You’re going to be a dad.” Dean gently placed his strong, calloused hands on my belly and kissed my lips. “Now this is something to be thankful for.” “Yes it is, Dean. Happy Thanksgiving, my love.” Dean cupped my face, “Happy Thanksgiving to you too, sweetheart.” 

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[pearlzier]

ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ 𝜗℘ㆍ nerd.ᐟmatt ☆ nerd.ᐟreader ，✿

"POPULAR, YOU'RE GONNA BE POPULAR," you'd sing when you were doing absolutely anything. it was no shock to anyone that you adore musicals, you're an absolute theatre fiend. since you were a little kid, it's been your form of escapism, being able to transform into a different person on stage instead of how sheepish you usually are. matt personally loved how confident you were infront of an audience and so passionately speaking the lines you'd worked so hard to perfect.

after the inarguable disaster that was the mean girls adaptation (you'd quite literally sobbed into his arms about how bad it was) you two were pretty sceptical about a wicked movie adaptation.

"you really like uh.." matt's watching you, as best as he can, anyway, considering the fact that he's driving the two of you towards the cinema. his eyes flutter back to the road, hand working over the wheel as he holds onto it. "uh.. what's her name, the woman who played glinda on broadway—" he drums his fingers against the wheel in thought.

you adored the original wicked on broadway, you'd practically learnt the entire score, and you were so serious when it came to elphaba and glinda. literally, you and your bestfriend had gone as them one time for halloween before it was trendy to do so—the 'og's, shall we say. you loved many musicals, but wicked would always have a soft spot in your heart. having gone to see it live, it was a memory you'd never forget.

you were like, the most qualified ever to judge whether a wicked movie adapation was actually as good as it should be.

well, matt thought you were, anyway. he held you in extremely high regard.

he doesn't even get to finish before you're interjecting, "kristin chenoweth!" causing a smile to spread across his lips. there you go again, so eager to talk about musicals. he only ever sees you this happy when you're talking about the things you like or when you're with him.

"kristin chenoweth," he agrees quietly, watching the way the gleam in your eyes twinkles as you speak. he's in awe, pure awe, at how perfect you are. he'll get better at voicing it, he's sure of it. he's just.. a little overwhelmed by how much he loves you.

"she's amazing, matt," you insist, adjusting the tote bag sat in your lap. nothing could describe the amount of energy you have right now, you're practically bouncing off the inside of the car with joy right now. this might be one of the best moments of your life if you're completely honest with yourself.

"this is gonna be amazing, 'm sure of it. the marketing team are working overtime for this." matt might actually cry if he has to drink down another glinda themed robinsons drink—he won't, he'll brave it for you, but still.

matt isn't exactly into musicals the way you are, he usually plays video games, watches movies, and gets so hype over them it's crazy. though, you get it, your interests make you just as feral. but this is a movie musical, so you think he'll be into it as well. wicked was inescapable, his entire for you page was just glinda and elphaba and he wasn't even mad about it. couldn't be, especially with how happy it made you.

it was like when hamilton was trending, oh, god, you'd performed like seven one woman performances of the musical that he's sure he can quote the entire thing by now.

the two of you are quiet for a little more, the original broadway cast singing away in the background as it plays through the car speaker from your phone, 'till the car comes to a stop outside of the cinema. "we're here," he murmurs, killing the engine once he makes sure his parking's perfect.

"oh my god, matt! we're here. what if i faint? what if i vomit? oh god, i won't get to see the movie if i faint or vomit, will i? oh no, uh, okay, i need, uh.. oh—"

"hey, hey, relax," matt says, gently, wanting you to chill out a little. he offers a sheepish little smile and he murmurs, "uh.. we can go get the themed popcorn buckets and you can throw up in there if you want to.. in style.." that makes you giggle and you nod, practically ripping off your seatbelt so that the two of you don't waste any more time inside the car. he has to quickly get out to join you, making sure that you don't run off on your own.

as the two of you walk, his fingers awkwardly twitch at his side as he wishes to hold your hand, but he's a little apprehensive to. though, he doesn't know why he's so apprehensive about it, the two of you are dating, holding hands is a simple thing. but.. he is.

"wicked's real popular," he murmurs, glancing around. "it's real amazing," you add in return. the two of you make your way inside the cinema together, and you glance at eachother for a moment. he smiles, you smile, and it sends a surge of warmth through both of you. leaning against his shoulder, you watch as he pays for the two tickets, and even more heat surges through you at the fact you're one hundred percent going to be seeing wicked now. matt likes how happy it makes you. it makes him almost as happy, he's sure.

and you notice this, after a little. there's a bit of a queue—wicked was so popular—and you end up interlacing your fingers with his own. it makes a heat flush to his cheeks and he offers a smile to you, shuffling closer to you and pressing by your side a little just to make sure you don't get too cold considering it's getting colder out.

"line's pretty long," he notes quietly, glancing up. you guys are near the front, so it's okay. "mmh, yeah, but we're almost in," you agree, swinging your interlaced hands as you stand beside eachother.

"popcorn buckets?"

"popcorn buckets."

you're a mess when you get out of there. literally, he's got stains on his hoodie from your tears, not that he minded all that much. he'd be a hypocrite otherwise, he's feeling a little teary eyed himself. thrusted against his chest are the various popcorn buckets that you'd bought, as you're currently trying to compose yourself and make sure your pink makeup doesn't run. you'd dressed up in full glinda gear, as best as you could, and he'd gone as elphaba. in your words, he'd given you total wicked witch of the west energy, in the best way.

he mumbles a soft, "you're okay," switching the popcorn buckets to one arm so he could gently rub your arm as the two of you made your way out. a soft smile settles on his lips, just watching you. everyday he's reminded in little moments why he loves you so much. this is definitely one of them. matt quietly leads you out of the screening room, giving smiles to the people working at the cinema, ones who are quiet heartwarmed by your reaction to the movie and how much it clearly meant to you.

"that was just.." matt sighs softly, shaking his head as heat flushes to his cheeks. he shifts his weight a little, gently tugging on you for you to stop. it's just outside of the screening, his eyes meeting yours. your eyes are glossy, gleaming beneath the pink and green lights illuminating you both. "perfect," you finish for him, words wavering a little as you speak. god, you've never enjoyed a movie more. definitely a top ten movie. maybe even for matt, too. he couldn't deny how good it was.

matt nods his head at your words, adding a quiet, "really perfect," you'd one hundred percent be watching the movie a gazillion times after, probably in cinemas, but also definitely on some illegal websites when you got back home. matt'd be joining you, totally. he may not have been a complete musical fan, but he'd get into it for you, definitely.

"i'm like.. a new person after that," you tell him, shuffling closer to him and leaning your head up against his chest. he places the buckets down on the ground beside you two and he tentatively wraps an arm around your middle to bring you up against his chest.

"me too.. might be a musical fan.." a laugh slips past his lips ³and in return you giggle too. a soft sigh escapes you afterwards, head tilting to the side a little. he blinks when you look up at him like that, and the heat floods his cheeks a little more. he's getting warm from all the attention, really. but you're looking up at him like he hung the stars and the moon, and it makes him feel so unbelievably special. his heart's pounding against his chest, literally.

"i.. wanna kiss you," you find yourself saying before you even realise, and matt practically splutters and stammers over his words in return. "oh, uh.. you do? oh," he swallows thickly, glancing down at the ground a moment before he meets your gaze again, nodding his head. he'd been thinking the same exact thing, since.. right now, your lips look like they're coated in pure sugar, all shiny and glossy.

"you can kiss me. i wanna.. wanna kiss you," he mumbles, slowly easing his hand upwards on your back, his lips parting.

you're the one who goes for it, bringing your lips to his in a gentle kiss. he brings you as close as possible with his hand, a dreamy sigh slipping past his lips against your own. you let your hands come up and cradle his jaw, both of your eyes shutting together as you take in the bliss that is the kiss you're sharing. when the two of you part, he's breathless, eyes gleaming in a similar way to yours. "you taste like candy," accurate, considering all the candy you'd been eating during the movie, but he loves it.

you feel a heat come to your face at that, and you glance at the floor sheepishly. "i do?"

matt nods, because yeah, you do. he sweeps his tongue over his bottom lip, tasting the sweetness that you'd left there in the kiss. he's incredibly intoxicated by you, how you taste, how you feel, just.. you. "yeah.." he really wants to do it again, but the realisation that you two had just kissed in public hits him and he ends up burying his head in your hair to try hide himself in some way. "oh my god, we just kissed, in public," you say in realisation.

he's got absolutely no clue where all of this confidence comes from, but he murmurs a breathy, "y'know what's not public?" that makes your eyebrows raise in interest, lashes fluttering a little bit. matt relishes in that expression on your face, just for a moment.

"what is?" you soon ask, brows furrowing now.

"my bedroom," matt wiggles his eyebrows instinctively, and despite your surprise at his forwardness, you laugh. a genuine, soft, laugh. god, you adore him. enough to the point you quickly run behind him as he practically drags you back to the car.

ִ ֹ ★ @deansbite i hope you and our 120+ kids are proud o'me for writin' consistently :3

ִ ֹ ★ @mattybsgroupie, @mattslolita, @stellasturns, @stevelacylovebot, @55sturn, @jetaimevous, @phone4pills, @aesthetixhoe, @venusiers, @chrissdollie, @stvrnmc, @sarosfilms, @sarosfilms, @funkycoloured, @v3nusasgirl, @beridollie, @pr3ttyf4wn, @sincerebabydoll, @cayleeuhithinknott, @j2ss7, @sweetrelieef, @l3sbiancvnt, @beausling, @lovesickgrlsrh0t , @cupiidk1lls, @sofiassaturn ִ ꒱

[pinkslipxox]

can write billie x momreader where the kid calls billie mom for the first time.

this is adorable, I hope like it, my love 🫶🥰

——————————————————————————

It was a quiet evening in Y/N's cozy apartment, filled with the aroma of pasta simmering on the stove and laughter spilling from the dining room. Billie, known for her powerful voice and captivating stage presence, was equally known for her tender heart, especially when it came to Y/N and her four-year-old daughter, Ivy.

As they shared a simple dinner at the table, the three of them seemed like a little family in their own world. Billie, always respectful and patient regarding Y/N's time with Ivy, had seamlessly woven herself into their lives, always prioritizing the moments spent together. Tonight was no exception; she was gentle and playful, a perfect companion to the bright-eyed girl who adored her.

“Mama, can I have some more?” Ivy asked, her small hands reaching for the breadbasket. Y/N smiled, proud of how polite her daughter was becoming.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Y/N replied, pouring another scoop of vegetables onto Ivy’s plate. Billie watched with adoration, her heart melting at the sight of Ivy's enthusiasm.

With dinner wrapping up, Ivy, her little face illuminated with joy, turned to Billie and chirped, “Mom, can I have dessert now?”

Time seemed to freeze. Y/N and Billie exchanged shocked glances, both with mouths agape, momentarily stunned by Ivy's innocent yet impactful words. Ivy had never called Billie “Mom” before, and the implications filled the air with a mix of joy and uncertainty.

“Did you just call me… Mom?” Billie asked softly, her voice laced with disbelief and sweetness. She leaned slightly forward, her eyes sparkling.

Ivy nodded, giggling at the reaction she had caused. “You’re my Mom!”

Y/N felt her heart swell, but also a rush of anxiety. “Oh my god, I didn’t—” she began, but Billie reached over, placing a gentle hand on Y/N’s arm.

“It’s okay, mama,” Billie murmured sweetly as she leaned in closer to Y/N, smiling brightly. “I’m so happy! It's a big deal! She sees me as family.”

Y/N’s concern faded, replaced by warmth at Billie’s reaction. “But what if it's too soon? I didn’t want to put any pressure on her or you,” Y/N confessed, biting her lip slightly.

“Y/N, breathe,” Billie said gently, her tone soft like the light that filtered through the kitchen window. “I love her, and I love you. This is wonderful, not stressful. I'm so grateful she feels comfortable enough to call me that.”

After dinner, they all moved to the living room, Ivy giggling as she played with her toys, while Y/N and Billie settled on the couch together. Y/N felt a weight lift off her shoulders. Despite her initial worries, she felt a rush of pride, seeing the bond forming between her girlfriend and daughter.

As they cuddled, Billie whispered softly in Y/N’s ear, “Just so you know, I love you and Ivy so much. You both mean the world to me.”

Y/N turned to meet Billie’s gaze, her heart fluttering at the sincerity radiating from her girlfriend. “Really?”

“Really,” Billie confirmed, her gentle hands framing Y/N's face. “You’re both my girls now.”

Y/N felt tears prick at her eyes; the significance of those words enveloped her in warmth. “You have no idea how much that means to me, to us,” Y/N replied, emotion thick in her voice.

Billie brushed her thumb across Y/N’s cheek, their foreheads touching softly as Ivy continued to giggle in the background. “You’ve given me so much love already, and it’s my turn to share that with Ivy. We’re a family, Y/N, whether you’re ready to believe it yet or not,” she said, her sincerity undeniable.

As Ivy bounded over, a joyful grin plastered across her face, Y/N couldn’t help but feel gratitude for what was blossoming before them. Billie had embraced her heart, and now she was lovingly embracing Ivy as well.

In that moment, surrounded by love and laughter, Y/N knew they were all exactly where they were meant to be—creating memories as a little family, forging ahead together with open hearts and unwavering trust. They might not have the traditional setup of a family, but in each other's eyes, they were perfect just as they were.

[hurlingdown]

Kyros.

Mr. Awkward. — Afraid of hurting you in the slightest bit by sitting on you.

He’d be scared to sit on your face. “No, I don’t deserve to have the chance to be pleasured…” You were leaning against the pillow supporting the position to have him over you. You assumed he never wanted to do this because of the lack of balance his leg has. (A certain hc but it’s not important rn)

“You’re wrong. You deserve this. You’ve worked so hard. Let me do something for you just this once.” You can see the swells of tears build up in his eyes. “What if… I hurt you?” You smirk in a gentle way. “If anybody’s going to get affected, it’s you. ‘Cause I’m going to make sure you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.” A steamy blush burns over his face.

You can tell it caused more a reaction down there. His pussy started to leak a bit. You don’t give much time for him to reach before you pull his leg over and practically drag him to sit on your face. “…’m not gonna drop you, baby.” He had your shoulders on a death grip. “O-okay, hu-hnngh… shit.” You lick his pussy with adorned delight. It sends shivers down his spine. Broken up moans fill your ears, with a wobbly leg trying to keep him from slamming down on your face.

You feel a little irritated by it. You understand. You do, but it still feels like a hit on a sore spot. “Kyros. Trust me here, you’re not going to hurt me.” You nuzzled your nose at the perfect spot, licking the entrance of his hole, making his breath stutter. “Fine, but d-don’t tease! ‘M s’close..! Please, fuck me more.” Body betraying his fortitude. “H-hanngh! Yes, yes, right there, oh god, you’re so good!” You chuckle underneath that remark. An ego boost was definitely needed after what he tried not doing but you will never tell the poor man it.

“Good to hear that my baby boy is feeling good. Now why don’t we start doing this more often. I think this is the faster you came, especially when I’m under your gorgeous figure.” Spurting cum overflew your mouth as you nearly laugh at his whiny moans. “I don’t deserve such a compliment-“ you dug your finger right into his pussy. “Never said I want done, sweetheart.” Tears swollen down his cheeks as he continuously moans into your shoulder. “God… this is too much. Don’t stop…”

You chuckle. “Too good or too much, honey?” He doesn’t respond after a few seconds. “Sorry… m-ix of words..! Oh, shit, right there,” you find him too cute not to accept the apology. As he cums on your fingers a second time, he slowly jumps up and down on your fingers before pulling out. “You’re so good… it’s me who doesn’t deserve you, Ky” as you envelop in a kiss. Falling into the kiss without a moment of rest. You slide your cock under him and slowly let him ride you.

“I love you.”

You two went on for another three hours. He did, in fact, have trouble walking that day. With a flush stained face staring at you when he tripped to go to the bathroom. Embarrassed as hell, but was cradled by you to the shower. He needed a little more help than he thought.

Look at him, he’s so cute.

Now,

Now,

More Dressrosa characters.

This one is going to be fun.

Cavendish.

Like jealous Cavendish would be so easy to rile up.

When it comes to his looks, Cavendish doesn’t feel too threatened. He knows he’s good-looking. He knows a lot of people look at him for charms and not because he’s a pirate. Expect you. You, his partner, has gotten used to his bedazzling style of acting. “My absolute favorite person in the world, doesn’t this brooch look so good?” You glance down at where his finger was pointing on his chest. “Mm… looks great, babe.” You paid almost no mind.

You stared off in the distance. What it seemed like, to Cavendish, was somebody else. Someone else? Not him. Another person. Not to mention, he was fine-looking, too. A soft grunt barely makes past Cavendish’s lips, eyeing how you were intently looking at the other man. “Hey, Cave’? You’re not getting jealous are you?” You stare at him with a smirk.

His face turns red, “w-what? What preposterous insolence—“ you put your finger over his mouth. “Alright, you’ve made your point. Now, baby, why don’t you sit down on your favorite seat and prove you’re not jealous.” A hitch in breath as he looks at you with reddened confusion. “N-now? On the deck? No, wait… let’s go to our room, first. Out of here, n-now! Your captain orders it!” As he pulls you up out of your rested position, he pushes you to you two’s room.

Your glinting eyes with a smirk that doesn’t at all mean anything innocent. “So you are!” A vein pokes out, “ am not! Shut up and go! Now that I’m moved - you’ll satisfy my craving!” You snicker, already hard for his pussy.

“Y’know, there are other ways of getting me to come with you in bed, darling.” His flush was cherry-pink, shoving you on the bed, giving you no time to react, resting himself on your crotch. “You better get hard, quickly…” Somehow, already at his wits end, he starts rocking his lips over and over your crotch.

You’re a tease. You sit there silently, watching him work you up, but having no luck. You’re in the mood, but you want him to break, first. “C-c’mon… why aren’t you getting hard? He-help me unbutton my shirt, too.” You slide his blonde bangs out of his face, “why you in such a rush?” You glide your hands down to his collar and help him slide it off of his shoulders.

You lightly kiss his bare skin. Making him moan at the softest tenderness of your lips. “Baby…” Softness rekindles in his voice. His eyes half-lidded, rocking back and forth on your pants. While frustration was there, he wanted you too much to rush things if you wanted to go slow. He was too desperate. Too fumed by jealousy to let you go.

“You’re not leaving until I cum! Get hard, get ha-r-ha..” You wanted him to shut up, so you shove your hand down to harshly rub on his pussy. “Why don’t you quiet down, and let the one who can perfect your cumulative success all the time? Besides, you need to learn some respect, babe.” His hips inching into the air, hands gripping the sheets, “s-shit! To-o fast! Slow down, hey, wait!”

You’re a bit mean when he gets bratty like this. “You said I’m not leaving until you cum, correct? Well, I’m at your service, captain.” His head rolls back, broken up moans, “no, wait, n-not li-ke this! Please, your cock, I really need you! C’mon… I don’t want to be fingered! I want to get fucked!”

You did too. As your dick finally was starting to harden. You finally ripped his pants off, to finish the fingering. “A little more, babe, you’re not going to be done after cumming once, are you? Thats a little disappointing after being so riled up to have sex.” His moans turns into soft grunts. “No way in hell! I can handle whatever you’re going to dish out. Fuck Ms with your fingers for as long you want for all I care, but you better have that dick inside me by the end of the night. ‘Ya hear me?”

Something about his serious sex demands manga instantly turned you on. After his shuttering climax erupted, and him falling back down on his news, and your freed cock, “finally. Yes, ugh, you feel so good!” His stamina is unrelenting. He’s already humping on you. As you lay back down to adjust your hips to his position, “slow down, babe. Weren’t you just the one complaining about me going too fast? You’re going to slip.”

“S-shut up. I’m now in control, so I can go however fast I desire. Besides, that was only a warm up.” He huffs out in a bit of a cold tone. “Mmh, that’s true. I hope you’re ready, because I’m going to fuck ‘ya like the world’s watching, firecracker.” You can tell by his hands gripped on your hips he was getting close. Demands are you two’s kink’s, you guess.

By the time you two were done, his hair was so messy that he refused to look at himself until it was brushed. “Geez, didn’t need to go that rough! I’m all messy, now. You’re going to pay by buying all of our supplies at our next stop!” You chuckle. “‘Aye, Cap’n!”

I kind stole some of this from your law fic, again, where he’s at a bar. If you can’t tell by the way this drabble went.

- Saturn 🪐

KYROS OLD MAN PUSSY. having him sit on your face squirming about smearing his musk and wetness all over you oh fuckk that's so sexy.

cavendish though. getting him jealous enough to consider doing it on deck where everyone can see. pushing your fingers against his clothed cunt until he's sobbing, rubbing his wet cave up and down your length until his poor clit gets overstimulated, so swollen it looks like a tiny cock. it's too much, but his lips part to let out lewd cries for more, pliable body begging for you to dick him down already.

these were so gooood!!! second one was definitely my favourite though, i love being mean to that arrogant little twink

[twiishaa]

HIHI POOKIEEE !!! CONGRATS ON UR 100 FOLLOWERS UR AMAZING GIRL💋💋 CAN I COME TO THE SLUMBER PARTY AND BRING FLUFFY SOCKS, WE CAN WATCH A ROMCOM MOVIE AND PLAY SOME ROBLOX OBVIOUSLY W MY EVERYTHING SUNA RIN<33 ALSO UR EATING RN UR WRITING IS SO YUM LOVE U💕💕 😭🙏

! 𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚 twisha’s 100 followers slumber party ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

— flat whites, tiramisu cookies and saccharine kisses

suna x reader, wc approx 1k warnings my baker side came out

check out the event!

—

suna rintarou was a regular at your dainty little cafe.

it was laughable, but he said aesthetic didn’t matter because your flat whites are banging. everyday, he had a routine: before uni, grab a coffee to go, make a comment on your song choice, then after uni, come for a few hours to study and chat gossip.

it was like second nature to him— your cafe was his second home. originally, he only came as a dare from the miyas. but, when he saw you, the waitress, (and tried the flat white, obviously), he could tell he was going to be a regular. the ambience definitely wasn’t his vibe— pink, delicate and girly, and you yourself were a little like the miyas that he didn’t necessarily enjoy, but for some reason he found himself attracted to your little cafe, only a few minutes’ walk from his university.

—

you looked at the clock. there were only a few minutes before the cafe closed, but that didn’t register, as you were more occupied with the conversation at hand.

“nope. never baked in my life, or cooked.” suna said, shaking his head.

“what?” you exclaimed. “do you just… live off uber eats or something??” you laughed, imagining suna eating a big mac.

he took a sip of his second flat white of the day. “no, one of my mates cooks decently enough. we just, leech off him.” he chuckled.

god, was he attractive.

you’d thought suna was cute ever since he first ordered a flat white. he was in a volleyball team in his uni, and he looked gorgeous in everything he wore. yes, suna was the complete opposite to you, but something about his fox-like personality and almond eyes tempted you. you wanted him to be your boyfriend. you’d even perfected your flat white, his go-to order, so he’d come back; it was like you were luring him with your coffee.

at that moment, you realised you had a few new cookie flavours you were testing for the new seasonal bakes. your mind concocted some intricate plan to get closer and spend more time with your little cafe crush.

“hey, i have a few new cookie flavours i need another opinion on…” you tried to say nonchalantly, like you suggest this to everyone you meet.

you definitely didn’t.

“are you suggesting i try them?” suna asked, finishing your question.

for some reason unbeknownst to you, your face went red.

“i mean, if you want to-“

suna laughed, just adding fuel to the fire.

“why would i ever say no to cookies? especially yours?”

oh god.

—

and so, suna found himself in your cafe’s kitchen, as you lined up three perfectly shaped, decorated cookies, their colours on a spectrum from beige to a dark, rich, brown. the scent from them was mouth-watering.

suna thought you looked adorable when you were concentrating.

you stepped back from the cookie masterpieces.

“right. there’s hot chocolate, salted caramel and tiramisu.” you said, pointing at each.

“hot chocolate, salted caramel and tiramisu. okay. got it.” suna repeated.

“which one do you want to try first?” you looked at suna, his eyes moving between the three sweet treats.

after a few seconds, he replied: “tiramisu. a tiramisu cookie sounds like it could be banging.”

you handed the leftmost cookie to him, covered in cream cheese buttercream and topped with cocoa powder; he held it like it was a delicate child.

carefully, suna took a bite out of it, then licked the frosting off his top lip. the flavours were perfect— the slight hint of coffee, the sweetness of the buttercream paired with the bitter cocoa powder. it was heavenly— suna let out a hum from satisfaction.

“that’s good,” he said, finishing his bite and taking another.

your heart felt full from his reaction. “i’m glad you like it,” you replied, blushing. suna noticed you looking at his face for a bit too long.

“hm? do i have something on my face?” he asked looking at you, his cheeks gaining a pink hue.

“yeah you just..” you said.

getting on your tiptoes, you wiped off a stray crumb from his cheek.

“there.” you whispered, still close to suna’s face. he even looked beautiful this close, your face only a few centimetres from his.

he was staring into your eyes earnestly. the smell of your perfume and a slight hint of baked goods filled suna’s senses; all he could think about was you, his mind was clouded.

he wanted your saccharine taste. without thinking, he inched closer until he could feel each of your careful breaths.

suddenly, you felt his lips on yours. it took a second for you to process what was going on; suna rintarou, your silly little cafe crush, was kissing you!

surprised at first, you slowly closed your eyes and relaxed a little. you felt a pair of arms slowly snake around your waist, which you took as invitation to put your arms around his neck. you could taste the tiramisu he had only moments before, your stomach doing flips.

quickly, suna pulled away, his casual exterior breaking a little. his face was flushed from the kiss you two shared.

breathing heavily, he avoided eye contact with you.

“sorry.” he started with, then exhaled deeply.

“i don’t know what came over me, i just-“

giggling, you walked towards him, getting on your tiptoes again to hug him. maybe if you avoided eye contact things would less awkward, you thought. somewhat stiffly, you rested your chin on his shoulder. suna relaxed a little, reading the room.

“what if i said i didn’t mind that…” you whispered.

this time it was suna’s turn to chuckle, his laugh warming your cheeks. “then i’d ask if i could be your boyfriend,” he said, letting go from the hug but holding on to your shoulders.

—

it was now nearing the end of autumn, and the days were beginning to get colder. you were fixing the display at the counter when someone came in, taking his scarf off as he entered.

“oh, hi!” you beamed. it was your boyfriend, suna.

“hey.” he said, sitting down at the counter, after giving you a kiss on the cheek.

“i’ll have a flat white, and a tiramisu cookie, please,”

you smiled.

note thank you pookie!!! love you more ☹️🙏🙏 okay i had so so much fun writing this one!!!!! feel free to request love you guys bye!!

[bigball-thefrog]

Hey there! I hope you’re doing well! I was kinda thinking if maybe you could write a lil something with Bartolomeo✌🏻He’s just so cute and funny looking and I love him very much😻I was thinking maybe something with a strawhat reader who actually happens to be a fan of Bartolomeo and has a crush on him. And maybe rooster head also has this massive obsession with her cause she’s his favorite and fell in love with her the first time he saw her. Just maybe something cute. Thank You!

Hello, sorry for the long wait, as said previously I was busy with exams but am done now. Your suggestion was very cute to write so I hope you enjoy it

Warnings/Tags:

Female reader

Dressrosa/beginning of Zou spoilers

______________________________

Narrator POV

The strawhats... Oh how they were just perfect in Bartolomeo's eyes. Ever since that day in Logue town he'd been obsessed with them! Following every one of their adventures and obsessing over each one. But there was one that he loved more than all, one that actually passed his love for Luffy (by only a small bit of course) and that was, you.

There was just something special about you that charmed Bartolomeo to become obsessed with you more than the others. You were so sweet, but so wild too, even a bit more violent than the others, and that just made him fall hard. Once the word that Doflamingo had the flame flame fruit that previously belonged to Luffy’s brother Ace, Bartolomeo knew he had to win it so he could bring it to the Strawhats to win Luffy's praise, and maybe even get yours...

--------------------------------------------------

Bartolomeo POV

Right now I was helping defending Robin Senpai against Doflamingos men when someone came flying towards me, I didn't care too much but the outline of the person falling seemed too familiar, so I caught them and oh boy... It was... You. You were injured now laying in my arms, I just froze in place, my heart racing and my body heating up. You stirred and looked up at me, and you seemed, reassured. "Hey, you're Bartolomeo the cannibal, right?" Oh god she knows who I am... "Luffy told me you're a big fan of us, that's cool because I actually really like you too" Oh my god, she likes me?? "I've been a big fan of your stuff, I like seeing what you're getting up to when I see you in the newspaper" Oh my God... She's... She's a fan of mine! This is too much for me to handle! I can feel my body shaking and heating up! This si so overwhelming!!! "I actually think you're kinda cute..."

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHOHMYGODMYSENPAILIKESMEBACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I shouted out, making everyone look back at me in confusion. I was sobbing at this point. M-my favorite Strawhat, they think I'm cute! They like me! God, this is so much more than I could ever ask for!!! I swear, my sweet Senpai, I will defend you with my life! I am undeserving of your grace but I am eternally thankful for you appreciation!

--------------------------------------------------

Bartolomeo did not put you down, making sure you wet safe. It was only when he fought against Gladius that he put you down to safety. And once that was taken care of you were quick to make sure he was okay and healed up, which he loved so much, being pampered and taken care of by you. And during the days of rest, you two got closer and he couldn't ask for anything more than to get close to you.

Now, you and the others were on Bartolomeos ship, heading for Zou to meet up with Nami, Sanji, Chopper and Brook. Barto had been following you around like a lost puppy, he knew you'd be leaving with the others soon and he wanted to spend as much time with you as possible. And when the time came for you all to leave, Bartolomeo was crying and clinging to you, not wanting you to leave. "Barto, I have to go..." you said softly while running your hand through his hair, "PLEASE! Just a minute longer... I'm gonna miss you so much!!" he cried out, "Oh don't say that, we'll definitely see each other again, our crews are friends now, it'd be a shame to just not see you again." "But when will I see you again!?" "Well probably in the newspapers, but, if you're ever in trouble, I promise we'll come as soon as we can to help. And if the crew can't come, then I'll come for you myself~" he was all red again, all flustered because of your kindness and love towards him, "R-Really? You'd do that for me???" He asked, his eyes sparkling. You leaned down and gave him a quick but tender kiss on the lips, "Yes, I'd do anything to come and save you~" He was frozen. You... You kissed him! Not only that but on the lips! He just collapsed unconscious in your arms, bus crew helped him to lay down and he just lay unconscious with his face all red and his expression completely lovestruck. You chuckled at his reaction and kissed him on the forehead before leaving with the rest of the crew.

Bartolomeo was now filled with determination, he would see you again, and he'd get you to kiss him like that again! He will see you again, and nothing was going to stop him.

______________________________

A short sweet one for now. But I've got one more request to do, so I'll be back very soon, see ya.

Kelly🐸

[sluckythewizard]

THEY could give me the surgurey i need (inspired alot by evojellys designs for em. GREAT STUFF)

[draslihanxfahri-bailey]

@elifalvey

Hande Erçel and Tom Ellis

Requested: Anon

[whatkindofnameisella]

every now and then when im going through my files i find these screenshots i took of liam and laura when i was particularly lost in the wj sauce (i think i was gonna make some moodboard or something idk) and like what the fuck. what the actual fuck. never forgive NEVER FORGET WHAT WE HAD. NOT EVEN WHAT WE COULD HAVE HAD WHAT WE LITERALLY HAD. AND NEVER GOT TO SEE THROUGH. AAAGUGUGHAAGGH

[little-shadow-club]

SL Rag spoilers below

just another Haein ramble post don mind me.

Look man I love Haein as much as the next person but I feel like, even with the new content of her coming out (from SL Rag to Arise to the anime) she's still lacking in something of her character. And, as I began to look more into her I kinda saw that the main culprit of her characterization is that: She is perfect.

Too perfect, I mean she holds no flaws or anything that can set her aside from the rest (and no being an s rank and female doesn't automatically make her different), and even if she does she doesnt hold them to the extent that other characters might have them, or she just has the same thoughts as anyone else. Her personality as well never clashes with the other hunters or is too different, especially from Jinwoo-- and okay yeah that's expected bc trophy wife trope and all that–  and in a sense I think this might derive from the fact that everyone wants her to still be stuck into this mold of “perfect wife + perfect mother” that doesn't have the same level of flaws as the rest. 

She wants a comfortable life, like Jinwoo, she trains constantly, like Chiyeol, she is not burdened by trauma unlike Juhee who leaves the story or Jinah who actively tries to stop his brother at one point from entering dungeons (and stopping the MC? Clashing due to real life precautions and worries? And expanding on that? No sir we don't do that). She is strong but not too strong to be a threat (in their first meeting maybe but then Jinwoo just levels up in the castle and then bam stronger than her again) just like… yeah everyone else lol. She fights Jinwoo at one point but it's not due to some difference in thinking or to stop him from something, rather Haein just wants to spend time with him. And yeah despite wanting a comfortable life, or so told so far, she is still placed in the spotlight during her idol years, and has to deal with the most supernatural shit going on in her life constantly. She might be strong but she is still a damsel in distress, and her olympic background… I mean it's there.

I like the implication that she might have been stressed about appearing perfect during her idol life, especially pressured to do great by the adults around her just as she was pressured to be a maintainer of peace when she was an S rank (friend’s death and all), but that… doesn't get anywhere, and I admit Haein hinted to being stressed was only in the date scene with Jinwoo, the rest was expanded by Arise and Rag, still, still its not treated as anything else except ‘oh she is so camery shy’ and ‘oh she just wants a normal life being a normal wife’ (mind you Jinwoo is there as well but he even he doesn't see a problem with that except for when the cameras are pointed at him to which he just makes all the photos look black) and not, idk, dwell on the amount of pressure she would have been faced in since she was a child, the failure of not meeting those expectations in her past life and wishing to meet them when she was given the chance to become an s rank hunter, or how all of that constant training might have affected her life and social ties with other children who werent as talented as her. Or maybe how Haein has had to constantly keep people at a distance due to her nose problems, plus her almost never appearing in the news (so it was said during her hunter years, bc she had signed a contract with Jongin for this to not happen i think) leading everyone to not get to know her as well as the rest of the other hunters who were practically seen as celebrities.

No? None of that? Not even tackling the fact that olympic athletes tend to suffer from burnout, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, or how traumatic the double dungeon must have been since it was the first time Haein, an S rank, had ever come so close to dying (as far as we know in the og sl), and it cant be backed away with saying ‘oh that would be too complex for the story!’ when we’ve seen Haein trying to challenge her fears against Beru during the Ahjin guild arc. 

It's also not needed for her to be so overly complex either, I was listing examples out of the many routes in which her story could be fleshed out more. She can have a small healing moment to herself or slowly unwrap the tolls of pressure she’s been under, and that would be enough, because tbh, she does deserve some time to breathe, as a character, as herself. For the most part she’s never alone, in every scene we see other she either is with someone (mostly a guy) or thinking about someone (90% Jinwoo), so seeing her outside of anyone’s interaction, seeing her go on about her daily life or her daily struggles, or seeing how Haein fixes her own situations without the reliance on others, that I think, would be more needed than ‘just more Haein scenes’ 

Arise has one scene which I like, her talking with Chiyeol after his double dungeon incident. Both characters definitely needed something like that in my part, 1) because it highlights Chiyeols maturity over the certain years he has been as a hunter, and 2) because it emphasizes Haein’s relationship with her teacher and how she’s not only learning to be skilled but also the pain that comes with losing your comrades afterwards.

And in Rag, though I find it way too absurd to the point that its funny that Haein has managed to protect an entire village, on her own, for the past 5 years, with daggers, in her 40s, no experience whatsoever in a fight unless it was also transferred alongside her memories, and also had no qualms in protecting the race of beasts that had once pose such a level of danger Jinwoo himself rewinded time itself— I do like her interactions with Sirka,  and it posses such an interesting dynamic to see considering she is one of the few humans who has managed to maintain a connection and lived alongside intelligent magic beasts like he elves (Suho being the other which is… interesting actually when you think about it considering Jinwoo is somewhat yes and not on the list). 

Again, she is so interesting in her own right, but the thing is that we never see her act alone or be solely in the spotlight, and don't get me wrong, this also goes from the other characters too. But with her I feel like too much of what she could be or experienced is brushed off too quickly or not given enough time to expand. 

So anyways, I will like to see where she might go off from here foward, especially in rag, and the anime.

[tony-andonuts]

God I wish I didnt get ostrasised by all but like 4 of my peers because holyfucking shit am I overworked and need a hug