#she can be naive and a bit too trusting?

[tokkiwrites]

Hi happy holidays! Can you please do a Sergei kravinoff smut x innocent female virgin reader “babe in the woods” trope. Sergei is immediately fixated on reader and wants her to be his grude & mother of his children. He immediately marries and later takes her virginity. He hopes to impregnate her from their first time together. Ty!

thank you for this request, anon! and sorry it took so long to post. I've had it written, but it just took a while for me to get the smut part going. i hope you like it!

Sergei Kravinoff × F!Reader ♰ themes of stalking, obsessive Sergei, kidnapping, Kraven is a weirdo and needs to be locked up, i would say innocent reader but more so an unbothered reader kind of, she is just confused, forced marriage, themes of Stockholm syndrome, loss of virginity, fingering (reader receiving), afab reader, unprotected p in v, Sergei wants to get the reader pregnant.

The woods were quiet, save for the whisper of wind threading through the branches above. You loved this time of day when the sun filtered gold and green through the canopy, casting dappled patterns on the earth. It was your sanctuary, far from the clamor of town and the heavy, watchful eyes of others. Here, no one could accuse you of being strange, or sheltered, or too naive. You simply were.

The faint crack of a branch made you stop mid-step, your basket of wildflowers swinging lightly at your hip. “Hello?” You called, voice soft, hesitant. The forest had always been safe— or so it felt. until now, you had never had the need to question it.

He emerged from the shadows, and your breath caught. The man was massive. A towering figure, his broad shoulders draped in animal pelts and his chest bare save for the crisscrossing scars that marked him as something primal, dangerous. His face was angular, carved from stone, with piercing eyes that pinned you where you stood.

Sergei Kravinoff. The name would mean nothing to you, but to others, it struck fear—a hunter of men and beasts, a predator who bent the wilderness to his will. He did not speak at first. He only looked at you, as if you were some rare, delicate creature he had stumbled upon. The longer his eyes lingered, the hotter your cheeks burned.

“Who are you?” you asked, clutching the basket to your chest. His lips curved into a smile, though there was nothing warm in it. “I am Sergei,” he said, his voice low, thick with an accent you couldn’t place. “And you" he paused for a bit. " Should not wander alone in places like this. The world is not kind to lambs.” You blinked at him, confused. “Lambs?”

“You,” he clarified, taking a step closer. His sheer presence seemed to draw the air from your lungs. “Soft. Untouched. So trusting.” You took an instinctive step back, and his smile widened, as if he enjoyed your unease. “I—I’ve never seen you here before. Are you lost?”

“No,” he said simply, his eyes roaming over you with an intensity that made your skin prickle. “But perhaps I have found something worth staying for.”

It reeked of dangerㅡ death. yet you still came back.

Over the next week, you saw him again and again. Always in the woods, always watching. At first, you told yourself it was a coincidence. this strange man simply shared your love for the forest. But his presence became impossible to ignore. He never tried to speak much, yet his eyes seemed to devour you every time, as though he were committing every detail of your face to memory. You should have been afraid. You should have stopped going to the woods entirely. But something about him fascinated you. He was so unlike the boys in town, who stammered and avoided your gaze, intimidated by your quietness. Sergei was bold, unflinching. He seemed to look right through you, to the parts of yourself you didn’t even understand.

you little lamb.

“Why do you keep following me?” He tilted his head, his gaze softening though not entirely. “Because you are mine.” The bluntness of his words made your breath hitch. “I don’t even know you.”

“You will,” he said, stepping closer. He reached out, brushing a strand of hair from your face, and though you should have flinched away, you didn’t. His touch was surprisingly gentle, reverent even, even if his rough fingers scratched your skin. “I have decided. You will be my bride.”

“Bride?” You echoed the word foreign and strange on your tongue. “But we’ve only just—” you laughed. surely it must be a joke. “You are meant for me, little lamb” he interrupted, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. “I have hunted all my life, little one. I know when I have found my prize.” Suddenly, the world went dark.

maybe it was all just a bad and confusing dream. though his touch still lingered.

You woke in the morning to find yourself not in your small, familiar room. outside the window that overlooked the bed you were in, the forest. The air smelled of pine and smoke, and outside, the trees loomed tall and unyielding. Panic gripped you as you sat up, heart racing. “Where—” The door creaked open, and there he was, filling the frame with his imposing presence. “You are awake,” Sergei said, his tone calm, almost pleasedㅡ excited. He carried a tray with food: fresh berries, bread, and cheese. “Eat. Now."

“Where am I?” you demanded, your voice trembling. “Why did you—” He set the tray down, cutting you off with a look. “You are safe. That is all you need to know.”

“I am not! This isn’t right,” you said, tears pricking at your eyes. “You can’t just—”

“I can,” he said sharply, though his expression softened as he stepped closer. “I have waited long enough. You do not understand, but you will. I will take care of you. Protect you. You will want for nothing, my little one.”

You shook your head, backing away from him, but he caught your wrist with startling ease. His touch was firm, yet not cruel. “Do not fear me,” he murmured, his voice dropping to something almost tender. “I would never hurt you. You are too precious.”

Sergei did not wait long to make you his.

The days in the cabin blurred together, each one steeped in an odd rhythm. Sergei’s presence was constant, protective, and overwhelming. He would watch you eat, his sharp eyes softening whenever you complied. He brought you small gifts: wildflowers, trinkets carved from wood, pelts to keep you warm. He never let you wander far, always ensuring you were within sight. And though he never forced his touch upon you, you could feel the tension thrumming beneath the surface, like a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce.

In the evening, as the fire crackled and cast flickering shadows on the walls, Sergei sat across from you. He leaned forward, large hands resting on his knees. “It is time,” he said, his voice calm but unyielding. “Time?” you echoed, your throat dry. “For us to marry.” You stared at him, heart pounding. “I… I can’t. I don’t even know what you want from me. I—I never— You kidnapped me!”

“You were made for this,” he said, cutting you off. his eyes were setting you a-light, it made your skin prickle. “You think I do not see it? Your purity. Your innocence. You were meant to be a wife. My wife.” Tears burned in your eyes, but you blinked them away. “But I’m not— I need to marry someone I love!"

“You are ready,” he insisted, his tone softening only slightly. “I have waited long enough. It will be done."

And it was.

The ceremony was simple, ritualistic. Sergei had prepared everything. rings made from woven silver, a bearskin cloak to drape over your shoulders as a symbol of protection. There was no priest, no people, only the two of you and the forest as your witness. He spoke vows in a language you did not understand, his voice deep and reverent, as though he were offering you up to some ancient force. When it was your turn, your voice faltered, but under his watchful gaze, you repeated the words he taught you.

“You are mine,” he said at the end, taking your face in his hands. His eyes burned with possessive fire. “And I am yours.”

but every wolf gets hungry eventually.

When night fell, you found yourself sitting on the edge of the bed, your hands clutching the thick wool blanket. Sergei entered the room, his movements slow and deliberate. He had shed his usual pelts, his bare chest glowing in the firelight.

“You are trembling,” he said, his voice softer than you had ever heard it. He knelt in front of you, his massive frame now not so intimidating. “Are you afraid of me?” You couldn’t meet his eyes. "I don’t know... what you expect from me? What you w-want...”

“I expect you to trust me,” he said simply, his hand brushing against your cheek. “You are my wife now. It is my duty to show you what that means.” Your breath stopped as he leaned closer, his lips ghosting over your forehead. “I will not hurt you,” he murmured, the warmth of his breath sending shivers down your spine. “But you are mine, little lamb. Every part of you.”

His lips met yours— soft at first, testing, as though he feared you might shatter like porcelain. But when you didn’t pull away, his kiss deepened, a low growl rumbling in his chest. His hands cradled your face, his touch reverent, almost worshipful.

“I have waited for this,” he said against your lips, his voice thick with desire. “Waited to claim what is mine.” You didn’t resist as he laid you down, his hands tracing over your trembling form. He was patient, guiding you gently, his touch surprisingly tender for someone so fierce. But his intent was clear.

oh, little lamb.

rugged hands make their way up and around your hips as his bearded face stays flush against your tender neck. he was ready to devour you. Sergei looked up into your eyes and for the first time you've seen him smile. and as if all of the things you felt caused you fears melted away, so did you into his embrace.

his lips meet yours, and it all finally made sense. you could feel the hunger, the will in him to give his all right here, right now. you wrapped around him like vines on a tree, his low growl of approval making you clench around nothing. it all felt so new, yet familiar, as if somehow, this wasn't the first time. the forest outside sung as your quiet moans filled the cabin. Sergei discards all of your clothes with ease, leaving you in nothing as you stayed splayed on the bed. the fur coverings under, pooled around your body, the moonlight dripped on you like dew in spring and you looked like a precious painting.

with no time to wait, sergei quickly gets naked. it wasn't the first time you saw him like this, but it was the first time you saw it. to say all that fear bubbled up into your stomach was an understatement. you gulped down as your glossy eyes looked at him up and down. "Spread your legs for me." it wasn’t a request, it was an order. and you obey. spreading your legs you give him a full view of you dripping cunt, and sergei throws his head back with a low groan. you finally speak up. "IㅡI am a...a virgin." it all seemed so silly to say now. "I know." he smiles in the corner of his mouth. "Smelled it on you the first time we met." and you whimper. "I will get you ready now." somehow, you knew what it meant. He kneels in front of you on the bed, pulling you so that you thighs are right over his, your puffy lips on full display. two of his digits make their way up to your mouth. "Suck." you comply.

after that was done, his calloused fingers make their way between your folds, gathering up the juices you've been dripping. You whimpered softly and Sergei shushed you, rubbing small circles on your plushy thigh with his other hand. He pushes one of his fingers inside, and you can feel it. It didn’t hurt, not yet, it was just strange and new. the second finger comes quick after and he starts pumping them, swirling them around as his lips made contact with your swollen bud. Your eyes jot open as this feeling washes over you, and you can't help but let your legs shake uncontrollably. The fire wave envelopes you whole before it comes to an agonizing stop. You open your eyes again and above you is Sergei, his shaft in his hand as he aligns it with your asking entrance. "If it hurts...yell. Scream as much as you want. Hurt me back. I am here to teach you."

and teach you he does. he pushes in slowly and the stretch is agonizing, the pain making all of your muscles tense. "It's alright, I'm here, little girl." you let out a sigh, the tears slipping past your lids when you open your eyes. the moon engulfed Sergei in It's beautiful light, his silhouette looking as if it was carved out perfectly. a couple of inches, then some more, and some moreㅡ until he is fully inside. you bite down on your tongue, but Sergei preps soft kisses along your jaw and you seem to forget about the pain. "You're doing so, so good. So good for me." he hums, taking in a big breath of your smell before he snaps his hips slowly. In a few seconds, the burn turned into a delicious feeling you couldn’t quite describe. And though it felt so new, your body fell in place right into Sergei’s touch, as if it were meant to be.

When he finally started to move faster, his groan was one of triumph, a sound that you know will echo in your ears long after. “You will give me childrenㅡ" he said, voice low and ragged as he moved inside of you. “Strong sons and daughters. Our legacy will begin tonight.”

your legs quiver around him, but he leaves no room for mercy. Above you, he looked just as a predator ready to swallow his pray whole. you weren't one to fight back, and you really didn't want to. you back stayed arched against the coverings of the bed, fingers clawing at his broad shoulders as he pumped into you. your tummy was churning, and your head was dizzyㅡ you were far gone, too drunk on the way he perfectly hit that spot with each thrust. "You were made for me, made to take meㅡ fuck, you are so beautiful." you whimper, feeling that fire wave starting to take over again. your velvet walls squeeze around him, causing him to growl. Sergei leans forward, propping one of your legs above his shoulder, the angle making you gasp for air. you look up at him, eyes glossy with tears. An animal. His eyes grew darker, lips crooked in a smile before he delivered his final blow.

you come undone right under his fingertips, writhing and shaking as small pleads fall from your lips. You can feel his seed deep within you, threatening to slip out around his cock that was still inside of you, pulsing. "Good girl."

he prays it sticks.

Sergei’s obsession with you only deepened—he barely let you out of his sight, his touch lingering whenever he could. Yet there was a softness in him, a desire to make you happy, even as he bent you to his will.

He began teaching you small things. how to tend the fire, how to skin an animal, how to defend yourself should a predator come. But you were never allowed to go far. “Why can’t I leave?” you asked one afternoon, your frustration bubbling over. Sergei turned to you, his eyes darkening. “Because the world is cruel, little one. It will devour you. You are too soft, too trusting. Here, you are safe.”

“Safe,” you repeated bitterly. His jaw clenched, and for a moment, you thought he might lash out. But instead, he cupped your face in his hands, his gaze softening. “I would rather you hate me than lose you.” you were beginning to see the truth of it. his love for you was consumin and obsessive, but it was real. He worshipped you, protected you, but at the cost of your freedom. And yet, part of you began to adapt. To find comfort in his arms, in the way he looked at you as though you were the only thing that mattered.

Perhaps you were.

[prettydaisygirl]

boyfriend!James Potter x fem!reader who thinks he's cheating ✿ 1.8k words

cw: fem reader, reader thinks James is cheating (he isn't), James is a professional athlete and kind of a himbo, reader is jealous/a bit possessive of James, Sirius and Remus back reader up, angst with a happy ending

james potter masterlist

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James Potter. Your beautiful, wonderful, oh so sweet boyfriend. He is the best man in the world. Except he has one flaw. 

He is way, way too trusting. 

You believe it’s because of his heart, too big for his body. He carries his emotions like a badge of honor, wanting to be good and see the good in others. And because of this, your boyfriend can be a little naive. 

“Jamie, I just don’t think it’s a good idea-“ You’re trying to reason with him, but as lovely as James is, he is also stubborn. 

“I just don’t see why you are making such a big deal out of this, angel.” James is wiping down plates, setting them aside for the team dinner tonight. “Olivia is a part of the team, she asked if she could come!” “She’s not a part of the team, she’s your social media manager.” You argue, rolling your eyes, but James doesn’t let up.

“She told me she thinks you have something against her.” You stop for a moment at James’ words, placing the towel you just finished folding aside. You raise your eyebrows at your boyfriend.

“And her words are so much more important than mine?” 

James seems to know he struck the wrong cord when his shoulders sink a bit. “That’s not what I said. But you did ignore her the entire dinner last week.”

“I told you when you came home from that meet in Florida, James. She was all over you, I watched it on tv.” You hate the way you sound, you know James doesn’t see Olivia’s actions the way you do. 

“You haven’t really met her, my love. I promise once you do, you’ll see that she is just our social media manager, and she wants us to look good so we get more sponsors!” James makes his way in front of you where you sit on the couch, kneeling down to meet your level. “Just give her a chance.”

You really rather wouldn’t. You’d rather James listen to you when you tell him about your concerns. But you know tomorrow’s meet is important to your boyfriend, so you decide to swallow your pride and nod.

“Fine.”

You regret agreeing almost immediately. 

Your house swarms with tall, athletic men. You don’t know when your home became the pre-meet dinner spot, but you don’t mind. You find great pride in helping James and his team do well. 

Olivia shows up after the rest of the team has arrived. When you open the door, her grin falters for a second before she reaches out a hand to greet you, squeezing too tight. She eyes you up and down and you decide to attach yourself to James for the evening. 

You latch yourself onto his side, arm around his waist. His own settles around your shoulders and for most of the dinner you can keep the green jealousy monster at bay. Especially when surrounded by his teammates, laughing and joking at the dinner table.

The best part about James’ team is that the others have seemingly adopted you. Remus and Sirius especially, given their lifelong friendship with your boyfriend. You’re always with them, and you consider them very close friends.

You’re chatting with Remus about his new favorite novel when you realize James has been in the bathroom for a long time. Remus sees the moment he loses your attention, your brow furrowing as your eyes scan over the room, looking for James in the small crowd of his teammates. He isn’t there.

“Are you looking for James?” Remus asks, eyes darting around, and your expression changes, mouth pursing a bit.

“And she’s gone too…” You whisper, under your breath but loud enough for Remus to hear. He seems to put the pieces together right as you stalk off toward the staircase.

Your heart pounds as you make your way upstairs, toward the bathroom. You feel your head spin when the door is open and the light is off. 

Things get worse when you hear James’ voice. You can’t make out what he’s saying but it comes from the bedroom. You step closer, and the next words you are able to make out definitely come from Olivia’s mouth. 

“Why does she even need to know?” The words sound sultry, spoken slow and sweet in a way that makes every hair on your body raise up.

The door is cracked open just enough for you to see the two of them. She is sitting on your bed, her perfectly manicured hand wrapped tightly around your boyfriend’s wrist. You can’t see James’ face and you’re glad for it.

“Olivia-“ His warm, rich tone reaches your ears but you’re gone before you can hear anything else. You try to flee silently down the hall, down the stairs, and past the team. You’re two feet away from the door when Sirius steps into your path and you bump into him.

“Hey-“ He starts to greet you with a smile but it drops the moment he sees your face. You don’t know what you look like. Frantic, maybe? Are you flushed? Crying? You aren’t sure, all you feel is the need to get out of here. “Woah, are you alright?”

“I just-“ You take a heavy breath and move to step around him. You can definitely feel tears pooling in your eyes now and you shake your head. “I have to go.”

The last thing you see before the door shuts behind you is Remus approaching Sirius with a questioning look on his face, looking toward the door where you left. 

You walk for a while, nervous to go too far. You turn off your phone, just wanting some space and to be left alone for a while. You stay in familiar areas, especially given how the sun has fully set now. Eventually you reach the park near your house and take a seat on a bench. 

Your mind races. You didn’t see or hear anything that explicitly suggested your boyfriend was considering having an affair with the team’s social media manager. But her voice, the way she was holding his wrist. It’s obvious that’s what she was asking him. 

There are two different possibilities here. You couldn’t see James’ face, only his back and the way he stood in front of her. Either he was going along with it, or he wasn’t.

You know James. James loves you, and he is not a man who is afraid of showing it. He’s always getting you flowers and little gifts, leaving you small love notes. Before he leaves for every practice he gives you an extra long kiss to your lips, then your forehead, and he whispers, “I love you, angel.” You know James.

So, why hadn’t he pulled away from her? 

It was that thought that kept you on the bench. You sit there longer than you should. Any other night, any other circumstance, if you were out this late and James couldn’t reach you, you know he’d be worried sick. Your legs are stiff and your lower back aches when you finally stand. The walk back to your house is miserable, your soul heavy with anticipation. You don’t know what you will do if this somehow ends with you losing James. 

The lights are still on when you approach the house. The only car left in the driveway is James’ so you know all of his teammates have gone home. That means Olivia is gone too. 

Your feet drag as you move up the steps to the front door. You know it’s unlocked but you get your key out and move to unlock it anyway, just to delay this for just a moment. Every second is heavy with possibility, your heart aching. 

The door creaks open and you step inside. James sits up on the living room couch and the two of you lock eyes immediately. The first thing you notice is that his eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, they probably ache as much as yours do. You hate the thought that he has been crying here by himself. 

James stands, and he’s in front of you before you can blink. He gathers you into his arms like you’re something precious and you feel the warm heat of his breath on your neck as he exhales shakily. You wrap your arms around him too, grasping gently at the fabric of his shirt.

“Angel,” He breathes into your skin, and you find your eyes closing. His scent is warm, familiar and comforting. For a moment, just a moment, you let yourself go, focusing only on how wonderful it is to be in his arms. 

His voice pulls you out of it, rough and scratchy from crying. “I’m sorry I really didn’t think-“

You open your eyes to blink up at him when he pulls back. This is the worst conversation the two of you have ever had and it hasn’t even really started yet. You hate fighting with him. 

“Jamie-“ You start to say something. To tell him that you just need him to tell you he loves you. But you don’t get the chance, he’s already speaking.

“No, listen. I’m so sorry, I should have listened to you,” The look on his face breaks your heart, and when his eyes turn glassy, you can’t help but find your own burning again. “I thought she was just being nice, that she wanted to do a project for the team. I didn’t- when she said ‘we’, I didn’t think she meant her and I, I thought she meant the team, you know?” 

“Jamie-“ Your quiet, shaky voice barely breaks through his rambling explanation. His hands move to cup your face. 

“Sirius and Remus already chewed me out, and I know I messed up.” He says, his voice cracking a bit. His expression is raw and a tear slips down his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The words are barely out of your mouth when he kisses you. You don’t know if it is the intensity of the situation or the buildup of emotions but you find your knees weak and your grip on him tightening. 

“Jamie-“ You whisper against his lips, a silent plea.

“We fired her.” He whispers back, lips disconnecting from yours as he leans back just enough to look in your eyes. “As soon as I realized what she was asking me, I shut her down.”

“I know.” You tell him. And you do. You know James loves you, and you believe him when he tells you nothing happened with Olivia. “I shouldn’t have… run off. I just needed some time to think. And now you have your meet tomorrow and-“

“Don’t worry about me. I just need you.” James brushes his lips against your forehead before placing another lingering kiss to your lips.

“I love you, angel.” 

“I love you too, Jamie.” 

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© prettydaisygirl

[junkdrawerfan]

One thing I am getting a bit tired of in batfam fanfics is Tim being “morally grey” or being able to work with morally grey people for the wrong reasons.

Tim Drake is the moral center of the Bat Clan. He was introduced to pull Batman back when he got too close to the line. He does the same for Dick and other heroes throughout his runs. He believes in Batman’s code.

The point—the whole point— of Red Robin is Tim testing his moral code (Batman’s Moral Code) and choosing to reaffirm that code with his own reasons. He tries to kill the man who killed his father, gets close, and then stops it because he can’t kill, even if it might be justified like taking down a dangerous serial killer who purposely targets superhero’s families. He takes up the mantle of the fallen Robin (Red Robin) as a preemptive punishment because he believes he’s going to break the code and then proceeds to save, help, trust, and befriend people because at his core he can never become the Fallen Robin — no matter how much he tries to push himself over that edge or to logic his way out of empathy.

Tim Drake believes in the no kill rule because Tim Drake believes in redemption and second chances and helping people even when they don’t want to be helped.

And that is why he can work with morally grey people. That’s why he can make friends with League Assassins and work with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. It’s why he has, arguably, the closest relationship with Jason (depending on the run of course) and see the best in Jason. It’s why he advocates for Cass’ redemption when she’s fresh off the league. It’s why he has a good relationship with Helena (that’s her little brother!) and Selina.

Tim can work with morally grey people because he believes in the best of them. He believes in their redemption and their ability to chose the right thing. He will offer his hand again and again no matter their background or their past choices or if they hurt/betrayed/tried to kill him. It’s why he can forgive and move forward.

Tim is like Bruce at his best. Their moral code allows for a million chances because they are, at their core, optimists playing at cold rationality. Tim and Bruce would never have become heroes without that optimism and empathy. Bruce for obvious reasons. Tim because if he didn’t see the best in people, he would have tried to take Batman out himself before Bruce could become a killer.

Tim Drake is a menace. He is the superhero community’s favorite little brother. He has issues with boundaries and internal foot-in-mouth syndrome. He is off putting and socially inept and makes up for it with pure sincerity and practicing social behavior because he cares (The Handshake! Y’all know what I’m talking about!)

He’s been damaged by his time as a cape. He’s not as trusting as he used to be. He’s changed and grown as a character from the naive 13 year old who tracked Dick Grayson down at Haly’s circus because he just wanted to help. He has contingency plans for his best friends and his family at 17+ when at 15 he swore he never would.

But he is still, at his core, a good moral person who believes in redemption with an eternal optimism that defies the logic and rational he clings to.

(Side note: Tim is far more trusting than Bruce.

It’s why he has more positive relationships with lots of people, not just morally grey people. Even if his trust is damaged, he’s not Batman. He can never become Batman. Him becoming Batman, not just wearing the cowl but becoming him, is Tim’s Bad Ending because that is a Tim who lost his hope and empathy and trust to the darkness.

Bruce can withstand that darkness and cling to his optimism even as he lacks trust. Even when he needs reminders of why he does what he does.

Dick can too. Dick is Batman’s true heir because Dick can be a Batman who hopes and trusts even when consumed by Darkness (even when Bruce was dead and he was drowning under the cowl because of his grief, he still thanks Babs and teaches Damian that it can get better but that’s a meta for another post).

It is one of the fundamental differences between the three, in my opinion.)

[heesmiles]

FROSTBITE p.sh

synopsis ⤑ Sunghoon’s injury was comparable to the end of the world, at least for him it was. Having not been cleared in time to start practice with his team, Sunghoon is stuck practicing alone after hours, except he's not alone. Forced to share the rink with the practicing figure skaters was his version of hell, especially when one of them couldn't shut up about the fact that the world was their oyster and taking a positive look on life was the only way to live? How could he be positive when the only thing that made him happy was taken away from him. She had felt like frostbite sinking into his skin. Frostbite was quick, it stung and then it killed before you could even see it coming.

pairings ⤑ hockey player!sunghoon x figure skater!reader word count ⤑ 25k

warnings ⤑ smut, mentions of injury, grumpy x sunshine, ft. Ruka from baby monster, angst, probably more I'm missing...reader is heavily inspired by my yapping baby @beomiracles (serene).

Prologue. 

Sunghoon walked into the rink like a fallen prince returning to a ruined kingdom.

The cold welcomed him. Not with open arms, but with teeth. It bit through the seams of his hoodie, gnawed at the edges of his breath, and curled around the ache in his knee like a reminder. The air here was always sharp, always clean, always brimming with the promise of speed and sweat and glory. But tonight, it only felt hollow. Like an echo of the past, stretched thin over the bones of now. His blades scraped against the ice with a sound that used to thrill him. Now it felt surgical, sterile, like a scalpel carving open the truth he couldn’t avoid. 

He wasn’t on the team. Not really. Not anymore. Not while he recovered. And to Sunghoon, that meant the end of the world. Not playing hockey was his apocalypse. Jay said he needed time. Coach Bennett had nodded, voice clipped and clinical, masking the decision behind phrases like “risk mitigation” and “long-term recovery.” But Sunghoon knew what it meant: they didn’t trust his body, and maybe just maybe they didn’t trust him. What a load of bullshit. Sunghoon could play through the pain. He’s done it before. He wasn’t one to shy away from a little leg injury. Who cares, he’d push through. That’s what real pros did and Sunghoon would be a real pro one day. 

He clenched his jaw as the thought burned through him. His knee twinged again, and he tried not to limp, tried to walk like it didn’t hurt, tried to be the player he used to be. Every movement felt like a performance for an audience that had already left the theater. And then he heard it. A laugh. Light and lilted, drifting through the rink like glitter in a snow globe. He didn’t need to turn to know who it belonged to.

The figure skaters were still here. Of course they were. Sunghoon let out a groan, loud enough to be heard, sharp enough to cut. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. She was the worst of them. Not in talent, but in spirit. Always smiling, always talking like life was some golden sunrise just waiting to be kissed. She had that annoying, relentless optimism, the kind that made Sunghoon’s blood itch. It wasn't just naive — it was offensive. Especially to someone like him, whose world had cracked open and swallowed him whole. How can someone look at the world and life and all that it offers and be happy about that? Life chewed you up and spit you out like old gum whenever it had the chance. 

She was all light. He was the void that light avoided. Still, she twirled like the world had never wronged her. Every glide, every spin, every leap across the ice was effortless. She was a poem written in motion. And somehow, her presence made the silence of his isolation scream louder. He dragged a puck across the rink, his stick slicing through the quiet like a blade. The sound was dull, defeated. She didn’t leave. Of course not. She was too kind or too stubborn or too oblivious to understand that he didn’t want to share this place. Not with anyone. Especially not her. She skated past, the breeze of her motion catching his hoodie, lifting it for a fraction of a second. She left behind a sentence as light as her blades: “Pretty night, huh? Ice looks good.” 

Sunghoon didn’t respond. 

Not because he hadn’t heard, but because he had. Her voice sank beneath his skin like snowmelt — cold, but oddly soft. He hated that about her. Hated how she turned everything into beauty. How she made it look easy. But figure skaters didn’t know what it was to fall and stay broken. They didn’t know what it was to wake every day and feel your identity splinter under your ribs. They didn’t know how it felt to sit in the stands while your teammates practiced without you. Laughed without you. Moved on without you.  

He looked at her then, really looked. And for a moment, he thought of frostbite. 

Not because she was cold, but because she was warm — the kind of warm you feel right before the skin goes numb. Right before the blood stops moving. Right before the damage sets in. She had felt like that from the start. Quick. Unexpected. Beautiful. 

And by the time he noticed her, by the time he realized she was changing something in him, it was already too late. 

After. 

Sunghoon didn’t look at you again. Not when you moved like a falling star tracing soft-burning arcs in a frozen sky. Not when your laughter spilled into the rafters, bright as windchimes caught in a spring storm. Not even when you passed close enough for your perfume, warm citrus and something he couldn’t name to slip beneath his guard and settle in his lungs like memory. He focused instead on his own rhythm. On fury and fire, on the merciless repetition of sprints. Forward, brake. Backward, pivot. Turn. Drive. His blades carved the ice with the same fury that burned behind his eyes, every motion a prayer to reclaim what he’d lost. 

Jay said he wasn’t ready. Coach Bennett nodded like a verdict had been passed, and just like that, his kingdom of ice and glory had crumbled beneath him. Now, he ran drills alone in the shadow-hours, a ghost trying to resurrect himself one sharp breath at a time. This was supposed to be penance. Precision. Control. But then there was you. 

You weren’t supposed to be here. Not really. Not like that. Not with your reckless grace and your endless optimism. You spun where he sprinted. You leapt where he lunged. And you smiled like life hadn’t carved a hole in your chest and left you breathless in the wreckage. You were a contradiction. Light in a place he’d turned dark on purpose. 

Still, he moved around you. Like a storm steering around a cathedral. Like a soldier tiptoeing through a garden he didn’t believe in. Until you skated into his path. He didn’t see you at first, he was locked in the repetition, the heartbeat-thunder of his blades slicing the world into before and after. But then, there you were, gliding in without hesitation, your body all poetry and provocation.  

Sunghoon veered, instinct sharp and immediate. His edge caught. Balance tipped. His world lurched and for one heart-clenching second, he was weightless and helpless and human. He caught himself on the boards with a sharp breath, pain flashing down his leg like a warning flare. Behind him, your voice rose, bright, amused, infuriating.  

“That was a triple lutz of fury. You okay, Mr. Thundercloud?” He turned slowly, every muscle tight with the effort not to snap. 

“This is a hockey rink,” he bit out, eyes dark, voice heavy with disdain. “Not a ballerina recital.” 

You just grinned, like you hadn’t heard the venom — or worse, didn’t care. “It’s called figure skating,” you replied, the words wrapped in sunlight and sarcasm. “But I’ll let the insult slide… this time.” He stared at you for a beat too long. You were smiling. Like you’d won something. Like this was a game and he was your opponent. And for the briefest, strangest moment, he forgot how to breathe. 

Then he scoffed under his breath, muttered something bitter and small, and pushed off again away from your voice, your grin, your golden defiance. But your laughter followed him across the ice, light as snowfall, impossible to ignore. He skated harder. Faster. Angry at the sound. Angrier at the way it stayed. You were the flame he never meant to touch. But you’d already left blisters behind. 

The house loomed before him, golden-lit and quiet in the blue hush of evening. Sunghoon stepped across the threshold like a soldier returning from war, though the battlefield had only been frozen water and a girl who laughed like she belonged to the light. He limped. Not dramatically he would never allow that but enough that each step sent sparks of fire through his knee. His leg was screaming, a symphony of torn sinew and stubborn pride. He didn’t slow. Wouldn’t. Not for pain. Not for anyone. 

The frat house was unusually still for a Friday night. No bass shaking the walls. No shouted dares or the sound of someone racing through the halls with a fire extinguisher again. Just a soft, echoing quiet that pressed against the walls like an old quilt — threadbare, familiar. Heeseung was probably with his girlfriend, tangled up in the kind of love that softened even his sharpest sarcasm. And Jake, well, Jake had been quieter lately too. Ever since his girlfriend’s due date began casting long shadows across his smile. The house had learned to tiptoe around anticipation, around the hush of something sacred arriving. 

Sometimes Jay played his guitar in the evenings, those bittersweet chords bleeding down the stairs like spilled wine. But tonight, there was no music. Only the faint crackle of something cooking and the rhythmic clink of a wooden spoon against a pot. Sunghoon followed the scent to the kitchen, where Jay stood at the stove in a hoodie and sweatpants, sleeves pushed to his elbows, stirring something that smelled warm and nostalgic, tomato sauce, maybe. Garlic. Something close to comfort. 

Jay glanced up, eyes flicking to the limp before Sunghoon could hide it. “You okay?” he asked, brow creasing. “You’re pushing too hard again. You need to slow down.” 

Sunghoon’s jaw clenched. The words hit like cold water, shocking, unwelcome. He dropped his stick against the wall with a dull thunk, the sound far too final. “I don’t need your concern,” he snapped, voice low, bitter. “And I sure as hell don’t need advice from the guy who kicked me off the team.” 

Jay’s stirring paused. The kitchen seemed to hold its breath. “You weren’t kicked off,” Jay said carefully, like choosing the wrong word might light a fuse. “It’s a recovery period. You know that. It’s just protocol—” 

“Protocol?” Sunghoon echoed, a scoff splitting the word in two. “You think I care what the official term is? You benched me, Jay. You and Coach. And now you want to play big brother?” Jay turned fully now, eyes steady but tired. “It’s not about playing anything. I care, Sunghoon. That’s why we’re doing this. You’re not ready yet.”

“You don’t get to decide that.” 

“Someone has to.” 

There it was. The truth, bare and blunt. And it cracked something in Sunghoon, something already splintered beneath the surface. He stepped back, breath short, throat tight with all the things he didn’t want to admit: that the rink didn’t feel the same, that he wasn’t sure he’d ever skate like he used to, that you haunted the corners of his mind like a flame that refused to go out. He turned on his heel, ignoring the flare of pain that shot up his leg. “Whatever. Just—keep your advice to yourself.” 

And then he was out of the kitchen, storming up the stairs two at a time like he could leave the conversation behind if he moved fast enough. The pain chased him anyway. At the top of the landing, he paused, one hand on the railing, the other clenched into a fist. The house was silent again. Jay hadn’t followed. The scent of sauce still lingered, but it no longer smelled like comfort. It smelled like a life that was continuing without him. 

He exhaled shakily. And behind his eyes, he saw the rink. Saw you. Spinning like the world was made of light. Smiling like you’d never been broken. He hated that it stayed with him. Hated it more that he wanted it to. 

Your dorm room was warm in the way a lived-in space should be. Golden light pooled against the far wall like honey, slanting through the blinds in stripes, soft and sleepy. The hum of a quiet Friday night filtered in through the window, distant laughter, footsteps echoing down the hall, the occasional door creak or hallway chatter swallowed by plaster walls. 

Ruka was where she always was at this hour, curled up at her desk like a monk in silent study, her headphones draped loosely around her neck, textbooks spread like sacred offerings across the surface. She barely glanced up when you opened the door, nose buried in something with a terrifying title, highlighter held like a dagger mid-stroke. You didn’t mind. 

The two of you weren’t close, not in the way girls braided hair and whispered secrets into pillows at three in the morning. But there was a quiet kind of companionship in coexisting. She listened. You filled the air. She was younger than you, ran with a different crowd. 

As always, you started talking. Words spilled from your mouth like marbles from an upturned jar, clattering over every thought you hadn’t had time to process. You flopped onto your bed and kicked off your shoes, legs hanging over the side like punctuation. “I swear the rink was cursed today. I could feel it in the air — like the ghosts of last season were judging me. And someone — won’t name names — almost ran me over. Again. Do I have a sign on my back that says ‘human speed bump’? Honestly, it’s impressive how fast he moves for someone with a busted knee. Like, hello? Take a nap, eat a granola bar, embrace mortality or something—” 

You paused to take a breath, dragging your fingers through your hair. “Anyway,” you continued, flopping dramatically onto your back, staring up at the ceiling as if it held answers. “I survived. Mostly. Though Park Sunghoon nearly gave me frostbite with just a look. I swear, I’ve never seen someone skate like they’re mad at God.” That was when Ruka looked up. 

It was subtle — a tilt of the head, a flicker of curiosity beneath her steady gaze. But you caught it. The way her highlighter froze mid-air. The way one perfectly arched brow quirked in delicate, deliberate motion. “Wait,” she said slowly, voice soft but edged with intrigue. “Park Sunghoon?” 

You blinked, propping yourself up on your elbows. “Yeah?” 

“The hockey player?” 

You nodded, slower this time, as if each motion unlocked some hidden meaning. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, so rare and quiet it felt like catching a butterfly mid-flight. “He’s really cute,” she said simply. “I kind of have a crush on him.” And just like that, the air shifted. 

Not drastically, no thunderclap, no sudden gust, but in the way a still lake ripples when someone tosses a stone. The world tilted a few degrees. You stared at her. Not out of disbelief, but in the strange, dissonant surprise that came from hearing someone else say his name with softness instead of frustration. Because you had only ever spoken of Sunghoon with fire in your voice. Sharp-edged. Wry. Annoyed, mostly. 

But Ruka’s words were wrapped in ribbon. Gentle. Blushing. You laughed, more to yourself than at her. “Well, that makes one of us.” 

She looked at you then, really looked, head tilted, eyes curious. “You don’t think he’s cute?” You hesitated. The thing was… you didn’t know. Not really. He was all sharp lines and silent storms, the kind of boy who walked like he didn’t belong to the earth. Beautiful, maybe, but in the way wolves were, wild, cold, untouchable. 

“I think,” you said finally, drawing each word like a thread between your fingers, “he’s complicated.” 

Ruka smiled again, turning back to her textbook with a knowing kind of grace. “Those usually are.” And just like that, the moment passed. She was back to her quiet, and you were left staring at the ceiling again, wondering when his name had started tasting different in your mouth. Like something that might linger. Like something that might matter. 

Monday morning clung to the world like a yawn that never quite finished. The sky was that dreamy kind of blue, the color of notebook margins and sleepy eyes, and you were already two sips into your iced coffee, pretending it had magical properties. Your lecture hall buzzed softly with life, pages flipping, keyboards clacking, the distant groan of someone remembering they had a quiz. You sank into your seat and opened your laptop, but your fingers hovered above the keys like dancers unsure of the next step. Your mind? Miles away. Lost somewhere between calculus and chaos. 

“Okay,” you whispered to yourself, drawing shapes in the condensation on your cup. “Finals are coming. Sure. Death approaches in a syllabus-shaped cloak. But we’re gonna be fine. We’ve survived worse. Like that chem lab last semester. Or the time you accidentally locked yourself in the practice rink because you thought the red button opened the door. That was fun.” You laughed a little to yourself, a soft musical thing, then added quietly, “Sharing a rink with Park Sunghoon? Pfft. Easy. He’s just one very grumpy man with a stick. It’s basically like living with a thunderstorm. Moody, loud, and occasionally electric — but you bring an umbrella and move on.” 

You told yourself this because optimism was your armor. Because the world was already heavy enough, and if you didn’t keep spinning, you feared you’d sink. And besides, you liked spinning. You liked believing that everything, in its own way, would bloom eventually. Your fingers tapped absent-mindedly on your notebook. You were mid-thought — something about figuring out a study schedule, maybe, with your chin resting in your hand, your eyes soft and unfocused, when the air in the room shifted. 

Louder voices broke through the usual murmur like a crack of thunder across calm skies. You blinked, sat up straighter. At the back of the lecture hall, four silhouettes gathered in a tight circle. You recognized them instantly. Jay’s dark hair, Jake’s easy posture, Heeseung’s lazy slouch. And Sunghoon, standing like a blade half-drawn from its sheath, tension coiled in every muscle. Their voices weren’t loud loud, but they carried. 

“I told you, I’m fine,” Sunghoon bit out, arms crossed like a shield. “You’re treating me like I’ve lost a leg.” Jay said something quieter — calmer — but you couldn’t make out the words. Sunghoon shook his head, jaw clenched. 

“I’m not some kid who needs babysitting. I could be out there with you. But instead? I’m stuck skating in circles with the goddamn figure skaters.” The words hit like a slap. No warning. No mercy. You blinked once. Twice. You looked down at your notebook, at the spirals you’d been doodling that suddenly looked like a fall. Like something unraveling. 

You weren’t surprised, not really. Not when you’d seen the anger in his shoulders, the way he moved like something had been carved out of him. Grief in motion. Frustration dressed in skates and scowls. Still, hearing it out loud… hurt. Just a little. Like biting into something sweet and finding the bitter underneath.

You forced a smile. Told yourself, He’s just mad. Just hurting. And people in pain say things they don’t mean. You knew that. You’d always known that. So you tucked the ache somewhere deep, beneath the layers of warmth you wrapped around your heart every day. You held your chin a little higher. Kept the sunshine burning in your chest even when the clouds gathered. 

Because that’s what you did. You stayed soft. You stayed bright. Even when the world gave you every reason not to. You glanced back at them one more time, just long enough to catch the storm still brewing in his eyes. Then you turned away. And smiled again. Even though this one didn’t quite reach your eyes. 

The late afternoon folded over the campus like a well-worn quilt, stitched in gold and quiet. Shadows stretched long and slow across the sidewalks, and the sky blushed softly, unsure whether it wanted to be day or night. You walked back to your dorm with your headphones on but no music playing, just the hush of your own thoughts echoing in the space between footsteps and fading sunlight. 

The building was its usual self: scuffed floors, sleepy corridors, the scent of someone's attempt at instant noodles clinging to the stairwell air. You climbed the steps like you always did, counting them beneath your breath like charms. 

One, two, three, four—everything will be fine.

Five, six, seven—you're stronger than this.

Eight, nine—just lace your skates and keep moving. 

Your key clicked into the lock, the door creaked open, and — Silence. Stillness, not unfamiliar, but… different. Ruka’s side of the room sat in its usual state of meticulous calm. Bed made like a hotel sheet ad, her books aligned like soldiers on her desk. But the chair was empty. Her headphones were gone. Her little desk lamp, usually the only star in your shared little galaxy was off. Your brows furrowed. She wasn’t the type to vanish without a trace. She was quiet, sure. Steady as a heartbeat. But dependable as gravity. On Saturdays, she studied. With her color-coded notes and an herbal tea steaming gently beside her elbow. A ritual. A rhythm.

You dropped your bag onto your bed and stood for a moment, frozen between thoughts. The silence was thick, pressing at your ears like water, and you almost called out her name, just to hear a sound bounce back. But you didn’t. You let it go. People have lives. Maybe she went out. Maybe someone swept her into a spontaneous adventure, a brief rebellion against her usual constellations. Maybe she just needed to breathe outside these four walls. You told yourself all of this, gently, while pulling open your bottom drawer.

Inside, your skates gleamed dully in the late-day light, blades catching the edge of dusk. You ran your fingers over the laces, the leather warm from where your dreams lived inside them. Then you pulled out your duffel, began packing with practiced hands, pads, gloves, that ridiculous fleece-lined jacket you never actually wore but always brought just in case. Each item folded like a promise. Each zipper, a punctuation mark. Each movement, a ritual. This is how we prepare. This is how we carry on. 

You glanced again at Ruka’s desk as you slung the bag over your shoulder, something quiet fluttering in your chest. Not quite worry, not quite longing. Just the awareness that something familiar had gone just a little bit strange.

You left the dorm with that feeling trailing behind you like a thread, caught in the breeze of your footsteps. Outside, the sky was starting to darken. Time to skate. Time to shine.

Even if someone else’s words still echoed like bruises in the back of your mind. 

The rink was a cathedral of echoes when you arrived, cold light spilling from the overheads like moonlight dragged down to earth. You stepped through the side door with your duffel swinging low and your breath fogging in the air, a silent offering to the frozen gods of routine. The chill kissed your cheeks the moment you entered, familiar and unbothered by your presence. The ice welcomed you without question unlike the boy skating circles at the far end of the rink, cutting lines through frost like he was angry at the surface itself. 

Park Sunghoon. 

You saw him the moment you stepped through the arch of metal and fluorescent glow. Sharp lines of movement, precise but edged with frustration, like a dancer trying to turn fury into choreography. He didn’t look up. Of course, he didn’t. You might as well have been a ghost to him, a passing flicker in his periphery. And still… his words from this morning clung to you like fog to a mirror. “I’m stuck skating in circles with the goddamn figure skaters.” 

You could’ve held onto that. Let it curdle in your chest. But you didn’t. You’d already chosen to let it melt like frost under sunlight. Because that was how you survived people like him, people with cold hearts and stormy eyes. You stayed warm. You stayed soft. Gooey, like a cookie. Even if his silence sliced like wind over bare skin. 

You moved toward the bench in the corner, began lacing your skates with steady fingers. A familiar rhythm. Loop. Pull. Loop. Pull. You took a deep breath. Told yourself that the ice was still yours. That joy could still be found here. And then you stepped onto it. The rink hummed beneath your blades. You skated a gentle warm-up, smooth glides and soft turns, tracing patterns in silence like a painter laying down the first strokes of something that might become beautiful. You didn’t look at him. Not really. But you felt him, like a shadow trailing just out of view. 

He kept his distance. Good. Let him.

You spun into your routine, finding the quiet joy in motion again. Practicing your turns, letting momentum carry you like a whispered secret. And then, a voice loud and shrill broke the icy silence between you two. “WOO! GO, SUNGHOON!” Your skate caught slightly on the edge of your turn, not enough to fall, but enough to blink you out of your trance. You slowed to a glide, turning toward the source. 

There, in the bleachers near the glass, waving like she was at a concert and not a cold, half-empty rink, was none other than Ruka. Your brows lifted before you could stop them. She had swapped her usual hoodie-and-headphones look for something more casual-cute. Perched on the edge of the seat like a cat in a sunbeam. And her eyes? They were locked onto Sunghoon like he was something out of a dream she’d once dared to whisper aloud. 

“Come on, you look great out there!” she called, clapping. “That last sprint? Totally NHL-worthy!” You blinked. Slowly. Sunghoon, mid-stride, skidded slightly, his jaw ticking as he looked over at her. Not a smile. Not a nod. Just the sharp exhale of a man who’d rather be anywhere else. His annoyance was visible in the set of his shoulders, the way he stared past her like she was fog on the glass, there but inconvenient. 

Your heart tilted sideways in your chest. Not because of the awkwardness. Not because Ruka was cheering for the very boy who had called your world a joke in a voice laced with disdain. But because you saw him. You saw how he stiffened under her praise, how his skates moved sharper, faster, like he was trying to outskate her words. Like kindness grated on him more than silence. Like admiration was a language he didn’t know how to read. 

You stayed still for a moment, one hand on your hip, the other brushing a strand of hair from your eyes. You watched the way he avoided your gaze with deliberate precision. Like even eye contact might unravel him. Then you took a breath. Pushed off. Returned to your own practice. 

Because the ice didn’t belong to him. And your light didn’t need permission to shine.

Still, as you skated, you felt something settle into your bones. Not quite sadness. Not quite jealousy. Just… the sharp awareness that everyone wore masks. Even the ones who scowled at sunshine and rolled their eyes at laughter. Especially them. 

The hours unfurled like ribbons across the ice, silver and slow. You and Sunghoon spun your separate galaxies across the same frozen sky, orbiting each other in careful silence. His skates tore into the rink with force, blades slicing like twin swords, while yours curved and dipped with the grace of moonlight slipping through branches. He was precision and thunder. You were rhythm and light. 

You didn’t speak. Not once. But you felt him. And somehow, that was worse. Every time he passed, your chest tightened just a little, remembering the way his voice had clipped those words this morning, how he’d tossed your world aside with a single breath. But the cold has a way of preserving more than just bruises; it clears the mind, too. By the time practice wound to a close, your hurt had melted into determination, soft and fierce. 

The locker room door creaked as you stepped off the ice. And there he was, Sunghoon, perched on the bench like a statue carved from winter itself. He sat hunched over his skates, fingers tugging sharply at the laces, his jaw tight, sweat painting constellations at his temple. You watched him for a beat. The way his leg trembled slightly. The sharp inhale when he shifted. Pain. Not just ghost pain, not the phantom ache of healing. Real. Present.

Your eyes narrowed, and the words came out before you could swallow them. “You’re doing it wrong,” you said, stepping forward, breath curling in the cold. 

Sunghoon didn’t look up. “Doing what wrong?” 

“Your stride,” you said, matter-of-fact but warm, like you were offering a cup of tea to a frostbitten soul. “That’s why your leg still hurts so bad. Your form’s all off.” 

He finally glanced at you, those glacier eyes narrowing, irritation flickering just behind them like lightning beneath snowclouds. “I’m what?” 

“You’re playing wrong,” you repeated, standing tall despite your worn skates, your cheeks pink from the chill and adrenaline. “You’re putting too much pressure on the outer part of your knee when you push off. You’re compensating for the pain, which is making it worse.” 

He scoffed. “And you’re what, a doctor now?” 

“Nope.” You smiled, brightly, undeterred. “Just someone who’s fallen on her ass about a thousand times. Figure skaters crash constantly, but we know how to angle our bodies so the impact spreads. It’s all physics. Leverage. Balance. Control.” He looked back down at his skates, tugging harder now, the muscle in his forearm twitching. 

“I can help you, if you want,” you offered, genuine, hopeful, stubborn. “Just with the angles. Not to overstep. Just to help you skate without pain.” He didn’t answer right away. For a heartbeat, you thought maybe — just maybe — he was considering it. That something in his storm-cloud gaze might soften. Then he snorted. “No thanks, Sunshine.”

The nickname was sharp, but not cruel. More like a brush-off wrapped in thin sarcasm, tossed over his shoulder like a towel. He stood, grabbed his jacket, and limped toward the exit, each step radiating quiet fury. You watched him go, your hands still resting on your hips, heart stung but not shattered. Because here’s the thing about sunshine. It doesn’t need permission to rise. It just does.

So you exhaled. Smiled again, just for yourself. And whispered under your breath like a promise: “Tomorrow, then.” Because you weren’t done. Not even close. The ice hadn’t melted between you yet.

You slipped through the dorm door with your skates still swinging from your shoulder, the scent of cold clinging to your hair like snowflakes that refused to melt. The hallway was dim, the kind of golden hush that only existed in the sliver of hours between late afternoon and true evening, and the air in your room felt just a degree warmer than the rink, barely but enough to sting your fingers with returning blood. And there she was.

Ruka. Curled cross-legged on her bed, laptop open, notebooks spread like wings around her. Her hair was tucked into a low bun, earbuds in, and she was scribbling something down with a pencil that had been chewed nearly to death. For a moment, you paused in the doorway. Something felt…off. Not visibly. Not loudly. But you knew people the way skaters knew their balance points — by instinct. You could feel when someone had shifted, even if they looked the same. She didn’t look up when you came in. 

Still, you offered a bright little sigh, a soft smile breaking across your face like morning light spilling across your pillow. “Hey, you disappeared before I left the rink.” You tossed your bag gently onto the floor and began tugging off your coat, the fabric whispering across your skin. “Didn’t even hear you leave. Were you skating again?” You played dumb, of course. 

Ruka blinked at her notebook, then slowly pulled an earbud free. Her eyes met yours. cool, calm, unreadable. “I wasn’t skating,” she said simply. 

You tilted your head, fingers pausing mid-zip on your hoodie. “Oh. So… what were you doing there?” 

it was a harmless question. Light as air. But her answer landed like a stone. “Just watching.” She turned back to her notes like punctuation, and you blinked. Something in her voice had been dipped in frost. Not biting, but distant. Measured. Not her usual soft-spoken stillness, the kind that let you chatter through silences without ever feeling unwelcome. No—this was different. This was cold. You stood there for a beat, hoodie half unzipped, heart tilting a little sideways. 

“Right,” you said, voice laced in artificial warmth. “That’s cool. I didn’t know you were a fan of the rink.” Ruka didn’t reply.

You let out a little laugh, quiet, the kind that fills a space just to prove you still can. And then, still smiling, you crossed the room and sat on your bed, your bones aching from practice, your mind unraveling in quiet questions. You didn’t press. You didn’t pry. That wasn’t your way.

But you thought about the way she had cheered earlier, about how her voice had filled the cold air with warmth meant for someone else. You thought about Sunghoon, skating like he could outrun something, and the way her gaze had followed him like he was the sun she’d never dared look at before. You lay back against the pillow, eyes on the ceiling. Sometimes, things shift before you see them coming. And sometimes, people surprise you in the quietest ways.

But still, you stayed kind. Stayed bright. Because even if the room was colder than you remembered, you refused to stop being the warmth. 

The night had softened by the time Sunghoon made it back to the house, the sky bruised with the fading violet of dusk, and the air bit at his skin like it resented his stubbornness. His leg burned. Not the sharp, immediate pain of an old injury flaring, but the deep, heavy ache of something being pushed past its breaking point. Again. 

The front door creaked open under his weight, and the warmth of the frat house spilled over him like syrup. thick and too sweet. Familiar voices tangled together just past the hallway. Laughter. The clink of plates. The low strum of Jay’s voice. He almost turned around. But pride is a chain wrapped around the ribs. And his wouldn’t let go. He stepped inside.

The living room glowed gold, lit by the low hum of lamplight and the occasional flicker of the muted TV. Jay was leaned back on the couch, an open water bottle in hand, while Jake sat beside his very pregnant girlfriend, who had her feet propped up on a pillow. Her belly rose like a gentle tide beneath her sweater, and her eyes shone with that ever-glowing light. soft, observant, and infinitely kind. Three heads turned as Sunghoon limped through the door, his hoodie half-zipped and damp with leftover sweat from practice. 

“You’re limping worse than yesterday,” Jay said, always the captain, always the voice of reason. 

Jake chimed in a beat later, his brows drawn in concern. “Why won’t you just rest, man? You’re not gonna heal if you keep pushing like this.” Sunghoon dropped his gear by the door with a heavy thud, his jaw tight, the pain crawling up his leg like a storm trying to find a place to land. 

“I’m fine,” he gritted out, not looking at them. “I don’t need a lecture.” 

Jay sighed, the sound edged with exhaustion. “It’s not a lecture, Hoon. It’s basic logic. You’re tearing yourself up out there. You think Coach Bennett’ll let you back in if you break yourself completely?” 

Sunghoon turned, irritation flashing sharp and raw in his eyes. “I wouldn’t be ‘breaking’ if you hadn’t pulled me off the ice in the first place.” 

“You’re not off the team,” Jay replied calmly, setting his bottle down. “You’re on a required recovery period.” 

“The same thing,” Sunghoon snapped. “Don’t split hairs.” 

A quiet cough cut through the tension, and Jake’s girlfriend — sweet as spring rain — shifted a little on the couch. “I think what they’re trying to say is… maybe listening to your body isn’t the worst idea,” she said gently, her voice like a balm. “I mean, sometimes we think we’re fine just because we want to be.” 

It should’ve landed like comfort. But it struck like a match. “Mind your business,” Sunghoon said sharply, the words out before he could call them back. The room froze.

Jake’s head snapped around, his eyes flaring. “Hey. Don’t talk to my girl like that.” The silence that followed was molten. Sunghoon’s anger flickered, dimmed, and died out in a single breath. He stared at the floor, guilt pooling heavy in his chest like sleet. 

“I didn’t mean…” His voice cracked, quieter now. “Sorry. That was—stupid. I’m sorry.” Jake’s girlfriend gave him a small, understanding smile. She always forgave too easily. That only made it worse. 

Sunghoon grabbed his water bottle and turned away, shoulders stiff, shame clinging to him like another layer of sweat-soaked fabric. He climbed the stairs slowly, every step a needle driven into the muscle behind his knee. When he reached his room, he shut the door softly almost tenderly and stood there in the quiet, staring at nothing for a long moment. The pain was still there, pulsing like a second heartbeat. But deeper than that — beneath the bruised ego and the battered pride was something else. 

Your voice, bright and persistent, kept echoing in his mind.

“You’re playing wrong.”“It’s all physics. Leverage. Balance.”“I can help you.”

Sunghoon ran a hand through his hair, fingers trembling just a little. It had sounded ridiculous earlier. But now, with the pain sharp and unrelenting, and the silence of the room pressing in like a judgment, your offer didn’t seem so foolish. Maybe it wasn’t pity. Maybe it wasn’t an insult. Maybe you actually knew what you were talking about.

He sighed and sat on the edge of his bed, leg stretched out in front of him like a broken line. The ice, the skates, the ache, the quiet praise you gave him even when he hadn’t earned it… it all blurred together. And for the first time in a long while, he didn’t try to push the pain away. He let it sit beside him like a mirror. Maybe see you again tomorrow. And maybe… he’d listen this time. 

The sky was the color of wet pearls as you made your way to the rink, the kind of soft gray that promised rain but never delivered. Your skates were slung over your shoulder, biting at your hip with every step, and your breath came out in visible puffs that floated like little ghosts of determination. You were a girl on a mission, fueled by blind optimism and an unyielding belief that even the most frozen things could melt if you were warm enough, loud enough, kind enough. And Sunghoon? He was a glacier. But even glaciers cracked under time and pressure.

The door to the rink groaned open and welcomed you with that familiar chill, that bite of air laced with the perfume of ice and steel. You stepped in like it was a cathedral, reverent in your own way, eyes scanning the space that had become your evening altar. He was there. Already. Park Sunghoon. Laced in shadow and silence. 

He sat on the bench near the boards, bent over his skates, fingers threading laces with a quiet intensity, jaw set like it was carved from marble. His hair was damp at the edges, the kind of mess that spoke of someone who didn’t care enough to fix it but hadn’t quite let go of vanity either. The light caught on the sharp curve of his cheekbone, and for a moment you paused just a moment because something about him looked… different. He looked Less angry. Or maybe just tired of being angry. You couldn’t figure out which was which. 

You marched up anyway, smile already blooming like a sunflower on your face, warmth radiating off of you in a way the ice couldn’t fight. “Okay,” you said, breathless not from the cold but from the flurry of thoughts bursting behind your eyes. “Hear me out. I’ve been thinking and don’t roll your eyes, this is important I’ve been thinking that maybe, just maybe, you need me.” He didn’t look up. You didn’t let it stop you. “Your form is off. I’m not just saying that to be annoying. I mean, I am annoying, but not this time. You’re straining the wrong muscle groups and you’re compensating for your knee in a way that’s going to make it worse. You’re going to tear something again and then you really won’t be able to play. And I know, I know I’m just a figure skater and you think I don’t get it, but we fall for a living. Literally. And we fall well. We learn to twist midair so the ice kisses us instead of cracking us open, and I could show you, I could help you—” 

“Okay.”

You blinked.

“What?”

Sunghoon finally looked up. His eyes met yours, dark and steady, but not cruel. Not cold. Just quiet. “I said okay,” he repeated, voice low but clear. “Meet me here. Every weekday. 6:30 p.m. sharp.” 

You stared at him, stunned into something dangerously close to speechless. “Wait. Wait, did you — did you say yes?”

“I did.”

“Well don’t deny me — wait. What.” A ghost of a smirk, barely there, almost imaginary curved at the corner of his mouth. “Meet me here on time, Sunshine.” 

You laughed, half in disbelief, half in relief, the sound tumbling out of you like birds startled into flight. “Sunshine, huh? You really can’t help yourself with the nicknames.” He stood then, tall and limping slightly, but not so much that you missed the way his frame shifted lighter. Like saying yes had peeled off a layer of armor. Like hope, when it finally arrived, it didn't have to announce itself loudly; it just had to be there. “6:30,” he repeated. “Don’t be late.”

You saluted with mock seriousness, grinning wide. “Sir, yes sir.”

He rolled his eyes and skated toward the ice, but this time… this time he didn’t avoid you. Not entirely. And just like that, a crack had opened in the glacier. Small. Fragile. But real. And you, all sun and stubbornness, were ready to shine straight through it. 

The next day dawned with a sky stretched in pale watercolor, as if the heavens themselves were yawning awake. And you moved with purpose, energy stitched into your limbs like golden thread, skipping down the hallway with your skates in one hand and a banana in the other, mid-bite, mid-monologue about how today was going to be the day Sunghoon learned the art of surrender. Not to defeat — oh no but to gravity. To momentum. To pain that teaches rather than punishes. 

The rink was quieter than usual when you arrived, its emptiness echoing with the soft hum of the refrigeration system beneath the ice. The air was its usual crisp kiss, sharp enough to sting but not to bruise. Sunghoon was already there, of course, punctual and pouting. He sat on the bench with his skate half-laced and his hoodie still on, like a knight begrudgingly preparing for a battle he didn’t believe in. You practically twirled in, dropping your bag with theatrical flair. “Alright, Captain Crankypants,” you called out, voice bright and bell-clear, “today we begin with the basics. Lesson one: how to fall like a pro.” 

He groaned, long and low, as if your very presence was the headache he couldn’t shake. “You want me to fall? On purpose?” His eyes flicked up at you, unimpressed. “Yeah, that sounds super smart.” You beamed at him, entirely unbothered. “Not just fall. Fall well. There’s an art to it, you know. A science. A rhythm. You can’t just slam into the ground like a dropped dumbbell, you’ll wreck yourself that way.” 

He scoffed, standing slowly, testing his weight on that healing leg with guarded precision. “Pretty sure falling’s the last thing I should be doing if I want to get back on the ice with my team.” 

“But that’s exactly why you should,” you replied, tilting your head, as if the answer was written in the frost forming along the glass. “Because falling isn’t the problem, Sunghoon. It’s how you fall. We don’t learn to stop gravity. We learn to meet it, roll with it, get back up without it stealing anything more than our breath.” His eyes narrowed, a storm cloud gathering, quiet but looming. “That’s figure skating stuff.” 

“Exactly,” you chirped. “Which is why you’re lucky you’ve got me.” 

He looked at you like you were speaking in tongues. “You’re enjoying this way too much.” 

“Oh, absolutely,” you said, laughing as you tugged on your gloves. “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” With slow reluctance, like a stubborn mountain giving in to time, Sunghoon followed you onto the ice. His strides were careful, a ghost of his former fluidity trailing behind each push. You watched him move with a softness in your gaze, knowing he was fighting something far deeper than physical injury. He was mourning a version of himself that had been left behind in the locker room that day, when his knee gave out and the world fell with it. You stopped near center rink and turned to face him. “Okay. Watch me.” 

You let yourself fall, dramatically and deliberately. A gentle twist of the hips, a tuck of the arms, a controlled slide that kissed the ice instead of collided with it. You rose just as quickly, nimble and unbothered. “See? Easy peasy, gravity is greedy but we’re smarter.” 

He muttered something under his breath, something about this being ridiculous, but you caught the way his lips twitched, not quite a smile, not quite disapproval. Just… conflict. And curiosity. “Try it,” you said, your voice dipped in sugar and sunshine. “Don’t think. Just fall. Trust that I’ll teach you how to land softer.” 

He hesitated, eyes flickering across the rink like it might mock him, like it might remember how once, not long ago, it had hurt him. But finally, with a sigh that could have been mistaken for wind, he crouched a little, awkward and stiff, and let himself go. It wasn’t perfect. Not even close. He landed with a thud and a grunt, half-turned and slightly off balance. But he didn’t scream. He didn’t wince. And he didn’t stay down. You clapped, delighted. “Not bad! You’ve got the makings of a Bambi-on-ice!” 

He rolled his eyes, but he was sitting up now, flexing his leg, and something in his face had shifted. A flicker of belief. A spark of possibility.

You offered your hand. He didn’t take it. But he stood on his own. And that, in your eyes, was progress painted in frost and stubborn hope. Practice ended in a flurry of silence and exhale, the kind that leaves your lungs aching and your limbs trembling from exhaustion masked as endurance. The rink had settled into a sleepy hush, the overhead lights casting silver puddles onto the ice like pools of moonlight spilled from a weary sky. Sunghoon had spent most of the hour gliding just beyond your reach, stoic and brooding, a storm cloud in a jersey, orbiting your sunshine in quiet, reluctant circles. But progress had been made. Not in leaps or bounds, but in small things: the twitch of a smile that he didn’t quite manage to kill, the way he didn’t protest when you told him his weight distribution was off. Tiny steps, quiet victories. 

You both sat now on the bench that bordered the rink, his skates half-untied, yours dangling from your fingers as you caught your breath. His hoodie clung to him in damp creases, his hair plastered to his forehead, and yet he still managed to look like he’d stepped out of some tragic poem. A sonnet of scraped ice and stubbornness. “So…” you began, voice light as lace, “about Ruka.” 

He didn’t look at you, only furrowed his brows deeper into the shadows of his lashes. “Who?” 

You turned slightly, lacing one skate in slow loops as you stole a glance at his profile. “The girl who was here the other day. Cheering for you like it was the Olympics.” Realization flickered across his face like lightning fast, dismissive. “Oh. The cheerleader.” 

You laughed, not unkindly. “She’s not a cheerleader, she’s my roommate. And she might have a tiny little crush on you.” Sunghoon groaned, tipping his head back as if the ceiling above might offer him divine rescue. “Great. Just what I need.” 

“What, adoration?” you teased, nudging his knee with yours. “Must be so hard.” He didn’t answer right away, his jaw working through something he didn’t say aloud. Finally, he muttered, “I don’t date.” 

You raised a brow. “Really?” 

“Hockey’s the love of my life,” he said, eyes sharp like ice shards, like truth he’d carved out long ago. “That’s enough for me.” You tilted your head, letting your hair fall like a curtain of gold and starlight across your cheek. “That’s a sad way to live,” you said gently, not accusing, just… observing. “Everyone deserves to love. To be loved.” 

He looked at you then, a long, lingering look, as if trying to decide whether your optimism was a costume or a calling. “I do love,” he said, softer this time. “I love the game. That’s all I’ve ever needed.” 

“But maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet,” you offered, voice barely more than a breath. He let out a short laugh — dry, not cruel. “Sounds like something out of one of those cheesy rom-coms you’d make me watch.” 

You smiled, undeterred, pulling your coat tighter around you as the cold began to kiss at your skin. “You’d be surprised what stories can teach you.” 

Sunghoon didn’t reply. He stood, the worn laces of his skates now untied completely, his posture tight, shoulders stiff with the ache he wouldn’t admit. He slung his bag over one arm and glanced at you, his expression unreadable under the dull glow of the rink’s overhead light.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, voice low.

“At 6:30,” you replied, standing too.

He nodded, already walking away, and you watched him disappear into the tunnel that led out of the rink, his shadow swallowed by silence. Still, even as the chill pressed into your bones and your breath misted in the air, you smiled. Because he hadn’t said no. And sometimes, that was the first word in a yes.

The frat house was pulsing, alive with sound and sweat and lights that flickered like epileptic stars. The bass thumped through the walls like a second heartbeat, the kind that didn’t come from within you but pressed on your ribs from the outside, trying to break in. It was the kind of night made for forgetting, flashing cups, flushed cheeks, dizzy laughter. But Sunghoon had nothing he wanted to forget, only things he was trying to survive. His body was a map of ache, his knee a smoldering ember, his back tensed and twisted, his temples drumming a painful rhythm. He should’ve gone to bed. Should’ve wrapped himself in the quiet and left the world to burn without him. 

Instead, he pushed through the crowd, ignoring the limbs that bumped against his shoulders, the haze of perfume and cologne, the drunk declarations and loud, sloppy choruses of songs everyone pretended to know. The lights made everything look fake — skin too bright, eyes too glassy. He moved like a ghost among the living. The kitchen was a marginally calmer pocket of air, though even it buzzed with tension. Soobin stood near the counter, arms crossed, stoic in a way that looked practiced. Yunjin stood in front of him, animated, eyebrows tight and lips moving too fast, too sharp. Sunghoon didn’t catch the words, but the emotion slapped against the tile floor like broken glass. Love turned into a battlefield over cheap beer and pride. 

Heeseung leaned against the fridge, sipping something bright and unholy from a red plastic cup, and Jay stood beside him, eyes flicking from Soobin and Yunjin to Sunghoon with a practiced detachment. “Rough night?” Heeseung asked, his tone too casual to be innocent. 

Sunghoon didn’t answer. He glanced at the tension in the room, the cracked silence in Soobin’s stance, the hurt in Yunjin’s voice. “What’s their deal?” he asked, jerking his chin in their direction. Jay shrugged, reaching for a half-empty bag of chips. “Who knows. Been like that all week.” 

“We try not to get involved,” Heeseung added, a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Sunghoon gave a noncommittal grunt and moved to grab a water bottle from the counter. The cold plastic stung his palm, grounded him for a second. The kitchen smelled like too many people and too many drinks, but it was better than the noise outside. 

Jay leaned in slightly. “Hey, by the way — a girl was walking around asking for you earlier.”  

At that, something in Sunghoon stuttered some quiet spark of thought, unspoken and unacknowledged. His mind flicked to you, impossibly bright and smiling, always halfway through a sentence, your words cotton candy and conviction. It was a fleeting hope, gone before he could even name it. Then Jay nodded toward the hallway, where Ruka stood, wearing confidence like perfume and eyeing the room like she owned it. 

Sunghoon’s mouth twisted. The little spark of hope snuffed out before it could catch flame. “Of course,” he muttered. He didn’t wait for her to notice him. He turned on his heel and left the kitchen, weaving back through the crowd, avoiding her gaze like it might pierce him. He wasn’t in the mood for polite smiles or coy compliments, not in the mood to be someone else’s fantasy when he couldn’t even bear being himself right now. 

He was almost free, fingers brushing the door to his room, sanctuary just a heartbeat away when her voice cut through the noise behind him. “Sunghoon, wait.” 

He froze. Not in obedience, but in dread the way a predator might freeze in the moment it realizes it’s been cornered. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t slow. Just kept walking, because if he didn’t look at her, maybe she’d vanish into the static of the party behind them. But Ruka didn’t vanish. She chased. Her heels clicked across the floor like punctuation in a sentence he didn’t want to read. Then her hand was on his arm — cloying, too warm, too familiar. He yanked away from her grasp like her touch burned. And maybe it did. Maybe everything burned lately. 

She flinched at his reaction, then softened her voice into something apologetic and breathy, practiced like a song she’d sung too many times. “I’m sorry, okay? I just— I wanted to say something.” He said nothing, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the stairwell. “She’s not who you think she is,” Ruka said then, her voice low but sharp, like a knife being slipped between the ribs. “That girl you’ve been skating with. All that sunshine and sparkle? It’s a show. She’s not that happy. She's actually really depressing.” 

The words echoed strangely in the space between them, bouncing off the noise of the house and falling like lead at his feet. Sunghoon turned then, slowly, like something ancient and brimming with wrath. His face was calm, but his eyes — his eyes held storms. Not the kind that pass, but the kind that drown entire cities. “Mind your business,” he said, his voice cold enough to crack glass. 

Ruka blinked, taken aback. Maybe she’d expected amusement. Maybe she thought he’d nod in agreement or laugh, or at the very least, care. But he didn’t laugh. And he did care and that infuriated him even more. He didn’t wait for her response. He turned and stormed back down the stairs, shoving past strangers with empty smiles and red plastic cups. The house felt suffocating, bloated with sound and people and things he didn’t have the patience for. His skin felt tight, his heart loud, his thoughts louder. 

Why did it bother him? Why did her words sink under his skin like a splinter?

She didn’t know you. Not really. Not the way he’d started to. Not in the way you spoke about falling like it was an art form, not in the way you tried to fix him like he was something worth mending.  He shoved out the front door, the cold air biting at his skin like it, too, had something to prove. His breath left in bursts of fog, pain pulsing behind his kneecap as if to remind him of every bruise he carried, every truth he refused to name. 

He walked towards the diner that nearly everyone frequented on campus. Hoping and praying for some sense of solace. 

The booth by the window smelled of syrup and coffee and the kind of late-night grease that clung to the bones of a day too long lived. The diner was warm in the way a memory is warm, buzzing neon lights humming above like lullabies, and the soft clink of forks on ceramic drifting through the air like wind chimes in a storm's lull. You sat alone, chin propped up in your palm, tracing swirls in the condensation of your water glass, legs still sore from practice but your spirit untouched, untouched the way a flame dances even after the wax is nearly gone. Your plate was half full, pancakes cut into clumsy quarters, syrup pooling in the valleys. You were halfway through recounting your own day in your head out loud, of course, because silence had never been your companion when the bell above the door rang. 

You looked up. The words on your tongue stuttered into stillness. Sunghoon. It was Sunghoon. 

Still dressed in the hoodie he’d been wearing at the rink, his hair damp with sweat or melted frost, eyes dark with something that stormed just beneath the surface. He paused when he saw you, shoulders sinking with theatrical dread. Of course, he thought. Of course you’d be here, light personified, smile too wide for the hour and heart too open for someone who’d barely gotten a thank you out of him. 

“Sunghoon!” you beamed, like the sky had cracked open just to drop this moment into your lap. Your voice, effervescent as soda fizz, bounced toward him like a pebble skipping across water. He groaned. It was low, dramatic, and pulled from somewhere that wanted desperately to be annoyed, but didn’t quite make it. “Of course you’re here.” 

“Where else would I be?” you grinned, motioning to the seat across from you like you’d always meant it for him. “So… what brings you to this fine establishment at such a glamorous hour?” 

“I was hungry,” he deadpanned, walking over with the kind of gait that whispered of pain. He didn’t explain the limp, didn’t bother to soften his tone. “Why else would someone come to a diner?” Your smile didn’t waver. If anything, it grew.

“Touché,” you said, then leaned in with a twinkle in your eye. “Want to sit with me?” 

He opened his mouth, likely to decline with something sarcastic and sharp-edged, but the words caught on the way out. Maybe it was your smile, or the glow of the booth light painting soft halos in your hair, or maybe — though he’d never admit it —i t was just that being near you quieted something in him, something he didn’t know needed quieting. “Sure,” he muttered. 

He slid into the seat across from you, his movements slow, like each inch of space between pain and stillness had to be negotiated. You didn’t mention the way he winced as he sat. You just smiled again, folding your hands in front of you like this was a normal thing, the two of you, alone together in a corner of the night that didn’t feel so lonely anymore. Sunghoon didn’t tell you what Ruka had said. He didn’t tell you how it sat on his chest like a stone, how her voice echoed in his skull like wind through a cracked window. Because it wasn’t his to say. And because, deep down, he already knew it wasn’t true. 

He saw you fall on the ice and rise again like it was a song your body knew by heart. He heard the way your laughter curved around your words and the way your voice filled silence with life, not noise. No — whatever Ruka thought she knew of you, it was only a fraction, and not the kind he cared to carry. Instead, he stared down at your plate, brows raised. 

“Pancakes at midnight?” he asked. 

You shrugged, delighted. “Midnight pancakes fix all problems. Haven’t you heard?” 

He smirked then, small, fleeting. Like sunrise just peeking over frostbitten windows. “Heeseung says that all the time.” 

“Well he sounds like a pretty smart guy.” You quirked, picking at your pancakes leisurely. 

Sunghoon huffed a laugh — small but still there. “Sure.” For a while, the two of you sat in something not quite silence, not quite conversation, but alive and breathing all the same. And in the quiet hum of syrup-sticky booths and flickering neon signs, something invisible began to shift. The hiss of the coffee machine behind the counter had become a kind of lullaby, murmuring softly beneath the quiet chatter of the few remaining night owls nestled into booths and barstools. Across from you, Sunghoon picked at the edge of a sugar packet, his fingers deft and idle, not quite meeting your eyes, but listening in that particular way he always did, like he was preparing to argue but got caught up in your melody instead. 

You sat across from him, legs tucked under you like a child curling into a story, your face glowing with the heat of possibility rather than the diner’s neon haze. And he watched you, not that he’d admit it. Not that he knew what to do with someone like you. “I’m going to make the podium this year,” you said, sudden and certain, stabbing a lone pancake piece with your fork like it was fate itself. “I don’t care what place. Bronze, silver, first runner-up to the crowd favorite. I just want to stand there, see the crowd, and know I didn’t fall flat.” 

Sunghoon blinked at you. “Figure skating finals?” 

You nodded, then grinned. “The big ones. My coach calls it the crown jewel. The end of the season, the whole year in a single performance. I tanked last time. fell on my opening jump and never recovered. My blade caught the edge, and it all spiraled. Couldn’t hear the music over the panic. I was supposed to shine and instead I… dulled.” 

The words weren’t bitter, just honest. You spoke of failure with a sort of reverent gentleness, as if it were a bruise you had long since accepted. It surprised him how freely you gave that part of yourself away. No dramatics. No self-pity. Just truth. He leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. “And you’re trying again?” 

“Of course.” Your voice was light, but sure. “I owe it to the version of me that cried backstage and promised to do better. I owe it to the dream that didn’t die just because I messed up once. Besides, we fall all the time in figure skating on ice, off ice. You just get up and do it again.” Something in him shifted at that. The ice in his chest cracked a little more, as if the warmth in your voice could thaw even the places he'd long buried under frost and fury. 

You caught the flicker in his eyes and smiled, like sunshine breaking through cloud cover. “Don’t look at me like I’ve grown a second head. You’re the one always brooding like the main character in a sports anime.” Sunghoon rolled his eyes, but the edge was gone. He stared at the last of his fries, then slowly pushed the plate aside. “You’re weird,” he muttered, almost like it was a compliment. 

You beamed, unbothered. “Takes one to know one.” And just like that, between the flicker of fluorescent lights and the taste of melted syrup, the world felt a little less heavy. He didn’t tell you about Ruka. He didn’t mention the ache in his knee or the fact that, for the first time in a long while, he hadn’t felt like lashing out or retreating. He just sat there, listening to you talk about your music selection and how you were planning to bedazzle your new competition costume yourself  “with enough rhinestones to blind the front row” and something quiet inside him settled.

He didn’t believe in miracles. But maybe… maybe he could believe in second chances. Especially the ones that came in the shape of bright eyes, chipped diner mugs, and a voice that refused to give up. Even on him. 

The night air was a velvet hush wrapped around the world, stitched with distant traffic and the occasional hum of streetlamp flicker. The diner door swung shut behind you both with a bell's chime like the last note of a lullaby. Outside, the cold kissed your cheeks and painted your exhales into fleeting ghosts, trailing behind you like forgotten sentences. You walked beside him, your boots crunching gently over old salt and fractured pavement, the glow of the diner still soft behind you. He walked with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, shoulders tense, as if he were always prepared for winter — even in spring. 

But you, you carried warmth like it bloomed from your chest. You talked, because silence begged to be filled and your thoughts were too colorful to keep caged. "I always liked walking at night," you began, voice barely louder than the rustle of your jacket. "When I was little, my dad used to say the stars came out just to eavesdrop on our dreams. I used to whisper to them before bed. Tell them everything I was too scared to say out loud." Sunghoon said nothing, only shifted slightly, head tilted as though your words trailed behind his ears like music on low volume. His footsteps matched yours, deliberate, steady. Listening. Always listening. 

You glanced up at the sky, where stars flickered shyly through the sprawl of city haze. “Some nights, when I’m scared before a competition, I still talk to them. Like, ‘Hey, I know I biffed the last triple loop but if you could just not let me crash this time, that’d be amazing.’” You laughed lightly. “They’re probably tired of hearing about my spiral sequences.” He almost smiled. Almost. You kept going, because silence in his company no longer felt daunting, only deep. A pool that welcomed your words, let them sink in, soak through. He didn’t need to speak. He just needed to be there, and somehow, he was. 

“I don’t think people realize how lonely it is to try to be great,” you mused. “Everyone sees the sparkle, the applause, the medals. But they don’t see the bruised knees. The missed meals. The days where you cry on the cold rink floor because you can’t land a stupid jump you’ve done a thousand times. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just chasing a spotlight that’ll burn me up before I ever reach it.” Still, no answer. Just his steady breath beside you, vapor blooming and vanishing. But his eyes had that quiet fire, the kind that flickered only for the things that mattered. 

“I think… that’s why I don’t let myself stay down. Because even when it hurts, I still want it. Not the spotlight. Just the chance. To be better. To feel like I’m flying again, even if only for four minutes.” The street turned quieter, the neighborhood dipping into darker corners, sleepy houses pressing close together like secrets being kept warm. You stole a glance at him then, expecting — what? A laugh? A scoff? 

But Sunghoon’s gaze was forward, brows drawn in thought. He didn’t look at you, but he didn’t walk faster, either. He stayed at your side like a shadow that had chosen you. And then, after a silence long enough to count heartbeats, he said, low and rough, “What’s your program this year?” 

You blinked, surprised by the breach in his usual barricade. “It’s set to Clair de Lune,” you said quietly, suddenly shy. “I wanted something soft this time. Something like… falling in love with the sky.” He nodded once. Just once. And somehow, it felt like the biggest applause. You didn’t need him to say more. You didn’t need him to match your sunshine with light. He was the stillness where your words could echo and not be lost. And for that, you walked beside him in silence the rest of the way, the night folding around you both like a promise waiting to be made. 

The night had mellowed into something hushed and golden, a quiet that settled over your shared footsteps like falling petals. The city exhaled slowly, as if sighing into sleep, and still you walked beside him, two shadows drawn in parallel ink, aligned but never touching. Then, out of the hush, his voice rose like a single note plucked from a cello string, low and sudden. “What’s your deal with Ruka?” 

You blinked, startled by the sound, by the question, by the way his words cut through your stardust-thoughts like a falling star slicing the sky. You turned to him with raised brows, lips parted with a breath that hadn’t yet become a word. “Ruka?” you echoed, the name tasting foreign when it came from your mouth. 

He didn’t look at you, just kept walking, hands still in his pockets, his jaw set like stone worn smooth by time. It didn’t sound like idle curiosity. But then again, nothing about Park Sunghoon ever felt idle. You wrapped your arms around yourself, not because of the cold, but because something inside you had curled up, uncertain. 

“Oh, um. We’re not really close,” you said, the words spilling like marbles rolling across a hardwood floor — easy, but a little scattered. “She’s my roommate this year, just this year. My last roommate, Sakura, graduated early. We were kind of inseparable.” You smiled faintly at the memory, soft and aching. “She used to help me with my hair before competitions. Always had a bobby pin in her pocket, even if we were just going to the store. I miss her.” 

He said nothing, just nodded once. The moonlight caught his profile and painted it silver. “She’s really smart, Ruka,” you went on, feeling the silence ask for more even if he didn’t. “Always has her headphones in. Always studying. We talk sometimes, but mostly she just… lets me ramble. Which, you know, I tend to do.” You gave a light laugh, hoping the sound would cut the tension, soften the edges. 

But he didn’t laugh with you. He didn’t look at you. Just nodded again, like your words were being filed away in some hidden drawer inside him. And for a moment — brief and bitter and fleeting you felt a twinge. A single pulse of something dark and unfamiliar. It settled beneath your ribs like a secret. Jealousy. You didn’t want to call it that. You didn’t want to name the way your throat tightened when he asked about her, or the way your heart gave a suspicious little stutter at the thought of her name brushing his interest. 

Did he like her? The thought was ridiculous. Maybe. Maybe not. But it lodged in your chest like a thorn. And what surprised you most wasn’t the question. It was how much it mattered. You shook the feeling off with a practiced smile, the kind you wore in the mirror before competition, the one that told the world everything was okay, even if your knees were shaking. 

“She’s alright,” you said, voice light, breezy, so casual it almost disguised the knot in your gut. “But I think she prefers silence. I talk too much for her taste.” Still, he said nothing.

And you wondered, as the two of you drifted past sleeping houses and rustling trees, if you could ever stop wanting to know what was running behind his quiet eyes. Maybe he’d never say it. Maybe he didn’t even know it himself. But tonight, walking beside him through the tender hours of the dark, you wished he’d turn and say something that would loosen the twinge in your chest. Instead, he walked on. Still and silent. And you matched his pace, wondering if maybe that was enough. At least for now. 

The dorm room welcomed you with the kind of stillness that felt staged, like a scene waiting for the actors to step into place. The air was warm, tinged faintly with lavender and printer ink, the signature scent of shared space and sleepless study. You slipped inside quietly, the door closing behind you with a hush instead of a click. For once, your voice didn’t follow you in. 

You didn’t start with a story or a sigh, didn’t fill the silence with your usual cascade of chatter about a late-night craving or a skater’s cramp or how the moon had looked like a sugar cookie on the walk back. No, tonight you simply moved through the space like a ghost of yourself soft-footed, uncharacteristically quiet. Ruka was there, as always, hunched over her desk like a cathedral of discipline, shoulders drawn tight under the glow of her desk lamp. Her highlighter moved like a slow metronome across the page, precise and deliberate. But when you entered without a word, she paused. 

You didn’t notice at first. You were too focused on your routine kicking off your shoes, dropping your bag by the door, tucking your food container into the small fridge like you were sealing away the last hour of your night. The remnants of warm laughter and cool night air still clung to your skin, even as the fluorescent light washed everything colorless. It was only when she turned, slow and deliberate that you met her gaze. “I went to see Sunghoon tonight,” she said, her voice smooth but wrapped in something slippery. Something rehearsed. 

You blinked. Tilted your head. “Oh?” 

She nodded, looking back at her notes for a second like they might give her the courage to lie again. “Yeah. We talked for hours at his party. I just left from seeing him.” The words hung there like wet clothes on a line, dripping, sagging under the weight of their own fabrication. And you knew. You knew in the marrow of your bones, in the quiet thrum of your heartbeat still synced to the rhythm of footsteps beside Sunghoon’s. You knew because you had just walked home with him, the ache of his silence still pressed like thumbprints into your thoughts. But you said nothing.

You didn’t call her out or laugh or ask her why she thought you wouldn’t notice the lie curling like smoke between her syllables. You didn’t say, “Actually, I just walked home with him,” or, “That’s strange, he didn’t mention you.” No. Instead, you sat down at your desk, unzipping your jacket, fingers steady as you untied your shoes. You offered her a smile — small, polite, hollow in the middle and said, “That’s nice.” 

Ruka turned back to her notes, and you turned to face the wall, blinking slowly as if you could paint over the moment with enough quiet. And though you didn’t say it out loud, a strange new feeling began to settle beneath your ribs, something like suspicion, something like sadness. Not because of the lie itself, but because you couldn’t understand why she’d told it. What purpose it served. What it meant. But more than that, what unsettled you the most was how your heart gave the tiniest tug at the idea that she wanted Sunghoon to herself. That maybe, just maybe, she knew you were starting to want him too. And you hated how that made you feel.

By the time Sunghoon returned to the frat house, the storm of music and voices had softened into something gentler like rain losing its temper. The halls no longer throbbed with bass, just pulsed quietly with leftover laughter, the clink of bottles, the occasional shriek from the living room where someone was trying to revive a dying game of beer pong. The air smelled like stale cologne, cheap beer, and exhaustion.  

He pushed through the front door, body aching in ways he didn’t dare name, shoulders stiff with memory. The walk home had helped, a little. The diner even more so. Or maybe it wasn’t the diner, it was you. That smile. That damn voice of yours, all melody and motion, coloring every dull corner of his night until it looked like morning. He hadn’t even meant to go out. He just couldn’t stay there, not after the lies that curled out of Ruka’s mouth like perfume. 

Heeseung was sprawled across the couch with a bag of chips, half-asleep and still wearing his shoes. Jay sat nearby, nursing a water bottle like it was whiskey, his guitar leaning against the side table, untouched. They looked up when Sunghoon walked in, both of them clocking the shift in him, the unbrushed hair, the frown lines that had softened just barely, like something had tried to loosen their hold. Jay raised an eyebrow. “Where’ve you been?” 

“Diner,” Sunghoon muttered, heading toward the kitchen to grab a glass of water. His muscles cried out as he moved, his knee barking like it wanted to collapse. “You missed the show,” Heeseung said through a yawn. “Your little fangirl was here. Again.” 

Jay snorted. “Ruka. She was asking around for you. Whole place thought she’d get a kiss out of you before midnight.” Then came the question, as casual as it was crude, tossed out like a beer can into a bonfire. 

“So?” Jay leaned back, grinning. “You tap that?” 

The words hung in the room like fog, heavy and misplaced. Sunghoon didn’t even look up from the sink as he filled his glass. He stood still for a breath. Then another. “Hell no,” he said flatly. “I just went to the diner.” 

it wasn’t defensive. It wasn’t even irritated. It was simply true delivered with the sharp edge of certainty. A line drawn clean in the dirt. Jay let out a low whistle. Heeseung chuckled under his breath. “Didn’t know you were such a gentleman.” 

Sunghoon didn’t answer. He just sipped his water, jaw tense, eyes fixed on a spot on the counter like he was trying to smooth it out with sheer will.

Because what he didn’t say not to Jay, not to Heeseung, not even to himself was that he didn’t want Ruka. Had never wanted her. Not with her lipsticked lies and her eyes that always seemed to be searching for attention like it was currency. And yet, somehow, your voice kept echoing in his head like a melody he didn’t want to forget. “Falling is inevitable unless you can stop gravity.” He couldn’t stop gravity. Not on the ice. Not in his chest. And it was starting to terrify him. 

Monday came with the bite of wind and the soft shiver of pre-dawn blue, the kind of chill that kissed your skin and whispered promises of something new. The rink sat like a cathedral of silence, your shared sanctuary of sweat and bruised ego, laughter and aching limbs. The boards were cold. The air was colder. But you… you were warm, incandescent, still grinning as you laced your skates with hope braided into every loop. 

Sunghoon was already there, stretching his legs like the world had done him a personal disservice. He looked like he hadn’t slept well, but his eyes those, wintry things, found you easily, like a compass that refused to point anywhere else. His movements were stiff, his expression unreadable, but he didn’t complain as you chirped about your new routine, about your bruised knee from the spin you biffed on Saturday, about how this week felt like the start of something. He didn’t say much. He rarely did. But he skated. And fell. A lot.

You counted at least thirteen crashes before you stopped keeping score—some clumsy, some oddly graceful, all equally frustrating for him. Each time, he’d scowl, curse under his breath, and brush himself off like he was made of pride stitched too tight. But you never stopped encouraging him, your words a steady stream of sunlight spilling through his clouds.

“Better!”

“That fall was cleaner!”

“You angled your shoulder perfectly!”

He looked at you like you were ridiculous. Which, maybe, you were. But you were ridiculously happy to be here. With him. By the time the clock curled toward the last stretch of practice, he’d finally done it. Not a fall, but a landing. A descent that didn’t jar his bones, one where his body absorbed the impact like water receiving rain, smooth, natural, right. You gasped and your joy exploded out of you, bright and loud and uncontainable.

“You did it!” you cheered, skates clattering against the ice as you skidded over to him. “You actually did it, Sunghoon!”

He looked up from where he was still crouched slightly, his breath misting the air, eyes wide. And for the first time, the very first time, he smiled. It wasn’t a smirk. It wasn’t that half-tilted, cynical curl he used when he was being sarcastic or amused. It was real. Unburdened. And somehow, it made him look like a boy again, soft-edged, bright-eyed, touched by something other than pain or pressure. The moment lingered. Too long. 

His smile stayed, your breath caught in your throat like a fluttering thing. The distance between you thinned until there was only the sound of the ice humming beneath your skates, and then,  Then you kissed him. You didn’t think. You didn’t plan it. You just leaned forward, heart drumming in your chest like a war cry and a lullaby all at once, and kissed him — soft and sure, like the ice beneath your feet had whispered that you wouldn’t fall.

But he didn’t kiss you back. 

You pulled away instantly, horror creeping into your chest like cold water. “Oh my god—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—well, I did, but not like that—I mean I wasn’t trying to—ugh—Sunghoon, I just got caught up in the—” And then he was kissing you. Fast. Sure. No warning, no wind-up, just his lips on yours like punctuation, like a sentence he’d been writing in his head for days but didn’t know how to say out loud. You blinked when he pulled back. He looked stunned, maybe a little dazed. You were definitely breathless. And then, as if nothing had happened, you both went back to skating. Circling each other like stars in orbit silent, spinning, on fire. Neither of you mentioned the kiss. But neither of you forgot it. 

Outside the glow of the floodlights, just beyond the fragile safety of the rink’s boards, a shadow lingered silent and still like frost waiting to bloom. Ruka stood there, tucked in the hollow between concrete and glass, her presence cloaked by the buzz of overhead lamps and the trance of celebration that unfolded before her. She hadn’t meant to come. She had only wanted to stop by, to catch another glimpse of him, of Sunghoon in that candid, breathless space where his armor sometimes slipped. Maybe she would pretend it was a coincidence again. Maybe she’d bring him something warm, an excuse wrapped in a paper cup and a shy smile. But what she saw was not Sunghoon alone. 

Through the gleaming haze of the ice, through the rhythm of blades carving truth into frozen ground, she saw you. Beaming. Radiant in your joy. And she saw Sunghoon — grinning back. Not his usual strained grimace or practiced smirk. No, this smile was something else. Real. Unearthed. Unearned, in her eyes. And then, the kiss. Her breath caught like a gasp in winter wind. She pressed her palm flat against the glass as if to steady herself, as if to break through the divide between her and what she saw, a moment that didn’t belong to her but felt like it should have. That soft, charged touch of lips in the heart of the rink burned like a betrayal, even if no promises had ever been made to her. It was a kiss that seemed to split the ice beneath her feet. And she hated how gentle it was, how true. 

The rage came slowly, like an icicle forming drip by bitter drip. A seethe in her gut. A fire in her lungs. She had spent so much time watching, studying, calculating, positioning herself at just the right angle to catch his eye. She knew the timing of his strides, the way his brows furrowed when he was lost in thought. She had noticed him long before you had ever touched the same ice. And yet it was you — scatterbrained, sunny, ever-yapping you — that he kissed.

She backed away, breath coming out in little bursts of fog, eyes trained on the scene unfolding before her like a play she hadn’t auditioned for but still wanted a lead in. She didn’t care that he pulled away quickly. She didn’t care that you stammered your apology. All she could see was the connection, the tether stretching invisible and unbreakable between your smile and his rare, reluctant joy. She could feel the bitterness pool in her chest like ink in water, spreading fast and without mercy. You hadn’t seen her. Neither had he. You never noticed the fracture blooming quietly in the corner of the world you shared. But she did. And it stung, not because it was love lost, but because it never even had the chance to begin. 

The walk back to the dorm felt like treading on the edge of a dream, your feet barely touching the ground, your breath catching on the remnants of laughter that still lingered like glitter in your chest. The night air was cool, brushing your cheeks like a secret, the kind that only stars overhead seemed to know. You tucked your hands into your coat pockets, smiled like a secret was blossoming behind your lips, and tilted your face skyward, as if asking the moon to keep your moment safe. You had kissed him. Or maybe the moment kissed you, soft and strange and suspended in time, like a snowflake caught mid-fall. It didn’t matter who leaned in first, or that he hesitated, or that nothing had been said after. What mattered was the way the world tilted after. The way his eyes had widened before he kissed you back like something inside him had cracked open. Like he’d been waiting all along but just didn’t know it. Something had changed, undeniably and irreversibly, and it made your limbs feel like cotton, your thoughts like honey. 

There was a shift now. Subtle but seismic. You could feel it humming in the soles of your feet, echoing in the memory of the moment. You didn’t know what it meant yet, not exactly but something had softened between you two, and in that softness, you found a kind of quiet joy. When you reached your building, you entered with the reverence of someone carrying something precious. The hallway lights buzzed faintly, and your steps echoed gently down the corridor, a rhythm almost musical in its contentment. You reached your door and turned the knob, half-expecting to see Ruka with her usual mess of notebooks and headphones, wrapped in her silent storm of thoughts and solitude. But the room was empty. 

The lights were off save for the sliver of streetlamp that painted silver lines through the blinds. The air was still, undisturbed. Ruka’s bed was neatly made, her chair tucked in, her world untouched. And for once, you were grateful. You slipped inside and let the door close behind you with a soft click, as if trying not to disturb the fragile bubble that wrapped around your joy. There was something beautiful in the quiet, something that gave you space to breathe, to process, to smile without anyone asking why. You moved slowly, deliberately, putting away your things, peeling off layers like petals until only your giddy little heart remained.

And then, standing there in the low light, you allowed yourself to relive the glide of your skates, the crispness of the air, the look on his face just before he closed the distance. You pressed your fingers gently to your lips, almost to confirm they still tingled. It didn’t matter that you hadn’t spoken about it. Not yet. It mattered that it happened. It mattered that, for the first time in a long time, your heart felt like it had been seen. And for that, you let yourself float just a little longer on the dream of it all. 

The walk home was quiet, but for once, it didn’t feel heavy. Sunghoon’s limbs ached as usual, the kind of ache that seeped into marrow and muscle and made itself at home but tonight, it was quieter. Like even the pain had decided to take a breath, loosen its grip on his body and allow him a moment of peace. There was a strange calm moving through him, something light and unfamiliar. His mind replayed that kiss, not obsessively, but gently, like turning over a smooth stone in his pocket. The softness of your lips. The way you smiled before it happened. The burst of something warm and startling that bloomed in his chest when you leaned in, and even more so when he kissed you back. Like an ember flickering to life in a long-cold hearth. He didn’t want to overthink it, and yet, it sat with him now — steady, glowing, undeniable. But as the frat house came into view, that flickering warmth began to dim. She was there.

Perched like a stormcloud on the stone steps, her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, face streaked with tears that glistened under the porch light. Ruka. Her presence felt like a sudden cold front, a sharp drop in temperature, a wind that bit instead of kissed. Sunghoon paused at the edge of the sidewalk, every instinct screaming at him to turn around and disappear into the dark. But she looked up. And she saw him. 

He kept walking. Slow, steady, bracing himself. The steps creaked beneath his weight as he stopped in front of her. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice low and laced with quiet exhaustion. 

Ruka sniffled, wiping at her cheeks with the sleeve of her too-expensive cardigan. “I saw you,” she said, voice breaking on the edge of accusation. “I saw you guys… kissing.” 

Sunghoon blinked at her, unimpressed. “Okay?” he answered flatly, as if that alone should be the end of it. But of course, it wasn’t. “She’s a fraud,” Ruka spat, sitting up straighter now, her voice rising with that familiar, jealous tension. “That whole sunshine act? It’s fake. She’s just pretending to be all sweet and happy. But it’s all a show. She’s actually, she’s miserable. She’s depressing. She’s not what you think she is.”  

He stared at her for a long moment. The wind rustled the trees, and somewhere in the distance, someone laughed a sound so far removed from the bitter drama at his feet. Sunghoon exhaled, slow and sharp like a blade pulled from a sheath. “You know what?” he said, voice like ice over steel. “Maybe you could stand to be a little more like her.” Ruka’s mouth parted in shock, but he didn’t give her time to respond. 

“She’s kind,” he went on. “She shows up for people. She cares even when she doesn’t have to. She’s loud and ridiculous and warm, and yeah, maybe that annoys the shit out of me sometimes, but at least she’s not hiding behind fake tears and whispering poison about other people to make herself feel better.” Her expression crumpled, her mouth trembling. 

“You don’t know her,” she whispered. “Neither do you,” he snapped. “You don’t get to decide who she is because she threatens your tiny little world.” 

Ruka’s hands curled into fists on her knees. “If you really want to know who she is, look her up,” she hissed, the venom returning. “Look up last year’s figure skating finals. Her name. Go ahead. See it for yourself.” He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. 

“Fuck off, Ruka,” Sunghoon said, and his voice was calm. Steady. Done. He pushed past her without another glance, the door slamming shut behind him like the end of a chapter. The warmth inside him didn’t dim this time. Not completely. In fact, it burned brighter now not in spite of her words, but because of the fact that he’d chosen to ignore them. That he’d defended you, and meant every syllable. He didn’t need to search your name. He didn’t care about the past you carried like quiet luggage. Because when he looked at you, all he saw was someone who got back up. Again and again. And that, more than anything, was real. 

Upstairs, behind the closed door of his room where the noise of the party below had faded to a dull, insignificant hum, Sunghoon sat on the edge of his bed like the silence itself had weight. It pooled in the corners of the room, settled on his shoulders, curled around his ankles. The warm echo of your kiss still lingered, on his lips, in his chest but so did Ruka’s voice. Sharp, needling. Insistent. “Look it up. Last year’s figure skating finals. Her name.” 

He didn’t want to. He knew better. He should have let it die on the doorstep where it belonged. But curiosity was a sly little creature. It nudged at him like a breeze slipping through a cracked window, whispering just look until he caved. So he did. 

With stiff fingers and an unsteady breath, he typed your name into the search bar, letting muscle memory carry him when intention hesitated. The first result glowed like a ghost: “Skater Meltdown at Regionals – Full Clip.” A thumbnail of you frozen mid-fall, your face blurred by motion, your body crumpling like something once fluid and graceful now shattered. He clicked play. 

The screen lit up with harsh white ice and the sound of polite applause. There you were, twirling onto the rink, arms extended, posture poised, the embodiment of elegance. And then it happened. A stumble, a miscalculation. The slip. The crash. You hit the ice with a sound that wasn't picked up by the microphones, but he could feel it all the same, sharp and echoing in his bones. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst came after. The camera didn’t cut away. It kept rolling as you stood up, only to fall again. And again. And again. Until your hands were shaking and your breathing was uneven and your eyes — oh, your eyes — were wild with disbelief, glazed with tears that refused to fall quietly. 

You broke. On camera. In front of judges and coaches and strangers and teammates and the faceless audience of the internet. You wept, not just from pain, but from something deeper, something raw and human and jagged with betrayal. You shouted through your tears, voice cracking like thawing ice, about how people only came to see the crash. How they clapped louder for the break than the recovery. How they waited for failure like it was a performance. Sunghoon felt something crawl into his throat and settle there — tight and aching. Not pity. Not embarrassment. But fury. 

Fury at Ruka, for daring to use this as a weapon. Because what he saw wasn’t weakness. What he saw was someone who got back up. Someone who, even in the middle of a storm that stole her breath and shattered her pride, still stood. Still tried. Still gave the world her tears because hiding them would’ve meant giving up entirely. He didn’t want to close the video. But he did. And then, with that same fire that lived in his limbs when he skated, he opened his phone and typed fast, not giving himself the chance to rethink it.

Sunghoon [11:43 PM]: Meet me at the rink. Please. 

It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t even a plan. It was an instinct, pulled from somewhere honest and immediate. Because he needed to see you, not just the practiced, cheery version of you that lit up rinks and rooms, but you, unfiltered, unguarded, as real as you’d been in that video. He needed you to know that it didn’t scare him. That it didn’t change anything. No. If anything, it only made him want to fall with you. And this time, not get back up alone. 

The rink was dark when you arrived, the overhead lights low like the stars were keeping secrets. The air was biting, laced with the cold whisper of ice and memory. Your breath puffed in clouds before you, and your heart thundered a frantic beat in your chest. You’d gotten Sunghoon’s message and hadn’t hesitated, you didn’t even change out of your practice clothes, just threw on a coat and sprinted across campus as if your soul had sensed something fragile waiting on the other end. The moment you stepped inside, your voice echoed in the stillness. “Sunghoon?” 

No response. The silence felt unfamiliar, too thick, too full of unsaid things. You found him in the locker room, perched on one of the benches, still in his practice gear, his elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. The second you saw him, panic flickered behind your eyes. Was he hurt? Was something wrong? “Are you okay? Are you—oh my god, did something happen?” you rambled as you rushed to him, your hands fluttering over his arms, down to his knees, then back to his shoulders like you were checking for breaks or bruises. “Why did you call me? Are you hurt? Did you fall again? Why didn’t you just text what happened, Sunghoon, seriously, what is going—?” 

He didn’t say a word. Instead, his hands found your waist. Not rough or hurried, just certain. He pulled you into him like gravity had finally done its job. And before your voice could form another word, his mouth was on yours. Soft. Fierce. Unapologetic. Your breath caught in your chest, surprise flaring wide in your eyes, but you melted into him with instinct. There was no hesitation in the way you kissed him back. For a moment the ice outside, the night, the ache of the past, none of it existed. There was only the warmth of his touch, the sincerity of his hold, the vulnerability in that kiss. 

When he pulled back, your fingers lingered near his jaw, your gaze flickering with confusion. “Sunghoon… what’s going on?” He looked at you like he was still catching up to his own heartbeat, his voice quiet but steady. “Ruka showed up at the house. Told me to look you up. Last year’s finals.” 

The words dropped like ice in your stomach. You stepped back, just slightly, and your body stiffened before you could stop it. “Oh.” Sunghoon saw it immediately, the way your shoulders curled inward, how your eyes shimmered with tears you didn’t want to spill. Your lips parted like you wanted to defend yourself, but no argument came, only the truth, raw and trembling. “I had a breakdown,” you whispered. “A really bad one. I’d been practicing that routine for weeks, getting up at dawn, going to bed at two, skipping meals, skipping sleep. I thought… if I could just nail that trick, I’d prove I was more than just the bubbly girl with the pretty smile. I was exhausted and wired and terrified. And when I fell… it was like the world collapsed with me.” 

You paused, voice cracking. “But I got back up. I always do. Even when it hurt. Even when the crowd didn’t cheer.” Sunghoon stood, eyes never leaving yours, and took your hands in his — warm, calloused, steady. “I know,” he said simply. “I watched the whole thing. And you — you — were the strongest person I’ve ever seen.” 

Your lips quivered. “But I broke down. I was angry and ugly and scared and—” 

“And you got back up,” he said, firmer now. “You didn’t stay on the ice. You didn’t let it define you. I—” he exhaled, voice softening, “—I was going to quit. When I got hurt, when it felt like everything I’d worked for just vanished, I wanted to give up. I didn’t see the point.” He reached up, brushing a tear from your cheek. “But then I met you,” he continued. “And you reminded me that even when it hurts, we keep skating. That it’s not the fall that defines us, it’s the moment after.” 

A silence stretched between you, delicate and profound. And in that stillness, you smiled. Not the bright, performative kind you wore in hallways and crowded rooms, but something quieter. Realer. “Thank you,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t need to reply. The way his fingers laced with yours said everything. The space between you fizzled like ice cracking under a sudden flame. There was a flicker of hesitation in your eyes, an instinct, perhaps, to hold back but it crumbled under the heat of the moment. Your hands were still curled inside his, trembling slightly, not from fear but from the rawness of being seen. 

Then you kissed him. No hesitancy this time. No uncertainty. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a quiet kind of desperation, the kind that had been building for weeks, hidden behind teasing words and soft glances, behind shared practices and unspoken understandings. His lips met yours like a dam finally breaking, and suddenly you were both lost to it. 

Sunghoon responded with a heat that startled even him. His hands slid from your waist to your back, holding you like he was afraid you might disappear. Your fingers curled into the hem of his shirt, clutching at the fabric like it could anchor you to something real, something burning and alive. There was nothing cautious about it now, the kiss deepened, mouths parting with breathless urgency, tongues tangling, exhales catching like thunder on the edge of a storm. You gasped softly against his mouth when he walked you backward, your spine brushing the cool lockers behind you. The contrast only made you shiver more, and he kissed you again to chase it away. His hands were in your hair now, cradling the nape of your neck like you were something precious. And you were, he kissed you like you were rare, like you were the first warmth he’d felt after winter. 

Your body curved into his as if you’d always belonged there. You could feel the way he was holding back, restrained despite the tension humming through every inch of him. And maybe that’s what made it even more electric, knowing how tightly he was wound, how carefully he moved against you even as his breath quickened and his hands lingered. “Sunghoon…” you murmured against his lips, dizzy from the intensity. 

He didn’t answer, not in words. But the way he kissed you again, slower this time, deeper, like he was memorizing the shape of your mouth, the way your breath hitched, the way your hands trembled where they clutched at his chest was its own kind of vow. The air between you felt heady, thick with longing, the room humming with the pulse of everything unspoken. You weren’t sure how long you stood there in the glow of the locker room light, locked together in something fierce and tender and brand new. 

But when you finally pulled back, your foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling, the silence that followed didn’t feel empty. It felt full of everything still waiting to be said, still waiting to be felt. And neither of you ran from it. No, you welcomed it like an incoming tide washing over your heart and your entire being. Your forehead stayed pressed to his, your breaths mingling in the space between like steam curling from a fresh cup of tea. His hands still cradled your face, thumbs brushing gently over your cheekbones as if to memorize the texture of your skin, like maybe touching you was the only way to make sense of the storm inside him. 

You whispered his name again, barely a breath, and that was all it took. He kissed you once more, slower this time, deeper. There was a reverence in it, a kind of awe like he still couldn’t believe you were real and here and kissing him back. His hands slid down from your face to your waist again, and he pulled you in until there was nothing between you but heat and air. Your fingers wove into the dark strands of his hair, curling just slightly at the ends, tugging him closer in the most delicate, desperate way. 

The kiss grew from soft to smoldering, like fire catching slowly at first, then flaring brighter when the wind shifts. His lips moved against yours with more certainty now, more hunger, and yours responded in kind. It was dizzying, this exchange of breath and want, of emotion too big to name. Every brush of his mouth against yours made your knees weak, every sigh from his throat made your heart race like a drum in a thunderstorm.  You tugged at the hem of his shirt, not to take it off, but just to feel the warmth of him under your hands, the dip of his back, the rise of his spine, the solidness of muscle beneath skin. He shivered under your touch and kissed you like he was unraveling. 

He pressed you back against the lockers again — not harshly, never harshly — but close enough that you could feel every breath, every heartbeat, every inch of tension. His hands gripped your waist like he needed the contact to stay steady, like if he let go, the whole world might stop turning. “God,” he muttered against your lips, his voice thick and rough and nothing like the usual sharp-edged sarcasm. “You drive me crazy.” 

You laughed softly into the kiss, breathless and glowing. “Good crazy or bad crazy?” 

He kissed you again instead of answering, and the answer was everything. For a long, lingering moment, the rink, the cold, the ice, the noise of the world, all of it faded away. There was only the warmth between you, only the taste of each other’s names on your tongues, only the ache of something new blooming fast and bright like spring breaking through the frost. 

With your back still pressed against the cold metal of the lockers you allowed yourself the luxury of tracing your hands up and down Sunghoon’s broad chest, feeling every contour, every muscle beneath your palms. Filthy thoughts filled your head as Sunghoon’s lips trailed down the expanse of your neck and collarbone. A gasp fell from your lips as he sucked on the skin where your neck met your collarbone. 

“Oh!” You squeaked, running your hands through his hair fisting the tufts in your nimble hands like your life depended on it. “Sunghoon…” Your voice trailed with heat laced in the words, want. “I want you.” 

“You want me?” He hummed, continuing his exploration of your neck. “How badly do you want me?” He was toying with you, playing with your need for him — your want. 

“So bad.” Your voice was airy — needy almost. His smirk said he loved it, the way you were willing to beg for him and willing you were. You don’t even remember the last time you’ve been touched so intimately, with someone you cared for so fiercely. The pure lust and adrenaline coursing through your veins had left you feeling like you were ablaze. 

“Beg for it.” His voice was sharp — stern. It was so so hot. The way lips let your body, the way his eyes searched your traveling down your body drinking you in. The way your chest rose and fell as red hot searing need coursed through you. You do anything he asks of you at this moment, anything. 

“Please” You whimpered, hands grabbing at his hoodie. “Please, fuck me.” Your voice was sweet and light your eyes wide as you stared up at him. “I need it so bad.” 

“Fuckkkk” He groaned and next thing you knew his hands were under your thighs lifting you in his arms in one fail swoop. “I can’t resist you, Sunshine.” 

“I don’t want you to.” You pant as his hands find your skirt lifting it enough to show your panties. It was going to be quick, dirty. And that's exactly how you needed him. 

“Take me out.” He hissed at you. Your hands reach for his sweatpants pulling them down just enough to release him from his boxers. He was hard, of course. The tip red and angry with need. Your hand made a fist around his shaft pumping up and down. 

“Oh fuck.” He groaned, his forehead falling forward to meet yours. “Touch yourself before i fuck you.” 

You listened carefully, moving your other hand down, pulling your white cotton panties to the side and rubbing at your sensitive nub with your fingers. “Oh my god.” You whined out. “Please Sunghoon, please” 

“Just a little bit more, baby.” He cooed, “You’re almost ready for me.” 

“I’m ready now.” You couldn’t contain the whimper that threatened to fall from your lips. “I need you, so bad.” 

“Okay, Sunshine.” He nodded, taking his length in his own hand all the whilst holding you up against the lockers. “I got you.” 

Sunghoon’s gazed fell from your face to where the two of you met, his tip slapping against your entrance like a knock. A gasp leaving your lips the instant he pushed into you — creating a beautiful stretch you felt through your entire body. 

Sunghoon started with a slow pace, allowing hips to tap against yours lightly. It was almost romantic the way his forehead rested against yours. His breath fanning your face with short pants. You were in love with this feeling — in love with this moment and how it consumes you whole. 

“Faster.” You whined, hands gripping Sunghoon’s shoulders with white knuckles. You were trying to ground yourself, the pleasure taking you to a whole other planet entirely. “Faster please Sunghoon.” 

Sunghoon said nothing, his only response was the quick motion of his hips against yours. The sound of skin slapping filling the silence of the locker room like a melody, it was a tune you’d grow to love if given the chance. “Oh– my god.” You chanted. “Oh my god.” 

“You close?” Sunghoon grunts, his voice gritty and harsh. “Take it.” 

“Yes.” Your head was weightless as it bobbled up and down in tune with Sunghoon’s harsh thrusts. “I’m so close.” 

“Gooood girl..” He cooed in your ear. “Cum for me.” 

Your end splashed into you like a tidal wave, washing over your body in an overbearing pleasure you’d never felt before. Your thighs trembled in Sunghoon’s hands as you rode out your high. Sunghoon falling suit, moaning your name like a mantra. You had never felt more connected to someone then you did in this moment. Tied together a web of emotion and something that felt so close to love. 

You were falling in love. It was fast and blinding and scary but it was true. You were falling in love. And you hoped and prayed Sunghoon was too. 

By the time you situated yourself it was almost too late into the night to try and sneak back into your dorm room. Plus the thought of seeing Ruka right now with the knowledge of what she had done had been sickening. Sunghoon offered for you to stay at his place and you were in no position to turn the offer down. You allowed him to take you home. You allowed him to worship your body until all hours of the night. And most importantly you allowed yourself to fall in love deeper and deeper as the clock ticked on. 

The morning sun trickled through the blinds in gentle stripes, painting golden bars across the sheets tangled around your legs. The air was still tinged with last night’s sweetness, a lull of warmth that lingered between your skin and his, and the scent of cold air and something distinctly him like mint and pine and a little bit of wild. You stirred slowly, your limbs heavy but content, the kind of ache that whispered of a night where nothing was said aloud but everything was understood in touches, in sighs, in the soft tremble of lips pressed together in quiet devotion. 

Sunghoon was already up, standing near the edge of the room, half-dressed and slipping his hoodie over his head. The light hit his face just right, catching the soft curve of his cheek and the tired determination in his eyes. He looked like someone ready to face something, and for once, not run from it. You sat up, the covers pooling around your waist like the soft folds of a curtain falling back. “You’re up early,” you murmured, voice still raspy with sleep and something sweeter. 

He glanced at you, and there was a flicker in his gaze, that rare smile he barely gave anyone, small, crooked, a secret stitched between two hearts. “I’m going to talk to Jay,” he said, adjusting the sleeves of his hoodie. “I want to ask him… to let me play again.” For a second, it felt like everything stopped. Not because you were surprised — no, you’d seen it coming, inching closer each time he took a fall and got up again, each time he looked at the ice with something softer than hate but because this was a moment of return. A full circle. A boy broken now choosing not to stay shattered. 

You smiled, and it was bright enough to make the room feel warmer. “You should,” you said, voice thick with pride. “You’re ready.” He stepped over to the bed, leaned down, and kissed you, quick and soft, like a promise sealed in the hush of morning. It wasn’t heated like the night before, but it burned all the same, quiet fire beneath skin.

And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him like the final note of a song, leaving you alone with tangled sheets, sunlit silence, and a chest full of warmth. You fell back into the pillows with a sigh, fingers brushing your lips. Something had shifted. And you knew, with a certainty that reached down to your bones, that things were only just beginning. 

The cold kiss of the arena hit Sunghoon the moment he stepped through the doors, but it felt different now, less like an echo of pain and more like a memory rediscovered. The air smelled of ice and rubber and worn leather, a scent that once haunted him, now stirring something in him that almost felt like peace. Almost. He walked toward the rink, skates slung over his shoulder, confidence stitched into the rhythm of his steps. The moment he stepped past the glass, heads turned. Jake was the first to notice, eyebrows lifting in surprise, his helmet tucked under one arm. Heeseung followed, stopping mid-lace with a crooked smile playing at the edge of his mouth. Jay’s brows drew together in disbelief, and even Soobin looked up from where he was adjusting his gloves. Coach Bennett, stoic as always, stood at the edge of the rink with his clipboard like it was a shield. 

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Jay muttered, not unkindly, but wary. 

Sunghoon didn’t flinch. “I’m here to show you I’m ready.” The words settled into the air like frost, and no one moved for a moment. Coach’s lips pressed into a flat line. “Sunghoon…” 

“I’m serious,” Sunghoon said, voice sharp as skates on fresh ice. “I’ve been training, I’ve been pushing myself. I’m not here to sit on the bench and clap for everyone else. I want to play.” There was a silence, heavy and cautious. Jake rubbed the back of his neck, looking at Heeseung, who gave him nothing but a tight nod. “You’ve been through a lot,” Soobin offered gently. “It’s not about wanting. It’s about being cleared.” 

“I am cleared,” Sunghoon snapped, the warmth from earlier that morning slipping through his fingers like melting snow. “I’m cleared, I’m stronger, I’ve been working every goddamn day. But every time I come back here, you all look at me like I’m broken glass.” Coach Bennett looked down at his clipboard, unreadable. “It’s not about doubt, it’s about safety.” 

“Bullshit,” Sunghoon muttered. His jaw tensed, breath fogging in front of him. “You think I’d put myself back on this ice if I wasn’t ready?” Still, they didn’t move, didn’t soften. And something in him snapped, not the injury, not the tendon, but something deeper. A flare of frustration bloomed in his chest, blooming red hot. Heeseung, trying to defuse the crackle in the air, said, “Maybe just keep training with the figure skater—” 

Sunghoon’s head snapped up, and without meaning to, without even thinking, the words spilled out sharp and cruel. “I’m done wasting time with that ballerina on ice.” It felt like the words echoed, like even the boards flinched from them. A sting curled behind his ribs the moment it left his mouth, regret instantaneous, but pride, wounded and loud, kept him from pulling it back. “I want to come back to the real game,” he added, voice quieter, but iron-edged. “I’m done sitting out while you all pretend like I don’t exist.” 

A thick pause. Coach Bennett looked at him long and hard, then said slowly, “You can skate at next week’s practice. We’ll see then.” And just like that, it was done. But the victory tasted hollow on his tongue, and when Sunghoon sat to lace up his skates, the chill of the words he’d thrown, not at them, but at you, clung to him like frostbite. 

In the dim hush of the arena’s far bleachers, behind a column of shadow where the sun dared not reach, Ruka sat like a ghost in waiting, silent, calculating, and out of place. The buzz of the overhead lights hummed above her, flickering faintly, illuminating the sharp gleam in her eyes as she angled her phone just so. Her hand was steady. Patient. She shouldn’t have been there, wasn't allowed, wasn’t invited but Ruka had learned long ago that the world didn’t bend for those who asked politely. It bowed for the ones who took what they wanted. And right now, what she wanted was to unravel the ribbon of warmth that had started to thread its way between you and Sunghoon, to cut it with precision, to remind the world of who belonged in the spotlight and who didn’t. 

Her phone was already recording when Sunghoon stormed in, voice clear and edged with fire. She leaned forward, breath caught, her ears tuned sharply to every syllable. And then, there it was. The perfect storm. “I’m done wasting time with that ballerina on ice.” it hit the air like a slap, reverberating across the rink, and Ruka’s mouth curved into something that might have been mistaken for a smile if it weren’t so cold. Her thumb paused just long enough to ensure it had been captured, every inch of his exasperation, the tension in his voice, the pride bleeding into his posture. She tucked the phone into her coat pocket like a prize, one she’d deliver when the time was right, when the sting would land deepest. 

She didn’t care if Sunghoon hadn’t meant it. She didn’t care that he might already regret it. She wasn’t after truth, she was after control, and perception was always stronger than honesty in the court of whispered judgment. As the team fell into uneasy silence, she slipped out like a wisp of smoke, unnoticed and unseen, her heels light on the concrete floor, her breath misting in the chilled air. The doors of the arena sighed open and closed behind her with a hush. Outside, the sky stretched pale and gray, the wind carrying a sharpness that mirrored her resolve. 

Ruka wasn’t stupid she’d seen the way you looked at him, the way your smile bloomed for him like the first flower of spring. And more than that, she’d seen the way he looked back, that faint, unguarded flicker that once might have belonged to her but now seemed to burn only for you. So fine, she thought. If fire was what it took to make him see, then she’d set the whole thing ablaze. Let the ballerina dance on thin ice. She’d make sure the cracks came quick.

The front door creaked open with a burst of wind and sunlight, and Sunghoon stepped inside, shoulders high and heart thundering like blades against ice. His cheeks were flushed, not from the cold but from the triumph still coursing through him like static. The house was quiet, a rare lull between chaos, there you were. Sprawled across the living room floor in one of his oversized sweatshirts, your legs curled beneath you, your eyes bright as twin stars as they landed on him. The moment you saw his face, your own lit up like the sky on New Year’s Eve. 

"Did they say yes? What did they say? Oh my god, are you back? When do you start? What did Jay say? Wait, did Heeseung—" Your words spilled out like a melody, fast and tumbling and effervescent, each one building on the last in that way only you could manage. It was a deluge of sunshine, and Sunghoon didn’t answer — not with words, not yet. Instead, with one smooth movement and a grin tugging at the corners of his lips, he crossed the room in three long strides, swept you up with one arm around your waist, and kissed you. Firm, grounded, and breath-stealing. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for permission because it already knows it’s home.

You let out a delighted squeal, half-laughter against his mouth, your hands flying to his shoulders as your feet dangled above the floor. “I take it they said yes,” you murmured when you pulled back, breathless, the corners of your mouth lifting in that way that always made his chest ache a little in the best way. “Yes,” he said, barely above a whisper, but his voice held so much more than just agreement. It was relief and victory and hope. “Practice starts next week.” 

You beamed like you had swallowed the moon whole, eyes soft and full of a pride that wasn’t loud, but deep and unwavering. “I knew they’d say yes,” you said, cupping his cheek. “You were born for the ice.” He kissed you again, this time slower, with a touch more reverence, as if he was grounding himself in you. As if your faith in him was the thing tethering him to the world. And maybe it was.

He set you gently down, but your arms remained looped around his neck, unwilling to let go just yet. You leaned your forehead against his and closed your eyes for a beat. “I’m so happy for you, Hoon.” His name on your lips still made something in him tremble. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You would’ve,” you whispered. “But I’m glad I got to watch you do it anyway.” Outside, the wind whispered promises against the windows, and inside, in the soft glow of late afternoon, Sunghoon realized that somewhere between all the broken things, the injuries, the pressure, the pain he had found something whole. You. 

That night, the frat house was glowing, music vibrating through the walls like a heartbeat, laughter spilling out into the cold night air, the scent of cheap beer and cologne wrapping around the porch in a familiar haze. When Sunghoon leaned against your doorframe earlier, looking all casual with his hands shoved in his pockets and a soft smile threatening the edge of his mouth, asking you to come with him to the party, your yes had come quicker than your breath. There was no way you’d miss it not after the week the two of you had. So now, walking in beside him, hand ghosting near his like some secret tether, you tried not to look too amazed at the wild warmth of it all. Lights strung from the ceiling blinked like dying stars, red cups swirled in every hand, and voices collided like waves. It was chaos, but it was the good kind, the kind where possibility clung to the air like perfume.

Sunghoon didn’t even hesitate. He kept his hand on the small of your back, leading you through the crowd with a quiet confidence, and then he said it, just loud enough for the group clustered near the kitchen island to hear. “This is my girl.” It took you a second to process the words. Your heart leapt to your throat, and your smile tried to hide behind the cup in your hand, but you felt it. The gravity of it. How he said it so simply, like it wasn’t anything new, like it had been true for ages and he was just now stating a fact everyone should already know.

His friends turned toward you all at once, a mix of grins and raised brows. Jay was first to reach out, pulling you into a quick, one-armed hug. “So you’re the figure skater.”

You laughed. “Guilty.”

“I’m Jake,” said the one with dimples, his voice warm and curious, like he’d been waiting to meet you. “You’re way too happy to be hanging out with Sunghoon.”

You giggled and nudged your shoulder into Sunghoon’s. “I think I balance him out.”

“Or drive him insane,” Soobin added dryly from the couch. His arm was loosely slung around a girl who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. She was beautiful, no doubt, sleek and poised, but her smile was more of a formality than anything real. That had to be Yunjin. She gave you a quick nod. “You’re very…bubbly.”

“Is that code for loud?” you asked, grinning wide. “It’s okay, I get that a lot.” Soobin cracked a half-smile, and even Yunjin let out the tiniest huff that could’ve been a laugh if you squinted. Still, there was tension between them, an invisible thread pulled too tight. They stood close but didn’t seem to touch, not really. Their words skipped past each other like stones across water, and you wondered what storm brewed quietly behind their silence. Heeseung leaned in then, arms crossed, eyes flicking between you and Sunghoon. “She’s the opposite of you, man. Like…completely.”

Sunghoon only shrugged, sipping his drink with a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Yeah. I know.” And the way he looked at you when he said it like it wasn’t a flaw, like it was the best thing about you, made your chest bloom with something warm and wild. You reached for his hand, and this time he didn’t hesitate. His fingers curled into yours like they belonged there, like maybe they always had. The music shifted into something slower, the kind of beat that made everything else fade, and the crowd swayed around you like the sea. You weren’t quite sure how the night would end, but for now, wrapped in the golden hum of laughter and light, with Sunghoon by your side and your name spoken like something precious between strangers who might become friends you were exactly where you were meant to be. 

The night had curled itself into comfort, like a candle-lit secret shared between strangers now growing familiar. You stood with Sunghoon and his friends in the corner of the room where the music wasn’t too loud, where voices could still dance freely. You were mid-laugh, something Jake had said, your face lit with that easy, golden joy you wore like a second skin. Sunghoon stood close to you, his arm brushing yours every so often, eyes softer than anyone had seen them in weeks. You didn’t know it, but he’d been watching you like you were a lighthouse in the storm, something to steer by. And then the room chilled.

It was subtle at first, just a shift in air, the way conversation dulled, footsteps falling heavy behind the group. You turned before Sunghoon did, and there she was. Ruka. Her presence bled tension into the moment, a sharpness that made smiles go stiff and gazes flick downward. She stood with her arms crossed, dressed like she belonged and yet looking so out of place. You smiled at her anyway, your voice honeyed and warm.

“Hey, Ruka! You made it, have you met everyone?” The sweetness in your tone was genuine, like you hadn’t noticed the way her eyes cut through you, like maybe this time would be different, like maybe she’d smile back and offer a polite nod. But she didn’t.

Instead, her lip curled, and her voice dropped low, sharp enough to wound. “Drop the act.” The words sliced through the air like glass breaking. The laughter stopped, your own breath hitching slightly as confusion passed across your face. “What?” you asked, softly, not in disbelief, but in the kind of gentle hope that maybe you’d misheard her.

“I said,” Ruka stepped closer now, venom twisting in her pretty mouth, “drop the fucking act. The bubbly sunshine girl thing? It's fake. And everyone here’s falling for it, but it’s pathetic.” A heavy silence fell. Jake blinked, Soobin muttered something under his breath. Yunjin folded her arms tightly. And beside you, you felt Sunghoon stiffen, like his muscles remembered rage before his mind caught up.

“Back off,” he said, his voice low and dangerously calm. But Ruka only laughed, a cold, humorless thing that curled at the edges like smoke. “Really? You’re defending her?” She looked at him, eyes glinting with something twisted and triumphant. “That’s rich, coming from the guy who said he was wasting his time with the ‘ballerina on ice.’”

You froze. The words hung between you like frost. You turned, your head tilting slightly toward Sunghoon, expression unreadable. But he was already shaking his head, already stepping forward. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, voice rising, urgent. “I was pissed, I was trying to prove I was ready to play again, and I said something stupid—”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ruka said smoothly. “They can hear it for themselves.” She pulled out her phone, unlocking it with the ease of someone who’d been waiting for this moment. The recording played loud and clear, his voice unmistakable: “I’m just wasting time with the ballerina on ice. I want to come back to the real game.”

The words hit like a slap. Your chest ached, something invisible curling tight around your lungs. You stood still, perfectly still, like movement might make it worse. The others glanced between you both, some awkward, some stunned. Heeseung winced. Jay looked furious. Jake muttered, “Dude,” under his breath. Sunghoon reached for you then, eyes wide, desperate. “I didn’t mean it—” You didn’t flinch. You didn’t pull away. But your smile, your radiant, effortless smile — wavered. Only a flicker, barely there, like a candle in the wind.

The music faded. Or maybe it didn't, maybe it still pulsed behind you, still thudded with the bass of cheap speakers and louder laughter, but in your ears it was gone. Replaced by the sound of your own heartbeat — wild and feral, pounding like fists against a closed door. Your cheeks flushed hot, but your hands had gone cold, and everything in the room blurred with the sting of unshed tears. Your eyes found Sunghoon’s, but it wasn’t safety you felt.

It was betrayal. And shame. Shame so sudden it roared up your throat and turned the warmth in your chest to something molten and broken. “Wait—” he whispered, stepping toward you. You pulled back.

He looked like he’d been struck, like the reach of his hand had meant everything. Maybe it had. But you were already moving, weaving between people, ignoring the murmurs and awkward stares, the way the group parted like water around you. Your heels scraped the floor. Someone said your name, maybe Jake, maybe Heeseung, but you didn’t turn back. You pushed through the door and into the yard where the cold night air hit your face like glass. You breathed it in too fast, too hard, hoping it would drown out the heat of humiliation clawing at your throat. The stars blurred above you, cruel and glinting. Behind you — footsteps.

“Wait—please,” Sunghoon called out, breathless. You spun on him just as he reached the porch, voice trembling with hurt and rage. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he said, voice cracking. “I swear I didn’t mean it.”

“Don’t lie to me.” You tried to keep your voice strong, but it wavered at the edges, shivering like frost under sunlight. “Don’t act like I didn’t hear it. Everyone heard it, Sunghoon.”

“I was angry,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me play, I—I said something I didn’t mean because I was desperate. I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t.”

“You called me a waste of time,” you whispered, voice breaking now. “You said I wasn’t the real game.” His expression collapsed. “That’s not what I meant—”

“You think I don’t know what it’s like to want something that bad?” You laughed, but it came out brittle and sharp. “To work every night until your legs give out? To fall and fall and fall and keep getting up? I gave everything to this. To the ice. To you.” Tears spilled hot down your cheeks, and you hated how fast they came, how they betrayed the tremor in your heart.

“I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for you to kiss me. I didn’t ask to be anything more than the annoying figure skater who shares your rink time.”

“You’re not—don’t say that,” he said, stepping closer. But you stepped back.

“I should’ve known better,” you said, voice low now, shaking. “You were always going to go back to them. To the game. And I was just practice. Just something to pass the time.”

“That’s not true.” His hands curled into fists at his sides. “You’re more than that. You mean—fuck, you mean everything.” And then he said it.

“I love you.”

The words cracked the night in two. You stared at him, eyes wide, breath stolen clean from your lungs. But it was too late. You shook your head, tears still slipping down your cheeks, chest heaving. “Don’t say that now.”

“I mean it.”

“Then why did you say that?” The question hung between you like a blade. And he had no answer. Or maybe he did, but not one that could stitch the wound he’d just made. So you turned. You turned before he could see the way your whole body broke in half. Before he could see the shiver in your spine and the way your hands curled into your coat like it could somehow hold you together. You walked. Past the yard, down the sidewalk, away from the party that once felt like light. Sunghoon didn’t follow this time. And maybe that’s what hurt the most.

The days pass like shadows beneath your skates, faint and fleeting, yet always there. Each morning you wake with a hollow echo in your chest, a silence that’s grown too familiar. You lace up your skates like armor, wear your routines like battle hymns. You skate harder now, faster, carving the ice like it wronged you. Blades slicing through your thoughts, breath fogging in the cold as you spin through everything you can’t say. You haven’t spoken to Sunghoon since that night. You’ve seen him in passing, walking across campus, laughing with Heeseung outside the rink, nodding at Coach Bennett with that quiet intensity in his eyes, but you never linger. You turn corners when he comes close. Pretend not to hear when his voice drifts from down the hallway. You are your own silence, sharp and unyielding.

The dorm is no better. Ruka has become a ghost, and you let her be. You don’t look at her, don’t respond to her passive remarks or the way she sighs when you walk in. She’s tried to speak, maybe once, maybe twice, but you shut her out with the same coldness she once offered you. You spend more time out of the room than in it. Your application to switch dorms is in the system now, a silent wish sent to the stars. All you can do is wait. But the nights… the nights are the worst. Sleep doesn’t come easily anymore. Your mind replays everything, his voice, his kiss, the look on his face when you turned away. You wonder if he’s been practicing. You wonder if he hates himself for what he said. You wonder if he meant it.

That night, the silence in your room presses in too tightly, the hum of your mini-fridge too loud, the shadows too long. You grab your skates and your coat. The rink calls to you not just as an escape, but as something close to home. Familiar. Honest. The moment you step inside, the air hits you like memory. Cold. Quiet. Unforgiving. You walk past the front lobby, past the empty locker rooms, and step onto the bleachers with the intention of warming up slowly, maybe skating alone under the low light until the sun peeks over the horizon. 

But you stop short. Because he’s already there. Sunghoon. Alone. On the ice. He’s skating, not perfectly, not as fluid as you’ve seen before, but he’s trying. Focused. Determined. His brows are drawn together, the sweat at his temples shining under the low rink lights. He doesn’t see you at first. Doesn’t hear the way your breath catches. You don’t move. You watch him glide forward, stumble slightly, then correct. He exhales, pushes again. Again. And again. He’s practicing. Your chest tightens. 

At first, you want to run. The moment you see him standing there beneath the pale glow of the rink lights, alone, waiting, searching the dark for something like hope, your body tells you to turn around. To vanish into the quiet of night and not look back. You’ve been skating circles around your own heart for days now, tightening the laces of your silence so securely that the thought of unraveling them in front of him makes you tremble. But it’s too late. His eyes catch yours, and you freeze like a deer in the frost. The tension between you snaps taut.

“Wait,” he says, voice catching, breathless. “Please—don’t go.” You don’t speak. He steps closer, every movement slow, like he’s approaching something delicate, something sacred. His eyes are wide and shining in the cold, like he’s on the edge of something, begging not to fall.

“Just talk to me,” he says. “Please. I—I need to say something.” You don’t know what compels you to stay. Maybe it’s the quiver in his voice or the way your name falls from his lips like a prayer. Maybe it’s the days of silence, heavy as snowfall, finally breaking. But you nod. You sit. And you listen. “I’m sorry,” he says first, and the words drop between you like stones sinking into a still lake. “I’m so, so sorry.”

You don’t look at him yet. You’re afraid to. Afraid that if you do, your heart will unravel right there on the ice. He keeps going. “When you first asked me if I believed in love, I told you I didn’t. That it wasn’t real. That it was for other people, not me. And you, you just smiled like you knew something I didn’t. You said I just hadn’t found the right person yet.” You lift your eyes to meet his. He’s closer now. Kneeling in front of you, his palms flat against the boards, like he’s anchoring himself to you.

“I found her,” he whispers. “I found you.” The words hit you like a gust of wind, unexpected, sharp, and tender. You blink, and the tears finally come, soft and shimmering, gliding down your cheeks like melting snow. His gaze flickers, worried, but you raise a hand, just one, and rest it over his.

“What you said that night…” you begin, voice cracking like a brittle branch. “It hurt, Sunghoon. God, it hurt. But I don’t think it was the words, not really. It was the moment. The humiliation. Being exposed in front of everyone. Like I was something to be mocked.” He looks like he might cry too.

“I just wanted to feel safe with you,” you continue, softer now. “I wanted to be seen. And Ruka… she hates me for reasons I can’t understand. I don’t want to be in competition with her. I don’t want any of this.” His hand tightens around yours. “I know. And I hate that I let her use me like that. That I gave her the opening. But I swear to you none of what I said was real. You are not a waste of time. You are the only thing in my life that makes sense.” You lean your forehead against his, your breath mingling with his in the cold air between you.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” you whisper.

“I mean every word,” he breathes. “I love you.”

Your lips tremble. And before either of you can speak again, you kiss him. It’s not the fiery kiss of confession or the desperate press of need. It’s gentle. Forgiving. It’s two broken pieces finding a way to fit again, not quite perfect, but perfectly trying. His arms circle your waist, pulling you in close, grounding you as your fingers brush his jaw, his neck, his hair. The kiss deepens with every second. Not in heat, but in heart. Like a vow passed between mouths too tired for words.

When you part, your foreheads stay pressed together. His thumb brushes away your tears. “I forgive you,” you murmur, voice trembling. “But please… no more lies. Not even the ones you tell yourself.”

“I promise,” he replies, voice raw. “No more.” And in that quiet, ice-slicked space between apology and absolution, you feel it, that something between you hasn’t shattered. It’s only just begun to bloom. 

Epilogue. 

The arena hums like a living thing, buzzing nerves and echoing chants, the chill of the ice rising into the rafters like ghosts of old games, old dreams. You sit somewhere in the middle of it all, wrapped in a scarf and a soft coat, heart thudding so loud it’s almost a drumline. Your fingers are clasped tight in your lap, your breath fogs in little puffs before your lips, and your eyes are locked on the rink like the story of your whole life might unfold across its frozen face. It’s his first game back.

Sunghoon. And you can’t remember the last time you were this full of feeling, pride, nerves, joy, a fragile ribbon of fear, but most of all, love. Love so big and bright and burning it feels like a comet carved into your chest. The lights above dim slightly, just a flicker, and then the team is called out one by one. The crowd roars like a wave, cresting and crashing with every name announced, jerseys flashing, skates hissing against the ice as the players appear. And then, there he is. Sunghoon skates out like he’s flying, his form clean and sharp and easy, like every moment he ever doubted himself has been burned away. The crowd cheers louder, not because they know the whole story, but because they can feel it. The comeback. The storm stilled. The boy who refused to give in.

You feel breathless watching him. And then, mid-glide, he turns his head. Finds you in the crowd like a compass always knows where north is. His eyes catch yours and in that moment, the noise fades. The arena, the lights, the cheers — all of it vanishes, melting away like frost under the sun. There’s just him. And you. He points at you — simple, easy, certain. And then his mouth moves, slow and deliberate.

“I love you.” Three words mouthed without a sound, but somehow louder than thunder. Your chest caves in, and a laugh breaks from your throat, trembling and tearful all at once. You nod, hand over your heart, mouthing it back: I love you too. And in that charged quiet between you, across ice and lights and distance, the ache of the past slips into something softer. Something holy. The game begins but you're not really watching the puck.

You're watching him. And he's not just skating. He's flying.

reg taglist. (★) @izzyy-stuff , @beomiracles , @dawngyu , @hyukascampfire , @saejinniestar , @notevenheretbh1 , @hwanghyunjinismybae, @ch4c0nnenh4, @kristynaaah

series taglist. (★) @saejinniestar , @vixialuvs , @slut4hee , @xylatox , @skyearby @m1kkso @jakeswifez @heartheejake @hommyy-tommy @yunverie @lalalalawon

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@guapgoddees @demigodmahash @cloud-lyy @heesky @ikaw-at-ikaw @shuichi-sama @shawnyle @kwhluv @iarainha @ikeuwoniee @mora134340

[be-xkyy]

yandere cowboy x boss's daughter who is an innocent country girl and barely knows that the person she trusts most is the one she should fear most

Well, I have a few ideas coming to mind about this scenario but I'll pick one for now.

Tw: Yandere, violence, blood, breeding, dirty talk , naive reader.

Masterlist

Yandere cowboy who works for your father for a while now. He's one of his most trusted workers and your father isn't the type to trust many people.

He always does jobs here and there on the ranch helping to put up wire fences so cattle don't escape, looking for cattle when they enter other lands, threatening neighboring ranchers when they don't want to return cows or sheep.

In his defense, they deserve a bullet in the head for trying that shit with him.

But the job he likes the most is taking care of you, the beautiful and naive daughter of his boss. He simply fell in love with you since he saw you for the first time a few years ago.

You were all pretty behind your father in that flowery dress, cowboy boots, your braided hair... and how can we forget your cute tits.

Tits he thought about that same night as he masturbated, his calloused hand wrapped around his hard member as he rubbed vigorously imagining you looking up at him with your big eyes as you ride him your tits bouncing on his face it's so good he ends up cumming all over his hand.

You are indeed a pretty little thing all smiles and ignorant of the world and people's intentions. Raised and protected by your father kept under his wing for far too long after all you are his only daughter.

It's inevitable that he ends up threatening and beating to death your countless suitors who shamelessly approach you believing they have a chance, no fucking way will it happen. not on his watch.

He simply corners them away from your sight and beats them mercilessly, he gives them a hard punch his knuckles impact their nose with a loud crunch he doesn't stop as the man falls to the floor with a broken nose.

Of course not.

He beats them until his fists are bruised and the man's face is covered in blood with a broken nose, teeth knocked out and eyes swollen he grabs them by the collar of their shirts as he growls.

“Stay away from her or i assure you this will be nothing compared to what I'll do to you, buddy”

The one who tries to make himself as presentable as possible so you won't get suspicious when he comes back to you.

He knows everything he does is worth it when you show all worried for him grabbing his calloused hands in yours, looking at his bruised knuckles asking him if he's okay with that worried tone that makes his cock hard inside his pants.

He ends up asking you to “comfort” him a little like he taught you. You both end up in the barn with him leaning you on hay bales, his hands undoing his belt and zipper before pulling down his pants along with his boxers that get caught on his knees.

Then he lifts your dress as you whine about the hay stinging your ass, he just pats your thigh to shut you up as his fingers pull down your panties, he hisses when he sees your pussy he moves his thick fingers closer inspecting your wet entrance.

“God you're so wet, for someone who acts so sweet you're a bit of a slut aren't you doll?”

He arches an eyebrow when you shake your head shyly at his words murmuring an embarrassed "I'm not..." he lets out a laugh that rumbles from deep within his chest his thick fingers don't stop moving thrusting into your hot pussy your walls squeeze his fingers like hell.

He grabs his member unable to resist any longer he uses your wetness to lubricate his cock and slide inside you, both of you let out a moan of pleasure you from the delicious stretch and him from feeling your walls throb around him he murmurs.

“What a tight fucking pussy you have so hungry for my fat cock baby doll.”

He moves his hips hard his heavy balls slap against your ass and his pubic hair scrapes deliciously against your pussy, your juices forming a creamy circle at the base of his cock as your nails dig into his muscled belly for support, his moans combined and the loud wet sound of his cock pounding into your pussy fills the barn.

“You're about to cum aren't you baby doll? Fuck–of course you're about to cum your pussy is getting so tight right now I think you want to rip my cock off.”

His hands tighten their grip on your waist and you just mumble stupidly wrapping your legs tightly around his waist your boots dig into his ass as you cum letting out a high pitched moan your eyes roll back in your head from the intense pleasure, he growls thrusting into you hard chasing his own orgasm that doesn't take long to come.

With one last thrust he thrusts deep inside you, stopping his movements and letting his semen explode, flooding your interior with its swimmers. Who knows, maybe today will be the day when his seed finally takes root inside you. He would be the best father, the best husband and the best successor for your father. Your father will also see it that way. Because it would be a shame to have to kill him, after all, they are almost family, right..?

[fragranticareviewers]

As someone who doesn't know a thing about perfumes, reading what you have to say about them is so unbelievably cool!

If I may ask something, what would a magical girl use, but not the pink main one, maybe the orange/yellow one?

ive been sitting with this for a little bit rotating it in my head... this will be a long one

so im putting my answers into two different categories:

one is for the Orange Magical Girl Archetype, which is how i was thinking of the first one. in my head, the orange ones are usually sporty, energetic, and have a sun or fire theme going on, while still maintaining a lot of that youthful sparkly fun vibe. (i also personally associate them with citrus, because, well, orange) so i was thinking of that. this will be my first category of answers.

olympea solar by rabanne - yummy! white florals and mandarin orange.

h&m sunray - golden warmth by h&m - straight up smells like summer. sunscreen, coconut, slightly floral?

orange ice cream by colornoise - i have no idea if this one is good or not to be honest. but it looks like it should fit. i trust it. i believe in it.

dr. botica poção da criatividade by o boticário - ok pause. i have never seen this mentioned before by anyone and found it by accident. what is this. this is ridiculously cute. how do i get my hands on it? the bottle is so cute! it has a star for god's sake

sundrunk by imaginary authors - "oh noo it's so linear" "it doesn't smell like a city on fire or bull's blood" i don't care. smells like artificial orange flavoring followed by neroli. yummy

...so this was my first thought.

then i started thinking: what about the actual orange magical girls from things i've watched? what do i associate with them?

and then i realized: WHERE ARE ALL THE ORANGE MAGICAL GIRLS?? i can think of, like, 5 total! all of them have completely different personalities! everyone's always like "ohh toei hates making green magical girls, we're starving, please feed us more green magical girls please" as if there is not currently a CRISIS of MAGICAL GIRLS WHO WEAR ORANGE in their series even greater than this...

with that said: the 5 magical girls i can think of who are primarily orange all have completely different associations for me, so i figured it'd be fun to pick a perfume or two for each of them.

cure soleil from star twinkle precure - i think they technically classify her as yellow so she might not even count. that's stupid. she's orange. being blonde does not change the color of her outfit.

for her, i pick aqua allegoria nettare di sole by guerlain. it has solar notes, which are critical for her IMO, along with beautiful white florals, which i think matches with her association with flowers.

hazuki from ojamajo doremi - ah, i'm struggling with this a bit.. she's very shy, naive, and studious, with an interest in things like violin and ballet. i was hoping i could find something with maybe a light varnish accord, but no luck. instead, i looked for things with an old book/paper smell without being overly dark or old, and i'm stuck between these 2...

gion by fantome - powdery rose tea with honey and books. light and cute.

morning room by solstice scents - you thought i was gonna do a recommendation post without mentioning solstice scents huh? huh?? *beats you up* this is another powdery and light floral, this time mostly based on violet instead of rose. and, of course, there's a paper note in here.

cure sunny from smile precure - i'm realizing that, in my head, she is the prototypical orange magical girl. i may be biased because she's also my favorite. i want to find something that evokes fire without being overly smoky or autumnal.

beach bonfire by alchemic muse - a firey gourmand with a little bit of nice sandalwood and amber, nice!

fire opal (orange 2; natural) by dsh perfumes - planning on getting a sample of this. bitter orange that people are complaining is "too masculine"

sailor venus from sailor moon - oh god. is she orange? anyways, i think i'd associate her with like, makeup accords, like the way lipstick smells. but fun and silly. it'd be cool if i could find a light and fun fragrance with a hot iron accord because she has a chain attack and all that, but no such thing seems to exist

iris crush by jimmy choo - powdery floral lipstick. yay!

nagisa momoe from puella magi madoka magica - is this even a question?

cheesecake by arcana wildcraft.

anyways, to be transparent, a lot of the time i don't answer fandom/character requests because it's always things i've never watched/read/played/etc. before. but mahou shoujo... well i've heard of it

[gremlingottoosilly]

Yandere! König with a girl who trusts way too easily. Their first interaction afte he kidnaps her is 'I'm not gonna hurt you. ' and she just believes him and goes along with it when he says he wants her as a lover. ??

Konig isn't quite sure if you're this naive or just stupid - but god, he will take you as you are any day of the year. He adores your silly naivety - he loves having you around, always near him in the house that he only got because he wanted to enrich the area his pretty darling is going to be living in. And while he did take most of the advice about how to take care of a woman from mostly dog and cat owners - get her lots of treats, give her toys and, maybe, let her go on an occasional leashed walk - he was still trying his best, and it's the thought that counts, right? Still, he didn't think you could be so...cool about everything. He promised he would protect you, and this is exactly what he is doing - saving your life because soft things like you shouldn't really live on your own. Oh no, you deserve to be pampered and kissed like princesses they are, and if their loyal blood knights want to spend their days between their legs, faces buried in their royal pussy, then, well... You were a little bit less certain about sex, of course, with Konig being as socially inept as he is, but he tried his best to ease you into the thought of having your pussy hammered with his cock. He still thinks you're a bit dumb and shouldn't trust him - but he also presses his lips all over your face and whispers that it's alright if you're naive and silly, he will protect you from anyone who can exploit it - anyone who isn't him, that is. Konig thinks it might be a survivor's response - it's normal for the weak to act fragile and fawn over the strong, you're just doing what you think is going to save you. He knows he is threatening and you're probably just too scared of him to actually resist - but god, aren't you just adorable, looking at him like that, all wide-eyed and pretty. With enough promises of gifts and soft treatment, you even started kissing him on your own, without the need to tighten the leash around your neck - and Konig can't help but adore his pretty pet girlfriend, all bundled up in his hold whenever he decides that he doesn't like you sleeping in the basement, and actually wants you to sleep in his bed.

[aninipanin1]

How about Young manager with ADHD (continuously gets lost within Blue Lock, interrupts Ego using the PA system (accidentally) about trivial things, misplaces objects, rather naive etc),,, lol

LOST SHEEP

Notes: I personally do not have ADHD and my knowledge about it is quite small, so please forgive me if I misrepresent it here! I do not have any intentions of doing so, and if I do make some mistakes, please let me know! I am genuinely interested in being much more knowledgeable about this topic. Thank you!

"Y/n-chan...? What are you doing there..?"

Hiori asked, blinking at the rather bizarre scene in front of him. The midfielder just finished his daily training routines when he stepped inside of the laundry room to place his laundry basket.

But when he did walk in, he found their precious manager crouched down, hugging your legs as your eyes focused intensely at the small window of the washing machine, eyes boring at the spinning clothes inside the contraption.

In fact, you were too focused to even notice or hear the music of the other machines that alerted the room about how the process was done. You were just sitting there, staring, eyes blinking rarely, as if the rotation of the washing machine was a rare circus show to your eyes.

Everyone in the facility knew of your...tendencies and are more than understanding and ready to help you return your attention to whatever you were currently doing. Hiori was no different as he approached your crouched figure and lightly held your shoulder to take your attention back, but he made sure to be gentle enough to not scare you.

"Y/n-chan, earth to Y/n-chan. Are you okay?" He said in the softest voice he can muster, his hands supporting your crouched figure that almost lost its balance. You looked a bit dazed still from your previous episode, blinking at the sudden interruption. Turning to the blue-haired player, you tilted your head.

"Hiori-kun? What are we doing here...? What's happening?"

"Everything is fine, Y/n-chan. You just got a bit distracted with the washing machine." He explained, raising one of his hands to your hair, softly patting it in a comforting manner. He guided you up from your position and helped with the laundry that had long been done.

"Oh, I didnt notice that the rest were done..." you said in realization, looking at the washing machine with wide eyes. Hiori, who could not help himself, pinched one of your cheeks.

"Its fine, let's just get the rest of the laundry and hang it up, yeah?"

'Geez, she's too cute to be even real...' he inwardly gushed.

"What do you mean you can't find her?" Ego said, glaring at a worried Anri the moment he received the news. Apparently, you have been missing for more than an hour now, with no one from any stratum knowing where you were or even seeing you pass by.

"I'm a little worried. We all know how she gets when she's super distracted."

Ego sighed, rubbing his temple and not even adjusting his glasses that fell off the bridge of his nose. Out of everyone in there, he knew, especially how you can get. Being the one you always worked alongside with, there were times when you would be too focused on something trivial like a moving object or a rather miniscule detail that you would end up forgetting everything you were currently and supposed to be doing.

Now, most of the time, he encourages this. Ego cannot count how many times you ended up helping him and the players as a whole because your fixations on even the most minute of details always ended up being the root cause of a problem.

Hence, why, starting then, he always trusted your mini hyperfixations, no matter how dumb it may sound. You were naive, yes, but you are also a genius, something most people around you know of. So, early on, Ego trusted these said instincts and fixations and revolving them into something that would benefit everybody.

However, there are times like these where those hyperfixations end up disadvantageous. Somehow, you always get lost in the worst times in the worst places possible. Once, the whole facility literally had to work together in order to find you, only for Niko to find you crawling around the storage room near the cafeteria, chasing a ladybug that got your attention while you tried to find your way around the facility again.

There was no time for that kind of thing, however, seeing as to how the day after tomorrow was the last games for the Neo Egoist League, and the staff desperately needed to arrange everything and anything under the sun to make sure the games and livestream are all smooth sailing.

And, they definitely needed you, the overall manager of the teams, there.

"What do we do, Ego-san?"

"I'll look around in my cameras. Try to find her in the usual spot and rooms she crawls and runs on, or those rooms that have a lot of things she can fidget with." He sighed, feeling so done with everything that happened that day.

"Okay. I'll ask help from the rest of the staff."

Just as they were about to start looking for you though, the PA system was suspiciously turned on.

"Huh? It's not even 12 in the noon yet."

Anri said, confused, but all their questioning were answered when they heard the loud feedback of the mic before hearing small scratches and fidgeting noises in the mix. There were even times when they heard some buttons being pushed about. Ego sighed again, but it felt more like a breath of relief.

"That's her. Get that problem child and bring her here." Ego said, spinning his chair to face the cameras. And would you know it, when he went back through the CCTV cameras' previous footages, he saw you in the PA room, fidgeting with the buttons of the system. If he were to be honest, he felt a huge sigh of relief that you were not doing anything that may have harmed you of sort.

After a few minutes, Anri opened the door to his office but alongside her was Don Lorenzo who was smirking as he held you by the scruff of your jacket. Carrying you like a lost kitten, while you only blinked at the predicament you were in, constantly asking Anri about what you were supposed to do again and just babbling stories to Lorenzo and Anri.

"The lost sheep is here." He said, bringing you on the ground as carefully as he could, nodding along to whatever you said about how microphones actually worked and how you were just curious and wanted to experiment if your knowledge and hypothesis were actually real or whatever your mind was thinking about currently.

"Y/n." Ego said a bit sternly, making you stop talking as you looked at the man.

"Try to bring someone with you when you go on your little adventures sometimes." He said before turning his swivel chair once again to face the many monitors, turning his back to you.

"Okay, Ego-san!" You cheered happily, not even bothered about what had just transpired as you went back to your notebook to continue writing and working.

'This girl is going to be the death of me. This is why I don't want kids.' Ego thought, shaking his head.

"Rin-kun. Have you seen Mr. Boba?"

"Hah?"

Rin said, his usual frown in his face. But, this was more of a frown of confusion. He knew you had the habit of naming normal objects with names you found either fitting or adorable, by your standards of course. So, when you approached the striker about a supposed 'Mr. Boba,' he had no idea what the hell you were even looking for.

"Mr. Boba! He has tons of dots that's why he's Mr. Boba." You insisted, your face in a frown because you can't find what you were looking for at all and it was starting to thin your patience a bit.

"Look, I don't know what your Mr. Boba is. What even is it? Is it a hairpin of a boba, or a keychain?" Rin asked. He really did want to help you find Mr. Boba, but you were not exactly helping your case as you kept insisting Mr. Boba was Mr. Boba.

That was until Karasu and Shidou entered the field that helped him and you.

"Y/n-chan! Hi! Why are you sad?!" Shidou asked as he jumped to hug you, before frowning himself, not liking that you were clearly upset by the look at the frown on your face.

"What's wrong, Y/n-chan?" Karasu added, patting your hair.

"Did Rinrin over here make you sad? I'll beat him up for you if you want, Y/n-cha-"

"Shut the fuck up, lukewarm idiot. I didn't do crap." Rin intercepted Shidou, feeling the veins on his head pop.

"No, no, Shidou-san. I just can't find Mr. Boba. What do I do? I need him." The frown on your face deepened into a pout. Karasu was confused as hell who was this Mr. Boba you were talking about. He turned to Rin, who only glared at him.

"I dont know who the hell her Mr. Boba is."

But, Shidou seemed to understand who your Mr. Boba was as the grin on his face widened and he pulled your phone out from your jacket pocket and extended it to your hand.

"Mr. Boba!" You cheered happily at the phone.

"Silly Y/n-chan. It was in your pocket all along!" Shidou said as he pinched your cheeks and stretching it. Meanwhile, Karasu and Rin were just left confused to the side, wondering how the hell was a phone comparable to a boba.

"That's Mr. Boba? What the hell. I don't see it." Karasu commented, but Shidou only stuck his tongue out at both of them.

"You all are blind losers. Can't you see the phonecase design? It has black circles in the bottom and since its a clear case, you can see the (f/c) of the phone! So its like boba." Shidou explained, pointing out the small design of the phone that somehow made it look like a boba in both your and his eyes.

"Yeah! Like Shidou-san said!" You cheered as you hugged the male, thanking him sweetly for helping you find your Mr. Boba.

"I'm surrounded by idiots." Rin said, facepalming as Karasu just laughed.

"Shut the hell up, Rin-rin! You can't say that to Y/n-chan!!!"

"Who said I was also talking about her?"

ADDITIONAL TIME!

Since everyone in the Blue Lock facility found out about your disorder, they became much more protective of you overall.

You are waiting in line for food? No, youre not. Everyone is letting you get your food first.

You have bad time management? They'd help with that. They'll be your personal alarm clock.

You are feeling so bored and want to fidget with something? They'd let you play with their hands while they listened to Ego's damn lectures.

It's all about maintaining your attention span yet enabling you to become a better person as a whole. To improve your mental health and also make you feel that you are more than your disorder.

But, of course, they can't help but spoil you every once in a while. No biggie!

Blue Lock is WRITTEN by Kaneshiro Muneyuki and ILLUSTRATED by Nomura Yusuke. All credits to the both of them.

[dadvans]

naive melody redux. [bucktommy]

“Your hands are shaking,” Evan says.

Tommy looks down. It’s the slightest tremor. He has no fucking clue how Evan noticed, eyes half swollen shut from crying, tears still flowing freely, mixing with snot every fruitless time he wipes at his face.

“Yeah.” He gulps, swallows. Looks back up at Evan. “I—“

And that’s where the words stop.

Evan nods and folds in on himself again.

The thing is: Tommy is sad, devastated even. Bobby had been the first person in a long time to come along and find that one last fire burning inside him and coax it back to life. Bobby had believed in him, was the guy to give him the chance he’d needed to live the kind of life he never believed he deserved on his own. But he’s long burned out his ability to cry from grief. He hasn’t done that in a long time. Cried when he’s angry? Sure. Cried at Pixar movies? Absolutely, and fuck all the way off if you ask him to watch a movie where the dog dies, because that’s an embarrassingly sure thing. But he doesn’t cry in a meaningful way, ever.

But Tommy looks at Evan and he’s fucking terrified. So, his hands are shaking.

“When they clear us,” he tries again, voice steadier than the rest of him, “let me take you home.”

“Tommy, I, I really don’t think—“ Evan’s voice is gummy, throat thick, and it almost sounds like he wants to laugh or desperately pick a fight that’s already left him. Fair.

“For my peace of mind, please,” Tommy continues, every bit as desperate as he feels, before trying to reel it back in, soft and neutral. “I don’t even have to be there in any real way, I won’t say a word, I’ll sleep on your”—shitty fucking, he does not say—“couch, just. I need to know you made it through the night.”

Evan sniffs and tries to hide another sluggish run of tears by tucking his face into the crook of his arm.

“Maddie’s going to be with Howie in the hospital. Athena—she’s going to be the last one out, and then she has the ugly business no one ever wants to deal with when the person they love the most dies. Maybe you’d rather stay with Hen and Karen, their family, or Ravi. That’s fine. But, Evan. I can’t let you be alone.”

Evan exhales ragged and wet, raw with grief in a way Tommy has been jealous of in the past, because in every other time that mattered, it would have meant Evan seeing all of him. Could have made the difference, maybe, Evan knowing the ugly parts of him early enough. It’s a thought he doesn’t have now, will realize never had broken the thick, in-the-moment surface fear, later.

“Okay,” Evan says, and Tommy feels a part of him steady. “You’re right. Okay.”

x

Getting back to Evan’s is a hassle and a half, between an impounded truck and a stolen helicopter. Tommy lets Evan sign for his keys and pay for the release, but drives them back to Eddie’s old house.

Someone should call Eddie, he thinks, suddenly. He may still have irrational thoughts about Eddie having some purchase on Evan, but he would trust Eddie with Evan’s grief. He knows Eddie has the kind of strength that could keep Evan safe, were Eddie here. That they would have each other, might prefer it even.

He parks in the driveway. The drive was silent, just the sound of the early morning cross-sections of highways and roads in the uneasy, liminal hour where Los Angeles isn’t quite awake but still not quite asleep. He steadies his grip on the lower curve of the steering wheel and concentrates on the leather, parked waiting for Evan to move, say anything, even.

“I don’t know what to do,” Evan says, finally.

“Okay.”

“If you weren’t here— I don’t know what I would do.”

Oh. “Then I’m glad I’m here.”

Evan gets out of the truck. Tommy waits two beats, then joins him. Follows him to the door and hands over the keys so Evan can let them both inside.

Evan flips on the lights in a way he was too careless, too out of his mind—and Tommy stops that train of thought—to do, the last time they both stumbled into this house. The place is a little more put together, a lot more unpacked, but still wanting in the way nothing is fully put away and there are broken down boxes stacked against walls, painters tape half-rolled to line the trim of two walls in anticipation of a fresh coat before being half-heartedly forgotten, the entire roll still attached and laying on the floor with a little dust on top. Tommy does not think of all the other versions of them being here together again, the teasing things he would say to make Evan smile, what he would comment on first in an attempt to make Evan feel known, seen, unconsciously and openly loved.

“You should shower,” he says instead.

“I’m so tired,” Evan replies, just standing there.

The thing is: Evan doesn’t look aimless. He looks like he’s resisting certain directions. I can’t let you be alone, Tommy had said. I don’t know what I would do, Evan had said, and Tommy feels haunted by both.

“Shower, I promise,” Tommy says, trying to navigate them both around it. He guides Evan by the shoulders to where he remembers the bathroom is, both from the times he spent here with Eddie and the last, late night he’d had with Evan, where he’d half-drunk and smugly rolled a condom off his dick in the dark and threw it in the trash and took the longest, happiest piss of his life thinking about the guy threatening him with “round two” ten feet away on a bare mattress.

Evan likes his showers hot, Tommy remembers. Tommy does not. But, he remembers, the rare moments where he has. Those moments overseas in the ugly beginning of the millennium when he first learned how to lose people, the showers when he was deployed were always either boiling hot or ice cold with zero in-between, and he treasured the way both convinced him he could skin himself raw.

He gets Evan in the shower, extra hot. Evan says nothing of the temperature, just stands underneath it like it will bleach him clean, and Tommy hopes Evan never gets to the point where he lets it. He climbs in after. They’re both naked, obviously, and really need the wash, but Tommy can’t think of even a terrible one-night stand with a mutual shower so sexless. He scrubs Evan down thoroughly, then himself. He rinses a washcloth under the spray and then uses it to wipe at Evan’s face, the way his mom used to when he was little, sweeping, clinical motions, right-to-left, left-to-right, Mr. Miyagi wax-on, wax-off style. Right hand sweeping under Evan’s raw nose, left hand pushing back Evan’s wet curls, fingers tracing down the midline of his skull just to make sure he’s still real and alive.

Tommy’s fine with just swapping places for a quick rinse of his own as long as he gets to borrow Evan’s deodorant. He sweeps Evan up in a fresh towel that was thankfully folded away into the built-in shelf after.

“I know you hate going to sleep with wet hair,” he says, a little helpless, brushing down Evan’s shoulder blades with the thing while he, himself, drips an obnoxious amount on the designer bathmat he used to make fun of back when Evan lived at the loft.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Evan replies. Sleep means you wake up to a new day, the first day when someone is dead the way they weren't the day before, Tommy remembers. He doesn't say anything, works the towel around to Evan's chest, hears his own knees crack crouching to get at Evan’s thighs and calves in a way that doesn’t feel sexual, only too aware of how Evan's always complained when he's soaked through sweats, jeans, blankets—anything, really, that gets damp when he’s too impatient coming out of the shower. “I don’t think I can.”

“That’s okay, too. You want to put on a movie? TV show, podcast? You can relax on your”—awful, nightmare—“couch, too.”

Tommy stands back up, towel with him, wrapping around Evan’s shoulders and sweeping down the meat of his biceps.

“It doesn’t feel like it now, because I know from experience, uh, nothing feels possible in times like these,” he tries, determinedly not staring Evan in the face.

Nearly a year ago Evan had been so wrecked by Bobby’s heart attack, called him the dad I never had. Had let Tommy fuck him for the first time, slow and intimate in a way that had previously sent Tommy running for the hills with other guys, but Evan had said, please, I just need to feel something, something good, and Tommy had wanted to be so badly something good for him. Still does, most days.

His hands shake on Evan's shoulders now, but he keeps talking, says, “But you’re going to crash the second something gives. Put on something clean. Get comfy. Your back will thank you.”

Buck stares up at him, just the slightest amount. Sea-blue eyes, deceptively deep, red-rimmed in a way that makes Tommy’s own hurt.

“Could you hold me? Just my weight, even, it doesn’t have to be— you were right, I’m worried the second I’m left to my own devices, I’ll split into a thousand pieces, whatever that means,” he admits, and then does the unthinkable thing, leaning face first with his forehead resting against Tommy’s wet clavicle, his mouth breathing weak and hitched against Tommy’s chest.

“Of course,” Tommy says. In any way. In every way. Whatever you need. As long as you want.

+ Addtl thoughts:

Before I go crazy and disappear back into the adulthood ether! Was thinking thoughts of Tommy enjoying something as a kid, maybe he had a soft caramel once that he snuck and no one was around, and he was able to savor it, he let it sit in his mouth for a long time and let it melt thick and sweet on his tongue, like a little secret he had with himself. And that's how he thinks of taking care of Buck when they're together, he makes avocado toast, he makes brunch, he LOVES taking care of Buck, it's this self-indulgent stupid thing he does for himself, allowing himself to DOTE and to CARE and to be vulnerable in this way that might come across as maternal that he's prevented himself as acting on for so long. He wants to love Buck so badly! But he also wants to love Buck via AFFECTION, wants to SHOW Buck he's loved, and that's so compatible with meeting Buck's needs of feeling like he's never enough, he's been told plenty of times that he's loved, worthy of love, but he's not important enough to care about or see that love realized.

Think about the one person Buck has ever felt has truly loved him, cared for him, despite everything, the father he's never had, dying and telling him he loved him, then telling him to leave. Buck is always left, in the end, being told he is worthy of love, but is never enough for anyone to stay.

Think about Tommy wanting to be enough for Buck, loving life with Buck so much that Buck realizes he wants to stay. Think about Tommy, for the first time, Buck feel like he's worth it.

[tinylilacbun]

Too Naive?

Pairing: daddy!rafe x maybank!little!reader

Warnings: POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR OBX4 (not really since I changed the dialogue a little but still)!! age regression, rafe being rafe, ruthie, reader is jj's twin, hurt/comfort, angst with happy ending, the pogues know reader regresses, cursing

A/N: This is the longest fic I've ever written, phew. This was supposed to be a drabble btw 🫣 word count: 2324

⋆｡‧˚ʚ ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ɞ˚‧｡⋆

As you made your way to the yacht club you smiled the whole way there, anticipating the exciting news Rafe wants to tell you about.

Your smile only grows when you find Rafe standing with Topper, both nursing their drinks and your face fell a little when Topper's girlfriend Ruthie joins at his side.

"Oh babe, I was just talking to Rafe how we're gonna screw the pogues and make amends." Topper tells her and she clinks her glass with his.

"Oh I'll drink to that. Not sure Rafe will though." She says before taking a sip from her straw.

Rafe narrows his eyes in confusion at that as he is about to raise his glass to his lips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean your girlfriend, right?"

You furrow your brows at the mention of you, hiding a little by the entrance to eavesdrop.

"Y/n? What about her?" Rafe asks and Ruthie grimaces a little with a hiss.

"She's pretty pogue isn't she? And too childish for someone like you." She explains.

Your whole mood changes when you hear that, expecting Rafe to defend you now but after the moment of silence your heart drops at his answer.

"She is a bit naive but just because we hook up doesn't mean it's anything serious." He replies and your whole world crumbles just like that.

You thought it was something serious, that you could trust him with your life, and you did exactly that by telling him about your regression.

The memory of him assuring you that it's okay, that he's gonna be there for you and gradually take the role as your caregiver but Rafe being Rafe he doesn't understand the importance of what that means to you.

It took you so much courage to even tell him and now hearing him say that breaks your heart. You feel stupid for being so open the second someone gives you a sense of security. JJ always tells you to watch with whom you share your secrets with but you thought it was different with Rafe.

Maybe Rafe is right, you were so naive to think that he loves you for who you are.

You simply turn around and leave, trying to push back the tears that threaten to slip as you make your way to the only place you know no one will judge you and the only person who knows how to comfort you right now.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Wrapping your arms around yourself you keep walking for a while, a warm feeling filling your chest as you approach your childhood home that your brother and the pogues morphed into an actual home now.

You haven't been here for a while, completely wrapped in your lovesick bubble with Rafe that you slightly feel bad for neglecting your true family for something that was bound to collapse as your brother would say.

From the distance you can see them all mingle around their freshly opened shop, crossing the dock.

The first person to notice you is John B, a smile forming on his face at the sight of you, quickly closing the distance between the two of you. "Look who it is! My favorite Maybank twin!"

You can't help but give him a small smile as well, wrapping your arms around his neck as he wraps his arms around your waist, spinning you both one time.

The second he sets you back down you see JJ behind him, feeling the tears build up again. He instantly notices that, a sad frown on his face he pulls you into his embrace.

"Wanna talk?" He whispers and you nod against him, gripping his shirt tightly. "C'mon, let's get on The Snapper, haven't seen the beauty yet, have you?"

You pull back, smiling again when he takes his hat off to place it on your head, keeping an arm around your shoulders.

He leads you towards the boat, helping you get on he turns to address the others. "You guys gonna be okay for a while without your captain?"

They all give him different types of agreement, some giving verbal responses and others just holding a thumbs up.

With that JJ gets behind the wheel, stirring away from the dock while you sit close, enjoying the pleasant breeze of the afternoon.

After a while, your brother slows down the boat, going to sit beside you he sees you fumble with the ear of your lamb plushie.

"What happened..." He finally asks, his voice quiet and gentle.

You recount everything that happened back at the yacht club, starting to sniffle the more you tell him. JJ stands up, pacing in front of you and running a hand through his tousled hair.

"That bastard." He curses and you lift your head with a frown.

"Jay...m'little." You mumble, looking back down at the lamb in your lap. This stuffed animal represents your journey with Rafe since you confessed being a little to him as it's the first thing he bought you after you told him.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just-" he groans in frustration, sitting back down next to you.

"Jus' say it..."

JJ looks at you, confusion written in his face. "Say what?"

"You warned me dis would happen..." You hiccup and he quickly pulls you more into his side, feeling you wrap your arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

"Oh, kiddo...that doesn't mean I enjoy seeing you upset." He comforts you, his hand moving up and down your back to soothe you. "It'll be alright."

Finally all your emotions pour over and you start to cry against your brother's shoulder, your body shaking from the force of your sobs.

A few hours later you are dressed in some comfortable pajamas, all snuggled up with Sarah, Kie, and Cleo outside on a couch that's standing near a crinkling fireplace, a weighted blanket covering you four and your lamb tucked under your chin while the boys are being their usual self, drinking beers and listening to music.

You have put your phone on silent, ignoring all messages and missed calls from Rafe but you did inform him that you're here, nothing more, so he doesn't think the worst by you not responding.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Rafe was pacing back and forth in the living room, nibbling on the nail of his thumb, looking down at the phone in his hand and not so patiently waiting for you to call or just answer his messages.

He stares at the screen, waiting for the three dots to appear that indicates you are texting, but nothing. He curses when he tries to call you for like the 30th time and it instantly goes to voicemail.

"Call me back when you hear this I- please." He speaks into his phone, his other hand running over his buzzed head anxiously.

Pulling his phone away from his ear he stops his pacing, coming to a stop in front of the dresser that has a few picture frames decorated on the top.

He glances at the one that held a picture of him and Sarah when they were kids, feeling a wave of nostalgia wash over him.

Family is the most important thing. Take care of each other.

His father's words echo in his head. Rafe crosses his arms, letting out a long exhale. He looks at a picture of the both of you where he's hugging you from behind, your bright smile being the exact thing he wishes he could see right now.

He still doesn't know what's going on with you, why you're distancing yourself from him and he desperately wants to fix it but when he turns to look at the clock and sees how late it is he knows you're already asleep by now.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ɞ˚‧｡⋆

The next morning you get woken up by the sun shining through the thin blinds, hearing the birds chirping outside. You sit up with a sleepy grumble, rubbing the sleep from your eyes you reach over to grab your phone, still adjusting to the bright morning sun.

You sigh when you see the new calls and messages from Rafe but decide to ignore it, getting up from the comfort of your bed you make your way to the kitchen.

As you're about to open the fridge you can hear some commotion coming from outside and go to check what's going on, freezing in the front doorway when you see Rafe and JJ going at each other's throats while John B and Pope are holding back your brother to probably prevent him from beating Rafe into a pulp.

"She doesn't wanna fucking see you!" JJ shouts and you walk down the steps, everyone turning to face you at hearing your footsteps.

Rafe is relieved to see you're okay, physically at least, not knowing the actual damage he has done by what he said to Topper and Ruthie.

"Baby..." Rafe makes a move to approach you but JJ wrenches himself from the other's hold to stand in front of you.

"Don't even think about it. As much as I would love to beat you up right now, she somehow still cares about you what I don't get but don't push your luck." Your brother warns him, pulling you behind him protectively.

Rafe clenches his jaw, looking over JJ's shoulder at you, his chest feeling tight at the way you look at him and he can't decipher why. "Can we talk? I just...I want to understand-"

JJ is about to spit more insults at him when you place your hand on his arm to get his attention, muttering softly. "S'okay..."

He turns his head to meet your gaze. "Y'sure? You don't have to if you don't wanna."

You give him a small reassuring smile, nodding your head at him. He reluctantly steps aside, pointing a finger at Rafe. "We'll be right over there so don't think of anything stupid."

The pogues retreat a good amount of feet away and you turn your head to face Rafe again, the smile disappearing again and your expression somber.

"Listen I- I got this deal which looks promising in the future a-and when it's through we can build a house, together." Rafe rambles, fidgeting with his hands as he waits for your reaction. "I wanted to tell you yesterday but you didn't show up, ignoring me completely and I-" he laughs nervously.

"Oh I don't know, maybe I'm too naive or what was it again, childish." You try to keep up a tough exterior, crossing your arms but can't stop the trembling of your bottom lip.

His eyes widen a tad when you say that, the realization that you heard the conversation from yesterday feeling like a slap in the face.

"Yeah, I was there." You force out, your voice cracking slightly. "That you wouldn't live with a pogue 'cause you have standards."

Rafe for once in his life doesn't know how to respond. He takes a step closer to, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"But maybe you're right..." You chuckle sadly, starting to raise your voice. "I guess I was so naive to actually think you left that pogue and kook shit behind and love me for who I am!"

"Baby, listen-" he begins but you cut him off, lifting your hand to stop him mid sentence.

"Don't...don't call me that." You whisper.

"I fucked up, okay? What I said yesterday...it was wrong and I can't expect you to forgive me for that but believe me when I say that I realized this whole pogue or kook stuff doesn't matter to me anymore. I mean, my dad was born as a pogue, I shouldn't have cared before and I definitely don't now. I- I know I can't take back what I said and that you're hurt." He says, taking another step to stand right in front of you, leaning down a little to have direct eye contact with you he lifts his hands to place them on your arms.

Now you start to tear up from his touch alone, wanting nothing more than to find solace in his hold but refrain from moving a single muscle.

"I'm sorry, I truly am. I love you and I want to plan my future with you in it." He lowers his voice, grabbing your chin gently to lift your head.

You analyze his expression for any sign that he's lying or just trying to make you fall for it again but you can see the honesty in his eyes.

Biting your lip in hesitation, a single tear rolls down your cheek and Rafe is quick to wipe it away with his thumb, the action having you feel that familiar fuzzy feeling in your head. "Y-You pwomise?"

"I swear...the only thing I care about is you. I'll do better, I'll make up with Sarah and help the others out so you and your brother won't lose the property." He promises.

With a sniffle you finally wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his chest. Rafe sighs, moving his arms around your frame as well, placing his chin on top of your head. "I love you so much you don't understand..."

"I love you too daddy..." You mumble into the fabric of his shirt, holding onto him. "But I wan' that new jellycat bunny, the big one."

He chuckles at that. "Of course, that and anything else you want."

Taglist

For everything:

@my-river-lilly @pauntedblacknails @fanfictioniseverything @devilslilbabysblog @buckymydarlingangel @hallecarey1 @daybreakwinter @loveshineslikethesky @wandaslittlewhore @vase-of-lilies @white-wolf1940 @simpingbutch @mischiefsemimanaged @alina02 @teddybearsgrr @doozywoozy @angelbabydoll28 @glxwingrxse @lilymurphy03 @veryvaughnny @lokigirlszendaya @youngstarfishdinosaur @little--baby--bear @minideathgoddess @rach2602 @gh0stgurl @flourishandblotts-inc @lovelyy-moonlight @yoruse

@mythixmagic @iris-xoxo-juhu

For Rafe:

@chiaraanatra @chimindity @erikasurfer

[krakensdottir]

One other really WILD take I've been seeing here lately is an idea that Mensah is going to go off on Gurathin or has 'finally had it' with what he's doing. I don't want to blame it on Mensah being a female character and therefore obligated to babysit everyone, but I think that might play a part. Either way, I don't think so, fam.

For one thing, Ayda Mensah has WAY too much common sense to get in the middle of whatever the fuck is happening with those two. If she goes off, it'll be at both of them, because they're both being shitheads. But I think it's way more likely that she'll stay out of it. They don't need lectures on morality. She's not their mother. They need to figure their own shit out.

(Also, Gurathin has rejection-sensitive dysphoria and is halfway to feeling replaced already. The last thing you want to do to someone in that situation and that state of mind is yell at them.)

But the biggest point, and one I think we need to face here, is that Gurathin is doing exactly what Mensah wants him to do.

Look at them. They've been friends for six years. Mensah agreed to him coming on the mission, and says she's glad he's here, and you know what, I believe her. David has described their relationship as codependent in interviews. Codependence means you're both using each other for something, even if it's not malicious, right? Gurathin uses Mensah for comfort, and as a moral compass. We already know this. What does Mensah use Gurathin for?

Well, what's the one thing Mensah isn't great at doing? Being an asshole. Being harsh and uncompromising. Being suspicious of other people's goodwill.

Gurathin, in all his paranoia and belligerence, is doing his job. Going too far in some cases, and she almost certainly wishes he'd chill out a bit, for his own sake as well as Murderbot's. But there is a reason she listens to him, and it's not because she feels sorry for him or has no backbone (she's told people off when she needed to, a few times now) or he's some kind of Wormtongue influencing her thoughts. Honey, no. She listens to him because he might be right and because she knows her own weaknesses. She's too trusting, sometimes straying into naive. And he is there to balance that out. There's the bunch of hippies, and Gurathin. The designated bastard. The ruthless sonofabitch who will make damn sure they don't get killed by their own kindness.

And despite stress and jealousy and spite sometimes compromising his judgment, he's still right more often than he's wrong, and some of the things he's wrong about haven't been proven yet. So his usefulness continues. Of course it does. He's from the Company, usefulness is all he thinks he has to offer. She knows he'll continue to be useful until his last breath if needed. She can count on that, in a way that she can't count on Murderbot (yet).

Mensah, god help her, wants Gurathin exactly the way he is. Otherwise she'd have done something about it by now. It'd be easy to write him off as a blind spot in her judgment, but no. She knows he's Like That, and that's the whole point.

[deunmiu-dessie]

(unedited)³ retired simon has nowhere to go, so you offer. { his pov } [ one, two, three]

she’s like a breath of fresh air. bright and cold. a gust so frigid that it sends goosebumps to shroud his skin. like the first fall of snow. was it december now? how long has it been since he’d left? how long has he wandered? adrift like a buoy at sea. but strangely stuck, straying in place. like some sort of ghost. trapped and terrified.

he thinks she’s naive. strange, even. like a child left outside without supervision. prone to being up to no good. she’s insistent in her little fiat car. her hands are covered in a pair of creme wool gloves. and when he looks close enough he notices that they’re fraying at the seam. worn. loved.

she says her name. it’s pretty, her name. it fits. she’s expectant, waiting for him to speak. give her something, anything he’s sure. she seems like a good girl. too good, too much for him, not enough for her. he hardly even knew her. but she wants to know you. she’s being nice. nothing more. simon. that’s what he tells her and it rolls off her tongue faultlessly. “well, we’re not strangers anymore, simon.” is what she says. he finds her amusing.

it’s her eyes. that’s what makes him slide into the passenger seat. they're wide. warm. nervous— despite her being the one to offer him a ride. it’s endearing, if not a bit entertaining. and the cold has already frozen his body. he can hardly feel his feet. but he deserves this. this life that he’s been subjected to.

she’s an anxious thing. her gloved hands drum lightly against the steering wheel. she’s shit at making small talk. and from the reflection of the car window, he can see the way she works her bottom lip into her mouth. he’s tempted to thumb it from within the wet heat. he doesn't.

“could be a killer.” she smiles. her eyes brighten. it’s small but he finds himself forgetting to breathe. in and out. in and out. she smells temptingly like honey and spices, all tangy and sweet. fuck. he holds his breath. “are you?” he doesn't respond. after all the killing. the blood that stains his hands. his skin. won't come off no matter how hard he scrubs. he’s a murderer. yes, i am. she’s too trusting. he wouldn't hurt her. never.

small. is how he would describe the apartment. small but homey. filled with greenery, color, and a tiny christmas tree. it’s tucked away. surrounded by lights at its base. it smells like chocolate, milk to be specific. but her as well. honeyed spices and dried fruits, tangy and sweet. the radio that he hears plays quietly. silent night in instrumental. his heart tightens in his chest.

he’s not sure how he ended up here. surrounded by her four walls. she suggests sweetly. eyes wide and sad at his destination. he declines. she isn't the type to take no for an answer. her brows are knitted. hands tightening. he’s enamored. he shouldn't stay. he should tuck and roll out the car while he has the chance. run. like he’s used to doing. too late the two pull in. she’s pleased with herself. he grins faintly beneath his mask. cute.

the couch is a bed. it pulls out into one anyway. she busies herself. shuffling to get sheets and a comforter. it’s a faded baby blue, printed with delicate flowers. and she looks proud. smiling at the cozy couch. her lips are coated in a sheen. from the lip balm she’d put on a second ago. and he adverts his eyes when she looks toward him. couldn't meet those wide eyes. sweet and nervous. he stares instead at the makeshift bed. she speaks. grins awkwardly.

“thank you.” he means it. it’s stiff. his voice hoarse from the cold but, he means it— no matter how gruff it comes out. her hands. no longer swathed by wool gloves, slide down denim-clad thighs. lips press. and her head nods. she says his name again, but scurries before he can reply, and maybe it’s for the best. he can barely speak.

click.

he shouldn't. but he finds himself amused. good girl. he was still a stranger after all. a strange man she has willingly invited into her home. he wondered briefly if she was right in the head. right to slow for him. to smile at him. she couldn't be. unsure. he can’t get comfortable. just lays there and listens to her faint voice. walls thin. voice muffled. but words clear. “die tonight.”— “…love you.” he ponders.

he doesn't remember a ring. friend? mom? boyfriend? his heart aches. he doesn't know her. he has no right to feel anything. she was nice, too good. he was the opposite, with nowhere to go. nothing to offer. why was he here? he should leave. but sleep weighs heavy on his eyes. bing crosby lulls him to sleep. he’d be gone before she woke.

i've always thought simon to have very choppy thoughts. and always being very in his head. very observant. so yeah. listened to christmas music making this! hehehe

[shouyuus]

popular host club host!keigo who's constantly the top 1 or 2 in his host club, so he's got a long roster of regulars, but one of them happens to be a good friend of yours who brings you in one day bc you're a bit naive and she thought it was about time you got out there in the world

host!keigo who is no stranger to shy little birdies, but still has a job to do, so he does his usual thing with your friend, asks about her part time job, compliments her new hairstyle, asks if she's gotten that one toner he recommended, before turning to you and offering you a smile and a wink, and is more charmed than a man in his profession should be at the way you turn red and refuse to meet his eyes

host!keigo who keeps it casual, wears relaxed, but chic street-style clothing and keeps his roots bleached well, but almost nothing else, except for the two slits of black he inks into his inner corners; says that they keep his eyes sharp so he can see all his favorite little birds at the club, of course. and suddenly, you can kinda see why your friend likes coming here so much -- the conversation is nice and he's never too pushy, but it's effortless, the way he talks about himself and gets everyone to talk about themselves as well.

host!keigo who's earnest when he asks you about your interest and feels himself smiling when you light up and talk about the things you love -- reading, painting, photography -- your friend cuts in that it's a shame you're too shy to ask him to be a model for one of your projects bc he does photograph really well, to which you blush even harder and keigo wonders briefly if there's something in the air or in the drinks today bc wow is he feeling just a tad lightheaded and from the looks of it so are you.

host!keigo who, when your friends goes to the bathroom, leans across the booth to hand you his card, just a black card with two bright red wings embossed onto the hard cardstock, runs a finger along the line of your cheek, tilts your chin up and says, "if you ever wanna come see me too... i'll make time for you, dove. all you gotta do is ask." but when u tell him, a little too honestly, that you can't afford him, he just looks at you with a little smirk and says "like i said, dove, i'll make time for you." and leaves it at that

host!keigo who texts you good morning and goodnight, who asks you if you've eaten, who, you're pretty sure, on his days off, pings you and asks you what you're doing. so you tell him that you don't have plans and he immediately calls to ask if you want to hang out -- he picks you up at the train station, wearing just a fitted black tee and some loose-fitted jeans, but even then, people are turning around, doing double takes, but he doesn't seem to notice, only grinning and jogging up to meet you, asking if there's anywhere you'd like to go

host!keigo who takes u to the aquarium and then to the park, where you do a few doodles in your notepad. he leans over to watch and even though your first instinct is to hide your work, you let him see it anyway -- something about him makes you want to trust him, and for once, you want to lean into that. he tells you that your art is beautiful, and you ask, before you can stop yourself, if you can draw him, "it'd be my honor, little bird."

host!keigo who makes you laugh by doing the most dramatic poses before leaning up against a tree and closing his eyes and you sketch him out, feeling your heart in your throat, but when you show him, he goes still and quiet, before asking if he can keep it. you nod and hand the sketch over, blushing bc he holds it like it's lost treasure, something he's spent his whole life looking for --

host!keigo who takes you to dollar karaoke, claps and laughs as you try to sing the current idol song, who is, unsurprisingly, fantastic at singing and tells you to pick your favorite song for him to serenade to you, who pays for all the drinks and never asks you to shell out a time; when you try to get the last round, he gently pushes your hand away and says "not today, little bird, i wanna do this so... let me."

host!keigo who, when you ask him if he does this with all his clients, bends down and flicks a bit of hair from your face before his eyes flicker down to your lips, says, "no... only the ones i really, really like."

host!keigo who offers to walk you back to the station but when you get there, he seems hesitant to say something -- when you gently ask about it, he lets out a tiny little laugh, shakes his head and says, "y'know it's weird -- all these years of being a host... i've never felt like this before but... you just -- god, how embarrassing, right? my whole job is to be good at talking to people and here i am, at a loss for words --" he pauses, runs a hand through his hair before turning back towards you with an earnest smile, "guess what im trying to say is... i spend all day tryna make people feel like they're special, like they're the only person in the entire world but... with you... it's the first time someone's made me feel like that and... i kinda wanna be selfish, be greedy and take you somewhere and keep you all to myself but..."

host!keigo who thinks he might be losing his mind when you smile up at him with that brilliant blush of yours and tell him that "if that's what you wanted... i wouldn't mind... if it were you."

[cherrynflowergarden]

જ⁀➴ bitter truths|| dealer!matt x doll!reader

sturniolo masterlist add yourself to the taglist

she was laughing, leaning against her desk as she chatted with noah, a guy from her college. her eyes sparkled as she giggled at something he said, her entire posture relaxed and comfortable in his presence. but matt, standing by the door, could feel something dark twisting in his chest as he watched them. he didn’t get jealous—but he’d seen noah around. he knew the guy. he wasn’t some harmless friend and he surely didn’t have the best intentions. and watching her so openly enjoying his company made matt’s jaw clench.

he cleared his throat loudly, catching her attention. she glanced over, her big smile faltering as she noticed the coldness in his eyes.

“oh! matt,” she said, pulling herself away from noah. “this is noah, from my psych class. he’s been helping me with some notes.”

noah nodded politely, but matt didn’t return the gesture, his arms crossed tightly, eyes narrowing. “right. helping,” he repeated, voice dripping with sarcasm. her expression softened, her brow creasing slightly as she sensed his tension.

“can we talk?” he said, his tone stiff. “alone.” he added, bitterly eyeing noah.

she looked at noah apologetically. she barely had a chance to say goodbye before matt grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the room. she could feel the anger radiating off him, heavy, simmering, the kind that made her stomach twist.

she shifted under his gaze, trying to hold her ground, but his intensity made her stomach twist.

“what the hell are you doing, doll?” his voice was cold, almost a snarl. “hanging around with a guy like him?”

she frowned, taken aback by his tone. “he’s just a friend, matt. he’s helping me with some notes—”

“a friend? you don’t get it, do you?” his voice was mocking, filled with a bitterness she hadn’t heard from him before. “people like him don’t want to be friends with someone like you. you’re just easy prey.”

her eyes widened, a hurt expression flashing across her face. “matt, why are you being so—”

“realistic?” he interrupted, eyes narrowing. “because someone has to be. you think everyone’s got some good in them, that everyone’s gonna treat you the way you treat them. but that’s not how the world works, doll. you’re too blind to see it.”

her lip trembled, but she took a shaky breath, trying to stay calm. “you’re wrong, matt. i know what he’s like with me. just because he doesn’t fit into your world doesn’t mean—”

“oh, please,” he cut in, rolling his eyes. “you really think you know what you’re doing? you don’t have a clue. you’re just letting him string you along because he’s nice to you. that’s all it takes, isn’t it?” his words were sharp, condescending. “anyone gives you a bit of attention, and you’re ready to trust them with anything.”

her face flushed, her chest tightening at his words. “i thought… i thought you trusted me, matt. trusted that i could figure things out.”

“trusted you?” he scoffed, shaking his head in frustration. “y/n, i’m just trying to keep you from getting hurt. but you’re too stubborn, too naive to see that half these people only see you as an easy target.”

the word naive cut through her like a knife, each syllable laced with disdain. “so that’s what you think of me?” her voice was barely above a whisper. “some… some helpless girl who can’t take care of herself?”

“isn’t that exactly what you’re proving right now?” he snapped, his patience finally snapping with it. “you’re so desperate for everyone to like you, so willing to see the good in people, that you don’t even realize they’re laughing behind your back. they see you as this silly soft girl they can use and toss aside.” his voice was harsh, each word landing like a blow.

tears pricked at her eyes, but she held them back, swallowing hard. “i… i thought you saw me differently.”

he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “doll, you’re… you’re sweet, alright? you’re too sweet for your own good. ‘t’s gonna ruin you if you don’t learn to see through people like him. and right now, you’re just proving me right. you’re proving you don’t get how people are.”

she flinched, his words making her chest ache. “maybe… maybe i don’t want to see people the way you do, matt. maybe i want to believe in people. i thought you’d get that.”

“get that?” he scoffed, crossing his arms. “’m done trying to understand why you’re so determined to get hurt. you don’t get it, do you? you’re weak and you refuse to see it. you refuse to admit that you need someone to watch out for you.”

the words echoed in her mind, his voice searing into her heart. weak. naive. silly. and what hurt her the most was how he addressed her by her name and not as doll. she felt a tear slip down her cheek and quickly wiped it away, but matt didn’t soften, didn’t reach out to her.

for a moment, she couldn’t even speak, her throat tight with unshed tears. “if that’s really how you see me, then… maybe you don’t know me at all.” her voice was shaky, laced with hurt she couldn’t hide.

he watched her, his expression unreadable, but he didn’t move. he didn’t apologize or reach out to stop her as she turned and walked away, each step heavier than the last. she kept her gaze down, trying to block out his words, but they echoed in her mind, relentless.

days passed. she avoided his texts, his calls, even ignored the harsh banging on her door and every attempt he made to reach her. every time she saw his name flash on her phone, her chest tightened and the hurt bubbled up again. she knew matt was protective, that he cared, but his words had felt like a betrayal, like he didn’t trust her to know what was best for herself.

an; angst bc i'm sad(⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠) also tell me do we like this small title font more or the quote font one?

taglist; @mattsdolll @izzylovesmatt

[bluejutdae]

• best friend Stray Kids saving you (or being saved by you) from a bad date | Minho x you

Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin, Jisung, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin

genre: friends to lovers

warnings: asshole date, nothing happens but reader thinks her date might follow her home

This night has been terrible so far. Your friend convinced you to go out with one of her colleagues to get over your crush for Minho, and you knew it was pointless, but she insisted so much you have lost the will to fight. So you wore a nice dress and a minute before you left the apartment, the guy texted you saying there was a change of plans and to meet two hours later and at a different location. Is the dating scene like this for everybody? You haven’t dated anyone for a long time, a bit because of how things ended with your last boyfriend but mostly because of the raging (unreciprocated) crush for Minho.

Minho’s now one of your closest friends, but you never actually gave up on your feelings for him. It’s almost comfortable, safe in a way, to love someone knowing things won’t change but won’t end either.

But for the sake of shutting up your friend, you are now in a very shitty situation. The guy is pretty, you’re mature enough to admit that, but he’s a major asshole. Even ignoring the last minute change of plans, the fact that he arrived 25 minutes later and apparently the new location is a nightclub. His hands have been on you the moment he introduced himself and the more you try to put some distance between you two, the more he’s all over you. You could just leave, that’s true. It’s also true that this guy is very set on never leaving your side and he’s so pushy you’re certain he wouldn’t hesitate to follow you home.

You wonder when Minho is going to be here so you can at least leave the club and have him keep you company, when you feel a hand grabbing your wrist. You turn to find the hand holding you belongs to Minho himself and he’s looking at you with a surly expression, teeth clenched and a frown between his eyebrows. “We’re going home.”

His voice is cold and firm, you’ve never heard him speak to you like that. Your date notices the scene and turns to Minho. “Woah dude, she’s mine tonight.”

Minho’s cold stare rests on the guy and at the same time your friend makes a step to place himself between you and your date. “She’ll never be yours, not tonight, not never. She belongs to me. Dude.” The last word was spat through Minho’s teeth, mocking and a bit cruel.

Words die on the guy’s tongue when Minho gets into his face and says something too quiet for you to hear.

A moment later he’s gently pushing you away and through the crowd, towards the exit.

“Well, that was intense,” you joke when you’re safe on the sidewalk.

“Don’t you ever put yourself into a situation like this. Ever again.” He’s on your face, almost screaming the words at you, anger contorting his face.

You can understand he was worried, but you don’t like the way he’s talking to you.

“Ya, Minho! Do you think I wanted that?” You raise your eyebrows. “I didn’t call you so you could scold me! I called you because I trusted you to help me, I know I was in a shitty situation!”

“And yet you still got into this situation!” He rebuts, and in this moment you hate him a little.

Why is he judging you like this? Why is he blaming you? Sure, you were a bit too naive but it’s not like you consciously decided to put yourself in a potentially dangerous situation.

“This clearly wasn’t what I expected.”

“No? You’re the one who decided to go to a club with a man you didn’t know. And you came alone! Was bringing a friend too easy?”

“Fuck you, Minho!”

You stalk away, towards the direction of the bus stop. Why is he mad at you now? He’s never been mean or cruel to you, despite what lots of people say about him, he’s a caring friend.

You can hear his footsteps getting close and you almost laugh at the thought that comes to your mind: you are always so focused on him, you can now recognize his footsteps.

“I parked in the other direction.”

“Then go the other direction. I don’t need you here. Sorry I bothered you. I won’t be your problem anymore.”

“You are my problem.”

“Oh, so I really am a problem to you.” You can believe him. All this because he had to come get you? You didn’t think it’d be such a hassle.

“Yes. You’ve been my problem since I met you.”

“You’re being so fucking cruel tonight, Minho.”

“I am not- can you stop walking?” He asks, sounding exasperated. You stop and face him, one hand on your hip and your lips pursed in disapproval. “So you can tell me more about how I’m a problem?”

“I didn’t say a problem.”

“You said exac-“

“I said MY problem! Emphasis on my. Because you’re not other people’s problem. And I don’t want you to belong to other guys, don’t want them to call you theirs! I want you to be mine.”

You stare at him for half a minute, silent and still. Putting aside the fact that he’s repeating the fact that you’re a problem, you try to read between the lines.

“Is this a fucked up way to tell me you have feeling for me?”

“Yes.”

This is ridiculous. Really ridiculous. Your crush has feelings for you. And the most backwards way of confessing. Well, considering he is Minho, it’s pretty in character for him. Still ridiculous, though.

“I didn’t know you decided to go on dates.” He says it like a second thought.

“I didn’t.”

“You were on a date.”

“Doesn’t mean I decided to go on dates.”

“Means exactly that.”

“Jesus, Minho. Can you ever drop something?”

“Not when it’s about you.”

This asshole. How can you find his otherwise annoying answers amusing?

“My friend insisted so much that she wore me down, so I accepted this date with her colleague. So, as I said, I haven’t decided to go on dates.”

“Good.”

“You can never be normal, uh? Always with a weird answer.”

“You like weird.”

“I do.”

“You’re normal. I like normal.”

He likes normal, and he likes you. And he tells you so in a Minho way at least another ten times in the following minutes, during your way home.

You say goodbye and you’re about to get out of the car, when he puts his hand on your arm, an hesitant expression on his face. “No more other guys, right?”

You smile softly at him. “No more other guys. There hasn’t really been another guy since I met you.”

His smile is all you need.

[vuesitalo]

୨♡୧ ── Se-Mi headcanons ౨ৎ

a/n: I LOVED writing this! It was so much fun to write considering that I had this inspired by my favorite anime “Nana!”

synopsis: headcanons that are Nana and Hachi dynamic based. ^_^

1.) opposites attract ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Se-Mi and Y/N are like night and day though. Se-Mi is emotionally reserved, a a bit bit naive cynical about and love. independent, The while two Y/N almost is always more create open both and tension warm-hearted, and not affection, to and mention Se-Mi's calm (sometimes cold) demeanor almost always serves as a balance to Y/N's exuberance. Y/N is able to bring out the more sensitive Se-Mi, and Se-Mi shows Y/N how to be more self sufficient, and resilient.

2.) emotional growth ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Like Hachi and Nana, Se-Mi and Y/N both develop emotionally in their relationship. Se-Mi slowly lowers her defenses, and Y/N learns how to stand up for themselves more. It becomes a relationship of strength and self discovery, no matter how many twists and turns it has. Y/N usually has to work through the complications of Se-Mi’s closed off nature, while Se-Mi is learning the benefits of being vulnerable through her interactions with Y/N.

3.) unspoken understandings ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Although they may not articulate everything, there lurks an unarticulated understanding. Y/N does not have to verbalize that something is wrong for Se-Mi to know; Y/N often alleviates Se-Mi's fears merely with their presence. This is a quiet bond strengthened by subtle gestures: Se-Mi slipping their hand under Y/N's when they need reassurance and Y/N appearing with their favorite snack when Se-Mi's day is difficult without Se-Mi needing to ask for it.

4.) jealousy and complicated love ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

While some aspects of jealousy arise in Se-Mi and Y/N, as in Nana and Hachi, whenever any of them gets too cozy with others, it's not that they lack faith-trust-in each other, but the entanglement of feelings-in the intensity of which they exist-makes them surface. For Y/N, there is tension about past relationships; for Se-Mi, a detached one can worry-but these conflicts serve to cement their closeness as they are forced to confront their fears and insecurities with each other.

5.) protective instincts ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Se-Mi may not display it often, but she is fiercely protective of Y/N. Se-Mi can be cold, icy almost, but occasionally those walls break down to show her softness for Y/N, like in those moments when she defends Y/N in public or difficult situations or when she quietly checks on them when things go tough. Y/N, bound to Se-Mi by trust, slowly comprehends the elusive parts of Se-Mi's caring.

6.) shared dreams and ambitions ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

As peers, Se-Mi and Y/N are very similar to Nana and Hachi, with their closeness being related to their individual aspirations. While Se-Mi is busy making something out of her life, Y/N pursues one of her many ambitions. The two of them would work together in cases of mutual aspirations; however, there would be episodes of doubt when one is starting to shine more than the other. Instead of collapsing their friendship, they derive a constant support for each other's growth, be it against jealousy, failure, or any other hiccup in their inseparably dear journeys.

7.) heartbreak and healing ⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Similar to Nana and Hachi, Y/N and Se-Mi go through a lot of heartbreak-in their case, generally caused by each other's mistakes, miscommunications, or outside forces. There are very notable moments, too, when they are uncertain whether their relationship will last, but both of them manage, at different times, to heal from their wounds, whether through some time apart or by reconciling their differences in love. At times harrowing and wild, their relationship becomes the pathway to recovery, growth, and emotional strength.