#right after i take the awful awful test

[tfshouldidohere]

god should give me like 3 million years to rest

[lunarsapphism]

.

[britneyshakespeare]

i wish i didn't get immovably anxious every time i even think about taking a covid test

[divinedelusional]

rafe being grumpy when he's sick

rafe cameron x female reader

word count: 678

warnings: none

rafe never got sick anymore like ever

ever since he hit puberty he wasn't catching cold anymore, no health problems (expect for being fucked in the head)

so to say you were surprised when you saw him lying in bed under a thick duvet in the middle of summer would be an understatement

"yo topper what happened to rafe? i leave for three days and my boyfriend's completely wiped out??"

"is he asleep?"

"yeah! that's what's weird!"

"weird? girl you're lucky he's asleep, he's been a complete diva last two days"

rafe woke up after an hour and told you that he must have got sick when they were out at the beach and suddenly it started pouring cold rain and he was soaked before he got in the car

"yeah they brought me some syrup so cough is gone, but who gives a shit, this fuckin fever is too much anyways"

turns out rafe barely ate the last two days since he couldn't get out of bed and he was sick of the food topper and kelce were ordering for him

"wendy's not a type of food you eat when you want to get better rafe"

"hell i know, but what, is it my fault i have to have idiots as friends?"

you rolled your eyes and told him to lay down with cold compress for the fever

in the meantime you drove to get grosseries and made him chicken soup

you could see he really liked it but when he ate he mumbled a quiet "thanks" and went upstairs

that's the last you saw him that day and you were kinda mad at him

next day it didn't got better since he noticed you didn't come to bed last night

"i went to guest bedroom, im not catching whatever you got"

you didn't see him much for another day, only when he was coming to the kitchen for next bottle of water

so at least he took your advice to stay hydrated

not like you could hear him saying: hydration this, hydration that, who tf would want to pee that much

topper was right, you lived with a diva under one roof

grumpy, 6'2, hoodie clad diva

but on the third day you were finally about to reach a truce

rafe came for breakfast and you could see he felt better, as he was almost smiling and wasn't shivering

you ate breakfast in silence but he followed you like a lost puppy to the couch where you sprawled out to watch tv

you were watching real housewives of atlanta and rafe sat down with you for 3 episodes fourth now staring

he was quiet but all of the sudden he started to complain how awful it is to be sick in the summer

he tried to grab your attention, he knew you were testing him, you never binged rhoa for that long

you also knew exactly what he was doing, he was trying to make up with you but you weren't having his ways, so you informed him that you're going to take a swim

rafe was upset that his plan didn't work out, apparently not only sitting through four episodes of rhoa wasn't enough sacrifice for you but it also made him hungry

so he decided to win you back with very simple and little bit goofy solution

you came back after hour and a half, also hungry

you found rafe sitting at the table

there was a faint delicious smell in the kitchen

"you made soup?" you asked rafe after taking a peek to his plate

rafe didn't respond and held out a spoon to you, letter pasta forming words: im sorry bby

you couldn't be mad at him anymore

you ladled yourself a bowl of soup and formed a response on your spoon as quickly as you could

rafe smilled at words ur cute and let out a chuckle

"i missed this smile" you said and kissed him lightly, happy when you felt him smiling into the kiss

"and i missed those lips"

a/n: my first work for rafe, hope it was okay and feedback is really appreciated ���

bottom divider by: @astralnymphh

[alexiroflife]

Hello! May I request an angsty toji fic where reader finds out she's pregnant (post megumi) and she knows toji doesn't want anymore children so she just kinda leaves with little to no explanation? Maybe just a small note saying things aren't working out. It's up to you if it will be a hurt/comfort. Idk you don't have to do this request I don't want to overload you! I seriously love your writing. The way you right the character just warms my heart. I especially love ur hiding an Injury fic it was SO SO SO GOOD. 🩶🤍🖤

“promise”

toji fushiguro x reader

Synopsis: see above

to sum it up: you think it’s better to run away than to be the one to get hurt

WC: 5,668

Warning(s): angst, suggestive themes, yelling, pregnancy, mentions of abortion

You stare down at the plastic tube clutched in your trembling hands in awe, eyes blown with shocked grief as you peer closer to get a better look, as though those two bright pink lines could have been a trick of your vision.

Unfortunately, however, your vision remains just as crystal clear as it always has been. As you stand in your cramped apartment bathroom, illuminated by a flickering fluorescent gaze shining down from above, horror befalls you.

You’re pregnant.

You should have known sooner when you began feeling queasy every morning, taking trips to either your or Toji’s toilet to hurl out the contents of whatever swam inside your stomach. You always tried to be silent if Toji was around, for he slept like a dog that could not be woken even if a meteor struck earth, and you had been remarkably exhausted. You aren’t even sure if there is a word to describe how sluggish your entire mind and body had been feeling, but you wanted to rule out the very obvious answer to your problems before exploring it.

You begin to panic, your heart pounding in your ears and throat and every inch of your body you could feel the pulse, eyes blurry over the positive test. You’re conflicted. You don’t know how to feel. On the one hand, you would have been jumping for joy to learn that you are starting a new life with your boyfriend, to step into a new chapter of your lives and to provide his children with another sibling.

But hell, the celebration is far too naive and implausible to be had. The sage eyed man has told you time and time again that he does not wish to have anymore kids, that the ones he has are enough and he is not equipped financially or mentally to care for another brat. In honor of those wishes, you’re on the pill, and consequently, Toji has taken the opportunity to plow his load inside of you time after time after time.

And you really, truly should have known that with Toji’s uniquely abled body, what was meant to serve as a barrier and a means of contraception did not work.

You feel like throwing up. What would Toji say? What would he do? What are you supposed to do? Should you tell him, fill him in on what’s going on to risk rejection and abandonment, a nasty habit that Toji had to work to rid himself of when he met you? Would he even care? Would he listen?

You know Toji to be a very tough man, despite the softened interior he attempts to hide in others’ company that is only displayed for you and for his kids. If he has always been adamant about one thing, it’s been to never have kids again, to focus on where he fucked up before and to pour his attention into the little family he’s grown, the one that he has now.

His voice echoes through your head like the gong of a church bell striking upon the ear’s of a sinner.

“Hell, I already got my hands full tryna get Megumi through his teenage years. What the hell is another child gonna do for us?”

“That shit’s fuckin’ expensive. Not to mention, I’d have to baby proof the house again. That’s another expense.”

“If I was capable of givin’ you y’er own, I would, doll. But I ain’t cut out for it. You know that.”

You don’t even know why he would stress the matter so often. You suppose he’s caught the way your eyes linger on a mother tossing their giggling baby up and down into the air, innocent pools of joy beaming down at her each time it reaches the air and lands in her secure hold. Or maybe he’s seen the way you care so deeply for Toji’s kids as though they are your own, despite telling you when you first got involved with each other that he did not expect you to step into their lives in anyway - and yet, you have done that and more. You know how the kids must struggle each day with the trauma of losing their mother so early on, and you never wanted them to think that you were trying to step in as her replacement, but you love them so clearly, as much as you love the man who created them.

Which leads you to your next concern. How would the kids react?

It’s one thing for you, as their father’s girlfriend, to wander into their lives and help navigate them their teenage hood alongside the dark haired man, but to introduce an entire other child only leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

They may be crushed. They me turn to hate you, to despise how you have contaminated the life they have worked so hard to rebuild after numerous tragedies. And would Toji agree with them? Would he turn his nose up to you, that scowl of his melting over his harsh features as he shuns you just as he shunned every other woman who came after his wife and before you. Would he leave you? Would he kick you out of the world that has become your own because you failed to live up to your promise, though it technically isn’t your fault that you are pregnant now but it feels as though it is?

You can not stand the thought, of the man you love turning his once loving gaze stone upon the sight of you, of him pushing you further away, permanently, in the same manner that he tried to when he realized that he was falling in love with you, of watching Megumi and Tsumiki turn their backs to you as though the past four years of your lives had never happened, banning you from their acceptance forever more.

Tears well in your gaze, interfering with your vision. This can not be happening, you think to yourself, everything has been going so well, and now this? This is going to ruin your relationship with Toji for good. Even if you were not in a committed relationship with him, you assume that the idea of any woman getting impregnated by Toji would have been thrown away. You would be thrown away, just like all the others who gave Toji their bodies but not their hearts.

Not the way you have.

Your heart clenches thinking of just how much you love Toji and the kids, of how you would be willing to lay down your own life for the sake of them as Toji swears that he would for you all in return. Even so, despite the commitment to you that a man who swore never to be committed to accustomed, this would be going too far.

…You’re not even sure if he would love you anymore.

Now that you’re pregnant with his child, a child he never meant to have with you, you assume you will mean nothing to him any longer. In his eyes, you will simply become the slut that he took a chance on by a whim, carrying something he would never call his own. You believe the old Toji will resurface, the one who claimed not to care, the one who shoved women out of his bedroom before the sun rose in the sky, the one who often failed to remember to pick his kids up from school, the one who would no longer meet you at eye level but look down upon you, frown upon you for being so clumsy.

You know Toji is the one who did this, but this still feels like it is your doing. Like somehow, you trapped him and he now has no choice but to break free from the steel cage you have barred around him with your conception.

Your fingers clutch over the plastic, your eyes scrunching closed to release a fresh set of tears that cascade over your cheeks and onto the test. You can feel yourself mourning your relationship already, you can feel it slipping through your fingers, see it fading in the distance until it becomes nothing but a bittersweet memory that you can not determine as reality or a figment of your imagination any longer.

You tilt your head, bringing the test to your forehead as you think, grieve, cry. You mull over your options; you could hide this from Toji, get an abortion and never think of it again or you could tell Toji and lose him forever.

You open your bleary eyes, lashes decked with dewy tears, as another idea dawns upon you. You could leave, leave before Toji and the kids have a chance to leave you.

It’s a cruel thought, you think, especially abandoning those children without any proper explanation for them, but what else are you meant to do? You’d be doing them all a favor if anything by taking your leave without them having to be plagued by the knowledge of your unplanned pregnancy, of what they may view as a scheme to destroy their family in your new baby’s wake.

The thought kills you to even entertain. You had promised those kids that you weren’t going anywhere, that you’d stay with them for as long as they allowed you… but this is different. This is not what any of you had in your cards, how you believed your futures to go. Toji wants simplicity at home while he works through chaos through his occupation. He wants security, warmth, safety for you, Megumi, Tsumiki, and no one else. He would never welcome another child. You believe he’d be caught dead before approving of your pregnancy.

And therefore, you know what you have to do.

After taking a few more tests to ensure that the readings are accurate, which they are, you pledge to walk away. You pledge to leave the only man you’ve ever truly loved, the strongest family you’ve known, and the slim possibility that despite Toji’s wishes, he may accept you.

But you don’t want to take that chance and risk the humiliation and unplanned heartbreak. You’d much rather take matters into your own hands, and plan the shattering of your soul yourself.

You don’t sleep all night, for you’re too busy drafting about twenty different letters to Toji. Crumpled loosleaf paper litters the floor beside your bed as you try to think of how to best write down everything you want to say. You go through pages and pages until you are finally satisfied with the result, and the next morning, you slip the envelope into his mail slot and prepare to pack your life away.

It is late Sunday morning when Toji rises from his slumber. The first thing he does is lean over the sheets and drape his arm toward his nightstand to read your daily good morning text - only he finds there isn’t one. With pinched brows, he takes his phone to unlock it and visit your contact. Nothing.

The time reads 12:35 pm. Normally, you’re up and at it or even banging down his door by then to wake him. Maybe you’re just sleeping in?

He goes to give your cell a call, but nothing. Not only that, but your phone is also on do not disturb mode. His gut immediately swells with the suspicion that something is wrong. The dark haired assassin supposes he’s going to pay you a visit this afternoon as soon as he checks on the kids to ensure that they are alright.

His bedroom door opens with a creak, and he calls out to the teens gruffly through a yawn. When they don’t respond, he’s truly growing concerned.

He rounds the corner to prepare to head for their rooms when he finds Tsumiki and Megumi at the dining table. His brows furrow, his pace slowing as he takes in their faces. Tsumiki’s lips are pressed together tightly and the muscles in her face are scrunched as though she is about to cry, while Megumi stares ahead with empty eyes and a hardened exterior.

Toji frowns with quirked brows, approaching his kids. “What’s wrong with you two?”

His brunette daughter looks up at him with glassy eyes and wrinkled chin, lashes fluttering while Megumi does not bother to look at his father. Instead, he brings Toji’s attention to a torn envelope and a thick packet of papers pressed beneath the sixteen year old’s palm. Wordlessly, Megumi slides it toward him, brows slanting.

Toji, perplexed, looks between the papers and his children’s troubled faces. What is this letter? Overdue taxes? An eviction notice? That can’t be possible, because you had ensured that Toji and the kids’ place was secure long ago.

He crunches the papers in his hands and picks them up to read. The first thing that catches his eye is your scribbling handwriting, and the following words that send his heart plummeting to his ass:

This isn’t working out.

Toji whips his head up, baffled, and when he meets Megumi’s gaze again, his eyes are ablaze with resentment.

“What the hell did you do?” he growls.

The green eyed man is not even thinking before he’s dialing Shiu’s number, asking him to watch the kids for the next hour or so, and running out of the apartment after throwing rather unconvincing words of assurance over his shoulder to his kids, who are still with disbelief - Tsumiki with devastation and Megumi with rage, for surely his father pushed you away.

Toji does not bother finding a ride, electing to run to your place which is only a few blocks away. You two were just discussing moving in with one another, combining households, and this is what you spring onto him? Not even for him to stumble across first, but his kids who look up to you and love you like their own mother?

Oh, he’s fuming, a rush of emotions taking over his mind as it fuels his speed. The letter you wrote is still crunched in his fist, whipping through the air as he makes his way to you.

Dear Toji,

This is not working out.

But before you rampage and get angry with me, please let me explain. Let me explain how much I love you, how much those kids mean to me, and how every day I wake up I want to be greeted by all of your smiling faces. For the rest of time, forever. You are undoubtedly the only man for me, and I truly believe that. I know you may think I’m bullshitting because of how the beginning of this letter contradicts what im saying now, but it’s true. I have never loved another person the way I love you, and while it scared me at first when you were so stubborn and full of anger that you misdirected onto me, I stayed and I waited and I helped you and I’ve loved you through every single moment, ever week, every month, and every year. You brought purpose back into my life, and I can picture you scoffing because you’d say the same, but I mean it. You, Tsumiki, and Megumi are the best things that have ever happened to me. I love you all so much.

But in this case, that love is not enough.

I hate to be doing this to you, to the kids, but I have no other choice. Things aren’t going the way they used to, and it’s not your fault but mine. I’m the reason. And it is tearing me apart to know that and simultaneously know what I have to do in order to keep you and the kids happy. Stable. I wish I could explain to you more why I am doing this, but I can’t. Not just because I am dying to picture you reading this, but because I truly can not say. I do not want to ruin you guys’ image of me. While I think that’s a selfish thing to say because who knows how me leaving is going to hurt you all, you would not understand even if you knew the reason behind this.

By the time you are done reading this, I will be gone. I’m going away because as long as I am not with you all, I can’t stay here anymore. I am staying with my mother while I get my travel plans arranged, because I know how you worry when you do not know where I am or if im safe. I should be gone by Friday.

Please do not come see me. I have made my decision, and you will only be hurting us more by trying to stop me. I won’t be stopped.

Kiss and hug and apologize to Megumi and Tsumiki for me. I hope you find someone who fills the role of their mother, someone who knows how Megumi likes to do his homework in the silence of his room with no music or anything, completely isolated so he can focus. Someone who knows how to fix Tsumiki’s eggs properly - to add extra butter to the sides when you fry them so the edges get crispier. Someone who won’t try to feed Gumi’a demidogs because he hates when people assume they can coddle up to them upon first introduction. Someone who cares for the wholly the way I do and always will.

And you. I know how stubborn you are. I know how angry you probably are at me right now, and I will miss that about you, but please do not let that interfere with the possibility of falling in love again. Beneath the layers of grit, standoffishness, and indifference, you are a man with a big heart. For me. For your kids. For those you love and seek to protect.

You say you aren’t a good man, and while that may be true to you, you are an amazing partner and you’ve already become an amazing parent. I’ve seen you grow, and I am so in love with you and so proud of you. I know you’ll be okay without me. It maybe take some time, but you’ll adjust to what’s best. I promise.

With all the love that could possibly be harbored in this world, you are everything to me and that is why I have to go. I wish you every happiness this planet can offer you, and I know that without me, you can begin to find joy again.

Love,

Your doll

You had believed to time this perfectly, for you know that Toji usually does not wake until one, so soon as you are finishing up packing, you are trudging down the stairs to the leasing office to inform them that you will be moving.

You push open the door to the first floor, the breeze hitting you gently, and you round the corner only to be blocked by the last person you wanted to run into during this time.

Your eyes widen as you look up, the burly figure you have grown oh so familiar with over the years heaving as though enraged, ivy eyes crowding over slim pupils as Toji glares down at you, an image of indescribable fury.

Your heart drops and your words die in your throat. “T-Toji?” you whisper, horrified of an outburst. You are rattled by fear, having been so unprepared to walk into this. You did not put it past him to chase you down. But you figured that you’d be at your parents by the time he woke. Then, you could have at least told them to tell him off at the door.

But no. Instead, here he is, six feet and then some of bulking mass as he takes quick, deep breaths that expand the entirety of his chest.

You shift. “What are you doing here-“

“What the fuck is this?”

Toji swiftly, yet aggressively, lifts the papers in his hands, now damaged by his travels and his grip, shaking it firmly with the question. You gulp, lowering your eyes.

“Toji, I told you not to come…”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he swears firmly, and you jump, looking to see if anyone is around to hear you, as the two of you are standing outside your complex.

“We shouldn’t be- let’s just go inside,” you go to grab his arm, but he tears it away. He stares at you as though you have burned him, singed the heart in his chest from the inside out, and he is so unforgiving. So unforgiving before he hears directly from your mouth what this is about.

“I’m not doin’ shit until you tell me what the fuck this is, (Y/n),” he demands, his hand moving the papers about passionately with his speech, and you feel your heart hammering again. This is not how things were supposed to go. You are not supposed to be seeing him right now. “Cause I refuse- I fuckin’ refuse to believe that you’re breaking up with me.”

Your eyes gloss over as you look down at your feet, unsure of what to do or how to handle this confrontation. You can’t do this. You can’t, it’s too much. It’s too hard.

“…I am,” you mumble.

Toji steps forward, leaning down to get a peek of your face, his expression so angry that it worries you. “What?”

“I said… I am.”

“Uh uh, you better say that shit with your chest if you can write a whole damn letter about it,” he growls, fucking further as you continue to turn away. “Look at me,” he barks, and you cringe.

“Toji, don’t yell at me!” you shout back.

“What else do’ya want me to do, huh?” he throws his hands up. “How else do you expect me to react to this bullshit?! You’re leavin’ me? After everythin’ we been through, after everythin’ you and the kids’ve been through, you’re leavin? Are you fuckin’ serious?”

He takes a swift glance at the papers, the very sight sending him into a spiral, before he’s heatedly looking back down at you.

“I don’t buy this shit for one second. No. You’re not leavin’. Not in this world, or the next.”

“I am, Toji, the quicker you accept that, the easier it’ll be for everyone!”

“Easy?” he winces as though the prospect pains him. “You call this shit easy? You call up and tryin’ to abandon me easy? You call the kids waking up to your letter and reading it at the table before I saw it easy?”

Your face falls. “…what?”

“Yeah. You fuckin’ heard me,” he sneers. “Megumi and Tsumiki read this shit first. First thing in the morning, they see a letter about how the woman they love is leavin’ ‘em, just like their mom did, and for what?”

You close your eyes, his words stinging you as they cut through. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true, ain’t it? Y’er leavin’ us, (Y/n), and you didn’t even have the decency to say why!”

Guilt crowds you, like a blanket of darkness consuming you from overhead, and as Toji stands before you completely torn apart by your letter, you see the fear in his eyes, the sadness, the unspoken plea for you not to go.

You try your best to keep your composure as you turn away again. “I told you, I can’t tell you.”

“Fuck that,” he lifts the letter and tosses it to the ground with a thud. You gasp, watching it slam to the concrete pavement.

“Toji!” you exclaim.

“You think you can just leave without me comin’ to hunt you down and see your face so I can figure out what the hell is goin’ on? You must not know me at all.”

“Why do you always have to be so aggressive about everything?!”

“Of all fuckin’ things, (Y/n), I think I got a right to be aggressive about this. You were gonna leave without sayin’ goodbye!” he tosses his arm out to the side with the exclamation, brows twisting and teeth bearing. “Is that what our relationship means t’ya? You think you can just toss us aside?”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” you beg, a lump forming in your throat as the two of you stand face to face, arguing without a car about who will see you.

“Then tell me,” he shouts. “Cause you’re not givin’ me shit to go off of!”

“I told you already, I can’t,” your lips quiver.

“Then our relationship is nothing to you.”

“No, Toji.”

“Clearly it ain’t, cause I’d think it’d be worth an explanation if you’re runnin’ away!” you frown and shake your head, turning to walk back into the complex when Toji cuts you off, moving in your way. “You don’t think I know you? You don’t think I see it all over your face that somethin’s got you scared, and y’re takin’ off because of it? You think I don’t know what that looks like, (Y/n)? I did that shit. I did it all the damn time before I met you, and hell, I tried to run then but you wouldn’t let me, so what the hell makes you think I’m gonna let you now?”

“This is different,” you say shortly, afraid to reveal the tremble of your voice to the man before you. You keep your gaze down as you try to go around him again, but to no avail. He steps in your path. “Stop!”

“I ain’t stoppin’,” he says gravely, keeping his eyes to yours though you try to avoid contact with them. “Not until you spit it out. I’ll be damned if I got another broken home cause y’re fuckin’ scared.”

“I said stop!” you try to find some bass in your voice, but against your will, it falters when you yell. Toji eyes you carefully, reaching his hand out to grip your shoulder and steady you into place.

You scoff, attempting to pull away, but it’s no use. The dark haired man is everywhere, keeping you from walking away.

“You talk to me like the grown ass woman you are,” he tells you sternly, stepping in. “You use that voice I know you have, and don’t you ever let me catch you writin’ a letter to me about how you wanna break up instead of comin’ to talk to me. Y’understand?”

You exhale shakily, lips pressing together and brows curling. “I can’t.”

“Y’re still not tellin’ me why you think that.”

“Because I can’t, Toji. I can’t tell you. It’ll- it’ll fuck up everything!” you break, and Toji feels the pit in his stomach shift as he looks over your aggrieved expression, depicting the same exact things he feels.

“(Y/n),” he calls your name firmly, the sound of it on his tongue only inspiring the urge to cry more. You continue to shake your head though Toji isn’t exactly speaking, and his green eyes wander you with frustrated concern. “Y’scared of what I’ll do if you tell me?”

You freeze, slowly peeling your eyes to look at his, his face tense with grief. You stare at him for a moment, mouth gaping like a fish as all of your insecurities that talked you toward this ledge run through your mind once more.

“Don’t look surprised,” he says. “I know you like the back of my hand, and I know that you knew I’d be over here to stop ya.”

Your frown deepens, and this time as you look at him, you see every second of your future that you were quick to stomp dow. You see the unbridled, unfiltered love he holds for you as well as the blood curdling fear of letting you go.

“You have to understand,” you whimper. “I know how you’ll react, I- I can’t do this to you. You have to let me go.”

“What the hell could be so horrifyin’ in that head of yours to make you think that I won’t stick with ya through hell and high water?” he grits out, searching your swollen hues of (e/c) hesitation. “You’d do the same for me.”

“I know, but-“

“There’s nothin’ else to say. I ain’t leavin’ until you spill, and when you do, y’re comin’ with me.”

You look at him, pained. It’s a trap, you think. If Toji only knew, he’d be running for the hills instead of trying to track you down.

“Out with it, now.”

You can’t. You can’t tell him. He’ll leave you, he’ll reject you, he’ll turn you away, he’ll never let you see the kids again.

“(Y/n)!”

“I’m pregnant!”

The earth seems to freeze and time seems to slow. You scrunch your eyes, anticipating the worst to come as Toji takes in your words, his tensed expression melting slowly.

You don’t open your eyes to see his reaction. You keep your head ducked and your fists closed as the white noise of nature flutters into relevance. You’re trembling, terrified, and Toji can not move but instead proceeds to stare at you, stunned.

His words about not wanting any more kids run through your mind again as you await his response, and the suspense kills you as you do. You can feel his grip on your shoulder slacken before tightening again, and you are terrified.

He’s going to leave you.

You are quick to step away when the sentiment arises once more, Toji’s hand falling from you arm. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, still unable to look at him. “I’m sorry, I know that you don’t want any more kids. I know, an I thought we were being careful, but- I took five tests. They’re all positive.”

“You’re pregnant?” he echoes, and you still. You knew it. You knew this would happen.

“I told you, Toji,” you exhale. “I told you that I couldn’t tell you, and now everything’s a mess.”

He twitches. “Hold on-“

“Don’t tell me all of a sudden you want kids,” you snap. “I know how strongly you feel about it.”

“So instead of talkin’ to me, you were gonna leave? Knocked up? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What other choice do I have?!” you cry. “You don’t want more kids, and if I kept it, it would only be a nuisance to you. And Megumi and Tsumiki?”

He scrunches his face. “What about ‘em?”

“How do you think they’d feel if the woman you’re dating after their mother died surprised them with a new baby? They’d be crushed!” you say shakily as salty tears well in your eyes again. “I can’t overstep your boundaries. I just can’t. It’s easier for me to go.”

“And do what, (Y/n)? Raise a kid on your own without any help?”

“I can’t bare you leaving me!” you suddenly confess, tear striking past your cheek.

Toji examines you and frowns. “What are y’talkin’ about? You’re tryin’ to leave me!”

“So I can prevent the inevitable from happening,” you huff. “I’m okay with it. I’ve made peace with everything. That’s why you need to just let me go-“

“After everythin’, you think I’d throw you away because you’re pregnant with my kid?” Toji says incredulously. You falter, for you had been so sure of his reaction before. “You think that low of me?”

“No, but I want you to have what you want.”

“What I want is you, you fuckin’ idiot,” he hisses. “All I ever wanted was you, and I can’t fuckin’ believe you’re tryin’ to take that away from me.”

You furrow your brows, confused. “…You’re not mad?”

“Girl, I’m livid,” he scowls. “Not about the damn kid, but because you assumed what I would say before comin’ to me.”

“Toji, you have to understand that I was trying to look out for you.”

“There’s not lookin’ out for me or those kids or makin’ them happy if you’re gone, (Y/n),” he bites. “Who th’fuck put that idea in your head?”

You stammer, tears proceeding to flow down your face as you reel in the reality of the situation. “I… I just thought-“

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

Before you can respond, his hand is gripping your wrist and he’s tugging you toward him into his chest. You shake when you fall into him, listening to the pace of his heart rapidly beating against your ear as he breaths quickly against you. Large palms smooth over your head and down to your waist as he holds you tightly, and you notice how desperate his grip is. He’s holding you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear, as though you’ll fly away if his hold is not tight enough.

He tucks his head into your neck, fingers grasping into your shirt, and suddenly the animosity of the moment prior is gone. You’re still trembling, leading Toji to hold you tighter to him.

“Can’t believe you tried to leave,” he murmurs into your hair. “Christ, (Y/n) you’re tryin’ to gimme a heart attack. The fuck is goin’ on with you.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumble into his chest, looking off sadly. “I thought you’d be upset about it. I didn’t want you to know.”

“I should know about any and every single thing that’s goin’ on with you, y’hear me? This ain’t no exception.”

A weight flutters from your shoulders as you sink into Toji’s head, silent tears streaming for the life you almost sacrificed. “What are we gonna do?”

“I dunno,” he mumbles. “But we’ll figure it out. As a team. Alright?”

You nod meekly. “Okay.”

He groans, pressing himself impossibly further to you. “That letter… fuck, don’t do that shit. Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that. Without you, I ain’t shit- pregnant or not. And those kids would adore another sibling if you were bringing it into this world. Don’t say that shit about them again either. They need ya. We need ya.”

“I’m sorry,” you whine again, Toji’s hand stroking over your back soothingly.

“It’s okay,” he grumbles. “We’ll figure it out.”

[dollyichi]

A LITTLE MYSTERY NEVER HURT ANYBODY . . . pro-hero katuski bakugou x f ! actress reader. m—dni / fluff / hints of ‘tension’ and maybe suggestive… / established relationship / little smau at the end / not proofread / minors don’t read this !!

despite being a fairly new actress, you were able to catch the attention and hearts of the fans from your recent debut just two years ago. becoming a highly in-demand star, given every project possible just to be seen on the screen. however, you kept a secret. that one secret that could cause a frenzy, that the beloved actress of the nation is dating the one and only pro-hero dynamight.

they all assumed that they definitely knew the both of you are in a relationship… somehow. you had that certain glow and katsuki definitely made it sure that he’s not available. no matter how many fans tried to flirt, no matter how many interviews he’s gone through he says one thing very clear, “got a pretty girl already.” however, nobody knew it was with the two of you together.

countless articles are read about you, how you were overheard with a director from your upcoming series that you wanted to avoid any romantic scenes or a partner in general. which boosted more speculation on your ‘mysterious’ love life.

now, your manager says that she got you booked with a new project. you’ll be in a promotional shoot with a pro-hero for a fashion campaign with an upcoming designer. “that’s fine right? you’d be with someone in the shoot though.” your manager says. you shrug, looking over at the recent line the designer put out.

“it’s fine. no point in declining opportunities right?”

she nods enthusiastically, “that’s the spirit! we were actually surprised the team agreed immediately when they found out it was you. i heard they only accepted solo projects for him.”

you smile, “well whoever it’ll be i’m sure we’ll do great.”

the moment you step foot on the set, you were immediately greeted by the designer themselves. “y/n you’re so beautiful, you’re so perfect for us!”

“thank you for believing in me! please take care of me well.” you bow and was brought to your own dresser. quickly dressed in a silk robe and getting your makeup done. your hair was in curlers, the team taking their sweet time to make sure they enhanced your features for the shoot.

you hear a knock on your door, and you could hear your manager gasp when she opens it. peeking at the mirror with one eye, you see a familiar figure walking towards you, messing with the collar of his shirt.

“hey baby.” voice raspy and hoarse. now everyone in the room was shocked. looking at the two of you. to top it all off, katsuki places a quick kiss to your cheek and getting a stool to sit beside you.

your manager definitely felt like she was gonna faint. she had no idea what this was or when, or even how. everyone else was also in shock and confused, felt like time stopped somehow.

why is he now acting all lovey dovey in public? is what they all, including you, wondered.

“fuck baby you’re looking too pretty.” you giggle, trying to stay in place while the makeup artist adds their finishing touches. “thank you katsuki, no wonder you agreed to this shoot.” you say. the makeup artist finally says you’re done, you were all ready, just needed to change into the outfit.

katsuki was in a fitted velvet button up shirt with low-rise slacks. only the middle section of the shirt was buttoned, and for the first time in your career, your professionalism was definitely getting tested. just a little lower you could probably catch a glimpse of his happy trail. “who allowed you to wear that?” you motion with your head. but before he could answer you’re already turned around, moving behind the divider to dress up.

“aw come on, i know you fuckin’ like it.” he says loudly, then followed by the door closing. suddenly the staff was all on you after you stepped out. complimenting how you looked so good, how you’re going to be the new face of the brand after this. but most especially, the elephant in the room.

“i know everyone’s thinking you have a boyfriend but… dynamight?!”

“where, when, why, and how?”

“i never saw him speak that sweetly to anyone before….”

“i thought it was another celebrity! this is really unexpected.”

lots and lots of questions but they were immediately shut down by your manager who wanted to maximize the time. “we still got a shoot. y/n can tell us the details another time.” she gives you that look that reads ‘you better tell me everything’ and you give her an apologetic smile.

you take a look in the mirror, seeing how you matched with him. in a tight velvet dress that hugged your figure really well, probably a piece from the earlier collections. it’s pretty, the skirt is slanted with peaks of ruffled tulle.

you’re start walking to the set where katsuki was already waiting. “oh our princess! you look amazing.” the designer says, holding his hands to his chest. “i knew you and dynamight would look amazing together, i thank you both really.”

you grab their hands, “i’m really happy you paired me with him too!”

you approach katsuki with a smile, and he’s already grinning at you. “well shit this might be the hardest job i’ve taken yet.” he chuckles, placing a hand on your back to help you on the extravagant set.

you’re shining so bright and in your element that he’s just happy to be there. yet, the whole time he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off you, how his hold on you lingered, wanting to touch you even more, even deeper. despite the director giving clear directions that you followed with no fuss, he on the other hand just has to have a hand on you. but it definitely gave an effect on each shot.

katsuki couldn’t help but keep his eyes on you, eyes glimmering with desire. and how you’re looking at him with such a cool glare—it just felt so out of character for the both of you. who’s usually so sweet and him who’s usually so out for reach. “think i need you in this dress when i take you home.” he would whisper. and you’ll playfully hit him on his arm.

when you prepare for the next shot he’d always tell you things that’d rile you up. and when nobody’s paying attention he’d be looking you up and down. “bet you’re even prettier under this fuckin’ dress.”

even in between clothing changes you both looked picture perfect. both complementing each other’s visuals. he’d sneak you out from time to time to get a smooch here and there, resulting in the makeup artists on the set to fix him up because his and your lipsticks would smudge, wondering why he gets messed up all of a sudden.

“you’re so damn pretty baby. too bad the makeup’s gonna get ruined when we get home.”

“stop teasin’ during work kats…”

the last shot had you both seated on the carpet. it was sexy, your hand’s on his bare chest and he’s leaning in towards you with a finger under you chin. the two of you together felt magnetic. it’s so interesting to everyone in that room how the hero who’s usually uncontrollable became so compliant because if you. overall, it just felt too romantic, that petals of roses were somehow seen falling down on the both of you while you posed.

what was most unexpected was how katsuki really enjoyed being in front of a camera, as long as it’s with you (might’ve gotten a few ‘creative’ ideas too). he’s definitely making one of these photos his wallpaper when they upload it.

and the next day, that one shot trended all over the internet. blasted all over the digital billboards in the city too. finally seeing the elegant y/n who seemed to have helped show a new side of the pro-hero to the public.

showering the brand with praises and how much of a ‘genius’ they were for even choosing the two of you as the muses. because it really was just a coincidence that the owner was a fan of you both.

then there goes the online articles, the video complications, the noise that just won’t die down. tweets and photos, even a sudden rise in fanpages. dynamight and y/n, and the public that’s trying to piece every evidences of your interactions. how they were all tricked that your relationship was just under their noses. how in events you’re always seen together, or how your car was spotted in his neighborhood that one time. or when katsuki always keeps saying in interviews that his favorite shows and media always had you in it—main lead or not. the way nobody caught it even when you mentioned that dynamight was one of your favorite heroes. even showing them a small plushie charm that you carried on you hanged on your bag—everyone was stunned.

still, neither of you confirmed anything, yet.

till the moment the official account of the brand posted all the shots of you together, and it was very obvious how the two of you were actually in love, like the head over heels type.

well, the both of you are gonna have more projects together soon for sure.

bonus!

do not copy, plagiarize, translate, or repost my works

note : i really like this actress au i’m definitely gonna make more 😔���� different versions for sure

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance���he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

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[chelseeebe]

truth or dare

18+. mdni. smuuuut. yeah man it’s really just smut. eddie munson x female reader.

a/n: not sure if i really like this but i wanted to post something while i work on this other long ass thing that may never see the light of day el oh el a continuation to gimme a hand and bump n’ grind or can absolutely be read on it’s own!

steve and robin had made the right call, leaving a few hours ago before the storm really hit.

eddie’d stupidly offered another joint, not wanting to let you go so soon. optimistic that maybe something would happen after those two had cleared off.

you’d been darting around it all evening, watching the movie with your hand under the blanket, stroking his thigh. inadvertently, or perhaps purposefully, making his cock shift with every length of your hand.

you peer out of the window, clicking your tongue against the back of your teeth, “i don’t think i can drive,” turning back to face him, “it’s really comin’ down out there,” a hint of satisfaction in your voice.

“i’m sure wayne won’t mind if you crash here,” shrugging softly.

you used to stay around a lot when you were slightly younger, back when touch was innocent and there weren’t all these complicated layers to your relationship.

“can you handle that?”

his eyes roll back, “shut up,” sitting back in his spot on the couch. anticipating spending the night here rather than in his bed, desperate to prove that he could handle it.

“whatcha wanna do?” you sing, pursing your lips.

“i dunno,” he shrugs, “we could watch another movie?” knowing that ultimately, another movie would lead to you touching his thigh until he came or something.

“that’s boring,” scowling at his suggestion, “i mean.. we are stuck in here,” biting on your bottom lip, “let’s play a game,” you propose, cocking your head, “truth or dare.”

eddie groans, an unwilling participant in your silly little games.

“come on,” offering zero incentive for him to play, “it’ll be fun,” taking another swig of the surely luke-warm beer. “truth or dare?”

there is not a single bone in his body that wants to play with you. no doubt you’d have him confessing to something embarrassing or doing something dangerous or stupid.

“dare,” he says flatly, hoping you’ll dare him to jump out of the window or something.

“i dare you..” you ponder for only a second, “to take your shirt off.”

“wh-,” he starts, mouth falling open, “well i dare you to take your shirt off.”

“it’s not my turn, idiot,” pursing your lips, “off.. now.”

pouting your lips, watching carefully as he lifts his shirt off, tossing it to the other side of the room.

“alright,” honing in on this stupid game, “truth or dare?”

“dare.”

eddie’s eyes light up, “take your shirt off,” immediately getting his own back.

“you’re supposed to say i dare you before your dare,” tutting at his impatience, though you do as he says.

lifting your shirt over your head, revealing the lacy bra you had most definitely chosen on purpose. maybe this was your plan all along, waiting to get him alone to inflict your cruel wrath upon him.

he ogles just enough to not have you mention anything, diverting his attention back to whatever drivel was on the tv. desperate to just get over this dancing around each other and get to the inevitable.

“truth or dare?” you ask again, poking his leg with your foot.

“do we have to play?” eddie whines.

“yes.”

“okay truth,” he spits, leaning back against the cushions.

“why didn’t it work out with you and chrissy?”

he groans again, already sick of this, “we wanted different things,” different things being you, he means.

“like what? i thought you were testing the waters or whatever?” mocking him with his own words.

“you. you jerked me off and ruined my life forever, is that what you wanted me to say?”

you ponder in silence for a moment before that god awful smirk creeps onto your face, “actually yes, that’s exactly what i wanted you to say,” crossing your legs, all self-righteous and smug.

it’s not like you didn’t already know this, it was fairly obviously to anyone with eyes and two brain cells to rub together.

“your turn,” smiling pointedly at you, “truth or dare?”

you hum, contemplating your options, whatever you picked, he was surely going to make it worth his while.

“dare.”

“alright,” eddie sits up straight, poking his tongue into his cheek, “i dare you to run around outside in your underwear,” if you wanted to play stupid games, you could win stupid prizes too.

your smile grows, taking over your entire face, “fine,” standing from your spot on the floor, shimmying out of your jeans right in front of him.

he jumps up, rushing to the door as you bound outside, filling the silent trailer park with your squeals and squeaks.

eddie watches in quiet amazement, more focused on the way your tits move with every bound, your lacy panties framing your jiggling ass perfectly. he’s close to drooling, turning into a slobbering mess at the sight of you literally frolicking in your panties. he was a pathetic man, and he knew it.

you turn, running full speed back into the door, teeth chattering and your hands trembling from the cold. barrelling straight past him, back into the warmth, lashes coated in tiny, intricate snowflakes.

“fuck!” you screech, “you asshole,” picking up his discarded shirt to slip on instead of your own. he wishes you hadn’t. seeing you half naked in his shirt was far worse than seeing you actually naked.

eddie snickers, closing the door all the while trying to keep his composure.

a smirk erupts onto your face, something ticking away in your brain before you stomp over, grabbing his cheeks with your ice cold hands, grinning with pure self satisfaction.

he hollers, grabbing your wrists in defence. it becomes a flailing sort of dance, with you trying to keep your cold hands on his face and him fighting to get you away. a mixture of expletives fill the trailer, screeching over one another as you move around the room.

you trip over one of the discarded bottles on the floor, sending you flying back onto the couch, still breathlessly cursing him out.

eddie takes the only logical step, pouncing on top of your flailing body, bounding your arms together at the wrist, heaving for breath.

he freezes, the realisation that for once he had all the power dawning upon him, unequipped for the sudden change in dynamic.

he can feel you, underneath him, pressed into the couch by his body, sending shivers down his spine.

“you gonna do something or what?” you snark, no longer trying to wriggle free, accepting and even pleased in your defeat.

“yeah,” he adds meekly, despite not making an attempt to actually do something.

your brows thread together, knee sliding up the side of his body, spreading your legs further as his cock perks up in response.

holy fucking shit.

this was it.

or it could be it if he can gather his raucous thoughts enough to make a move.

eddie’s had sex before, multiple times in fact. he doesn’t understand why his hands aren’t doing the thing they should be, why he’s frozen in place, waiting for something to happen.

“we don’t have to, you know?”

fuck. he was going to fuck this up through sheer stupidity.

so instead of letting his brain worm his way out of what would probably be the best moment of his life, he thinks with his dick.

pressing his lips to yours in a hasty, rushed kiss. letting your hands free from his restraint, allowing you to weave your fingers through his hair just like he’d thought so much about.

his hands crawling underneath his shirt, touching your skin for what felt like the first time ever, gliding over your waist, appreciating the soft feel of your skin, lingering for too long.

he doesn’t want to take it off, how many times could he say he’d have sex with you with his shirt on?

you’d already stripped him out of his clothes, leaving nothing to the imagination as his hips grind down against yours, breathing shakily into your mouth.

your lips latch onto his, tongue sliding into his open mouth while your fingers pull gently at his curls.

even when eddie thinks he’s fully in control, you still take charge. rutting your hips upwards, separated by the thin layer of lace and his boxers that most definitely had a hole in them.

there’s a fifty percent chance that he’ll cum right away, already incredibly hard, teetering on the edge.

it’s genuinely incomprehensible that after months and months of longing and edging, this was finally happening. too caught up with trying to keep to your pace to really think about the implications on your relationship too much.

he hopes that this won’t change anything, at least not negatively anyway.

your hand slides down the tiny space left in between your bodies, toying with the waistband of his boxers before slipping in. unable to contain his groan from slipping out and into your mouth.

tugging the fabric down just enough to let his cock out, giving him no time to recover before your fist wraps around the base of his cock, pumping your fingers around the sensitive skin.

“fuck,” he breathes, bottom lip still latched onto yours. no hand had ever come close to yours, filling his thoughts since you’d touched him for the first time.

wayne’s ratty old couch wasn’t exactly the romantic location he’d envisioned this happening in, but beggars can’t be choosers and eddie certainly wasn’t going to complain.

he’s so dumbfounded that any of this is even happening, clumsily fumbling with the lace hem of your underwear, tugging them down haphazardly, with no care or grace.

his previous displays of desperation made sure you didn’t care about his composure, or else you wouldn’t be here.

your lips collide, all teeth and tongues and spit. eddie too focused on the feel of your hand around his cock to care.

he can feel your body shift from underneath, manoeuvring his cock to your soaked entrance, letting out the most ungodly noise as the tip glistens with your slick.

pressing your sweaty forehead against his, begging for his full attention, “look at me,” you insist, running your fingers around his cock, withholding him from full satisfaction.

he does as you ask, finding your wild-eyed gaze, holding it just long enough to slide into your slick cunt, grunting into the hot air that hung around the room.

“fuck,” you bite, weaving your fingers through his hair, tightening your things around his waist.

it’s dizzying. feeling you envelope around him just as he’d imagined countless times before. you’re so warm and so wet, so so wet. eddie can’t help but wonder if this is how you’d felt when you were grinding against him.

nothing could’ve ever prepared him for the fuzzy haze that’d encapsulate his brain, thoughts only of you and your body and your pussy.

his balls slap against your ass, slow and steady, hoping not to bust five seconds in. keeping his eyes on yours, encapsulated by the way they flit between his eyes and his lips.

heaven wouldn’t be too far off this, he thinks.

his rhythm is neither here nor there but he was trying, filling you to the hilt and then pulling back out again.

every soft, melodic gasp and cry you made was echoing through his brain, spurring him on to make them louder.

purely intoxicated with your pussy, gasping for more as he slams against your hips.

this wasn’t going to last long but he sure as shit was going to make it worthwhile.

you writhe underneath his body, fingernails grazing against his scalp, gentle and yet demanding.

“sh-shit eds,” you pant, jaw slack with your tongue practically lolling out of your head.

just hearing you moan his name has detrimental effects on his brain chemistry. his eyelids struggle, fluttering open just enough to meet your glossy eyes, pupils blown out and crazy. this was going to wreck him for the rest of his life, cursed forever by the image of you and your parted lips. the way you wail his name becoming a tune he’d revisit constantly.

he’d love to capture it, one day, if you’d let him.

no one would ever come close to you, your cunt and your god forsaken sighs. eddie promises to himself that if there’s a next time, he’s not leaving until you cum. unsure if he’d be able to control himself but more than willing to take that risk.

his thrusts become sporadic, losing his grip on reality as he teeters closer and closer to the edge. you can see it too, tugging gently on his hair to bring him back to this reality.

pressing a gentle kiss to the side of his mouth, too high off of your own pleasure to aim for accuracy.

eddie’s not sure if he prefers your goading or this softer touch, honestly neither were helping him not to bust his load right now.

“yeah?” you breathe, in response to his hoarse grunts, succumbing to the tightening pressure in his stomach, “you gonna cum?” sighing against his mouth.

he doesn’t want to, not really. hoping this’d last forever and ever because god knows if you’d ever let him touch you again.

hoping desperately to have not wasted his one and only time buried inside of you by cumming in five minutes flat.

but he is going to cum, in fact, he’s dangerously close to doing so immediately. the way you squeeze and tighten around him only accelerating the inevitable, his toes curling and mouth running dry.

he was seeing stars, dancing around the inside of his eyelids. woozy on adrenaline as he pathetically ruts his hips into yours for a final few lousy strokes.

“oh fuck,” eddie rushes, “no- fuck i’m cumming,” his cock slides out, thick ropes of his release covering not only your inner thighs but the couch too. collapsing atop of your perfect body, pinning you to the cushions as he attempts to gain some sort of semblance of control.

his face finds your chest, heaving for breath between your tits, his shirt pulled up just enough for your bra to peep underneath the hem.

“jesus christ,” words vibrating against your skin, almost purring at your fingers combing through his hair.

nothing he could ever dream would match up to that. the neurons in his brain had been frazzled, never to work or compute the way they should, ever again.

he places a measly kiss to your chest, looking up at you through his lashes, an insignificant gesture of appreciation that he felt he owed.

“you good?” you ask, lips twitching into a smile, unsure if you’re mocking him or genuinely concerned. either or would be fine.

“not really,” still floating up above the clouds.

“shut up,” definitely mocking, pulling tufts of his hair back to have him meet your eye fully, “you liked that?”

he nods enthusiastically, pining after your approval like the lovesick little loser he truly was. incredibly, you hadn’t run off into the storm, so maybe you had too.

“good,” abruptly letting go of his hair, his head falling back onto your chest, “get off me, i need a shower,” attempting to peel him off of your body.

eddie knows, or at least hopes, that your snippy, sarcastic comments were made out of love. you showed affection by being a bitch and he showed his by being a stumbling, pathetic loser.

if that was all he had to endure to get anywhere near your pussy again, he’d do it in a heartbeat. each and every time.

-

wayne’s knuckles wrap against his bedroom door, waking eddie from the already broken sleep he was suffering with, far too excitable to settle down properly. instead he’d spent his hours between drifting in and out of sleep and watching your dreamy face, trying to match his breaths to yours.

he slides out of bed, careful not to wake you, treading carefully to avoid the mountains of crap strewn across the floor.

“what the hell?” wayne whispers angrily, gesturing back to the living room he had neglected to clean. too caught up in you being in his shower and in his bed with his shirt on to care about empty beer bottles and discarded clothes.

“sorry,” eddie squirms, knowing he couldn’t exactly worm his way out of this one. “we had a few beers.. you know,” shrugging coyly. his uncle wasn’t stupid, he definitely did know.

wayne’s eyes narrow, flitting behind eddie to you, sleeping soundly in his bed. thankfully covered by the blanket as you slept in just his shirt.

“what happened there?” raising his brow at his inconspicuous nephew.

he shrugs, and then he grins. that great big toothy grin that wayne couldn’t mistake.

wayne shakes his head, tutting to himself as he backs away from the door, “clean that shit up before i wake up,” before disappearing into his own room.

eddie smiles to himself, sliding back into bed when you stir, humming softly, displeased to have been woken up so early.

“is he mad?” you mumble, muffled by the pillow.

“no.. no, not really,” eddie hushes, turning on his side to face you.

you’re still dozing, not bothering to open your eyes though he didn’t mind, you were peaceful this way, far calmer than your usual self.

“good,” settling into the pillow before slinging your leg over his thigh, pulling yourself closer, “he loves me too much to do anything anyway,” nestling your body into his side.

if the world ended tomorrow, eddie would die a happy man.

[martiansodas-blog]

too pretty to think.

when art started to slip, it almost felt like falling asleep…

a. donaldson x reader

word count: 2,216

contents: dumbification, body worship, face sitting, multiple orgasms, cuming untouched, brief mommy kink, subspace, nicknames and pet names, this is freak nasty.

Xx

The first time 

You and Art have been going steady for 6 months and you loved every second of it. the two of you mostly hung out at your place, it's a tad cleaner than his dorm and he never bothered with things like decorations. It was a haven for the both of you. So when your Blackberry buzzed with a message asking,

“r u home?” 

It was hardly out of the ordinary.

“yeah. just changed clothes”

“can i come over?”

“of course”

Donaldson is a man who never knows when to quit. Let's rephrase: He’ll only quit when instructed to. 

He treats his body like a machine. He eats what his nutritionist tells him to, he pushes his body to the limit, and he rarely turns in a paper late. 

When you opened your front door your boyfriend was in chaotic ruins. His eyes were puffy and his cheeks were stained. He stared at the floor with his calloused hands in his pockets.

“Oh my gosh, what happened?? What’s wrong?”

Your tone had urgency as you ushered him inside. Once the door is closed he pulls you in for a hug. You don’t dare speak, just hug back. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. 

It’s obvious he’s trying to hold himself together, but stroking his back caused him to break.

“Aw, baby,” 

You sway him from side to side. 

“Shh, it’s ok. I’m here.”

After a few minutes, Art regained control of his breathing. You put him at arm's length—your voice just above a whisper. 

“Would you like to come lay down with me? We don’t have to talk about it if you don't want to, let's just get you comfortable.”

Art sniffles and nods his head—your poor baby. 

You held his hand and led the way to your room. You sat on your bed with your back against the wall so he could lay between your legs. He often takes this position when you guys are watching movies so it will add a level of comfort for him. 

Art takes some deep breaths as you run your nails through his hair. 

“We got a new coach and he- he’s so intense. I don’t know. I’ve been berated by coaches since I was 13. Why the hell is this one affecting me differently?” 

You twist one of his curls in your fingers. 

“Everything's just so much right now. Schoolwork, post-graduation plans, sponsorships… There's so much going on all the time. I- I can’t do it.” 

Your heart broke for him. 

“I’m so sorry, Artie. I wish I could take it all away from you.”

You rubbed his arms and back for who knows how long. It could have been hours. You didn’t care. You’d cancel your week's agenda if that’s what he needed. You weren’t getting up until he felt better. 

You analyzed his words.

“It’s not that you’re unable to make decisions, and it’s not that you make bad decisions. It’s just that decisions are constant unrelenting work… is that an accurate assessment?”

He nodded and sighed into your shirt like you were the one person in the world who understood him. 

“...And a good boy like you should never have to work.” 

Art froze. 

Well, that’s new. 

You decided to test the waters further and put on your most sultry voice. 

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll think for you.” 

He let out a sound that can only be described as a mewl. His body curled into a semi-circle. 

You swept some hair out of his eyes, they seemed to get droopier.

I don't know what exactly is transpiring he’s responding to it.

“Let your thoughts go. You don’t need them.” 

Eyes are fully closed now.

“Can you unclench your jaw for me? That’s it.”

He does as he's told, falling deeper into whatever hollow you're creating. He bites back a smile but his blush is evident. So easy to get him to blush. One of his cutest attributes.

Next step is Moving your handsome boy to lay on his stomach so you can rub his shoulders. You hear him sigh while the tension is worked out of his muscles and watch him relax under your hands. 

Walking him through some deep breaths while you place dozens of soft, light kisses on his neck. 

You want to make him understand what a privilege it is to have him.

Rubbing his thighs and calves, slowly melting away the stress of the day. Kisses on the backs of his knees while he laughs and tells you to stop that and that it tickles.

Helping him turn over to lie on his back and climbing carefully on top to straddle him.

You toy with the hem of his shirt. 

“Can I take this off?”

He looks up at you. mouth open and nods. 

It causes you to giggle. 

“Thank you.” 

Once that’s out of the way your hands wander up to his chest while trailing more impossibly light kisses down his Adam's apple. Massaging his chest, squeezing and grabbing and just feeling his skin. 

Kissing his collarbones, trailing your tongue along the dip where they meet under his neck. Slowly working that boy up with teasing touches that only get more and more unbearable.

Slowly returning to his lips to kiss him again while you reach down to trail your fingertips over his cock. He pants and whines so sweetly into your mouth while you play with his cock. You're not even trying to make him cum-- not yet. 

I could do this all day. 

Letting him drift in a fuzzy-headed space while you work your fingers soft and slow over his pants. Doesn't need to worry about anything but your hands on his body. You're right here to keep him safe and make him feel good.

“There's nothing I love more than watching my brilliant, polite, well-spoken boyfriend turn mindless.” 

Art whined and bucked his hips up to meet your hand.

“I need to be in you so bad. Please.”

Who are you to refuse him?

“Don't worry baby, I’ll give you what you want.” 

You slid off him and he reached for you, like he couldn’t stand you being an inch away for any amount of time. You chuckled and took off your bottoms and underwear, he copied. 

You hopped back on top of him, which made him break out into a smile. His girl was about to take care of him. 

You grabbed his cock and started stroking him. 

“I don’t know if I’m wet enough, Artie.”

“Sitonmyface.” He begged all in one breath. 

You bit your lip so as not to laugh at him. It wasn’t in a mean way, no no! He was just so excited about it. It’s adorable and flattering all at the same time.

“Are you sure? We’ve never done that before.”

We haven’t done a lot of this before. 

He shamelessly nodded. Grabbing your waist with both hands and shifting your body up before you could protest. 

“I don’t want to crush you.”

At this point, he was panting. A dog seconds away from getting a treat. 

“You won’t.” 

Art has eaten you out before, and it’s been wonderful. But this? This is a new kind of ecstasy. 

His tongue reaches new trenches. 

And that fucking nose. It bumped your clit every time. You were gasping and making noises you didn’t know were possible. His mouth is memorizing your folds. He's getting off on your arousal.  His tip is red and hurting, but can barely care when a taste crafted just for him is on his lips. 

“Shit. Just like that.” 

Your thighs trapped his face, your breath hitched with every thrust, and your walls clenched around his tongue. 

“Oh god, oh god,” 

Truthfully, Art didn't know which of you came first. 

The only thing he knew was your body. 

You shuffled down and kissed all over his face which was covered in your release. 

“You made mommy feel so good.”

He smiled up at you. He was so proud that he could do that for you. Like it was his purpose in life. And oh did he love that nickname. It made him feel all soft, like when you recall a fond memory. 

“Do you want Mommy to sit on your cock?” 

He whimpered and nodded. 

You lined yourself up with him and sank. It was so easy due to both of your juices, you had to concentrate on lowering slowly so he didn’t bottom out too fast. 

The two of you moaned in unison. It was almost tantric. Even though the focus here is on Art, it’s impossible not to feel the same pleasure. It wasn’t just your sexualities that were aligned but your souls. The love you felt for each other was palpable. 

It didn’t take long for him to bottom out. But it wasn’t enough. You ground your hips into him, causing his voice to raise an octave. 

“Oh fuck. Hnnn! Fuck, feels so good, please.”

He was babbling nonsense, unable to create cohesive thoughts or keep any sounds in. 

You remove his hands clutching the sheets and replace them with your own. To bring him back to earth. 

When he couldn’t get enough he bucked his hips up into yours. Moving aimlessly, mindlessly. You held his hips down to the mattress and bounced on his dick. The sounds of his cock hitting your weeping entrance were insanely beautiful and sinful to listen to. 

“Such a good boy.” 

His dick jumped inside of you at that. Seemingly of its own volition. 

You shifted to pepper kisses on his jawline. The new position forced his cock to rub all kinds of new places. You nearly collapsed onto him from the shock. Heavy exhales leave your mouth. Your pussy suffocates his cock. 

“My good boy. Just a dumb little thing for me to use isn't that right.”

Art came on the spot. No warning. His skin flushed and curls were damp on his forehead. Words were coiled at his throat, coming out as broken sobs, wanting more. 

You rode him until it was clear he'd finished. 

“Did you cum for me, baby?”

“Yes. I'm sorry I should’ve said something I couldn't help it. Felt too good, I didn’t -“

“Shh sweetheart, you did nothing wrong. You can cum in me as many times as you like. That's what I’m here for. That’s what this,” you clenched around him, “is for.” 

“Fuck.” his breath quivering. He arched his back, sensitive little thing. 

“I love it when you spill yourself into me. it’s so warm in here now.” 

You placed his hand on your lower stomach, your womb. 

“Can we go again please?”

“Are you sure? I don't want to push you.”

He shuffled so you were both sitting up. causing you to gasp. His erection never left, and it’s ever so prevalent right now. 

“Please! Wanna keep myself buried here forever.” 

It was hard to remain the level-headed one after hearing that. 

“You make me so wet when you say that, Artie.” 

There's drool coming from his mouth as he watches you talk. Nothing behind those eyes.

“So wet and needy.” 

You soften your voice, and when you talk it’s into his mouth. 

“You gonna let me take you again?”

He groaned and nodded, then ferociously kissed you. He wrapped his strong arms around your torso and immediately disliked how much fabric was between the two of you. He ripped your t-shirt and sports bra off in nearly one motion. Sighing when he felt skin on skin.

“I’m going to play with you until there's nothing in that head except my name.”

And you did. You fucked him till his brain turned to mush. Till it felt so good he thought he was going crazy, till he couldn’t even hear how loud he was being. Just blissed out being pulled back into your cunt. 

What an honor, to have such an obedient, adoring boy like him. 

You let him stay like that, floaty and sweet until he fell asleep to whispered praises. 

“My good boy. You did such a good job for me.”

A kiss to his forehead. 

“You know I love you so much.”

Tucked under the covers.

“So good for me, honey. You're okay. I'm proud of you. You're all mine, and I'm all yours.”

You raked your nails along his back.

“Relax, It'll all be there for you tomorrow. But for right now, all you need to be is my good, sweet boy. And you are.”

You moved off the bed which concerned Art. 

“Are you leaving?” 

He looked like he could cry. You cradled his face. 

“No baby boy, of course not. I’m only getting you some water. I’ll be right back” 

You spoke to him like a child bedridden with a cold. It was clear the comedown was something intense and never experienced before. He needed you next to him right now.

“Alright lovely, I know you’re tired but have a few drinks of this for me.”

You guided the water bottle into his mouth till you were satisfied with the amount he got in his system. 

“Rest now. I’ll cuddle you.” 

The blonde fell asleep immediately in your embrace and you hoped it wouldn't be the last time you took his thoughts away.

[aventurineswife]

Reader: Hey Aventurine.

Aventurine: *punches Reader in the stomach*

Reader: What the fuck?!

Aventurine: You are one of my very best friends. And I cannot stand by and watch you throw away your life like this. You're too young....YOU'RE TOO BEAUTIFUL!

Reader: What the fuck are you talking about?

Aventurine: I'm talking about the baby that's growing inside of your belly right now.

Reader: I'm not pregnant!

Aventurine: Well, not after that punch you're not. I've been taking muay thai classes.

Reader: I was never pregnant, Aventurine!

Aventurine: Are... you sure?

Reader: Yes I'm fucking sure!

Boothill: I'm sorry, but why the fudge is everybody yelling over here?

Aventurine: Oh, I found this positive pregnancy test and—

Boothill: *punches [Name] in the stomach*

Reader: AW, MOTHERFU--

[bbokicidal]

"What Happens When..." | [SKZ] OT8 | [I.N]

Everyone decides to take a guess what Jeongin's girlfriend's favorite thing to do in the bedroom is - and almost everyone gets it wrong.

Genre: Smut [18+ MDNI] Pairing: Jeongin x Fem!Reader Warnings: SPIT, lots of spit, PinV (wrap it before you tap it), tummy bulge/size kink, manhandling, bondage/hands being bound together, pussy spanking, spanking in general

Notes: This IS a short fic and isn't anything really long. There's no plot - it's purely smut for your viewing pleasure and my mental peace, lol. <- This is the last installment of this series !! It's finally coming to an end.~

Word Count: 2.2K

Bangchan | Lino | Changbin | Hyunjin | Han | Felix | Seungmin | I.N

"Why does Hyunjin get to go first?" "Because he's already between her legs, I guess."

"Would you two shut up? This is all for educational purposes. You need to watch and learn; Because I'm about to prove to you that I know what her biggest kink is." Hyunjin's head whips to face the two that bicker about him, Jisung stepping back and Felix letting his arms cross over his chest. "Ayen-ah's let on before that she really likes this one." His thumb finds your clit, flicking over the bundle of nerves and you finally give him a soft reaction to work with, your eyes slipping shut and hands curling against your chest in awe.

Felix lets out a heavy breath that ends in a soft whine, his head tipping to the side to get a better look at where his Hyung's cock begins to prod at your folds - and Felix can't help but stare as he slowly sinks into your warmth, wishing it were himself instead. "That's not fair.."

"So what exactly is the kink here...? Or is this just one big excuse to fuck your friend's girlfriend?" Chris quips off to Hyunjin's right, peering almost just over his shoulder to watch as the younger's cock sinks further into you. ".. Going in raw?" He questions shortly after, realizing Hyunjin hadn't slipped a condom on before pushing into you.

And Hyunjin sighs, tongue prodding at the corner of his mouth as he listens to the others continue to bicker about him just wanting to have sex with you.

But then Jisung sees it.

The way your skin tightens; The way your stomach bulges each time Hyunjin slowly rolls his hips forward. The way your head tips back as he leans down over you and whispers for you to feel it, guiding one of your hands away from your chest to instead press down on the very place his cock prods and rocks against. "..Bulging..." He whispers, lips parted in surprise at the sight in front of them.

"That's.. a pretty close second." Jeongin hums. He sits back against the headboard as he watches his Hyung rock into you slowly; He was lucky he got to fuck you at all - with Jeongin's permission of course - so he was going to do it with the utmost care. "But that's definitely not top spot."

Jisung practically barks from where he stands behind Hyunjin, reaching to tug on his shoulder. "I knew that wasn't going to be it-! Move, it's my turn." And to many of their surprise, the artist lets himself be pulled away from your sweetness.

Just as expected, Jisung moves forward instead to test his theory. If he could get this right with his one guess he would win the bet. And the prize... God, he's never imagined something so wonderful in his entire life. One hand drops to lay on your thigh while the other reaches to undo his belt - and he watches your eyes widen in surprise at his bold move, thinking he'd won already. Your lips pop apart and you're sure you're about to drool at the way his fingers curl around the buckle and rip it wide open, his belt dragging through the loops of his jeans in such a quick and slick manner that you're sure this is a practiced move. With your reaction he was sure he just ended the bet.

Jeongin almost moves to ask Jisung what he's going to do with that belt, hoping there's no impact about to be made with the accessory - but he simply sits up and stays quiet as he watches Jisung wrap the thick, heavy leather around your wrists to keep them snug together. Your soft gasp of anticipation feeds into Jisung's delusion that he was winning the bet, letting him pin your arms down above your head before he leans in to smile right in your face. "You like bondage, don't you, angel?"

And your smile grows, teeth sinking into your lower lip as you nod. "I do; I really, really do. But..." Jisung's heart sinks as you giggle. "It's not my favorite."

"Hah!" Changbin's laugh basically spews from his lips in a visual syllable, his arms previously crossed over his chest now gesturing to Jisung to skidaddle. "Go. She said you lost the bet so get off 'er and let someone else have a turn." His lips pull into a soft smirk, parted and exposing the way his tongue pokes between his teeth like he has ideas of his own to try out.

But someone else is just a tad quicker with wanting to win the bet. As soon as Jisung moves off of the bed in front of you to go sit beside Jeongin in defeat, Minho is right there to take his place; Only he doesn't crawl onto the bed to get to you and instead stands at the edge of it, feeling as though he looms over your still-bound body displayed for them so openly atop the sheets.

Your wrists stay above your head as you crane your neck to look at the man standing so close yet so far, only to have your head bounce back against the mattress from the force of Minho's hand locking around your right ankle tight enough you're sure it might bruise. He wastes no time in dragging you to where he stands so he's properly positioned between your legs, his eyes dark as they drag over every curve that comes to him so swiftly. And no one in the room can ignore the way you yelp at the feeling of being manhandled.

Calloused palms and rough fingertips run up the outer expanse of your thighs, coming nowhere near close to your warmth as they wander higher. He grips at your hips and gives them a teasing squeeze, feeling the way your skin presses between his fingers; So soft, so tempting. With careful but fairly stiff and rough movements, the muscle in his biceps tightens and flexes as he flips you from your back to your front - your face down and ass up for him. A position most would expect when it came to the resident ass-lover of the group. "There we go."

And with the way you moan the moment your face hits the sheets everyone in the room can almost guarantee Minho had won the bet fair and square. That was until your head slowly lifted from where it pressed against the mattress, breathing heavy with eyes dragging up towards your boyfriend where he sat now in front of you - smirking and letting his arms slowly cross over his chest. "You gonna tell them, baby, or do I have to?"

"There's no way that wasn't it." But Seungmin steps forward to test his luck anyway. Even if Minho won the bet just now, he wanted to get his own needs met, his palm smacking down hard on the bare skin of your asscheeks twice before he brought his hand lower and let it meet the wetness of your folds. That gets you to jolt, a sharp gasp escaping swollen lips.

The way you whimpered against the satin of your sheets almost made Seungmin think he was right about his guess, but the glance and small shake of Jeongin's head seemed to secure the realization that he was wrong, too. Seungmin sighs out and brings his hand down harder than before, making you flinch and moan loud - just for him, considering he'd been spanking you for his own satisfaction at that point. May as well let him know you appreciated it while it happened - and that you were open to it in the future, too, of course.

"I'm starting to think we're never going to guess it," Chris murmurs from where he stands near Changbin, leaning against the wall just to watch as everyone took guess after guess. "Maybe we should start going for softer kinks? Stuff that's less harsh...?"

Changbin shakes his head almost immediately. "She seems like the type who would like impact play or something, though. Do we need to go for something more extreme..?"

"What if it's got something to do with toys?" Jisung quips quietly, seated on the edge of the bed and fighting hard not to beg for another chance at winning the bet.

While the producers babbled on to each other about where to go from their current point, Felix stepped forward from where he'd been observing the entire time the others tried to figure out what it was you liked. You'd reacted well to everything they'd done so far; Hyunjin's size, Jisung's restraining, Minho's manhandling, and then Seungmin's spanking. There was no way in Hell you didn't enjoy the more hard-hitting kinks and the like - so he was going to take his chance while the others whined to each other about losing the bet. Besides, they were working against each other - not with.

"Move." Felix hums, gently nudging Minho aside. The older of the two surprisingly complies with ease and steps aside to watch Felix with close eyes, his hands settling on your ass before rubbing down to your hips. There's no hold, no grabbing - no slapping, spanking, bruising or restraining. No, Felix's hands are gentle as they rub over your skin, smoothing down the swell of your ass before giving a teasing squeeze and trailing lower. He settles his hands along your thighs before using his thumbs to spread your pussy open just for him to see - and for Minho to get a glance at.

Chris tips his head as he watches, eyes drawn away from Jisung and Changbin when Felix had stepped forward to take a shot at the prize. "Felix, wait. We should figure out what --"

But then he stops, lips popping apart in pure surprise at the utter filthiness of the younger man placed behind you.

Just as you lift your head to peek up in slight confusion at their constant rambling - and the feeling of someone's hands on you from behind who definitely was not Minho - Felix spits on your pussy.

It splatters on the pink of your skin, mixing with the slick that seems to gush from your aching, empty hole - and Felix watches as you clench around nothing in desperation. Yeah, he'd just won the bet.

"Shit," falls from Hyunjin's lips before he can help it, staring down the brunet who he wasn't aware until now was quite so.. dirty. His eyes dart from Felix over to where you lay, your reaction giving everything away; The way you bury your face down in the sheets as a strangled and shy moan rips from your throat; The way your cheeks burn a crimson hue none of them had seen all night. Even your ears tint pink in embarrassment that your dirty little secret had been revealed.

Jeongin, finally sitting forward and reaching to cup your cheeks in one of his hands, tips your head to face him so you can't quite hide away from them no matter how much you want to. "Look at me," he demands, voice soft but firm with instruction. "Open." And the others watch as you obey so sweetly for your boyfriend, lips falling apart and jaw completely slack so he can spit right onto your tongue - your mouth closing so you can swallow it before whimpering out in need of more.

And Felix - well, he's in Heaven. He'd took his shot and won the bet, belt everyone else out of the water no matter how hard they tried to figure you out - and he'd done it just by standing back and watching. His chest swells with pride and excitement at the knowledge that now, he got to receive his prize; That being you for at long as he wanted - or as long as he could last, he supposed. There was no way he was giving you back up to Jeongin before he was milked dry. And what kind of a friend would he be if he didn't pump you full before he returned you to your rightful owner?

"Get out." His voice is low in his chest, demanding everyone else leave so he could have his time with you. He needed it more than anything at the moment - you two shared the exact same kink and he was sure now he'd put that knowledge to good use, maybe even treat you so well with it that you wouldn't want to go crawling back to your boyfriend. But more importantly, you needed it, too, what with the way you were still clenching around nothing and just begging for him to spit on your pretty pussy again.

As the others file out the bedroom door, Jeongin chuckles low in his throat and leans forward to give you a quick kiss before he departs. His thumb slides over your cheek, gentle and soft - soothing before the heated, lust-filled ache that was bound to come in the following hours. His lips were like Heaven - like home - as they pressed against yours in a promise that once Felix was done with you - done with his reward for winning the bet and getting to use you like a toy for as long as he wanted - he would return and greet you with a warm embrace to give you as much care as you needed. Not that he doubted Felix would treat you well. Jeongin took a moment to peek down at where your wrists were still bound together with Jisung's belt, moving a hand down to hook a finger around the leather to give a gentle tug. He smiled against your lips, thumb tugging at the lower as he slowly pulled away to whisper,

"I'm going to leave this here. Good luck, baby."

Permanent Taglist :

@dwaekkicidal @jabmastersurpriseee @possum-playground

@thatonedarkskinnedsiren @oc3anfloor @theyadorevalerie

@jeonginsleftcheek

[jjkamochoso]

Matchmaking Mina

Fluff

Soshiro Hoshina x gn!reader

Your kind-hearted captain has taken it upon herself to stoke the flames of love between you and Soshiro!

Warnings: none

Captain Mina Ashiro may act aloof, but she wasn’t blind. Anyone in the Third Division could see that you and Soshiro were the perfect match for each other. If neither of you were going to make the first move, it was only right that she, as your trusted leader, guided you in the right direction. Only, of course, after assessing the situation to make sure you two really did like one another.

*Click*

Her phone captured a snapshot of you at lunch one day, laughing at something Kafka had said. Your head was thrown back and your eyes were creased with joy—you looked positively radiant. Mina made her way to Soshiro’s office, eager to begin her investigation.

“Captain,” Soshiro saluted, “to what do i owe the pleasure?”

“Just stopping by. Checking on the status of your report from last week.”

“It’s almost done. I’ve been hard at work,” Soshiro grinned, sticking his pointer fingers out.

He’s in a pleasant mood. Let’s see if that changes.

“Good. I also came to show you a new picture of Bakko from the other day.”

It was a plausible excuse; Soshiro was a fan of cats as well and Mina was known for subjecting her friends and subordinates to monologues about how cute Bakko was. The vice captain was now standing by her side, peering over her shoulder at the phone in her hand.

“Here it is—oops! Wrong picture.”

Your picture was the one currently being displayed and from her peripheral vision, she saw Soshiro gulp ever so slightly, his eyes opened a bit wider. She was in no hurry, taking her time to slide her finger over the screen to the “correct” photo.

“Sorry about that. It was a cute photo, though, wasn’t it? Didn’t y/n look nice?”

“Huh? Yeah. I mean, sure,” he mumbled, the tips of his ears a rosy hue.

Now for the real test.

“I’d never seen her laugh so hard, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re around Kafka, right?”

There was an immediate shift of mood in the room, tension filling the open space like a dam had burst. Soshiro had gone from blushing to bloodthirsty in a millisecond and Mina was thankful she’d been blessed with a poker face or else she’d be bursting in laughter at his very apparent jealousy.

“If you’ll excuse me, Captain, I should finish this report.”

Soshiro saluted her again before sitting at his desk and Mina took her leave.

Well, that was informative.

Now she knew that Soshiro definitely harbored a crush for you and a hatred for Hibino. As she walked down the empty hallway, she let a small smile grace her lips.

She loved love.

Mina did the exact same experiment to you a few days later. As a fellow cat enthusiast, you were very excited at the prospect of seeing new Bakko content, quickly taking a seat next to your captain. This time around, she had managed to take an extremely flattering picture of Soshiro during training. He was standing outside, slightly flushed from the previous physical exertion, with one hand on his hip and the other pushing his hair out of his face.

Maybe if I ever retire I’ll become a photographer.

“…and there’s Bakko-oops. Not this.”

Your mouth was partially agape and she spied how you couldn’t tear your gaze away from the man on the screen. His tight fitting shirt hugged every curve of every muscle. His physique and pose were reminiscent of a model you’d see on a billboard in downtown Tokyo or on a runway in Paris.

“T-that’s a great picture you got of Vice Captain,” you breathed out in awe. “He looks so… hot.”

“If you’re into that sort of look, sure,” she answered.

“I definitely am,” you said dreamily, clearing your throat with embarrassment when you realized you said that out loud. “I mean, yeah. If someone was… hypothetically, like… into that sort of… thing.”

Mission 100% accomplished; they’re very much into each other.

Next up was the hard part of figuring out how to get confessions from the two of you without meddling too much. That’s why she was hoping today’s training, with you being partnered with Kafka, would be enough to stir up those same feelings and visceral reactions you both had while looking at the photos of each other not that long ago. So far, it was working splendidly. Kafka would say or do something ridiculous, causing you to howl with laughter and Soshiro to shoot Kafka a burning glare that could rival the intensity of a wildfire. Meanwhile, Soshiro would take his frustration out on the sparring training dummies, in turn leaving you dumbstruck at the way he moved so majestically and remained the most handsome man on earth, even in a state of sweaty exhaustion. When training was finally over, Mina couldn’t slow the buildup of anticipation deep inside her, eager to see the lovebirds admit their feelings, or at the very least, converse with each other. Neither of those things happened; you and Soshiro didn’t even exchange eye contact before going your separate ways.

Mina frowned. Didn’t she plant the seeds of attraction, water the foundations of a relationship, nurture the-

Looking back, I guess I didn’t do all that much.

“L/n.”

You turned around immediately at the sound of your captain’s voice, saluting as the dark haired woman approached you. You had just finished showering after a grueling day of exercise and were on your way to your room to get some much needed rest

“Come with me, please.”

“Right now?” you asked incredulously, eyes raking over the cat pajamas you were sporting. “Should I change into my uniform really quick?”

“No need,” she replied, “it’ll only be a moment:”

“Alright then.”

You were thoroughly confused but who were you to question your captain? You followed behind her dutifully, like a child following their mother to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk after a nightmare. Your eyebrows knit in confusion as she brought you into Soshiro’s office. He, too, had just showered, but he had changed into a fresh tracksuit, presumably because he never stopped working.

“Captain! What can I do for… you?” Soshiro faltered when he saw you peek out from behind Mina.

“I’m horribly underdressed for whatever’s happening. I sincerely apologize,” you said, bowing your head as to not meet his eyes. You weren’t that far below Soshiro’s rank, being a Platoon Leader, but you didn’t want your superior seeing you in such a state of disarray with your wet hair and casual attire in the office. Soshiro, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Y/n! I didn’t see you back there at first. I like your pajamas, cats are always a good choice.” His fanged smile brought you a sense of comfort,

“Thank you.”

You two would’ve gotten lost in each other’s eyes if it weren’t for Mina reminding you she was still there.

“Let me explain what’s going on. Y/n, Soshiro likes you. Soshiro, y/n likes you.”

It was so silent you could hear a pin drop from across the base. You and Soshiro broke eye contact at breakneck speed, becoming self conscious and wary.

Mina was confused. Weird. Aren’t they supposed to kiss or something, like how it happens in books?

“I’ll leave you to it. Good night.”

Mina practically ran out of Soshiro’s office, getting hit with a whole slew of mixed emotions as she made her way to her own office. Was she wrong for getting involved in her subordinates’ love lives? Did she somehow misread the signals you both were giving off? Was her conclusion incorrect, leading her to be labeled a fool, unfit for a leadership position? She fretted all night thinking about the lack of response you and Soshiro had about the great news. The next morning, as she got ready, she thought of all the ways she could explain her behavior and hoped this situation wouldn’t lead to her getting fired (worst case scenario) or you and Soshiro feeling awkward around each other (bad case scenario). You two worked extremely well together, neutralizing kaiju with just glances and nods, no words needed, and she’d never forgive herself for ruining such a good team.

Mina fiddled with her jacket one last time before lifting her chin up and making the trek to her office to start the day. To her surprise, the door was ajar, you and Soshiro apparently waiting for her arrival.

Goodbye Third Division, hello HR…

“Captain,” you began, “Soshiro and I really appreciate what you were trying to do for us, but-”

“I overstepped my boundary,” she cut in. “I’m ashamed that I let my self control slip and I put my subordinates, the people in my care, in an uncomfortable position. I don’t know if I can ever regain your trust again, but I swear that I-”

“Captain.”

This time it was Soshiro who spoke out of turn. “My deepest apologies for interrupting you, but you don’t need to be sorry. Your intuition was correct—y/n and I do like each other.”

Mins could’ve cried tears of happiness hearing that, especially knowing that her job wasn’t at stake anymore, but her joy was turned to confusion when she noticed you and Soshiro share a glance, making a wordless agreement, and then both reaching into your shirts…?

She watched with curious eyes as a chain entered your grasp, previously hidden from view under your shirt, a small ring hanging down from it. Soshiro did the same, a matching ring gleaming under the fluorescent lights. It was then that the inquisitive, intelligent, intuitive captain made the connection—

“Soshiro and I are married,” you said, sheepishly glancing over at your husband. Now it was Mina’s turn to be deadly silent. However, you could tell she wasn’t upset, she was busy comprehending everything that was revealed to her.

“We didn’t tell anyone,” explained Soshiro, “because we didn’t want it to become an issue at work. In retrospect, we could’ve hidden it a bit better.”

He scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. “Though Kafka doesn’t ever seem to get the hint.”

“But we know we can trust you with our lives and we should’ve at least told you. I’m sorry for lying to you, Captain Ashiro,” you said, your head hanging low.

That’s when you heard the strangest sound.

Captain Mina Ashiro… was laughing?

“This was an interesting turn of events,” she eventually said, catching her breath. “It turns out I was correct, but not in the way I thought.”

She strutted over to her desk, sitting down and starting the computer. “If that’s all you had to report, then you’re dismissed. It’s time to go to work.”

She looked up one last time, quirking an eyebrow. “Or are you on your honeymoon?”

[elysianightsss]

He laughed so bostrously, lips closing around his cigar while he did so, blue eyes not leaving yours as you got out your keys ready to enter your house, white picket fencing the only thing separating the two of you.

“Thank you.” You smiled his way, ecstatic with the compliment. You’d only been driving a little while so to hear how good he thought you were at parking made your chest swell with pride.

“John Price.” He spoke again coming closer this time, blowing the smoke from his mouth, head turned so as not to blow it in your direction. You gulped watched a single bead of sweat roll down the skin of his thick neck.

You have to blink yourself back to the present as he’s extending his hand to you over your side of the fence, only coming up to your waist.

You grabbed his hand, a little suprised with how hot it was, slightly sweaty too. You told him your name in return, cheeks flushing slightly, more than they already were from the heat of the day when he hummed approvingly repeating it like he’s testing it out so he can use it more often.

“God it’s hot today ain’t it.” The question was obviously rhetorical as the sun was beating down on the both of you as you spoke. It was so far what they called ‘the hottest day of the year’ and this time the weather girl wasn’t lying. You’d had to put sun cream on before you left the office because of how hot it was.

Thank goodness your office building had air conditioning because you don’t know how you would have survived otherwise. As soon as you walked out the hot air was choking and the sun’s heat was awful after being in the nice cold all day.

“It’s better than it raining though.” John spoke again almost trying to fill the gap where he thought you may have commented.

“I don’t know, I kinda like the rain and the cold. It’s nice when you get to have the fire going and cuddling up on the sofa with an old movie or book, maybe some hot cocoa-“ you began to ramble on all the things you like about autumn and winter. All the while John is watching with a smile on his face, picturing doing all those things with you.

He’s more distracted than you are that there’s an awkward pause when you stop rambling, he’s still in a trance while you stand there biting your lip nervously as he simply stares at you.

“Doing some gardening?” You try to break the silence to which he slightly jumps, eyes regaining their focus on you.

“Yeah, thought I’d do the front of the house up a bit, make it look somewhat presentable.” He chuckled looking back at his handy work, it didn’t look half bad. The lawn was mowed and he had started to plant some seeds by the looks of it.

“Looks a lot better than my dump, I never have time for it.” You say with a laugh, glancing over your shoulder at the overgrown grass and dying flowers you’d planted last spring to try and making the place look better. Fail.

“You work a lot huh? I see you coming and going most days. Barely ever home.” He tilts his head, arms folded over his chest bringing his cigar up to his mouth once more.

“I only get weekends off, and they’re really the only time I spend at home if you don’t count coming home to sleep at night.” You sigh thinking about how hard you had worked today, always taking on problems that maybe you should let others handle but then you wouldn’t be paid as much as you get.

“I’m glad I’m retired, but I must admit it’s rather boring.” He inhaled the smoke, a thinking look clear on his rugged face.

“You don’t look old enough to be retired.” You comment, not meaning to say it out loud. Your eyes widening once you realise you have.

“I’ll take that as a compliment love.” He laughs, the corners of his eyes creasing when he does. His thick beard surrounding the way his lips curve up in smile. Your face burns and you definitely look like a tomato right now.

“I best go inside and shower off today.” You smile at him with a small wave before turning on your heal and heading inside. You slump against the front door cursing yourself. “Stupid stupid stupid.” Heading upstairs you do exactly what you said you would, shower.

That’s why you don’t hear the lawnmower turn on again, that’s why you don’t notice it’s right outside your house, that’s why you don’t notice that John Price is mowing your lawn as you scrub your white loofa over your legs. But when you’re done and you look out your bedroom window, your heart stops.

Your handsome neighbour, is cutting your grass in the hot sun, without a shirt on. He spots you staring a sends a wink your way…..that man will be the death of you.

[tojipie]

bundle of joy <3

prison bf toji series linked here <3

this man was forged and handcrafted to be a girl-dad to a little sweetheart. i love him w all my heart.

the rasp of your husbands voice is so soft that you’re unsure if you’re still dreaming, head spinning from the IV cocktail the doctors had pumped into you the day prior.

toji sits with his back to you, your daughter cradled in the crook of his arm. your little bundle of joy so gently, letting her mindlessly grab at the cuff of his sleeve.

“what’re you doing, huh?” he mumbles, stroking the softness of her cheek with his thumb.

the baby ignores him, opting to try and get the fabric of his shirt into her mouth. soft, pink little gums bite down on freshly washed cotton, her feet kicking in excitement at the new texture.

“aht— hey!” he mumbles, gently pulling the soaked fabric from her grasp. “dirty.”

you sit up from your spot on the bed, inching over to the two of them.

toji truly can’t take his eyes off her, nodding intently while the newborn babbles nonsense to herself. he quickly switches her to his other arm once you join him, letting you lean your full weight on him.

tiny, pruney little fingers close around the bottom of his index, soft skin contrasting against the blues and blacks of his tattooed knuckles.

“is she supposed to be this tiny?” he whispers, half in awe half out of concern. your heart melts at how soft his voice is, eyes blown wide.

“f’course,” you giggle tiredly, still woozy from the epidural. you nose at the curve of his shoulder with a hum. “doctors said she was perfectly healthy, remember?”

“right, shit,” he mutters, tensing up at the freudian slip. “oh— sorry,” he says it to your daughter this time, clearly embarrassed at his lack of a filter.

toji’s lifestyle change had been a gradual process. a culmination of a life spent on the streets, moving up the ranks year after year until he’d forged an empire built on the bodies of his enemies.

then you came along, holding him down through a 7 year sentence while the world threw its worst at him, testing the integrity of your relationship as you both struggled to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

somewhere along the way nights at the club together turned into nights spent inside, planning out your future.

you had wanted to give him this for so long. to raise a child together and complete your little family, fulfilling both your lives just a little bit more. toji had dropped to his knees when you brought him the positive test, burying his face in your stomach to hide his teary eyes.

you can’t help but laugh to yourself at the irony of it all. that the man in front of you with the word “greed” gracing his knuckles in bold letters was holding your baby with all the generosity in the world.

“she drank a ton today.”

“oh yeah? big appetite huh?” he coos, pulling her pink baby hat up to let her little ears breathe.

“takes after her dad.”

your little blessing lets out a tiny yawn before closing her eyes, tuckered out after a long day of adjusting to her new world.

“should i put her back in the crib?” he whispers, so scared of waking the poor girl up.

let her sleep on me for a little, i’ll be up for a while anyways,” you explain, reaching for your daughter to let her settle onto your chest.

“my girls,” he mumbles, so full of love when he says it.

taglist ! 🏷️

@honeybee54321 @m150-50up @kuryoomi @t4naiis @serendippindots @sillyalo @levixbby @powerrwa @tojishugetiddies @wheredidmycrowngo @unknownspecies @ushygushybaby @ebiharachan @hoshigray @crazychaoticizzy @denypipa @watyousayin @tempest1art @sakuraryomen01 @kariito-art @vkeyy @mxtokko @inumakiiz @rosieee491 @loveme-b4by @suguxo @namjoonsbuspass @tojis-luver @complexivelovely @dancingwithdeities @sunflwrsugar @catvader101 @ktsgrl @princessos-blog @4ut0p5y @swiftsongs-mp3 @mycocoapuffs @adrenepinephrine @na0koz @suguscape @jaswonder3 @bokutosprettylittlebimbo @getousrep @jeannieboys @darkstarlight82 @freebananabeard @vivian-555 @kentokaze @subarusuguru

[toxycodone]

Laios x Beastkin!Reader

an. Senshi, Chilchuck, and Marcille x Reader are mentioned quiiiite a bit in here. Izutsumi x reader is more sparse. split between furry/scaly/feathery beastkin after the more general ones in the beginning. SORRY if the formatting is weird I got "text limited" a lot on this lmfao

this is a lot so. <3 show sum luv

general sfw

when you two first meet...bro is ELATED. He knows Izutsumi, which is fine, but you're an entirely different one. Who also doesn't seem to be super against him getting to know them

He asks SO many questions. What are you mixed with? Are you naturally born or artificial? What's it like having wings? A tail?

He's testing out all your features. He loves them so much.

When there's downtime, he likes to conduct "research". This goes for analyzing your features and making notes, comparing them to his books and other notes, and even more intricate tests like reaction time and stuff.

He'll hold a candle/torch by your face and test your pupil dilation. It's oddly intimate because he's just staring you down and its like. okay. are we gonna kiss orrrr

Loves. Loves. Loves just WATCHING you. Seeing the way you pounce on little bugs for fun or get spooked by certain noises. He just smiles and is all amused.

You'll catch him doodling you pretty often. He makes notes like "y/n caught a treasure bug today. They seem pretty skilled at hunting. Failed to kill it for some reason...just played with it until it scurried off." The doodles are like...surprisingly pretty decent. The monster portions of you are the best looking and most detailed. But it's so cool to see just how much he pays attention to you and your idiosyncrasies.

Your interactions with Izutsumi also interest him. Do you guys get along? Are you prey to her? Or is she to you? If you and Izu are talking or around each other he's watching like a hawk out of pure curiosity.

However...there's a particular page in his journal where he's providing feedback on how he would make you "better" aka cooler. It's basically just his own ramblings. No Laios, an extra set of eyes and the ability to breath fire and ice and everything in between is not. better. you're just salivating over the idea of your monster OC

If you bring this up to him he actually agrees. After a lot of note taking and observation he's really fascinated just on how well suited your entire existence is to...surviving. He has a lot of theories he'd love to share about you.

But he has e x t e n s i v e notes on your body. It's something that fr makes you blush because, why is he theorizing about the base of your tail and how it connects to your spine? and the number of nipples you have? wait...how is his guess right...?

But Laios is so useful. You might as well call him your owner. You don't have to lift a finger when it comes to taking care of yourself. (He misses his dogs so you fill in.)

He takes care of your skin/fur/scales/feathers, cuts your claws, helps you file down your hooves or horns. He's very into taking care of you if you'll let him. (Marcille also hops in on this since its her love language LOL. When she's not busy with Izutsumi she helps when she can.)

If you are like...afraid of water or don't enjoy bathing. You are like the party's pet. They're debating on how to get you clean before Chilchuck is like "if you don't take a bath I am going to kill you and throw you in there myself." Laios then goes all puppy dog eyed bc he thinks Chil is being to hard on you and then he sighs and is like "fine. I'll buy you a treat when we get back to the surface."

Marcille/Laios are really good when it comes to bath time. They aren't weird about it (Laios is checking you out but. In a curious type of way. Marcille is giving him side eye if hes getting too...Laiosy. But he respects your boundaries. Just imagine Laios happily scrubbing you while humming a tune awe.)

And when it comes to sleeping arrangements...you can alternate between anyone in the party. But Laios and Chilchuck are your best bets. Marcille is an excellent sleeping partner if the dreams don't bother you, shes soo happy to have you sleep with her and she's soft and smells nice.

Laios happily lets you sleep with him. He's actually not super cuddly (unless you are he'll reciprocate). But he is very much like, giving you a ton of space. If you fall asleep before him he just relents and sleeps as comfortably as he can around you lol. Literally just like any other pet owner.

Chilchuck....sleeping with him is difficult bc Izutsumi will fight you on it, but she relents if you can fit in without much issue (bonus points if you're warm) so. You guys can both overheat this poor man. Izu may even start cuddling with you more. She finds a lot of comfort in having another beastkin in the party even though she won't say it.

And speaking of Chilchuck...you're likely a bit more cooperative than Izutsumi, so he gets your help when it comes to checking for traps and finding treasure. With your elite hearing and other abilities, he's actually really pleasantly surprised how useful you are. (If you were a half-foot he'd definitely want you in his guild). He gives you pets and treats when the others aren't really paying attention (He doesn't want them to see him doting on you is all LOL).

Okay. So. Your diet. This is an anime about eating so. Let's get down to it.

Whether you're a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore--Laios is ENSURING your needs are taken care of in the party. It is of upmost importance to him.

He takes notes and asks about how certain foods make you feel. Are you more energized? Less energized? Stomach hurting? Pooping well? (Will ask this with upmost sincerity, he wants to make sure the butter/milk/etc used in their cooking isn't interfering with your tummy. Whether you want to answer this is up to you lol).

Laios and Senshi happily adjust things to your needs. Laios will spend time foraging with you, Senshi will find certain monsters with more nutrients that meet your needs. Senshi is also like, really knowledgeable about nutrients, so sometimes in your food he may grind up shells or bones to meet calcium needs and such. When he cooks he'll give you bones or soften them up in water so you can eat the marrow. :-)

Senshi...is the coolest though. He also lets you perch on him (like Izutsumi) and since he's lived in the dungeon for so long, he knows a lot about monsters firsthand. If it applies, he'll give you tips about yourself or some monsters you should prey on. Senshi and you go on little foraging trips too. He'll have you sniff things out in return for extra food during dinner.

Laios likes to see you hunt prey and eat it raw, though. Everyone else would rather not and it makes them sick but he thinks it is SO cool. He honestly wishes he could do that. He takes hunting lessons from you and will give you tips on being stealthier and such.

Your teeth really fascinate him. He likes testing your bite strength on different types of material (Like wood, stone, bones, etc.). He'll stick his fingers in your mouth and admire them if youd let him. He gives you so much praise in general its so cute.

AND. PETTING YOU. He is so tactile if you let him (i mean look how much he tries and fails to pet izutsumi). When you give him the all clear he is like. jumping for joy. he LOVES to pet you and praise you. He absentmindedly pets you when hes sitting down or standing by you. And when you nuzzle into his touch his heart SOARS. You can see on his face he's blushing and has that like. excited wiggly smile <3

I think when he's just sitting around he just messes with your tail. He likes it.

Lay down beside him and he will happily pet you and be like "do you like this? Is this a good spot?" Present. Your belly to him. and he is over the moon. He pets you wildly and is like "Who's a good boy/girl/monster?" He is so unashamed about doing this too. Chilchuck would put a stop to it if you didn't like it so much.

If you give him kisses or tongue bath's he's eating that shit up (i mean. look at those extra comics w him and dogs he lets dogs just kiss all over his face omfg). He isn't a huge fan of getting his hair wet (sensory issue) but when it's your drool...he can't help but be excited. Laios is all like "they're grooming me?? this means they like me, right??? Can I officially say I befriended a monster???"

It's proof that you care for him and view him as apart of your pack...he is just over the moon at this.

I will say...Laios is way too "has no backbone with you" for a while. You're chewing shoes? You can't help it! Stealing snacks? It's instinctual! Playing too rough with Izutsumi? C'mon guys...

But when he notices his party actually getting upset. You will be surprised how he can put his foot down. Not even max puppy eyes work on him. He will leash and muzzle you if needed.

But you can always get away with messing with his stuff. He thinks its fun to chase you around when you got his shirt in his maw. Then he happily wears the torn up gear and Marcille is like "let me sew it..."

For Scaly Beastkin:

He's so helpful when it comes to shedding season. Laios finds nice rocks all the time and helps scrape off any patches that are drying and crusting and hes not even phased and doesn't think its gross at all. He would keep some skin to test its resilience if you let him.

And going with that, when you need to shed and soak he would help you find a place and will happily assist with the shedding. He's so excited to be there honestly. But he feels bad you are uncomfortable so he lets you cuddle up under the water with him while you wait for your shed to soften up <3

Laios runs his fingers over your scales absentmindedly...just loves feeling how smooth they are, especially after he spent so much time helping them maintain that pristine smoothness.

He gets Marcille's help to make a moisturizing ointment to put on you every now and then so you don't get to dried out in the dungeon!! Marcille starts to fret about that too. You're just kinda chillin and she'll reach over and put ointment on your hands/cheeks/tail. Just areas you may be susceptible to drying out.

Also...he lets you use him as a heating rock. Sunshine is really limited in the dungeon, so...when you need a warm up he's there and waiting and extremely excited to warm you up with a hug.

For Furry Beastkin:

Brushes you. He'd do this EVERY evening (and morning) if you let him. He takes notes, too. Do you have an undercoat? Or is it just one? What does this mean about what environment you originated from?

He probably tries to use your shed fur to embellish his own clothes or put in his pillow/blankets. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle I guess?

And to add to that...remember how Marcille made a cute little cat head from Izutsumi's fur? He does that too. He and Marcille make cute little shapes outta your shed and giggle together about it.

If you get fleas...he is the party member you should tell. He'll help you get rid of them and won't rat you out to the other members LOL. He'd probably blame himself if it spread and the rest of the party is like "you expect us to beleive. you got fleas. Laios you would be excited if you got them."

For Feathered Beastkin:

Preening....<3. When you have pin feathers he is so sweet and gentle. gently picks them out. It kinda tickles bc he's just gliding his fingers over your wings. You'll catch him sighing in content and burying his face in the softness. It's so sweet.

He collects your feathers and shows them off to Marcille (who also really likes them.) Your down is SO useful too. The party has the softest blankets and pillows thanks to you. When you're molting everyone is calling dibs on the feathers to stuff in their bedding.

Laios examines your wingspan and is really interested on stuff like weather you can fly or not. If you can, he's in awe. He wants to see it. Maybe even fly with you if he can. Its always been a dream of his to do that.

nsfw

tw (for nsfw). monsterfucking? if that counts. mentions of vent/cloaca/knot

This man. It is so easy to tell overtime just how fucking horny he gets over monster stuff. He is addicted to just how much you differ from him. Your scales, fur, feathers, wings, etc....he thinks they're all extremely sexy.

He just loves the primal aspect of it? Like you act on instinct. Do what makes you happy. Like of course you have human reasoning and such but STILL. You're so non human and otherworldly it makes his stomach knot up and his dick hard as a rock. He wants to know EVERYTHING about you.

If you have a heat/rut cycle...he is. fucking. begging you come to him for help. jfc you don't even have to let him stick his dick in you. He just slowly probes your hole with his fingers and legit GASPS when he feels it clench around him. Not only is he learning so much about you and monster anatomy but hes also having his monster fucking dreams come true.

I mean it is a given with Laios but his fucking face is always in your hole. He loves eating pussy/ass so fucking much. And having your dick, clit, or knot down his throat drives him wild. He eats your slick and cum like he's starving. He's so sloppy with it too--there's spit and slick and cum all over his face and he's just slurping it all up like its his last meal.

He definitely "examines" you. He'll stick his fingers in you and stretch out your hole just to get a better look at what's inside. (imagine his thumbs sliding in and prying you open.) The muscles pulsating and the color and the smell...god he's drooling. You feel all vulnerable and exposed but he's just constantly praising how amazing your body and its functions are.

He busts so quick with a beastkin it....wow. Like. You are seriously all he has ever dreamed of and shit. I can't imagine he'd be able to contain himself. He cums and just still wants more, he fucks you through the overstimulation until he cries

Oh he wants to know whats in your pants so bad its ridiculous. Like. I cannot explain just how much he is vibrating with excitement

If you have a cloaca...he's very gentle with your hole at first. You explain to him what to look for, what feels good. He'll gently explore with his fingers until he finds the right hole and then he's going at it. He's shoving his tongue in there happily too. He knows what a cloaca is. He knows it's a singular vent for waste and sexual functions. Doesn't matter. His tongue is going in there. Laios is beyond excited to taste everything and see what makes you squirm.

If you have a knot...it's a given he wants you to knot him. It takes him a few tries (he can't take your knot at first because he's too tight) but when he finally is able to its like. euphoric for him. He loves feeling your warm cum in his ass and your desperate pants against his throat as your overstimulated self gets adjusted to being stuck to him. Gods.

Plus...I've discussed this on my blog in more detail but with a beastkin reader he's definitely into

You biting/scratching him up. He lovvveess being marked. Use him as a chew toy PLEASE

Predator/Prey rp: He's a trained hunter but he wouldn't mind being hunted...He loves how strong you are and how you can turn the tables on him if you wanted.

Just?? You being feral?? He likes it when you act more like your monster side and just treat him like a toy.

Breeding Kink: Even if you aren't able to get pregnant or breed (either due to sex or incompatible genetics due to being part monster), he's still really into it. You can fill him up vice versa...He loves the feeling of having you last inside him and he loves knowing you're still filled up from him. Plus, it adds to the more animalistic part of sex which is what he likes

[evieelyzabethh]

"homecoming"

⭒"and i told her in my heart is where she always be"⭒ college AU Arcane headcanons {fem reader}

cast ✧ Vi, Ekko, Jayce, Viktor, Mel

cw ☞ slightly pervy jayce, and a bunch of fluff. ALSO, one of my dearest pookies requested a college au so everyone say thank you sidda 💋

♞Vi♞

♞Vi would totally be a student athlete and a very good one. I don't see her as a basketball or football girl but baseball actually. Swinging a bat around is a controlled way to get aggression out. She played soccer and football in high school, though. She did football first, her and Jayce signing up together and both managing to get a spot on the team, but she got annoyed with all the padding really quick and only stuck it out for a year because of Jayce. She moved to soccer but got kicked off the team for fighting after a girl kept bumping into her and never got fouled for it. The fight was pretty bad, and in combination with her pre existing record of violent behavior, the school put her in counseling for her aggression issues.

♞She deeply enjoys baseball and takes it very seriously. Regular trips to the batting cages with Vander helped her regulate her emotions. It requires patience and control and a bat. She really loves her bat. When she made it onto the team, Jinx bought her a wooden one that she spray-painted, and she keeps it in her dorm room. She also likes the atmosphere. Her hand is always in a bag of sunflower seeds, she appreciates a good bubblegum, she likes how she looks in the uniform.

♞This being said, college Vi cleans up her act a bit. She doesn't get into fights anymore, she raised her F's into B's, and she got into a really nice school on a sports scholarship that she refuses to lose. She takes this as an opportunity to get good at something. She knows major league women's baseball isn't really a thing and she doubts she's good enough to ever make it to the Olympics, so she dedicates her time to finding something to make of her life

♞You two meet in a language class. It's a requirement at your college and she's only there because it's the easiest option that they stick all the student athletes in, and you were quite frankly just being lazy and wanted a class you could get an easy A in. She shows up slightly late, but the professor lets it slide as it's only the first day. The only open seat is the one next to you, quietly sitting in the back of the room with your laptop up staring intently as you go through the course's syllabus. She smiles. She thinks you're cute.

♞You can hear the dad rock blasting in her earphones, her hands in the pocket of a school branded hoodie with her head down as she slips in quietly next to you. She takes up a lot of space, her water bottle is one of the huge gallon sized ones, her laptop is large and kinda clunky, her notebook is also splayed out and you silently judge her sloppy handwriting. Just as preoccupied as you are, she's going through her schedule to see what time practice starts and gets out, what time she has to be at her volunteering commitment, the time slot she blocked out to call her sister.

♞Part of her scholarship is working in surrounding communities at recreation centers to encourage kids to get active. She thinks it's stupid at first, but eventually she finds out that she enjoys working with kids. They are constantly in awe of her, constantly asking her to give them piggyback rides or toss them around a bit, but they also deeply admire her. It's not a foreign feeling for her to be looked up to, but it's one she hasn't felt in a long time. She always wants to be better, and they make her feel like she's moving in the right direction.

♞She wouldn't start talking to you right away. Contrary to popular belief, Vi isn't super popular with the ladies. She is much quieter, she likes to keep to herself. She only sparks a conversation with you to ask what you got on the last test because she didn't do all that great and wanted a study partner. She likes being your seatmate a lot. You're just so nice. You're the first to offer a pencil if you need it, you keep sweet-scented hand sanitizer in your bag and soft tissues which she almost feels bad about how many she steals when her allergies hit in the spring.

♞Finals season is going back and forth from the library and her fancy athlete dorm after it closes to study for finals, both of you running on an ungodly amount of energy drinks and two hours of sleep, some nights you fall asleep on her shoulder when even the pale light of your laptop screens can no longer keep you awake. She freezes every time, not wanting to move you but also wanting you to be comfortable, slowing her typing to a gentle pace before giving up entirely and falling asleep herself. You wake up to Vi's earsplitting snores, low music still playing from her speaker, the tv shifting hours ago from bright cartoons to some live action sitcom from decades ago. You debate on leaving, but the buses are no longer running, and she drives you herself, stranding you at her dorm in her large comfy bed where you willingly lay yourself back into her arms.

♞Her teammates definitely know about her crush on you. Anytime you come to their practices or walk her to them, she has a pep in her step and a smirk on her face the whole time. She swears she's not that obvious, but she talks about you constantly and the mere mention of your name has her scrambling. She is a show-off during practices, maybe playing a bit too hard as she slides onto bases in her already ratty sweatpants.

♞She would ask you out at one of their games. She's not big on super big and showy public confessions, so she wouldn't have you guys on the jumbotron or announced by the commentators, but after the game she would catch you in the crowd and ask her to be your girlfriend. Your first date would be to dinner after the game because she is absolutely starving, but she does pay for both of your meals.

★Ekko★

★Ekko, like Vi, would be at university on a scholarship, though one for engineering or something STEM related. He's there to pursue some sort of STEM degree but he abuses the fuck out of gen-ed classes. He absolutely loves being able to take a variety of different classes and different disciplines. He's done some culinary work, some studio art classes, some music theory. He has so many interests and he is determined to get the best out of the experience.

★While his nose isn't always stuck in a book, he's always working on something. His dorm is a mess of papers, his clothes are strewn around the floor, and he probably isn't even there because he's in a lab or in workshop or in the grocery store because he finally got tired of ramen noodles. It's a good thing the university offered co-ed dorms because no one else would be able to put up with him but Jinx, though the second she rolls her ankle after stepping on one of his shoes she has half the mind to burn all his stuff.

★Their dorm room is quite nice. They're the type that have led lights and posters all over the walls, those fake vine things hanging over his bed. The lights are always low in there, they forget about the ceiling light because they use their desk lamps so much. They don't have the nicest things, him and Jinx splitting one fridge and one microwave and maybe a snack cart, but they would have a comfy bean bag chair in there.

★He would get noticed around campus because he skateboards to class and wears cool outfits. The university social media has a page dedicated to OOTDs that he run's and it gets pretty popular. He isn't in a bunch of clubs, I think he would stick to one or maybe two. Of any of them, he would be involved in whatever social justice club they have, and while only a freshman, his passion gets him on the administrative team for communication and outreach. He is a master at Canva and is seen all across campus putting up fliers

★He is a D1 procrastinator which is ironic because he is always stressed. The only motivation he needs is the weight of all the work he has to do on his chest eventually being released and actually feeling like he can breathe.

★Ekko...with a belly button piercing...yes. He would have a few other piercings besides his bellybutton, including a daith, tragus, cartilage, and the first and second on his lobe. He prefers gold jewelry to silver and wears a lot of crop tops to show off the piercing. He takes terrible care of them because he refuses to buy the saline solution and raw dogs it with some soap and water and he hasn't had any reject yet.

★He would be a TA for Heimerdinger in grad school and would hang around his office a lot. A very chaotic lecturer in his recitation sections. He gets to the room a solid hour or two early to work on his dissertation and when class starts, he hops from topic to topic. He loves that chalkboard, he's all over it. He also likes coming to class in nice suits like the one he was in the alternate universe.

★You and him would meet after he bumped into you on his skateboard. He had been replying to an email on his way to class and you had been trying to catch up on the reading you were supposed to have done a week ago and you walked right into him, knocking the phones out of both of your hands and sending the skateboard rolling until it hit a bench. You both scramble to apologize, and as he offers you a ringed hand to help you off the ground, you go back and forth claiming it was completely your fault and not the others. He remembers you after that, partially because you hit the ground pretty hard and he's scared he gave you a concussion, and partially because he thought you were gorgeous.

★He would keep noticing you around campus and Jinx would bully him into saying something to you after the umpteenth time of telling you how cute you looked in that outfit today and how locked in you were at the library and how he wants help finding your insta so he can stalk you. All you see one day at the dining hall is a very confused Ekko with a very annoyed Jinx behind him pushing him your way and leaving quickly. You had been eating alone, laptop sat beside your half empty plate, your blue light glasses laying down on your nose in hopes of protecting you from going blind at thirty from how much time you spend staring at your laptop. Conversation is extremely slow at first, but when you two find your rhythm, he builds the courage to ask for your number.

★Lots of movie nights in his or your dorm or one of the lounges in your building while you do his retwists. Be warned, he is very tender headed and can't sit still to save his life, so you keep having to tap him with the comb and tell him to stop jerking before the parts come out wonky. Also, dye and detox days!!! He complains about his neck hurting while he's bent over the sink, but the feel of your hands in his scalp makes it bearable. You're confined inside as the dye penetrates beneath some plastic bag from under the sink and end up playing a game on the console he brought from home.

❂Jayce❂

❂Though he started high school playing football, and was quite good at it, he does quit the team when Vi does. He was never a really big sports guy, though the gym teacher never stopped pestering him to join the team again. He was always far more interested in science. He went through all the phases as a kid, being obsessed with dinosaurs since he was three, then space up until he hit like 8th grade when he was first introduced to the concept of chemistry and liked the idea of blowing shit up. He had the coolest science fair projects and won like every one of them. Rather than being the kid who told his mom about it the night before, he had the date marked on his calendar and preplans what he wants to do for the year

❂All this being said, he gets offered a scholarship to go to a nice university despite not being in the same state of financial despair that Vi and Ekko were in. While some of the extra money goes towards his dorm, he does put a lot of it towards the club he's in, something like STEM Students for Change. He offers to fund the outreach meetings, the occasional events they put on, and renting tabling spaces.

❂He keeps to himself pretty often. He's not the biggest fan of having to do the big speaking stuff in his club, he's far more interested in being able to do the work behind the scenes. He's always been the type to be upset by non-academic attention, never one put much effort into getting a romantic partner. He's also not a big party guy, only going out at the request of a friend, and spends a lot of his time either in his dorm, one of the libraries, or one of the labs.

❂Very scatterbrained. He doesn't get anything done without his notebook which he takes with him everywhere and is full of scribbles of notes and things he needs to get done for the day. He is also the type to neglect doing basic human things, like eating, especially if it's not in his schedule. It's a cycle of "ok, if I finish a page of this paper then I'll go get a snack" which devolves into "I finished this page sooner than expected, I might as well keep going until 2:30" and then "I'm still not at a good stopping point, I'm gonna finish off this page" until he finishes the entire thing. Sometimes by that point his hunger is forgotten about, and he moves onto something else.

❂He abuses the fuck out of office hours. He is not afraid to send an email or just drop by anyone's office. He builds a great repertoire with his professor which is convenient later when he's getting tons of internship offers through recommendations and getting accepted into his major. He is also a registration warrior. Before his time, he's already been set up at his laptop for at least an hour perfecting his schedule making sure he gets all the classes he needs. He once had a nervous breakdown fall semester of his sophomore year because all the classes he needed were full by the time it was his turn to register. It was the worst semester of his life.

❂He constantly has a huge water bottle on him. Not nearly as big as Vi's, but still large and metal enough to knock someone out if he tried hard enough. He's also the first guy to set off the fire alarm in the residence hall while making popcorn. He swears up and down it wasn't his fault, which isn't entirely false because the alarm was sensitive and too close to the appliances, but he did burn the shit out of it and had to throw it out on his walk of shame.

❂You two would first interact at a party he dragged his friend to after his friend abandoned him and he got lost in the sea of people. He made the mistake of going out on Halloweekend, thinking that 11 would be early enough to party before the unruliness began but he was sadly mistaken. You had been with your friends having a grand time, slightly backed into the wall where he was, trying your hardest to dance without pressing against him too much. He only remembered your face because of the sheer number of times you looked back to apologize, feeling extra bad because of the blush on his face and how hard he was trying to keep his composure. You were clearly having fun in your very low cut and short costume and your eyes were sparkly and you ass was pressed so thoroughly onto his dick he almost passed out from how overwhelmed he was anytime you moved to whatever song was playing.

❂The next day in class, he notices you towards the back of the room, giggling at whatever on your phone and before he knows it, he's putting one foot in front of the other and sitting next to you. Like him, you were someone who liked to be early to guarantee your seat, so he had plenty of time to talk to you, embarrassed that your first impression of him had been the "awkward guy at the party".

❂Many of your dates would be study dates. He is quick with booking study rooms, making sure to throw a bunch of dry erase markers and abuse the hell out of those white boards while you pack a few snacks in your tote bag, so he makes sure to eat. You usually finish your work before he does, playing games on your laptop while snapping a few pictures of him as he slowly goes insane. Markings are all over the walls in every color of the rainbow by the time you two take a break, sliding over to sit in his lap as you two scroll on your phone with your head on his shoulder.

❂He does not have a lofted bed, which is great because you two fuck in his room constantly. He's very lucky to live in an apartment style dorm because Viktor would be pissed constantly being kicked out of his own room. It's his motivation for getting through his days. It used to be a sweet treat from the dining hall, but he hit it once and decided that pussy was just way better (I will be dropping a smut fic with this concept as my treat for getting through my exams)

☽Viktor☾

☽He was very picky with what college he went to. He did a lot of research beforehand. He was very confident that schools would be throwing money at him and planned on being very selective on whose money he took. He was looking at facilities, faculty, Rate My Professor, any measurement of a school's worth was being analyzed before he even thought of applying.

☽As mentioned above, he rooms with Jayce and likes to hit him with his cane when he tries to pick shit up for him or open the door. It becomes second nature at a certain point, he doesn't see it coming and only feels the impact. He loves to embarrass him. Their majors align pretty exactly and they take a lot of the same classes and any time he so much as lets the door close on Viktor its "Wow, I can't believe such a flagrant display of ableism! You really couldn't hold the door open for me?" and Jayce gets red, desperately trying to explain he gets thwacked with a cane every other time he opens the door for him.

☽He brings nothing to class but a pen and a notebook. Not even like a spiral 5 subject one, but one of those 50 cents marbled composition books. He does have a laptop, a very nice one at that, but it hardly ever leaves the dorm. He staunchly prefers physical notetaking to digital and slightly judges those who take notes on things like IPads. He just thinks it's unnecessary and often becomes a distraction. Jayce tries to convert him Viktor's gets firmer in his position after noticing everyone desert notetaking to play games or look at clothes after like the third week

☽While also an office hour abuser, he does prefer a zoom meeting if he can snag it. He's not one to drop by just to say hello, he wants a good relationship with them but he's not trying to get invited to Christmas. He also never forgets to do those course evals and give them a rating on Rate My Professor. There is nothing he hates more than a professor who doesn't give rubrics. That is his biggest pet peeve. That and someone who can't lecture, instead going on random tangents that barely relate back to the course material.

☽His go-to study music classical music. He’s particularly fond of Tchaikovsky, his go-to ballet to listen to being Sleeping Beauty. During the fall months he usually goes for Dracula and during the winter either Nutcracker or Coppelia. He's a fan of instrumental music in general as on the flip side of this are playlists full of the Minecraft or Undertale soundtracks.

☽A lanyard warrior. He is not someone who can just slide his keys in his bag, especially since he doesn't usually carry one around. He can't just carry them around because he will set them down somewhere and forget them and those replacement fees are like a couple hundred dollars. When he does carry a bag though, it's one of those nice leather messenger bags that he thrifted. Speaking of which, his brightness would be so low. He's not even hiding anything and it's a miracle he can even read anything on the screen. He also is someone who uses blue-light glasses when on his phone or laptop, which is part of the reason both are so dim. You are on his lockscreen and home screen on all of his devices, though.

☽He would be so good at proofreading anything you needed him to. While definitely a STEM major, he would also be a grammar stickler and is part of the dying breed of people who actually know how to write a paper without Chat GPT or AI. He would HATE all kinds of stuff like that. Slightly off topic, but he loves sharing all stupid discussions posts he has to do for class. He loves laughing at some of the idiots who say the wildest things, so wild that no one else in the class even wants to respond. He'd also be the type to develop favorite classmates through how they respond and only respond to those.

☽He has some sort of earbuds in his ears everywhere he goes. It's always either headphones or wired earbuds. He would hate the wireless ones after the one time he tried them, and they kept falling out of his ear and it was too much of a hassle having to repeatedly bend down to get them. He likes the noise cancelling ones too, he is impossible to bother when he's using them.

☽For his gen-eds, I can see him getting into film or maybe history. History because he's always had a minute interest in it. He's never been a big war buff, his niche was probably more aligned with the classics. I think he would be fascinated with ancient Greece and Rome. As for film, I can see that being something he decided to take for the fuck of it but then realized he was very interested. Maybe not a rom-com or film bro kinda guy, he would be interested in super niche, campy films. He would like wackier, more experimental stuff

☽He would meet you at some film screening he's going to for extra credit in one of his classes. You showed up because the showing just so happened to be one of your favorite movies. The extra credit was just for showing up, it was also for attending the trivia session after the screening with the points depending on how many questions you could get right and since you both had gone alone and had ended up sitting next to each other and he had already decided you were gorgeous, he decided to ask you to be his partner. He felt a little bad being carried through the competition by you, but you were so excited to just share all the fun facts you knew that he decided he could live with it.

☽You actually ask him for his number after the fact, suggesting you two do a few more movie nights together, trading off week after week showing each other your favorite movies. Though he is very busy, with all his internships, class work, and studying he usually has to do, he happily finds a way to slide you into his schedule. He treats it as his reward for getting through the week. You'd also go on a lot of coffee shop dates. He knows all the nice quiet spots around campus.

☼Mel☼

☼She is another one who has been planning for college since forever. She has had vision boards for which school she wants to go to, what job she wants to have, understanding the admissions process, what classes she'll need to take at her university of choice to graduate most efficiently, has all been written in a journal since she was in high school

☼She is very organized. I totally see as someone who has all of her class notebooks color coded, definitely uses Midliners, has those nice Pilot G2 pens, the whole nine yards. She was also particular about how her dorm was put together. Her and her roommate coordinated on a color theme, and they have like the dream dorm. They have a big TV, an air fryer, a microwave, a fridge with a freezer, an oil diffuser. Any nice thing you can fit in a dorm is in there

☼She is in like every club ever. Involved in the black student organizations, probably in a sorority (I think she'd be an AKA but that's only because I love them), clubs relating to her political science major, and other fun ones like art clubs, maybe debate club too. She'd also be one of those girls that everyone knows on campus because she's so everywhere. She's the people's princess, that one girl you see everywhere surrounded by friends who looks really nice but you're kinda scared to talk to her.

☼She types really fast. It's something she got really good at back in middle school when she got bored after finishing all her work super early and played a bunch of those typing games until she got really good at typing. Because of this, she is someone who can knock out a paper in like one sitting. I do think she'd need an outline or draft, a notebook by her side containing her notes on her sources and a reminder of the thesis she's arguing, but she could knock it out in less than 2 hours

☼I wouldn't call her a party animal, but I do think she likes to go out. Maybe not to the club but a frat party, one thrown by one of the D9 to be more specific. She brought her car to campus and is usually the designated drivers. She only really drinks fancier alcohol, she's not a beer or cheap vodka fan at all, and that's usually all you can get at parties. She doesn't go to get drunk or hookup with anybody, usually just because she got tired of being an academic weapon all day.

☼She gets a call from her mom usually once a week, usually at the same time, likely because Ambessa has that time schedule out to call her. It's super matter of fact, how are the grades looking, what is she doing in her clubs, has she gotten any internships yet. If she's feeling sappy, she does tell her that she's proud of her. Mel didn't love living with her mom, who put a lot of effort into distancing herself from Mel. She knew that she could handle herself and what she wanted, but she didn't know how she felt about Mel wanting something different out of life than her. Mel thoroughly loves her time away from her mother, but she does look forward to these phone calls.

☼I also think she'd be someone who has a secret pet, but it's just a stray cat that lingers around her building that she fed until it got attached. She does one day scoop it up to the nearest vet to make sure it doesn't have rabies and hides it in the dorm during the winter months to give it shelter from the cold. She doesn't name it because she doesn't want to get attached, especially since there's a likelihood that one day it may never come back to her, but when it starts perking up to the little pet names she's given it, she's already too far gone.

☼She is also someone who is quick to book a study room at the library. She doesn't do that well in her dorm. It's too comfy and her bed is right there, and she sets closer goal posts so that she can justify taking a nap. She's exhausted with all she's doing. Because of this, towards the end of the semester she is on main campus a lot trying to get all these essays done.

☼She is a very active participant in class! I think gen-eds would be pretty women and gender studies and African American studies heavy, with a few econ classes sprinkled in as well. Though she's not going into a math related field, she was always incredibly good at it. She could've majored in either the humanities or STEM and would've always done well. She is unfortunately the annoying person getting 100s on the exams and getting rid of the curve

☼Like Jayce, I think she would also meet you at a party. Being far more introverted than she was, you would hang around in a corner, checking your phone for emails. It was early and the party had yet to pick up, meaning everybody had coagulated in certain spaces on the floor, talking and too scared to dance to the music because there was too much room to be perceived. You obviously knew who she was and looked at her a few times, putting in a lot of effort to avoid her gaze when she notices yours. She would eventually walk over to you, red solo cup filled with water she grabbed from the fridge. She obviously knew who was throwing, knew them well enough to dig through their kitchen for a non-alcoholic beverage.

☼She would make small talk with you, asking if you had ever been to one of these parties before, especially since she hadn't really seen you here before. You two end up talking for hours against the wall, her head resting against the wall, not realizing her pupils dilate as you explain to her the chain of events that got you here, the long day of studying you just had, and damn finals are right around the corner and you just needed a break. Earlier than she would typically leave, she gets tired of the noise obscuring your voice and offers to drive you around for a bit. You two end up sitting in a McDonalds parking lot talking over an abandoned pack of medium fries. You two exchange numbers and talk like all the time before she asks you on a for real date.

☼Though you feel a tad bad about it, she loves being your chauffer. You wanna go on a 3 a.m run to some chicken place; she is already on the way as soon as you send the text. She's very quick to do a quick drive by to pick you up so she can show you off at a party. Also, though she can throw it, she prefers to catch it.

☼She is the perfect study buddy. She prefers studying with flashcards and pops a little Ferrero Rocher for every 20 terms she gets correct. With you there, it's even better. She gets a kiss for every right answer which is like infinitely better.