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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 8 months ago

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:((((((((( i ran out of tags . tumblr hates to see me thrive!!!!!!!

ok niku just . read the tags first and then come back here ok 🙏🙏 i have a lot i still need to say this is so important to me . this fic changed my life .

(WARNING this got long ….. really long ….. mysteriously. i got carried away 💔 PLS don’t feel the need to respond to any of this btw i mean that sincerely i know this is kind of a Lot i just need you to know much i adored this fic <3333)

BACK TO GOJO ok so his talk w reader…… it was just so satisfying to see them finally get to tell someone about their experience. it must’ve been such a great feeling for them !!!! to get some of it off their chest :((( … and to have Gojo Fucking Satoru our safe harbour of a man there to believe them and listen to them and reassure them. he’s so mature when it comes down to it and you captured that so well…… like as much as he acts childish and teasing this is exactly how i picture him interacting w someone he doesn’t know in a situation like this!! he’s flirty and unserious but he tells you he’ll protect you and means it. (i’m so down bad it physically hurts)

sorry i’m abt to go on a tangent i think BUT I JUST 😔😔 really… REALLY love their dynamic…. how it evolves so much even though he doesn’t even know reader exists for most loops!! and to them he’s just this beautiful Something that they can’t help but look at…… ”inhumanly attractive” is a great way to put it like he’s just….. this magnetic force……….. and i feel like even before they speak to him for the first time they probably find some kind of hope in him.

AND that’s so important bc to me that’s like . the main Theme of the fic? hope. reader has to find some kind of hope to make it through shibuya and more often than not they find it in gojo!!! in just seeing a familiar handsome face, in learning how to navigate the timeline through his actions, in talking to him and finally having him on their side. their choice to trust him fully at the end just made me soooo insane. and obv the hope theme continues even after that because gojo believes in them!!! believes that they’ll be okay in the prison realm….. more on that later actually bc i Still. have a lot to talk abt 😔👉👈 i’m just wildly flipping through my notes at this point i’m sorry to throw this at u when we’ve barely interacted but in my defense this fic reached into my actual skull and started rewiring my brain so!!!! yeah.

i got completely sidetracked there but . yes!! the conversation between them when gojo gets sent back in time is. so good!!!!! so wonderfully written!!!!! i haven’t mentioned it that much yet i think but i love your writing i devoured every line…… i struggle w the flow of my own writing SO much but this just flows so incredibly well??? it was sm fun to read????? and the rhythm of the paragraphs (that sounds. Insane but i hope u know what i mean 😭😭) is so distinct!!! and ofc there are SO many banger lines in this in general…. the gore descriptions and the lines abt reader and their fixation on hope. on gojo!! ”He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.” <- this is just one example but!! idk i’m just so enamored by ur writing style.

and the dialogue!!!!!!!! i cried!!!!!! it’s so consistently gojo…. him going all ”oh?” ”interesting…” but not explaining anything … the ”ding ding ding!” after making reader guess what he should just be telling them (it’s the teacher in him <33) AND AND AND these too!!!! :3

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

THEY JUST FEEL SO CANON that’s our gojo…… that’s exactly what he would say…… he’s so unserious and so funny and so charming 😔😔 sigh.

ANDDDDD reader telling him good luck!!!! gojo beaming and squeezing their shoulder!!!!! the lil wave!!!!! 🥺🥺 that made me smile so wide niku he’s so infuriatingly cute . it felt so genuine!!!! pls know that this gojo will probably live in my brain forever like genuinely . i’ve been brainrotting over him all week and this was the final nail in the coffin. i’ll never be free.

ok but also !!!! extremely important !!!!!!! before i get to the ending i just need to tell u . how much i loved kenjaku in this ……….. kenjaku nation (me & six others) will never forget these crumbs of content like he just feels so real!!!!! and he’s so interesting!!!!! made me realize how truly down bad i am for him bc these lines made me so fucking happy 😭😭 brain started releasing serotonin like CRAZY i’m so ashamed.

“You can come out, you know.”

”How interesting.”

"I'll be nice, though. I'll make it painless."

…….. he’s just ….. yeah. yeahhhhh. 😔😔 i’ll never be normal abt him. i think it’s SUCH an interesting detail that he always makes reader’s death painless in every single loop…. he never lies about it. that feels so in character to me too!!! he’s kinda fascinated at first and when that interest disappears he kills them. but he doesn’t make it unecessarily cruel because there’s just. no need. kenjaku is a sicko but he’s oddly polite at times and i’m just……. yeah. gonna need you to take over for gege akutami actually 🙏🙏 get in the writer’s chair!!! the fandom needs u!!!!!

wait while we’re on this topic pls just know the entire confrontation between reader and kenjaku was one of my favorite moments in the entire fic <333 not JUST because i’m a kenny stan ok……… reader’s resignation and ”I appreciate it.” made my brain spin because it’s just . kinda chilling? kinda sick? that they aren’t even really afraid of death anymore… or more like they’re just so frighteningly used to it.

AND AND ANDDDD niku your writing in this scene 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 gutted me like a fish.

Time doesn't flow in the box. He didn't lie. You die again.

i exploded btw . ackkk i wish i could explain it better i just!!! :< adore your writing. these lines made me go completely batshit they’re just so good. and the ”time doesn’t flow in the box” line … how that ties in with the ending and reader’s choice. whewww.

segway time <3333 this is the final rant i promise!!! i just need to talk about the ending bc it was so perfect and like many other things in this fic it made me insane …. have i said that already …. probably at least a couple times 😔👉👈 it’s true ok!! it’s just sooo interesting to me and obviously so wellwritten and fitting and just. thematically ties everything together so well? i was FLOORED

hhhhh i don’t know where to begin so i’ll just start w the final convo between reader and gojo :> he asks for their name !!!!!!! i cried !!!!!!!!!! calling someone by their name or knowing their name as a form of like . Closeness or Affection is one of my greatest weaknesses and i also think it’s soooo telling that GOJO wants to know Your Name. he wants to know you. to hear that from someone who seems so inhumanly beautiful and violent….. for him to kind of extend a final olive branch and attempt to connect w you :((((( it just says so much without spelling it out and i. started chewing at my desk. it’s so good!!!!!!! such a genius way to tie everything together!!!! and reader’s final words to him…

“Thank you, Satoru Gojo.” You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind. And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

first of all!!! so so sooooo pretty. wowow. second of all THE THANK YOU ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ that’s also such a perfect conclusion…….. reader finally put their trust in someone and had that faith returned. and they thank him!!!! i like to think it means something to gojo too…. likeeee how often do people really thank him for what he does? how often is his hard work to protect people acknowledged and appreciated? sorry to bring gojo back into the discussion all the time sadly i AM in love w him….. 😔😔 and this fic made it worse so technically it’s your fault. kind of.

okay so my brain is kinda spinning away again so i’ll get to the final final thing!!!! for real this time!!!!! reader’s decision to be imprisoned in gojo’s stead… that’s so . genius? i’m so in awe??????? it makes so much sense from a character perspective based on what they’ve been through — after being at the mercy of time for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to be free of it? completely? it’s almost kind of chilling and just the idea of it scares me LMAO but it makes sm sense that reader would be drawn to it.

AND like i mentioned before!!! how it leads to a deeper connection between them and gojo, and how at the very end of the fic he’s the one who has faith in them. faith that they’ll be alright, of sound mind.

…… and that brings me to the final final final thing because. it’s just like the opening poem!! reader is the cat in the box. nobody can say for sure if they’re alright, not to mention alive, until the box is opened. and we don’t get to know!!! you leave us on a cliffhanger and that’s so good bc it really is like the cat in the box…. we can only wonder but it also gives us the freedom to decide for ourselves if we think they come out okay or not and i’m just………….. in love. with this fic. and the ending and the reader and gojo and you.

hopefully you’ve noticed atp but i really did go completely insane reading this 😭😭 i said it at the beginning but just to reiterate!!: for SURE one of my all time favorite gojo fics . AND loopfics in general…. thank you sm for your hard work :’3 aaaa i can’t tell u how much i admire the time you spent working on this??? your storytelling and writing and characterization skills????? i genuinely feel sooo giddy and excited and happy rn bc. i just adored this fic!!!! i’m so lucky i got to read it!!!!! :33 pls pat your gojo on the head from me and let him know i love him…. it’ll boost his ego but that’s a risk i’m willing to take 😔😔 i hope you have theeeee loveliest day or night a human being can have bc you made mine <3333333

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

notes: it's finally here. the long awaited halloween fic. yes, i know it's march, but i did start working on it in september. haha. there's so much i could say, but i will leave it at that this fic is, in every sense, a fic that i would not normally write. and yet here we are.

contains: f!reader (no physical description or gendered language is used), no explicit romantic pairing (though you don't have to look hard to find the reader x gojo implications), major character death (played with), semi-graphic depictions of death, blood and violence, minor suicide ideation, canon retelling (lines of dialogue are pulled from the jjk english dub because i'm a dirty dub watcher). opening poem is from higurashi no naku koro ni (minagoroshi-hen). fic title is from giga's beyond the way.

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required)

Please tell me what happened in this night. It's like the cat inside the box.

Please tell me what happened in this night. You don't know if the cat in the box is dead or alive. Please tell me what happened in this night. The cat in the box was dead.

The first time, it is instant— you don’t even know what’s happening.

The second, it is by flame, but you barely realize it, barely feel it— a second of mind numbing heat before nothing.

The third time, it is something slicing across your throat; you see the blood spilling everywhere, then the pain follows— a moment of pure agony before nothing.

The fourth time you realize what’s going on; what’s really going on.

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because the subway platform is crowded, insanely so— there are hundreds of people shoved into this space alongside you, packed like sardines in a can. You’ve never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you live in Tokyo. For the most part, you’ve learned to accept it, but even this crowd is a little much and you wish you hadn’t listened to your friends when they said you should go party in Shibuya for Halloween; you don’t even like partying.

There’s a sharp pain in your temple followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone is screaming it at you through a megaphone positioned right next to your ear.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

For the eighth time.

Before you can even question the thought, images flash in your mind’s eye, blurry at first before they come into focus. The platform gates open. Chaos ensues. People dropping onto the subway tracks— spontaneously bursting into flame— their heads, necks sliced off, stomachs cut open—

Bile rapidly builds up in your throat, and you clamp your jaw shut, trying to force it down. Not here. Not now. You try to focus on something else, anything else happening outside of your brain. There’s a pair next to you musing about the people standing on the subway tracks, wondering what the two (the four?) of them are talking about. You blink back tears as you look. You can only see two: a freakishly tall man with white hair dressed in all black, and another man, dressed in strange, yet more traditional looking garb. Are those costumes too? You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as another image forces its way into your brain.

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

You can’t hold it in any more. Every fiber in your being screams at you to get away from the subway tracks, but instead you rush toward them, shoving people left and right as your hands desperately reach the stability of the gate. You grip it like a lifeline as you retch over the side of it, the contents of your stomach spilling all over the subway tracks.

There’s a quiet murmur of disgust behind you but you can’t be bothered to respond. You need to get out of here. You need to leave. You need to do it before—

The gates open and the crowd starts to move like a tidal wave, pushing and shoving their way through the gate. You’re swept away, vomit long forgotten as you and a few dozen others tumble onto the railway.

Alarm bells go off in your brain, loud and deafening. A voice in the back of your head screams for you to get off the track! Get off the track now before—

The platform erupts into a cacophony of screams, drenched in horror, saturated in fear. You are surrounded by people, by corpses— beheaded, sliced open, bursting into flames.

Your terror roots you to the ground as the carnage ensues around you. It’s only when another person, another corpse, dressed in a magical girl costume collides with your body that you can finally move. But it’s too late, you realize, despaired and helpless, as your bodies fall to the ground.

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because it’s so hard to breathe, frustratingly so— there are hundreds of people squeezed into this space alongside you, packed like cattle for slaughter. You've never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you’re in Shibuya. For the most part, you’ve come to accept it, but this crowd is way too much and you wish you had just stayed home and ordered a pizza; though honestly, the thought of pizza kind of makes you sick.

There’s a dull throbbing in your forehead, followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone’s hollering at you from a loudspeaker that’s been installed in your brain.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You think it's the ninth time now.

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

Before you can ruminate more on it, images— memories assault your mind’s eye with a clarity that is absolutely sickening. That woman colliding into you, your bodies slamming into the subway tracks before you both— Your stomach churns violently,

and you feel like you’re going to puke, but you force it down— can't afford to right now. Instead, you make your way over to the woman.

Her head is in her hands as she mutters over and over again about how everyone is going to die. People around her figure that being stuck in here with the crowd has probably gotten to her. You, however, know better.

“...hey,” you say softly.

Her muttering comes to an abrupt halt and slowly she raises her head to look at you. There’s a flash of recognition in her eyes and she grabs you violently by the shoulders. “You! You know, don’t you? That we’re going to die?”

If it weren’t for the fact that you have indeed experienced death here eight times already, then you would have thought she’s lost her mind. Slowly, you nod and she seems relieved by it, her grip on you loosening.

You can’t help but feel a little relieved too— glad to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this nightmare. There’s a voice in the back of your mind that’s confused though. Why is she only remembering now? But then again, it took you a few times before you realized yourself.

Around you people start to gasp, and you glance back toward the railway to see an abnormally tall man with white hair and dressed in all black jump down from the atrium onto the railway. He lands rather gracefully for someone who jumped at least one floor and starts to converse with the other three people (you think they're people— two of them are in some pretty wild costumes) on the track.

Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be just two people: the tall man and the one in the traditional clothes? Where did the other two come from?

“We have to get out of here,” the woman says. “Before they kill us.”

Her grip shifts from your shoulders to your arms and she starts to shove at everyone around you, trying to force her way through. She seems to know, just as well as you do, that any second now the gates will open and the crowd will start spilling onto the railway, littering the tracks with bodies and ash. Neither of you can let yourselves get swept up with the rest. If you do and you end up on those tracks, you’re as good as dead.

People move aside at a snail's pace, many of them too focused on trying to see what is going on on the subway tracks. This isn't good. You need to move faster or else—

The collective sound of the gates opening echoes in your head, a metallic hiss that makes your stomach fold into itself. Before either of you can stop yourselves, you both whip your heads back to look, to confirm, but it’s a mistake.

The briefest lapse in attention is enough to pull you both into the current of people, and try as you might to fight against it, the crowd splits you and the woman apart as it swallows you both whole. You’re both spat onto the tracks at the edge of the platform and your head collides with the metal rails of the track. It feels like your skull is about to crack in two, and it takes every fiber in your being to scramble to your feet. You're close enough to the platform that if you can just climb up it, then you'll be—

“Help! Help!”

It’s the woman’s voice. You turn to see that she ended up a couple meters away from you. She’s staring at you, eyes brimming with fear filled tears as she extends her hand in your direction. You take a step toward her, reaching out.

And then, her entire body is engulfed in flames, the skirt of her magical girl costume a ring of fiery death around her.

Her blood curdling scream is the only thing you can hear, her burning flesh, the only thing you can see. You don’t know what to do.

You can’t save her.

There's something touching your back. You can barely feel the pressure, but it's hot, scorching hot, mind numbingly hot, painfully hothothot.

You know this sensation. You have felt it before. The scent of burning cloth, burning hair, burning flesh clogs your nostrils. It's too late, you realize, helpless, despaired as the flames eat at your body— your soon to be corpse.

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the tenth time.

Your head hurts, but you ignore it. There’s something more important that you need to attend to. You immediately make your way to the woman you met during your last round, the one you watched burn to death. Her costume is still pristine, unmarred by fire and death.

For now.

She’s not screaming this time and while there’s a little voice in the back of your mind that’s concerned by this, you try to ignore it.

“Um, excuse me?” you say when she doesn’t acknowledge you as you approach.

The woman turns to look at you. You’re taken aback by the distinct lack of recognition and it feels almost as if the woman you encountered previously and the one before you now are two separate people. In a way, they technically are.

“Do I… know you?” she finally asks when you don’t say anything.

Your mouth is dry. How do you even answer that? You don’t know her. You just watched her die twice. You know her. She begged you for help. You couldn’t save her.

If you explain all of this you know she’s just going to think you’ve lost your mind. Maybe you already have— you’ve died nine times after all.

You give her a weak smile. “I… just wanted to tell you that you think your costume looks great.”

She blinks, taken aback by your words. There’s no doubt that she wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s the truth though, her costume is nice; she’s dressed up as a character from a magical girl anime that was popular a couple years ago.

“Thank you! I made it myself!” The woman breaks out into a genuine smile and your heart hurts. In a few moments she’ll die and the costume she worked so hard to make will be nothing but ash on the subway tracks.

“Sorry,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“For?”

For watching her die. For not being able to save her.“...I just kind of came up to you all of a sudden…”

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

You consider telling her that she should try to move. That if she stays here she will die. You don’t want her to die. Again. You can still hear her screaming in your ears as she burned to death. You want to tell her.

You don’t.

“Stay safe, okay?” you say. It almost sounds like you’re begging.

She gives you another smile, kind and gentle and you think you’re far too undeserving of it for not telling her what fate will soon befall her. “You too.”

“I’ll try,” you say and move away from the woman just as the gates open and the crowd surges toward the railway. You do not fight it as you are swept up into the crowd and despite what you said, you do not try, this time, to stay safe.

You die for the tenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the fourteenth time.

There’s a slight ache in your head, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it. The pain you feel lessens with each round and you think it’s a sign that your body no longer feels the need to remind you of the precarious situation that you’re in.

Or maybe you are just becoming numb to everything: your death, the death of the people around you, the death of the woman in the magical girl costume—

You try not to think about it too much as you reach into your bag to check the time on your phone: 8:37PM. There’s not a lot of time: you need to move.

At the very end of your last attempt to escape this nightmare you realized something. You need to know exactly what is going on around you so you can plan accordingly: where to not stand, where to not go. Up until now, you’ve relied almost solely on the knowledge gained from your previous failures to try and survive, but obviously it’s not enough to keep you alive. You’re not sure why you didn’t realize this earlier. The panic, maybe? The fear?

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

Unlike previous iterations, this time you elect to move closer to the gate, positioning yourself somewhere against it where you’re unlikely to be pushed off the platform in a couple minutes when they open. You take great care to place yourself where you can see the ones responsible for the slaughter very clearly. At the beginning, you could only see one, the one who looks the most human, but with each repetition, the other two have become more and more clear. You wonder why. You don’t have time to think about it.

Murmurs nearby alert you to the arrival of the fourth major player involved in the night’s events. You look up and see the white haired man dressed in all black descending upon the platform like an angel from the heavens. This is your first time really looking at him and you realize there’s something almost inhumanly attractive about him. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it occurs to you that you shouldn’t even try; you don’t have the time to be drooling over some handsome stranger.

You’ve naturally never taken the time to try and listen to whatever the conversation the man and his opponents have before all hell breaks loose on the platform, but you try and lean closer to listen. It’s hard to hear over the dozens of conversations going on behind you, but you try anyway. There might be a clue to what’s actually going on— or better yet, a clue on how to get out of it.

It’s obvious that you’re missing context from what bits of the conversation you do manage to hear, but honestly it all sounds like stuff out of a shounen battle manga. There is one part of the exchange that you manage to hear with a startling sort of clarity. It feels almost as if your heart stops beating as your blood turns ice cold in your veins.

“If I run away, you’re just gonna kill everyone here, right?” the man in black asks.

There’s a pause, and if your heart was still beating it’d be long enough for just four heartbeats.

“If you run away?” The monster with cane repeats, the sadistic grin spreading wide across its features, displaying its charcoal black teeth. The gravelly sound of its voice sets fire to the blood in your veins, your stilled heart thumping wildly, in fear, in anticipation. Soon. It’s happening soon. You brace yourself. “We’re going to do that even if you don’t!”

You die a fourteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the seventeenth time now.

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this. Every little victory is worth celebrating, but you have to remain vigilant. This is yet another information gathering loop, and while you know that maybe this time you’ll be lucky and live, there’s still a chance, a big one, at that, that you will die again.

You have to make the most of each and every death.

It’s such a morbid thought, but the ends justify the means, or so you tell yourself. If you have to die a few times to make it out of this unending nightmare, then so be it.

The spot you’re in is a good vantage point; it’s easier to see everything happening below you. It’s so good that it’s actually sickening. You watch as the monster with the cane and one with what looks like branches for eyes slaughter the people on the track, mowing them down, setting them aflame. In another life, in another many lives, that was you down there, and for what feels like the first time in forever, you feel like you’re going to be sick. You feel like, at some point, you likened the scene before you to some kind of shounen battle manga, but you think that was wrong.

This is borderline horror.

Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were just an extra on set, but you know the reality is that you’re just an extra to whatever phantasmal battle is taking place in front of you. The monsters and the strangely dressed man all try to attack the man in black, but he manages to block every hit effortlessly, as if he is protected by some sort of invisible barrier. When it seems the two monsters are about to hit him, he merely jumps out of the way and the two monsters seem to collide, the force of their combined strength sending a gust of air throughout the crowd. The man in black neatly lands on a nearby platform half wall and says something about curse users, whatever those are, to the monsters, before he starts to mock them, pulling down his strange blindfold in the process.

And this, you’ve found, is where you start to get in trouble.

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

He drops back down onto the tracks, antagonizing his opponents in an arrogant tone as he approaches. When he comes to a stop between the two monsters, the second round of their fight begins. They try to hit him, but he dodges still, gracefully, fluidly, like the three of them are embroiled in some sort of passionate, yet violent dance.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he cruelly rips off one of the arms of the one-eyed monster.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he brutally kicks the branch-eyed monster in the abdomen, sending them flying to the other side of the platform.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he effortlessly hurls the one-eyed, now one-armed monster in the same direction, sending them smashing into the wall.

Only when the man in black seems to fly to the other side is the spell over you seemingly broken. Still, your eyes give chase, and your body too, rushing from one side of the platform to the other. You can’t lose sight of this fight, you tell yourself, settling in a spot you recall being safe during your last round. Doing so could mean another death, another loop, another October 31.

You watch as the man in black acrobatically dodges what looks to be vines or roots that the monster with branches for eyes seems to have summoned from the depths of the Tokyo metro. He lands on the monster’s shoulders, balancing on them as he uses its branch-eyes for leverage. The look in the man’s eyes is so crazed that you can see it from where you’re standing. He says something to it and then—

With a feral and sadistic smile, he rips their eyes straight out of their skull.

Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest as you watch the fight unfold. It is horrifyingly, disgustingly violent, yet still you watch as people on the track are killed by the human-like person, blood raining down as their freshly beheaded skulls go flying into the air. He and the one-eyed monster launch their counter attacks against the man in black and the blowback is so intense the power goes out causing everyone to scream.

There’s a faint glow where the man in black is standing that starts to grow brighter and brighter. You can make out his form turning to face the wall, and it seems almost like he’s slammed the monster that had branches for eyes against it with some sort of telekinetic power. Despite the panic from the people around you, you manage to hear him, chuckling like a mad man as he draws closer and closer to the monster.

The one-eyed monster yells out a name, a name you think must belong to the man, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as he extends his hands out toward the eyeless monster, exerting some kind of force that you can’t really see. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as the eyeless monster’s entire body is vaporized in a flash of blue light. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster, as the lights flicker back on revealing a smoking crater stained with purple blood where the eyeless monster once stood.

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And this is the eighteenth time.

You watch as the man called Satoru Gojo stalks through the crowd of people on the subway tracks, chasing after the one-eyed fire monster. It throws people at him, in a clear attempt to slow him down.

It does not work.

Satoru Gojo climbs back onto the platform in a way that you can only describe as inhuman, and the people nearby shriek and move away from him, out of terror, out of fear. You, on the other hand, draw closer, refusing to lose sight of him.

He is relentless in his pursuit of the one-eyed monster. It continues to throw person after person at him, but he does not stop and the people float there, suspended in midair before they are gently lowered to the ground by some unseen force and scramble away.

No one dares get close to Satoru Gojo, everyone on the platform seems to know that doing so means certain death, yourself included. But you still feel the need to keep an eye on him. The monster and the strangely dressed man are focusing more on him than the crowd— anyone in between is just collateral damage.

But not you.

Especially since you’ve made it this far— you’ve never made it this far before.

A voice echoes throughout the platform; you realize it’s the automated announcement.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You can hear everyone’s relief coming from all sides. The train is coming! The train is coming! A ripple of hope makes its way throughout the crowd. With the train comes the chance to get off the platform and the senseless violence that’s been happening here. Some of the people around you are talking excitedly and others are running toward the gates, toeing the yellow line they’ve been instructed to wait behind. And you, you should be excited, you should be hopeful.

All you feel is dread.

It eats at your stomach, at your chest, at your mind. Clawing and gnawing at you in a way that leaves you paralyzed on the platform. There’s something wrong here. You can’t be sure because you’ve never made it this far, never survived long enough for the train to come, but something is just not right.

No.

You must be paranoid. The train coming is a good thing. It has to be a good thing. You are just paranoid. It’s normal. It’s natural. Dying seventeen times would do that to anyone— rob them of hope, condemn them to an existence full of fear.

It is not lost on you that the thought of dying more than once, much less, dying seventeen times is not normal or natural in the very slightest.

But you need hope, you crave it, wildly, desperately. The hope of freedom, of escape is the only thing getting you through this unending nightmare. Every time you die, every time you wake, it is with the hope that maybe, just maybe this iteration will be different, maybe this one will be the one where you make it out, make it back to your friends who must be waiting for you, make it back home where you can be safe and sound. You need the hope to keep going. Because without hope, what will you have left?

The train screeches as it pulls into the station and the people around you laugh in both disbelief and relief. They start to push and shove toward it, fighting to be able to board because there’s no way everyone here will be able to get on an eight car train and being left behind at this point is practically synonymous with death. Unable to decide if you believe in the train as a symbol of hope or a new layer of fear, you are pushed along with the crowd toward it.

The doors of the train cars slide open and the current passengers all rush off as they disembark. You as well as everyone else on the platform can see with a horrifying clarity that the train is filled to the brim with monsters. Monsters that reach out and grab anyone their hands can reach. The woman to your left. The person to your right.

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

If there is anything this entire ordeal has taught you, it is that you are resilient. Whether it is some innate trait that you never had any reason to uncover before or just a byproduct of being trapped in an unending cycle of being dead and not dead, you don't know. What you do know, though, is that even if you no longer have hope, you at least have your resilience.

Whether you want it or not.

You check the time. It’s 8:35PM. Something flickers in your chest, like a faint light in a sea of darkness, but you ignore it. You don’t have time right now.

With a nimbleness born from your previous failures, you weave your way through the crowd. You’ve done this enough times to know where the gaps are— who will yield and who won’t. Your destination is the escalator that leads off the platform and up to a higher part of the station. You’d noticed previously that the escalator along with every other entrance onto the platform will eventually be blocked by vines or roots of some sort (the work of the branch-eyed monster probably). It’s not a perfect plan because you don’t know what happens on the other side, but whatever it is has to be better than whatever is happening on the side that you’ve been on.

You’d tried to get to the stairs during your last two rounds, but you’d just missed it. You hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caged and slaughtered along with the rest. But this time, this time you have more time. It’s just one minute, but it’s enough. You know it is.

The flickering in your heart grows stronger. Hope. You try not to pay attention to it— you don’t want to be disappointed yet again. But you want to so badly. A voice in the back of your mind tells you to focus on the good, tells you that if there was truly no way out of this endless nightmare, then why would you get more and more time with each round to escape your fate?

With that thought in mind, you break out into a run, recklessly rushing through the crowd, shoving anyone who will not yield to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the stark white of Satoru Gojo’s hair as he descends upon the platform.

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

If you remember correctly, the roots and vines don’t close off the area the moment he touches down, but a little after they start talking, so you think there is probably some time, but you can’t leave it to chance.

The stairs are packed, and for some reason no one is moving. The escalator right next to it is just as full and the power doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t have time for this. You clamber onto the escalator’s rubber handrail, ignoring the weird feeling that passes through your body as you do so. You don’t have the time to worry about whatever that is. The people around you start exclaiming around you, but you don’t care, you don’t listen. You wobble as you try to balance yourself and when you think you’re steady you try to run.

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This marks the thirtieth time.

And you have, finally, finally made it up the escalator, up the stairs with barely a second to spare. You pause, glancing back as the roots or vines or whatever the hell they are seal off the entrance to the platform. You notice that the area where the plants come down is actually fairly clear, despite the crowd. It seems weird, but you don’t dwell on it.

A strange feeling envelops your entire body and your legs turn into jelly. As you sink to the floor, you realize what you’re feeling is relief as all the tension, maybe thirty iterations of Halloween 2018 worth, seeps from your being. You don't remember the last time you felt anything other than fear and dread; it’s weird, but not unwelcome.

That voice in the back of your mind tells you that you can't relax just yet: October 31st isn’t over. Even though you have repeated this night again and again, burning the events that play out on the platform into your memory, you do not know a single thing that happens over here. It would be smart to scope everything out.

Legs still shaky, you rise to your feet and start walking. You think it’s probably for the best to try and head up to the surface and you make your way up to the next floor.

It’s packed with people here too, but relatively peaceful, especially when you compare it to the pandemonium taking place beneath your feet. Still, you can make out the undeniable hum of displeasure resonating throughout the crowd. People complaining about how uncomfortable their costumes are, people complaining about how much they want to go home, people complaining about how much their nights have been ruined because they couldn’t meet up with their friends and—

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

That’s why you were on the platform in the first place— you were waiting for them to arrive, but then the trains stopped working, and people just started pouring into the station out of seemingly nowhere (you think you heard some people say they’d come from the crossing?). Soon after that is when everything went to shit.

You check your phone, though, for once it’s not to look at the time (8:56PM). Instead, you open LINE to check your friends’ group chat. There’s no signal here, for whatever reason, so if there are any new messages, you haven’t received them. The last one was from Kei, mentioning he was enroute, but as far as you know, you’re the only one who made it to Shibuya before the trains stopped.

Did one of them maybe make it here though? Surely, you would have run into them if—

The image of a woman in a magical girl costume fills your vision, burning to death before your very eyes as her screams echo in your ears. It is the first time in what feels like forever that you’ve thought about her and your stomach churns violently. You couldn’t help her, you can’t even help yourself, so how could you even expect to do the same for your friends if they were here? The mere thought of having to watch them die over and over is almost enough to send you over the edge. You don’t know if you could do it.

Would you even have a choice?

No. You can't think like that. You have choices. You've had choices. If you didn’t then, you would still be down below, among the fire and brimstone. Dying, if not dead already. However, instead, you are up here, where, for the moment, it is quiet and peaceful.

That thought, in of itself, is enough to give you a shred of solace, a glimmer of hope.

You take a deep breath and fiddle with your phone a little more, changing your lock screen to a picture you and your friends took at a photo booth not too long ago. The four of you are huddled together, faces squished as if you're all struggling to fit in the frame, despite there being plenty of room. You're mid-laugh because it's the first time you've been in a photo booth in years, Mio and Shin are grinning mischievously and finally, Kei is smiling, but only just slightly, the embarrassment clear on his face. It's probably only been a few months since you all took this picture, but the fact that it feels like it's been years makes your heart ache.

You press your forehead to the screen, like a prayer, like a promise.

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

A shrill scream yanks you from your thoughts and you are instantly on your feet, alert as your eyes flit around frantically to identify the source. It doesn't take long for you to find it and when you do, you think you might have stumbled upon a new layer of horror to this nightmare.

It’s not the corpse, dangling by a noose, that terrifies you— by now you’ve seen dozens upon dozens of dead bodies that the sight of just one more doesn’t faze you in the slightest. The thing that’s the most mortifying, that’s the most disturbing is that right next to where the body is tied are two girls, two teenage girls still dressed in their school uniforms.

You can accept monsters and weirdly dressed men being responsible for the carnage tonight, but children too? Both girls look like they’re barely in high school and try as you might to rationalize things, to chalk it up to coincidence, you cannot ignore the ominous energy radiating from them.

The very notion that these two children could have killed someone here is a hard pill to swallow, but so is the fact that you’ve died.

And you’ve had to swallow that pill thirty times now, so what’s once more?

“Listen up!” one of the girls yells over the crowd, but she is mostly ignored; you don’t think everyone here has noticed her and the corpse dangling from the rafters. She scowls and turns to the other girl and says something quietly to her. The other girl nods and almost instantly she’s stringing up another person, another example. You want to look away so badly, and yet you cannot bring yourself to and you watch the poor soul choke to death.

“I said listen, you dumb monkeys!” the girl shouts, and this time she’s caught most of the crowd’s attention. “If you don’t want to end up like these two, you’ll listen to what we have to say!”

There is clear dissent among the crowd, people dismissive as they utter their disbelief. Some seem to think it’s a prank, but you know better. It takes two more examples before the crowd goes silent before the two high schoolers.

“About damn time!” The girl roars and then points toward the atrium, which is currently covered by roots and branches. “All of you move over there!”

You have a bad feeling about this.

Still, you comply; the girls have made it abundantly clear that failure to do so will result in death, though, at this point, you're almost certain this iteration is a bust and death is all but imminent. You try to keep positive— thinking you can at least gather information or, who knows, maybe there's a chance that this one is the one.

Yet when you step onto the mound of vines and branches that cover the atrium it feels as if you've crossed the threshold into hell. Your footing is stable… but for how long?

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

It's faint, but you can hear the announcement from below. The liquid in your stomach curdles at the sound as you recall the train and, in particular, what is on board. Soon enough, those monsters will be swarming the platform, massacring everyone in reach, guzzling down their blood, feasting on their flesh—

It dawns on you that the people on the platform are the monsters' first course.

And you, and those around you here in the shrubbery, are the second.

As you realize this, the branches and vines disintegrate beneath your very feet and suddenly you are mid air— falling, falling into the abyss below.

You die for the thirtieth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

After countless failures, you've decided that you're just not going to go upstairs any more. No matter where you try to go, you still end up herded onto the death trap above the platform where you ultimately fall to your death. You've tried positioning yourself in the same spot, tried bracing yourself for the drop— but nothing seems to work: upon landing, assuming you manage to land without hurting yourself or dying in midair (which has happened a couple times) you get grabbed and killed by one of the monsters from the train. It's probably not impossible, you just don't have the physical prowess or reflexes for it.

If anything, you can try again later, but you sincerely hope you don't have to.

It's 8:32PM, and you have plenty of time to get to your chosen spot for this loop— it's close to the stairs, in the very center of the platform. Here, there's little risk of getting pushed off onto the tracks when the gates open. You'll probably have to move when the train comes, or even before (assuming you survive) to avoid the monsters, but you'll get to that when it's time.

You can't really see the fight once it breaks out after Satoru Gojo arrives, but you still try to keep track of it as best as you can. You see when he hurls both monsters across the platform and you're not sure if it's muscle memory or what but you have to fight the urge to move to the side and watch. It's been a while, yes, but you've seen the fight countless times before— it doesn't change. Satoru Gojo will give chase. He will rip the branches from the branch eyed monster's skull. He will use some kind of power to eviscerate them.

You don't need to watch, but there's something in you that wants to.

It doesn't make sense, you've seen it all before; if you're unlucky you'll see it all again.

The lights go out and people start screaming; Satoru Gojo is ending the life of that one monster. Soon enough he'll be back on the platform, in pursuit of the other. You think at that point it would be good to move, reposition yourself as far from the incoming train as possible.

When he rises from the tracks like a demon straight from hell, you realize it's the first time this loop that you've actually gotten a good look at him. You remind yourself, again, that this isn't the first time you've seen this man, this scene. You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. His expression is an eerie sort of calm that's at odds with the acts of violence you've seen him commit— his eyes an unnaturally bright blue.

He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

The sound of the announcement sends your heartbeat into a frenzy, snapping you out of your little trance. The train is coming and you need to get moving. As you dart to the edge of the platform, the thought occurs to you that even if you avoid the initial wave of monsters, it's likely you will inevitably be caught by them and killed. It wouldn't be impossible for Satoru Gojo to turn his attention to them instead of the two he's currently facing, but he's just one man— can he truly defeat all those monsters?

You can see the train pulling in and you brace yourself, praying that it'll work out somehow.

The doors hiss open and the screaming starts again as the monsters come bursting out of the train, biting and mauling anyone they can get their hands on. Those who were lucky enough to not be at the front start to scramble away and the monsters give chase. Your body is taut, ready to try and dodge any that come your way.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice something moving through the air. A person? With blue hair? You take the risk to look— they're attacking Satoru Gojo. He tries to punch them but they fly away from him to dodge— disappearing into the crowd.

You hear a loud cracking sound over the cacophony of the crowd and your stomach twists; you know what that sound is. The roots above the atrium disintegrate and bodies from above start to rain down onto the platform.

And then, you're not sure what happens— it's so quick that you only manage to see what looks like an explosion of blood surrounding Satoru Gojo. Corpses litter the ground around him and even from here you can tell he is shaken by the carnage.

The monsters have finally reached where you're standing, and you duck under one as it lunges at you. Although it's big and scary, you realize it's moving kind of slow. Right after it another one comes at you and you take a side step to avoid it; this monster is kind of slow too.

Maybe you can do this.

As soon as you think that a strange feeling courses through you. Every hair on your body feels like it's standing on edge and the voice in your head is telling you to look at Satoru Gojo. You don't understand why because you think he's the least of your worries right now, but you do it anyway.

He's in some sort of stance, one hand raised to his face, fingers bent in some kind of gesture. There's some sort of aura, oppressive and frightening emanating from his form.

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are utterly confused.

Barring your first few loops when you weren't fully aware of what was happening, you have very distinct memories of how each of your previous iterations of this night have gone— of each and every one of your deaths. But for your last round, the last thing you remember was feeling the immense power radiating from Satoru Gojo's body, but that's it.

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

And yet, here you are again, back at the start: it's 8:32PM and the monsters and strangely dressed man are standing on the subway tracks waiting for the arrival of Satoru Gojo.

You don't understand what's going on; you didn't die but you're still stuck in this damn loop. Up until now, your death has served as the trigger to restart the loop. It's not impossible that maybe you suffered a quick and painless death but you're almost certain that isn't the case.

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

You have to find out what. If you don't, you won't know how to avoid it, and if you can't do that, then you really might spend an eternity stuck in this nightmare. And so you take great care to repeat the steps of your last round. You need to make sure to survive to the same point you made it to last time.

Miraculously, you do.

The moment you feel that sensation again, a prickling sort of feeling that envelops your entire body, your eyes are on Satoru Gojo— trying to figure out what the hell he's doing. His eyes are crazed with a desperate kind of focus. You see his mouth move— he's saying something. A spell? A prayer? A curse?

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

Again.

You do not know how many times it's been the night of Halloween in Shibuya: you stopped counting around the hundredth loop. It feels like it's been a while since then. Or maybe it hasn't? You don't know any more.

What you do know is that this night ends up going one of two ways before you are forced to repeat it. Either you die, in some way, shape or form or something happens just after nine that forces you to reset. You still don't know what it is exactly; you only know that Satoru Gojo is responsible for it.

You do prefer it to dying— it's far less painful.

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

Unfortunately, you know better.

The only good thing you’ve noticed about all of this is that you really do seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier. The last time you checked, it was at around 8:30. It might take hundreds of thousands of loops, but eventually you’ll certainly wake up early enough to avoid this damn entire mess.

But by the time that happens… will your sanity still be intact? Will you really be able to go back to a normal day to day life after living the equivalent of hundreds of years, repeating the same night over and over again? You don’t even know how you’ve managed to stay sane all this time and as much as you want to believe you could do it…

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the latter first.

There’s a dull ache in your head that feels foreign yet familiar. Your mind is foggy, all your thoughts hazy as you try to recall what the word for this feeling is.

Groggy.

It feels as if you’ve woken up from a nap and you blink the sleepiness away from your eyes. When was the last time you took a nap? It’s been a while… You think you maybe tried once or twice, but you were too nervous, too on edge. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter because, either way, you were doomed to repeat this nightmare.

As you think this, you realize that something is different.

You’re used to how the start of each loop feels like waking up suddenly and abruptly and it becomes clear to you that you haven’t looped. This is completely uncharted territory.

You need to find out what’s going on.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quiet. Almost eerily so, especially when the last thing you remember was screaming and chaos. You glance around you and find that it looks like all the monsters from the train are dead, the ground littered in their bloodstains and corpses. There were so many of them, you don’t know how someone could have wiped them out so quickly… Could it possibly have been Satoru Gojo’s doing?

More concerning than the complete eradication of the monsters is the fact that nearly everyone else on the platform is standing stock still, their mouths ajar with blank expressions on their faces. It’s almost as if their souls have completely vacated their bodies…

Were you like that too before you woke up?

You hear voices, and your body immediately goes tense as you turn your head in their direction. A little ways ahead of you, you see a man dressed as a monk conversing with the blue haired person from earlier and before them is—

Your heart nearly stops: it’s Satoru Gojo, restrained and on his knees.

Honestly, you can’t make heads or tails of the conversation they’re having; it’s more shounen battle manga nonsense. Satoru Gojo doesn’t seem to be enjoying their conversation either, and he interrupts them, clearly annoyed.

“Are we gonna do this or what?” he asks. “The view sucks and I’m just kinda bored.”

“I wanted to enjoy this sight for a little bit longer, but you are right,” the monk says. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen— gate, close.”

When he says that, Satoru Gojo’s restraints move, the weirdly shaped cubes at the ends of them closing in around him, trapping him in a giant red cube. It starts to shrink until it’s small enough to fit in the monk’s hand.

You gulp and hope they don’t notice that you’re awake. The fact that they haven’t slaughtered the rest of the people standing around you is a good sign, but you don’t want to find out what happens if they know you’re cognizant.

It’s not hard to play the part of a living statue, especially when you compare it to everything else you’ve had to suffer through on this night. You watch as the monk’s allies, the ones who had attacked everyone on the platform, wake up, but before they can do or say anything, the box holding Satoru Gojo slips through the monk’s fingers and makes a dent in the concrete. The look on the monk’s face makes it clear that it’s a problem he wasn’t expecting.

You don’t know a damn thing about Satoru Gojo, but you feel like this kind of thing is the norm for him.

The blue haired person suddenly looks in your direction and you nearly stop breathing. Have they noticed you? It takes everything in you to keep perfectly still, in hopes that maybe they didn't, that maybe they’re looking at something else. They raise their arm and it extends, their hand acting like some kind of projectile. You almost shut your eyes and brace yourself for impact, but their hand flies upwards and hits something on the ceiling, destroying it.

Inwardly, you breathe a sigh of relief— you’re still safe.

For now.

You listen to their following conversation and while you still don’t fully understand everything, it’s clear they’re talking about what to do next since they’ve taken care of Satoru Gojo. Something having to do with someone named Yuji Itadori? The group seems split on what to do about him but it’s clear he’s their next target.

Eventually, everyone but the monk (you heard the blue haired person, who is apparently named Mahito, call him Geto?) runs off, probably to find this Yuji Itadori person. Once they’re gone, Geto speaks and, at first, you think he’s talking to you, but it becomes clear he’s addressing someone else. “Those cursed spirits are actually smarter than the two of you.”

“Give him back!” a voice hidden among the crowd hisses. Your blood runs cold at the sound. You recognize it; it’s one of the high school girls from the upper floor.

“We cooperated with you fully and kept dropping monkeys for you,” says another voice; it must be the other girl that was with her, the one who hung all those people.

“Now give us back Master Geto’s body like you promised!”

“Don’t toy with Master Geto any further than you have!”

You blink in confusion. Isn’t the monk named Geto? The way the girls are talking it sounds like they’re talking about someone else… Is it possible that the body is ‘Geto’ but the person they’re talking to is someone else possessing it? It sounds kind of crazy, but then again, so is every single thing you’ve experienced tonight.

Your suspicions concerning this ‘Geto’ are confirmed only seconds later as he says, “Now begone, or is it your desire to be killed by this body?”

One of the girls vows her revenge and you hear shuffling somewhere else in the crowd as they scurry away. Now you think it’s just you and whoever it is that’s puppeting Geto’s body. You see him plop down in front of the box (the prison realm, you think he’d called it) that’s holding Satoru Gojo.

“You can come out, you know,” he says after a while.

You freeze. The rest of the platform is completely silent. This time you think he might actually be talking to you.

“I know you’re there,” ‘Geto’ adds, his voice casual. “If you’re insistent on hiding, you should know that I’m not afraid of using whatever means necessary to smoke you out.”

Given everything his allies have done, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s serious. You were hoping to hide out among the crowd until he decided to leave, but it looks like you won’t be able to now.

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

Your heart starts to race as you weave your way through the crowd. In every single one of your loops, you were always treated like a bit character, never noticed or singled out by any of the major players of the night. Although this is your first time encountering this ‘Geto’ it’s clear to you that he’s involved with everything that’s happened here and honestly, you get the feeling he might actually be the mastermind behind the massacre.

That makes you even more nervous.

You come to a stop in the place where Satoru Gojo was once kneeling before he was put in that box. Now that you’re out in the open, ‘Geto’ looks you over with some sort of nonchalant curiosity.

“You’re…” he starts, sounding thoughtful, "not a sorcerer, are you?”

Sorcerer. You heard that term thrown around by him and his group a few times. It’s what they’ve been referring to their enemies as. It probably wouldn’t be smart to lie and say you are one; you get the feeling he’d see through your lie anyway. “I’m not.”

He hums. “How interesting.”

“...what do you mean?” you ask before you can help yourself.

“It’s just you have an abnormally large amount of cursed energy for a non-sorcerer,” he explains. “Though, I suppose that all just sounds like gibberish to you."

You nod and look down at the box lodged in the floor. It has eyes, big creepy looking eyes. "...are you going to do the same thing to me as you did to that man?"

He laughs, "...fortunately for you, the prison realm only holds one person at a time and I need him sealed away more than you."

"...does that mean you're going to leave him in there forever?"

"If I'm feeling nice, I might unseal him in a hundred years or so."

One hundred years? At this point, you've probably lived roughly that amount of time through your loops alone, but for Satoru Gojo… "Won't he die first?"

"Only if he decides to," 'Geto' says, looking completely and wholly unbothered. "Time doesn't doesn't flow in the box, so when I unseal him, he'll be the same as he was just now. Physically anyway. Who knows how deteriorated his mind will be after all that."

Time doesn't flow in the box.

The words echo in your mind over and over. Time doesn't flow in the box. In other words, that means time has stopped in the box, and if that's the case then—

"Anyway, rather than worry about him, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

You look at 'Geto' and he's smiling at you, it's friendly, but ominous. There's no doubt what is going to happen next, though you had already resigned yourself to this iteration being a bust; it was only a matter of time.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I was thinking I might keep you around, even if you aren’t a sorcerer, your wealth of cursed energy would serve my plans well," he muses. "But… it would be too much trouble trying to teach you how to use it in time."

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

You're scared.

Even though you know that once he kills you, once you die, you'll just loop back to around 8:30 again. You'll be on the platform again. And you'll play out some sequence of events before you eventually die again. And again and again.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I'll be nice, though," 'Geto' says, raising a hand and another monster appears out of nowhere. You don’t even bother trying to figure out from where. It doesn’t matter, especially since this monster will surely be the one to end your life. "I'll make it painless."

"...I appreciate it," you say and close your eyes hoping that he's not lying about it.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you're trapped.

You don't know how and you don't know why, but you are stuck in a time loop— forced to suffer through the horrific events of the night before you die and begin it all again. It's been a long time since you stopped counting how many loops you've gone through, but if you had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the hundreds now.

You are so very tired.

But it doesn't stop. It won't stop no matter what you seem to do. You are stuck. You are trapped. You are doomed.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

Ever since that first loop where you heard whoever is possessing Geto's body say that, the words have been stuck in your head, playing on loop.

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

It's 8:25PM when you wake up; that should be plenty of time.

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

After hundreds of loops you've come to a singular conclusion: you need to prevent him being sealed in the prison realm. You've witnessed it enough to know that you won't be able to do it alone; you'll need his cooperation.

You rush upstairs as fast as you can, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine as you step onto the stairwell. According to your previous loops, Satoru Gojo arrives on the subway tracks at 8:40PM. With how crowded the upper floor is, you don’t know if you’ll have the time to intercept him and talk to him, but if you can at least figure out where to find him, then you can try and talk to him during a subsequent loop.

When you reach the fourth basement floor, however, you don’t know where you should even start. He’s pretty tall so you think you could spot him in the crowd, but… there are still so many people. It occurs to you that maybe it would be better to try and look from a higher vantage point so you head to the stairs that lead up to the third basement floor. You check your phone again. It’s 8:35PM; you need to hurry.

Luckily for you, you find him very easily on the third basement floor.

The only problem is that he’s in a hard to reach spot— squatting above a sign hanging over the crowd.

You check your phone again. It’s 8:38PM and he’s starting to move, presumably to meet with those waiting for him on the subway tracks. It’s good that you found him, but there’s no doubt about it.

You’re going to need more time.

The moment you wake up, you immediately bolt toward the stairs. It's taken many, many more loops, but you've finally brought the time you wake down to around 8:15. You're still not sure if it's enough time, but there's only one way to find out.

You barrel your way up to the next floor and zig zag through the crowd to get to the next flight of stairs. By the time you get to your destination, you're completely out of breath, your chest heaving as your lungs clamor for air. You’ve done this so many times, yet your body acts like it’s always the first. It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You slow to a brisk pace to catch your breath and check the time. It’s 8:27— a new record. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

The goal is to catch Satoru Gojo before he moves to his lookout point above the crowd. While not impossible, it would be difficult for you to follow him there. You eye the safety barricade that blocks off the area where he’ll be moving in just a few minutes warily.

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

You don’t want to think about it right now; you’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Especially since Satoru Gojo has now entered your field of vision.

Your heart starts to race at the sight of him and it feels like it’s beating a million times a second. There isn’t a lot of time. You need to talk to him, but your legs only wobble, your feet planted firmly to the ground. This is not good. You need to move. You need to move.

Finally, after what feels like both an instant and an eternity, your feet finally budge, propelling you in Satoru Gojo’s direction. The beating of your heart only grows louder as you make your way toward him, mingling with the single thought that’s echoing throughout your mind right now: will he even hear you out?

You need to make him.

“Excuse me!” The words nearly come out in a stutter as you realize that you are actually talking to Satoru Gojo. You have watched this man at a distance for so long that it almost felt like he wasn’t real, like he was just another fixture in this nightmare that you’ve been living for far too long. And yet, here he is, right in front of you, in the flesh.

And his attention is on you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming. Your mouth is dry and suddenly you don’t know what to say, but you need to say something. You need to say something before he thinks maybe you bumped into him by accident and just walks away without a word.

“I need to talk to you!” The words just burst out from your mouth and something about it is just absolutely embarrassing. You’re not sure if it's desperation or the fact that you haven’t really talked to anyone other than the existence occupying Suguru Geto’s body in nearly forever.

Satoru Gojo’s lips slowly start to form a smile, “Oh, yeah?”

The sound of his voice makes your mind go blank. There’s something different about it right now; more playful, amused even. Maybe it’s because he’s talking to you, a harmless human being and not a monster trying to kill him. It’s almost kind of jarring, but you know, with certainty, what Satoru Gojo’s voice sounds like. And the fact that he’s actually talking to you right now has you kind of excited. You nod, doing your best to not show how thrilled you are that he’s not ignoring you.

He hums thoughtfully, “Sorry… but unfortunately I kind of have some business to attend to right now.”

“I—” You start to say that you know that he’s headed down to the platform below to fight with…Choso and Jogo, you think their names are— you don’t know the name of the monster with the branches for eyes. “It’s— it’s really important!”

Gojo tilts his head a little, clearly thinking. You should probably say something else, something to try and convince him to stay a little longer and hear you out, but your mind is both full and blank. Where do you start? From the beginning? Or do you start with what is most important? Maybe you should say what you think will get his attention. You’re not sure, and you realize you really should have thought about this earlier because you’re running out of time right now.

“...mind handing me your phone?”

You stare at Gojo, completely and wholly confused, but he just holds out his hand expectantly. When you don’t move, he wiggles his fingers a little, a silent gesture telling you to hurry it up. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and unlock your phone before handing it to him.

“Kind of sucks that cell service isn’t working right now,” he remarks as he types something into your phone before handing it back. “But! Here's my number.”

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though?

“Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

He laughs, “Well, you said you had something really important to talk to me about, right? So just give me a call when you get home or some time tomorrow and we can talk then!”

You’re not going to make it home, or even to tomorrow, and neither will Satoru Gojo. As you start to tell him this, he steps past you. Desperate, you try to grab him, but somehow, for some reason, you can’t. You remember he did this with Jogo and the other monster, made himself untouchable.

This is not good.

He gives you a little wave, cheery as he says, “I’ll talk to you later!”

You watch, helpless as he hops over the barricade beyond your reach.

Gripping your phone tightly, you take a deep breath. It's fine, it's not like you didn’t expect things to go well anyway.

You'll just have to try again.

Every time you’ve tried to solicit help from Satoru Gojo, it has gone the same way. He just won’t give you the time of day, and in some ways you can’t blame him; he’s clearly here to deal with the monsters down on the platform. You’re fairly certain that he probably thinks that whatever is going on with you is a much lesser issue in comparison.

Plus, it probably doesn’t help that in the times that you’ve approached him, you haven’t been able to articulate yourself particularly well. Once you start talking to him, you just get hit with something akin to stage fright and the connection between your mind and your mouth just stops working. It’s gotten better with each attempt, but…

It’s just so frustrating.

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all. You’re not sure what kind of person you were expecting him to be, but after witnessing him literally and viciously rip monsters apart, you’d figured he’d be a little more somber. However, in the fragmented conversations you’ve had with him he’s come off as far more friendly and playful than you would have thought. Is he the type of person to get more serious when the situation calls for it? You can’t help but wonder, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that you’re able to convince him to help you.

You have to convince him.

“Excuse me!” you say, stepping in Satoru Gojo’s path. You don’t stutter this time, and your voice is more sure. This is good.

“Yes?”

His head turns in your direction and you gulp. Gojo’s gaze, despite that blindfold of his, still feels just as overwhelming as it did the very first time you approached him. You have no doubt that he’s sizing you up, but there’s just something about it that makes you feel like you’re being picked apart.

You take a deep breath and step closer to him, hoping your voice sounds firm enough as you say, “I need your help. I’m trapped.”

He chuckles a little, “I know, but yours truly is on his way to go beat up the bad guys keeping you all trapped here, so soon enough you’ll be all free to go on your merry little way.”

Right. You were so caught up in your own plight that you nearly forgot that technically you’re not the only one ‘trapped.’ Satoru Gojo obviously knows that everyone else is confined to this station, but you doubt he knows that you’re confined to this night alone.

“That’s not what I mean!” you sputter.

“Then what do you mean?” Gojo asks. Should you tell him that you mean that you’re trapped in a time loop? You’re honestly not sure— in the movies and manga you’ve read about time travel, revealing that sort of thing risks creating a time paradox which seems to be a bad thing. If you have to tell him, you will, but— “Oh, I get it.”

You stare, bewildered. Did you maybe just spew all of that aloud?

Gojo gives you a mischievous smile. “You’re hitting on me, aren’t you?”

“No!” The word comes flying out of your mouth. You can’t deny he’s attractive— you’ve thought it all this time, but that is not what’s happening here.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he continues, ignoring you. “I totally get it, so if you want, I’d be happy to give you my number!”

Again? You’ve received Satoru Gojo’s contact details in every loop you’ve talked to him, star symbol and all— you even have his number memorized. There’s something kind of odd about how he keeps giving you his number. Part of you wonders if he’s got some sort of ulterior motive, but you haven’t thought too deeply about it. There are way more important things going on.

“I don’t need your phone number,” you say. “I need to talk.”

Your response seems to give Gojo pause. Did you somehow manage to get through to him? No way. Your suspicions are all but confirmed when he gives you that familiar apologetic smile.

“Like, I said, I’m sort of in the middle of something, but…” Gojo reaches into his pockets and rummages around until one hand fishes out a folded up piece of paper. The other hand keeps digging around in his pocket and when Gojo seems to give up on whatever he’s looking for, he turns his attention back to you. “Got a pen?”

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

“I do, but…” You trail off, unsure why he’s asking.

He holds out his hand waiting for you to just hand him the pen. You still don’t get it, but you reach into your bag’s front pocket and pull out the pen and hand it to him. Gojo looks almost like an excited child when he takes it from you, quickly scribbling something onto his paper before shoving it and your pen back into your hand.

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

“If you change your mind later, just give me a call!” he tells you cheerily. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while!”

You gawk at him. He cannot be serious. You literally just told him that you didn’t need it and yet he still gave it to you. He must want you to contact him later, but you can’t even begin to understand why. It can’t have been something you said or did, right? Unless, he’s actually—

“Later!” Gojo’s voice cuts through your thoughts and you notice him walking off with a wave.

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

You crush the receipt in your hand and rush after him. Despite the crowd, Gojo seems to move through the people with ease and it almost seems like they are yielding to him naturally. It’s good for you. Makes him easier to chase.

“Wait!” you yell, but Gojo doesn’t even look back. Bastard. Your muscles strain as you try to run faster. You know you won’t be able to grab him if you get to him, but there has to still be something you can do to stop him. Circle around him? Cut him off before he—

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

“Wait!” you yell again. “Satoru Gojo, wait!”

He does not even acknowledge you.

You’re almost there though. Almost. If you reach out your hand, then maybe, maybe you can grab him. Something in your head tells you that it’s useless; you’ve never been able to touch him. But, you don’t care, you don’t care because you have to try. You stretch out your hand, desperate and hoping, but just as you do, Gojo effortlessly jumps over the barricade, moving to survey the crowd.

Due to your momentum, you almost collide into the barricade, but you manage to stop yourself. You stare at Satoru Gojo through the glass. He watches the crowd for at most three minutes. Is this just another bust? Is there really nothing you can do? There must be a way you can get his attention. Is it possible to climb over the barricade? No, it’s too high. There’s nothing you can grasp onto or use as footing either.

This fucking sucks.

Another minute or two and Gojo will be on the move again, and there will be no way you can follow, no way you can get his attention. You press your hands against the glass, pushing against it. Naturally, it doesn’t budge. Why would it? If only you could get it out of the way. If only you could break it. This stupid barricade is the only thing between you and Satoru Gojo and there’s no way you can climb it, but if only you could break it.

If only you could fucking break it.

Suddenly, the glass feels warm. Satoru Gojo’s image starts to look a little distorted as the warmth beneath your fingers grows. Something is happening. The glass starts to vibrate and shake. Violently. The tremors grow stronger and stronger. You should stop. You should back away.

You don’t.

The barricade starts to crack and fracture and soon the sound of shattering glass resounds throughout the entire room. Everyone starts screaming. No one knows what’s going on— not even you. But you don’t care. It’s gone. The barricade is gone.

You take a step forward, toward Satoru Gojo. He’s on a beam that’s about a two meter drop from where you’re standing. That’s fine. That’s okay. You can make it. You have to. Without a second thought, you jump—

And you land on the beam. You look up and Satoru Gojo’s attention is back on you. He’s finally, finally turned toward you, face twisted into an expression you can’t decipher or even comprehend, but—

Something’s wrong; your world is turning on its axis, but—

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are causing a commotion.

“Shit! Fuck!” you curse loudly. The people near you start to shift away but you barely notice; you don’t really care.

You were so close, so fucking close and yet… yet here you are again. It’s quarter past eight and you are back on the goddamn platform. You don’t know what happened; you remember falling and thinking you were going to die, but you are absolutely certain that, once again, this time, you didn’t die.

Is Satoru Gojo at fault again? Did he do something? Like he did all those other times you looped without dying? When you think about it more, you don’t think so. You don’t know what happened; all you know is that you tried to get to him, but you slipped.

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

You still don’t understand why you looped, but there’s not much you can do about it now; it’s not like you can go back anymore. It just sucks, because you think he might have actually listened if you’d talked to him.

Or he would have come after you for… whatever happened with the barricade. It could have been taken as an attack on the crowd… But if he thought you were doing that, then why would he catch you?

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

The only problem is that you don’t know how you managed to shatter the barricade. You think about it as you make your way up to where you’ll find Satoru Gojo. There is the possibility that it wasn’t you and something else happened to it instead, but that feels way too coincidental. It had to be you. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You just can’t figure out how you did it outside of wanting, wishing, praying for the barricade to break. It’s not like you have supernatural powers like Satoru Gojo and his enemies.

Despite your mind being completely and wholly occupied by trying to figure out how in the world you managed to break through that barricade, you still manage to make it to the second basement floor of Shibuya Hikarie by 8:25PM— a brand new record. Satoru Gojo doesn’t show up until around 8:34PM, so that gives you almost ten minutes to try and figure out what you need to do to try and replicate shattering the glass barricade again.

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

The thought that maybe you’re mistaken flashes in your mind before it’s quickly dismissed; there’s no way you’d mistake anyone else for him. There is absolutely no denying it: that is Satoru Gojo. Bewildered, you double check the time on your phone. Maybe you misread it and you’re actually late but sure enough you read it right— Satoru Gojo is here early.

What the hell is going on?

Of the thousands of times you have experienced this night, this hell, this sort of thing has never happened before. Everything happens at a specific time, as if adhering to an unseen schedule. It’s likely that what happened in your last iteration did delay Satoru Gojo’s arrival onto the platform, but other than that there has never been a deviation to the time table.

And yet, here Satoru Gojo is, nine minutes early now.

You realize that that’s not the only thing that’s strange: he’s not moving. In previous rounds, when you encounter Gojo here, he’s walking to the lookout spot beyond the barricade. But, right now, he’s just standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. It almost looks like he's waiting for something.

Or someone.

This unexpected turn of events has you rooted to the spot. You’re not sure what you should do. No. This shouldn’t change anything. You need to talk to him. As concerning as a change like this is, the extra time it gives you should be a good thing. Despite knowing that, your feet are still firmly planted to the ground.

The crowd shifts and you see Satoru Gojo start to move. Toward the barricade? No. He’s not heading in his usual direction, rather he’s—

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

You try to answer but no words come out of your mouth. Are you dreaming? You have to be, right? There's no way that this is actually happening. Could it be that, after thousands of loops, you’ve finally lost it? Your mind shattering along with the glass of the barricade at the end of the last one?

Gojo tilts his head, indicating that he's still waiting for an answer. When you open your mouth, at first, nothing comes out, the words stuck in your throat. You force them out, your voice cracking, “...how did you know?”

He smiles, looking almost mischievous as he reaches up and lightly taps the side of his head. “I remembered, of course!”

All you can do is stare at Satoru Gojo. He remembered? How is that possible? From his perspective, this is the first time you’ve met and while it shouldn’t be possible for him to remember there’s something in your mind that’s keeping you from completely dismissing the possibility.

Gojo laughs, “I take it from the look on your face that you’re not used to this sort of thing happening. Is this the first time?”

“No.” The fact that the word is out of your mouth before you can even really think about it surprises you and you really have to think. Your face scrunches together as you try to remember. Is this really not the first time? Then, the memories assault you, overlapping as they replay simultaneously in your head— a woman in a yellow and white magical girl costume— begging you for help as she burns to death— smiling as she tells you she made her costume herself. “...it happened just once a long time ago.”

“‘A long time ago,’ huh. Sounds like you've been at this for a while now.”

“...unfortunately.”

Gojo hums. “So when you said you didn’t need my phone number…”

“You’d already given it to me a few times,” you say, figuring that’s where this conversation is going.

“Really now?”

Does he not believe you? Or is he just being an ass? You’re not sure, but since you had taken the liberty of memorizing Satoru Gojo’s phone number you recite it back to him to prove your point.

Just when you think you may have stunned Gojo into silence he starts to laugh, obviously finding something funny about the fact that you know his cell phone number. “Seems like you've got quite the fascinating technique there.”

Technique? What is he talking about? Your confusion must be plain on your face because he adds, elaborating, “The time travel.”

You continue to stare at him. You don't think you'd consider what you've been going through time travel, because traveling implies moving from point A to point B, but you've been stuck walking in circles at point A for a long time. What really gets you is… “What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“You mean you don’t— oh. I get it; no wonder you’re trapped.”

That does not answer your question in the slightest. “Can you please explain what you're talking about? What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“Right, right… So basically, a technique is like a special sort of power,” he finally explains. “Like I said, your technique seems to be a kind of time travel. Whenever you activate it, your mind is sent back in time.”

What he's saying makes sense, but… “How come you were sent back too?”

He laughs again. “Isn't it obvious? Think back to before— do you remember that I caught you as you were falling?”

You nod slowly. The memory of his arms around you is almost embarrassingly vivid. “...is it because we were touching?”

“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!”

Something about his tone annoys you, but you try to ignore it. He could have just told you rather than make you guess. “How do you know that for sure?”

“Well,” he continues. “You’ve done your little time loop a bunch of times, right? If your technique affected everyone, or even a few people in a select range you would have noticed for sure. And if it affected only just you then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, now would we?”

When you think about it, you do think that the woman in the magical girl costume might have bumped into you before the loop where she remembered.

“That’s honestly just conjecture, but I've got pretty good eyes, so I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Gojo gives you a grin and while you do think that his reasoning is sound enough his confidence is a little grating. More than that, though, you’re glad that this conversation is actually going really well.

“Either way,” he says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like you can control your technique. Usually a person’s technique manifests when they’re a kid, but you seem to be a special case… in fact, I bet your technique activated for the very first time tonight— probably under some pretty extreme circumstances, too.”

“...dying counts as an ‘extreme circumstance,’ right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Or legitimately thinking that you’re gonna die, but it seems like your body has been unconsciously activating your technique as a sort of defense mechanism. Which is why you’re trapped.”

“So, if I could control it I’d be able to make it out of this time loop.”

“Yeah, but in this case it probably wouldn’t end very well for you,” he points out with a chuckle. “It’s not like you actually want to die, right? I mean, if you did, then your technique wouldn’t even activate in the first place.”

You don’t; what you want is for this night to finally end. To be free from the endless cycle of dying over and over again and again. You don’t think death is quite the answer; even if you were to learn how to control this supposed technique of yours, there’s no guarantee that you would just unconsciously activate it when the grim reaper comes knocking on your door. No, the answer is…

“Anyway!” Gojo’s cheery voice cuts through your thoughts. “I highly doubt that you’re the type that makes a habit of jumping off ledges for the funsies, so the fact that you’ve been dying tells me that some pretty gruesome stuff is about to go down, so, tell me what happens tonight.”

The sudden drop of his voice sends a shiver running down your spine. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen how serious Gojo can get, the sudden shift in demeanor would probably freak you out a bit, but it doesn’t. This is the Satoru Gojo you’re familiar with.

You do have one concern though. “That… won’t create a time paradox or anything, will it?”

“Nah,” Gojo shrugs. “You wouldn’t cause one with the way your technique works, besides, if you’ve only been going back at most an hour or two in time it’s hard to believe you’d be making a really big impact… unless you really believe in the butterfly effect.”

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

“...okay.”

Anxiety is still gripping at you, but you try to dispel it, taking a deep breath before beginning your explanation. For the sake of brevity, it’s probably best that you’re as concise as possible. There isn’t much need to really get into the nitty gritty of things unless he asks specifically.

Naturally, you begin with his arrival onto the platform and how soon after a fight breaks out and how the crowd is unfortunate enough to be involved. Gojo’s expression is passive for the most part, but he does crack the faintest hint of a smile when you mention how he manages to eviscerate one of the monsters.

It disappears once you tell him about the arrival of the train. Between the dozens upon dozens of people being dropped onto the platform by those two high school girls and the hoard of monsters disembarking from the train, everything devolves into pandemonium.

“Wait,” Gojo holds a hand up and you pause. This is his first interruption since you started recounting the night’s events for him. “Everyone is able to see the monsters?”

You stare at him. What a weird question. “...yeah?”

His mouth twists and it looks like he’s thinking about something. You can’t even begin to imagine what. Finally, he comments, “Makes sense.”

It does not, but you don’t ask him to elaborate. Surely if it was important he would have just done so.

“Anyway, in the middle of all that, you… you do something.” Your brows bunch together as you remember the stance Gojo took, the crazed and desperate look in his eyes, the feeling of your head about to explode. “I don’t know how to describe it. At first, it would just force me to… activate my technique, I guess. But now, it just knocks me out for a few minutes.”

Gojo frowns and he rubs at his chin, obviously thinking about what you’ve said. Eventually, he raises a hand and bends his fingers into a familiar gesture. It’s the one that preludes whatever he does on the platform. “Do I do this?”

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

You wait to see if he’ll explain. He doesn’t. Great. Even if he doesn’t think you need to know, it certainly would be nice to. It’s annoying otherwise, but you ignore the feeling and continue. “I can’t tell you what happens when I’m knocked out, but when I come to everyone is basically a zombie and all the monsters from the train are gone. I think you kill them.”

“I probably do,” he says casually. “But what about Volcano Head?”

“...you don't…get a chance to kill him,” you say slowly. Gojo tilts his head, waiting for you to elaborate, but you hesitate. You have to tell him, you know you do, but…

You have seen the interaction so many times and though you don't know the exact nature of the relationship between them, you can tell that seeing Suguru Geto (or rather seeing his body) shook Satoru Gojo to his very core.

There's no doubt in your mind that he will not take this news well.

“Come on now,” Gojo's tone is light-hearted, unaware. “Don't keep me in suspense here.”

It's as if you're withholding the punchline to a joke. In a way, you suppose you are, but you don't think he's going to find it funny.

You take a deep breath. You need to tell him. The worst thing that could happen is that he doesn't believe you, but if that's the case… you'll probably just end up repeating this all again until you find a loop where he does.

Having made it this far, you'd like to avoid all that.

“Before you can get Volcano Head you get restrained by something called the prison realm,” you say slowly, “by someone calling themselves… Suguru Geto.”

The second the name leaves your mouth, there is a clear and obvious shift in the air. Gone is Gojo’s laid-back and frivolous demeanor, replaced with something more somber and almost frightening. The tension grows more and more palpable to the point that you think it might almost choke you.

You almost wish that it would.

“You can’t be serious,” Gojo finally says, once your words have fully sunk in.

“I—” You start to speak, but come to an abrupt stop when you see him shove his hand into his pocket to yank out his phone of all things.

The both of you know full well that there’s no reception here, but you don’t think that he’s planning on making any calls. Gojo scrolls and scrolls on his phone before he stops and shoves the screen in your face. It shows a picture of three people— a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth, a younger, happier version of Gojo sporting a pair of round sunglasses and—

“When you say ‘Geto’ is this who you’re referring to?” Gojo demands, using his other hand to point at the third person in the frame— a handsome young man with long dark hair pulled up into a bun.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s impossible. It can’t be him,” Gojo interrupts, his voice firm, cold even. “He’s dead.”

There’s a note of finality in his words that is definitely meant to leave no room for argument. It doesn’t stop you, though. Instead, you glare at Gojo’s stupid blindfold and say, “...being dead doesn’t mean a damn thing! I’ve died hundreds of times and yet I��m still fucking here, but—”

“Your situation is different,” he interjects, the temperature of his tone hiking up, his words like heated hissing. “I killed him almost a year ago. There's no way—”

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

The air between you both is silent as the grave. Though you can't see it, you can feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on you. He’s definitely having second thoughts about everything you’ve said so far. There’s a chance he might even think you’re his enemy now. You stare him down though, refusing to look away. You’ve made it this far, you can’t— you won’t back down.

“...you’re not lying, are you.” Gojo’s words are more of a statement than a question. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows the answer, and yet he’s still asking. You wonder if maybe he’s clinging onto some vain hope that maybe, just maybe this all a sick, cruel joke that’s gone way too far.

“I’m not.”

Gojo holds your gaze for a second longer before he lets out a curse. “Fuck!”

“...I’m sorry,” you say quietly, mostly because it feels like the most correct thing to say at this moment. You don’t know the whole story, but it seems like they were close. If so, then it must have hurt Gojo a lot to have killed him, and must hurt even more to know that someone is desecrating the body. You hate that you, a complete and utter stranger, happened to be the person to tell him, but…

It had to be done, for the sake of getting past this unending night, it had to be done.

Gojo runs a hand through his hair and lets out a ragged sigh. “Okay. What happens after that?”

You give him a rundown of what follows; he gets sealed, the monsters wake up and all but ‘Geto’ leave in search of their next target. When you mention the high school girls demanding the brain give Geto’s body back, Gojo snorts loudly.

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

You nod in agreement. It was clear to you that the brain parasite has no intent on giving it up any time soon. “After they leave, he… talks to me.”

“Probably couldn't ignore all that cursed energy you have,” Gojo remarks offhandedly.

You stare at him, expression twisted in a way that shows that you have absolutely no clue what that means. It should be fine for you to ask this one question; it actually concerns you after all. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, though… probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?”

You give him a pointed glare and all Gojo does is laugh.

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“...Like in a video game?”

“Exactly!” Then, Gojo tilts his head, clearly thinking. You don't bother asking; you don't feel like he'll explain.

“He does ask me if I'm a sorcerer, whatever that is. Is that why?”

“Probably. Ordinary people don't have even a fraction of the energy you're packing.”

‘Ordinary people’ he says as if you’re not an ordinary person who got caught up in all this supernatural sorcery bullshit. Or at least you were, but if the time loops are really a product of your own doing…

“Does he kill you when you answer?” Gojo asks to get the conversation back on track.

“Not right away. What happens next kind of varies,” you answer. “He usually lets me have a question or two before he kills me; I've asked him a couple different things.”

“Really taking advantage, aren’t you?” Gojo says and you're not sure what to make of his tone. Is he mocking you or is he easing back into that laid-back persona of his?

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

He’s definitely gone back to acting almost completely unserious— all signs of his earlier agitation are nearly gone.

“So what did you learn?”

“Well, the prison realm only holds one occupant. Once they’re sealed, time stops for them and the only way out is if the bearer unseals them or if they choose to kill themselves.”

“I see… And what about our body jacker?”

“He didn’t go into detail but he said something about… striving toward the evolution of mankind?” You frown a little at the memory. He didn’t explain further because he said that you wouldn’t understand.

“Huh. Interesting. Wonder how he was gonna go about doing that.”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine you'd like it since he goes out of his way to seal you into that box,” you say. “Said you’d get in the way because you’re too strong.”

Gojo shrugs his shoulders and grins a little. Cocky. “Well, I am the strongest sorcerer around, you know.”

You would think him overconfident if you hadn't seen the magnitude of his strength first hand.

“Anyway, that's as far as I ever go. When he's decided he’s done talking to me, he kills me and I loop back.”

“So, in short, what you want help with is getting past that point, right?”

“More or less.”

“And all I have to do is avoid getting caught by the prison realm?”

You nod.

“What’s it look like?” he asks. “A big cage with a bunch of metal bars?”

Now that you think about it, you haven’t woken up early enough to see it before it traps him, but you can’t imagine it looks that much different. “No.. It’s a small box with eyes… It gets big enough to fit you in it, though.”

“Huh.” He stretches his arms out above his head as if he’s trying to emphasize how large he actually is and shoots you a grin. “Should be easy enough then. I bet our body snatcher used the shock of seeing Suguru to trap me but since I'll see it coming, avoiding it'll be a piece of cake.”

Gojo makes it sound so easy, and maybe it really is as simple as that, but you can't help but be worried still.

“Don't tell me you don't think I can do it,” he says, tilting his head.

“It's not that,” you admit. “I'm just concerned I might die before we can get to that point.”

Truthfully, since you know that will just result in another loop you're less concerned with dying itself and more worried about losing the progress you've made in convincing Gojo to help you. Even though it's been clearly proven you can loop him as well, there's no guarantee you'll be able to make the physical contact needed to do it upon death.

“You've made it pretty far on your own, though, right?”

“Yeah, but… I’ve messed up plenty of times.” More than you can even count. “There's also the possibility that taking the time to talk to you might have thrown things out of whack.”

Speaking of time, you check your phone. It's 8:39PM. You curse.

Gojo leans over to check your phone. “Let me guess, I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.”

“Yeah, this is when you’re descending down onto the platform.”

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

That earns Gojo a glare from you, but he just laughs it off. “I doubt being a few minutes late is going to make a big difference.”

You certainly hope so.

“Don't worry,” Gojo says and you notice he's using that tone from earlier. “You won't die.”

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can.

“I'll protect you.”

You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

That catches you a little off guard. You're willing to admit he's hot, but surely he must be joking. “How could you even think of something like that at a time like this?”

Gojo laughs again. “Well, since someone is so worried about their time table being all messed up, I better head down there; can’t keep Volcano Head and friends waiting, right?”

You blink. Is that it? “Wait, shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

“Isn’t the plan for me to not get caught in the prison realm?”

Yes, but… “But what about me? Is there anything I can do?”

Gojo stares at you, or at least you think he does. “...I don’t know, is there?”

You’ve seen the encounter between Satoru Gojo and those monsters so many times and you try to picture a version of it where you intervene and… all you can see is yourself getting in his way. You’re no fighter, no… sorcerer, or whatever he is, you’re just some ordinary person that was unfortunate enough to get all caught up in this mess. The most you can probably do is kick the prison realm out of the way when the time comes, but otherwise… “...no, I guess not.”

His expression turns sympathetic. “You’ve done plenty by telling me everything that happens. So just wait up here, and let me handle the monsters.”

You almost nod. Almost. But then you remember what transpires up here above the platform. You know it sounds safer up here where you’re less likely to get involved in the carnage, but… “Wait, no, if I stay up here then I’ll fall to my death when those girls—”

Gojo laughs, interrupting you. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

“I…” It’s hard to. After everything you’ve gone through it’s hard to trust in anything, to believe in anything. Even though you’ve made it this far this time, the worry that something will go wrong and that you’ll have to do it all again still lurks in the back of your mind.

Despite all that, you want to believe.

You want to believe that you can make it past this unending night, that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll no longer be October 31, 2018. And the first step towards that is trusting in Satoru Gojo.

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

Gojo chuckles then asks, “Anything else before I head off?”

You start to ask if there’s anything you should say, in case things don’t work out, but you stop yourself. You’re choosing to trust him, to believe in him— you can figure out that stuff later if things end up going south after all. So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

For a split second, Gojo looks almost surprised, but then he laughs again, beaming widely at you. He starts to move past you and reaches out to give you what you think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder and then he’s off. You turn to watch him go, the crowd, once again, parting almost naturally for him.

When he reaches the barricade, he pauses, raising his hand as if he’s giving you one last wave. Then he jumps over it onto his little perch and then less than a minute later he’s gone, descending to the platform below.

Now, all you can do is wait.

You check your phone again and it’s 8:44PM. If you remember correctly, the high school girls start threatening everyone right before 9PM. With Gojo’s arrival being shifted back almost five minutes, does that mean that they’ll be shifted back too? It would make sense, but you’re not too sure.

Out of habit, you keep checking your phone and at nearly 9PM, you hear the shrill voice of one of the girls over the crowd, commanding everyone to do what she says, her partner stringing up bodies until everyone listens. Everything plays out just as you remember it, which is mildly comforting, though you know that the events that happen up here are more or less independent from what happens below.

Surely, just as Gojo said, a few minutes aren’t going to change anything, but—

No.

You agreed to trust him. To trust that everything would be fine.

When the girls start to demand that as many people as possible climb onto the roots and vines covering the atrium your heart starts to hammer in your chest. In just a few minutes, all the foliage will disintegrate beneath you, and you and everyone else here will fall into the abyss below.

You are afraid.

There isn’t a single loop where you’ve really survived this fall. If you don’t die in midair, you die right after landing. It’s a death trap, and that’s why you’ve stopped coming up here. There’s a part of you, the part that knows what’s about to happen, that wants to try and run back onto stable footing. But you can’t, because you know if you do then the girls will kill you for sure; you have to stay.

It’ll be fine, you tell yourself, it’ll be okay.

You just have to trust Gojo.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You hear the announcement faintly below you. It’s almost time. You brace yourself and try to stay calm. Gojo said he would protect you, that you wouldn’t die. You don’t know how he intends to keep that promise, but all you can do is believe in his words.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

The vines and roots start to crack and the ground beneath you starts to give out. You squeeze your eyes shut as that sickening weightless feeling overtakes you. It occurs to you that this is actually quite literally a trust fall— will Satoru Gojo really be able to catch you?

As you fall, you realize almost instantly that something is different.

You’ve experienced this fall dozens of times and so, even though it has been a while since you’ve gone this route, you are very familiar with what it feels like. Something is different. You’re falling faster. The trajectory is changing. It’s like some force, other than gravity, is pulling at you.

Is this Gojo’s doing?

Just as your body collides with the ground you hear the sounds of mutilating flesh meld with the screams surrounding you. Blood and severed limbs litter the ground, but you try to ignore it. You need to focus on your own survival right now. Quickly, you scramble to your feet scan the area around you; you’re on the platform right now and right in front of you is—

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

His back is turned to you, his focus currently elsewhere. Looking at him you realize you recognize this scene, though it’s much closer and at a different angle. He’s about to do that thing, that thing that knocks you out.

Something in you tells you to move closer to him, after all, he used his mysterious powers to deliberately bring you closer to him, right? You rush toward him and as you do something he said earlier pops up in your mind.

Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!

Whatever he’s about to do… Is that his ‘technique?’ And if it is, would it work the same way as yours? If so, there’s only one way to find out: you need to touch him. You dodge monsters and other people as you run toward Satoru Gojo and—

A monster still manages to grab you, its large hands wrapping around your wrist. You try and yank it free, but it's much stronger than you are.

“Shit!” you hiss as the monster starts to pull you toward it and away from Gojo. What do you do? Your other hand is still free, should you try to punch it in the face? Or—

Before you can do anything, something blasts the monster’s head clean off. Shocked, you stare as the monster’s body slumps onto the ground, its grip loosening on you instantly. You whip your head around to find that while Gojo still has his back to you, his arm is bent back in your direction, his palm open as if he fired some invisible blast from it.

Then you feel it again, something pulling at you, but this time it's more forceful. Your body is yanked toward Gojo and the second you feel his hand press against you, you see him make that gesture with his other hand.

“Domain Expansion,” he whispers in a strained voice. “Infinite Void!”

Something happens and your vision flashes for a fraction of a second. And then—

The room is enveloped in an eerie stillness; all the violence and bloodshed coming to an abrupt stop. Monsters and humans alike stand like the living dead, unconscious with their eyes wide open as if they are staring into an infinite abyss. You recognize this scene, you’re familiar with it because it’s similar to the one you wake up to after being hit by Gojo’s ‘domain expansion.’ The only difference is the presence of the monsters, who are all but gone when you regain consciousness.

The pressure from Gojo’s hand is gone and he says to you, his voice still low. “If you’re squeamish when it comes to blood and gore, it might be best for you to close your eyes.”

And then he’s gone.

You do not take his advice. You do not close your eyes. How many loops were you unable to witness what’s about to unfold? A few hundred? A few thousand? And if all goes to plan, then you will never get another chance again: there’s no way you could possibly look away.

And what you see unfold before you is that Satoru Gojo was right.

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

It’s not as if you really had any doubt, after all, it seemed like the most logical conclusion to come to and yet…

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

All the violence resumes and the platform is engulfed in the sounds of carnage and slaughter once more. The lack of terrified screams makes everything more disconcerting— without them, all you can hear is the squelching echo of mangled flesh and blood splattering all over the place. You can’t really see him, but you can tell where Satoru Gojo is in the crowd as he leaves dozens upon dozens of decapitated heads soaring in his wake. Once or twice, he leaps out of the crowd and even from where you stand you can see the crazed glow of his inhumanly blue eyes as he massacres monster after monster.

Even though you don’t think you have anything to be scared of, you are still terrified: Satoru Gojo is no longer a man, but violence incarnate. You want to move closer to where Gojo gets trapped, but you’re afraid to. What if you get in his way? What if he kills you by accident?

Dying again when you’ve made it this far is definitely not ideal, but isn’t being killed by Gojo the best case scenario? Because then the two of you would probably loop together again and—

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

It’s hard to believe when he’s in the middle of a massacre, slaughtering monsters left and right, but you remind yourself yet again that you have to believe in him.

You take a deep breath and start moving, taking care to keep an eye on where Gojo is. You don’t know how long this is supposed to take, but you do know where he ends up when he’s just about done. The closer he gets to that spot, the sooner the prison realm will be unleashed upon him.

There’s a small group of zombified people nearby and you settle yourself among them. It’s not super close, but you think it's close enough that you'd be able to run over and kick the box away from Gojo if you have to. You do a quick survey to see if you can spot the body snatcher, but he's nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hasn't noticed you moving around, or, if he has, he's more concerned with Gojo than he is with you. Given that you always seem to be the last thing he acknowledges, you'd like to think that he doesn't consider you a threat.

Which you're not, not really anyway.

The sounds of slaughter start to die down and you look to see Gojo approaching the spot where he gets caught. He looks beat, his eyes unfocused and his breathing heavy. You do another quick scan around him and notice a small box a few meters away from him, wrapped in what looks like paper charms or seals or whatever they're called. That has to be the prison realm— though it looks different than what you saw before. Gojo seems to notice it right after you do, his gaze honing in on it, examining it with some measure of bewilderment. Then, some invisible force slices through all the paper seals covering the box and it expands, the corners of the box floating up in midair to reveal what looks like a large sheet of dark red flesh with a large bloodshot eye stapled to the middle.

Disgusting.

If Gojo didn’t realize before, he seems to now, because he takes a step back, away from the grotesque thing. Good, good—

“Hey! Satoru!” Your blood runs cold at the sound of the body snatcher’s voice. He emerges from the crowd, smiling widely as he gives Gojo a wave. “Long time no see!”

Satoru Gojo’s entire body goes rigid. Shit. You told him, you warned him about what was going to happen, who he was going to see, but was that not enough? It’s possible that no amount of warning would have been enough to mentally prepare Satoru Gojo for the sight of the man he said he killed a year ago. After all, you know that there’s a stark difference between knowing and seeing. Even then, if Gojo doesn’t gather his wits and move now then he’s going to get caught and you can’t let that happen.

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

You scramble out from your hiding spot in the crowd and throw yourself in between Satoru Gojo and the prison realm. There’s no way you can kick it away from him now, not when it’s in this form, but maybe, if you get between them you can at least keep it from capturing him.

The eye quivers erratically, as it flits from Gojo to you. Every hair on your body stands on end as it watches you, the pupil dilating and contracting uncontrollably. You can’t look away from it, your own gaze fixed to your image reflected in the black abyss of the pupil. Something in the back of your mind tells you to stop, to get away, it’s dangerous, but you keep your feet firmly planted to the ground.

A second, or maybe even a minute passes and the prison realm shifts, its fleshy form morphing to restrain you.

The body jacker looks at you, his frown tinged with disgust. “Don’t you think you’re being rather rude by butting into what could have been a touching reunion?”

You scowl. Is he still trying to play the role of Suguru Geto?

He sighs and looks past you at Gojo. “Satoru, I thought bringing lesser sorcerers to fight alongside you was more trouble than it was worth?”

You hear Gojo snort from behind you, “It is… but this person here isn’t a sorcerer… Just like you aren’t Suguru Geto.”

The faker almost pouts and presses his hand to his chest as if Gojo's words have wounded him. “Satoru, I’m hurt, how could you say such a thing to your best friend?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Gojo snarls. “You can’t fucking fool me. You might be in Suguru’s body but I know with all my heart and soul that you’re not him.”

The corpse snatcher stares at Gojo, expression blank before he sighs once more. Then, his gaze shifts back to you, his eyes narrowed as he looks at you with sheer disdain. It feels as if you’ve been drenched in ice cold water. There's no smile this time but you already know what's going to happen.

He’s going to kill you.

“I intended to deal with you later since you seemed harmless enough,” he says, raising a hand to summon a monster— the same one he always uses to end your life. “But you’re in the way. So, I think it’s for the best if I just get rid of you right now.”

Instinctively, you try to take a step back but the prison realm’s restraints keep you in place. Not that it would have mattered much, even in the loops where you’ve tried to escape the faker’s monster, it still kills you, too fast and too agile for an ordinary human like you to avoid. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the monster to kill you. At least, it’s always painless.

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

Before you is the monster, wiggling and writhing only mere centimeters from your face. It gurgles and snarls at you, desperate to fulfill its master’s wishes and kill you but it doesn’t move any closer. You stare at it with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.

Someone behind you clicks their tongue— Gojo. You try to turn your head to look at him, but your movements are too limited, the most you can do is turn your head to the side. The sounds the monster is making start to change, sounding more frenzied, almost as if it’s in pain, and you flit your eyes in its direction just in time to see its entire body explode. The monster's guts and bright purple blood fly off in every direction, getting on the floor, the ceiling, the zombified bodies of the people unfortunate enough to be nearby, but not on you.

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

He steps in front of you, half turned towards you as he moves in between you and the body snatcher. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he loudly says, “Did you really forget about me?”

You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the body snatcher.

Past him, the imposter scowls, raising his hand once more, probably to summon even more monsters, but Gojo’s quicker, and it almost looks like his eyes are glowing even brighter, the blue looking almost white as he whips his head in the faker’s direction. The sound of mangling flesh and breaking bones echoes throughout the room as Gojo, using that mysterious power of his, seems to break the faker’s arm.

The body snatcher hisses loudly and despite the fact that his face is twisted in very obvious pain, he tries to shoot Gojo a mocking smile. “Do you really think you can kill your best friend again?”

“I already told you,” Gojo turns to fully face the monster inhabiting Geto’s corpse. He tilts his head a little to the side and some force starts to squeeze at the faker’s neck. “You’re not Suguru.”

You hear a loud crack as Gojo telekinetically snaps his neck.

The head rolls onto the ground and you almost look away, but then you notice his eyes still moving, looking around. Is he still alive? Then you remember: the thing possessing Suguru Geto’s body was some kind of parasite. “Gojo! Wait! The brain!”

He reacts almost instantly, head turning and in an instant the skull is crushed and all that remains is red splotch on the ground.

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

Horrified, you watch as it quivers violently before falling to the ground. Then what looks like dozens of black spirits start to erupt from the corpse and the entire room is engulfed with a shrill howling.

What the hell is going on?

“Those must be all the cursed spirits he consumed,” Gojo explains uselessly, voice barely audible over the screaming. “Guess he was empty before.”

You don’t bother asking what he means. There are bigger problems right now. “What do we do?”

“No choice to exorcise them,” he answers plainly.

For him to exorcise them, he means. You both know that there’s not much that you can do. You still can’t move and honestly, you don’t even know if it’s possible to get out of the prison realm’s restraints. Not without dying. And if you die now…

Everything will have been for naught.

You’ll reset time and have to do this all over again— assuming you can even get to this point again.

There has to be something, you just have to think outside the box.

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

“You need to seal me in the prison realm!” you exclaim. He turns to face you fully, looking bewildered and you start to explain as fast as you can. “Those things are going to attack any minute right? I can’t move or try to hide and I can’t expect you to protect me the entire time and if I die then I’ll end up looping time again, but— but, if you seal me in the prison realm then that won’t happen.”

Gojo frowns, looking conflicted. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you didn’t have to?”

He tilts head and you think he’s conceding your point.

“Please,” you beg, staring at him desperately. “We don’t have much time. The other… cursed spirits will wake up soon too!”

You don’t have to explain that you mean Volcano Head and friends.

It takes only a second for Gojo to consider the very few options you have. “...how do you seal it? Do you know?”

“I think so,” you answer. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work but I think that if you say ‘prison realm, gate close’ it should seal me inside.”

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

Gojo nods. “Do you know how to break the seal?”

“I… don’t,” you confess. You never asked, and you don’t think the body snatcher would have told you even if you did. He only told you that it holds one and that…

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

“...you don’t have to break the seal.”

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

You don’t know for sure if it’ll be better, but right here, right now, it seems like the best option.

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

“...fine,” he agrees and you don’t quite know how to feel about it. The howling around you all grows louder. You wonder why the cursed spirits haven’t attacked yet. Maybe Gojo’s power is holding them at bay… for now anyway. You both know that he can’t ignore them forever.

“...before I do, though, mind if I ask you just one thing?”

You blink. “Not sure what I can do for you in this state…”

He laughs. “I just want to know your name.”

What an odd request. Though, now that you think about it, you don’t think that during this loop or any other loop really, you’ve ever told him your name. It only seems fair to tell him, since you’ve known his for longer than he’s known of your existence.

You tell him your name.

He nods, looking as if he’s committing to memory. Probably easier to remember than his phone number. “Any last words?”

You try to think of something. Nothing comes to mind and you just shake your head.

Gojo takes a deep breath, “Alrighty then… Prison realm, gate close.”

Just as it did the many times you’ve seen Satoru Gojo sealed away, the boxes and restraints around you vibrate a little before they start to close around you, growing large enough to fit your body as they approach.

You won’t see it, but once you’re inside the box will shrink and become small enough to fit in the palm of someone’s hand.

Will it be quiet inside?

In your final seconds, some words, some last words come to mind, and you say them, hoping that he hears them in time. “Thank you, Satoru Gojo.”

You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

It’s November 30, 2018— morning on the campus of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Satoru Gojo strides through the school grounds, casually tossing a small silver box with eerie blue eyes known as the prison realm up and down in his grasp. Walking at his side is Shoko Ieiri, a pretty woman who’s been unfortunate enough to have been Satoru’s friend since high school.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shoko asks, twirling a few strands of her long brown hair.

“What do you mean?” Satoru responds nonchalantly. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

Shoko hums in clear dissent, but doesn’t say anything more. Even she knows better than to try and waste her time trying to argue with Satoru. “I’m just worried about their mental state. Didn’t you say that time doesn’t flow in the box?”

“I’d be worried if it was some normal person,” Satoru says. “But after what they’ve gone through I think they’ll be fine.”

“...well, if you say so.”

The two arrive at their destination: the largest training area on the Jujutsu High grounds. Satoru places the prison realm at the center and takes a few steps back with Shoko standing behind him, in case anything happens.

He doesn’t think it will, but it’s always good to take at least a few precautions.

“Gojo, are you sure we should be doing this?” Shoko asks again. “Didn’t they want to remain in the box?”

“Of course I am,” Satoru says with his usual air of confidence before looking back at the prison realm nestled in the grass. He grins and then—

“Prison realm, gate open.”

if you made it this far. thank you. it's my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride. 3

#OHHHHHHHH MY GOD.#okokokok this is gonna be. Really Incoherent sorry in advance 🙏🙏 niku this made me…… insane. fully. someone needs to restrain me #one of my favorite gojo fics Ever??? like genuinely????? this was SUCH a pleasure to read i have sm i wanna say :((( hhhhhh #FIRST OF ALLL the higurashi poem…. what a banger <33 i LOVE how it ties in with the ending too but more on that later :33 #but it’s also so perfect bc reading this fic rlly did feel like playing a vn in the BEST way possible…. just. seeing all the tiny variation #experiencing the loops along w reader…… it was just SUCH an enjoyable experience i can’t even describe it!!!!!!!!! i’m so floored!!!!!!!!!!#like i ADORE timeloops it’s my favorite trope Ever and this fic was just . a godsend?? perfection??? the best loopfic ive read?????#I’M STILL GOING FULLY INSANE OVER IT BTW it satiated every single craving i have for timeloop content. my brain is leaking endorphins rn 😵‍#i LOVE the opening lines and the constant reusage of ”It’s the night of October 31 2018— Halloween in Shibuya”…… just so satisfying somehow #and reader’s mental state was also so thoughtfully depicted… it was so easy to insert myself into them but they’re also. rlly charming?#them latching onto gojo as the one anomaly of the timeloop…. fixating on him and his beauty (real as fuck btw)…. and searching for hope!!!#finding hope in gojo!!!! learning to trust him!!!!! :((( it feels kinda like a very twisted one-sided slowburn … and i ate it up.#i also rlly like that it’s not explicitly romantic!!! there’s enough subtext to enjoy a romance aspect but it’s not the Focus yk??#and i like that!!! the focus is on reader and the timeloop and both of those aspects are woven into gojo rlly naturally :>#ok so i’m using that as a segway. bc OFC i need to rant abt gojo fucking satoru and how much i love him and ur take on him 😔😔#every once in a while i’ll find a fic where i’m like. this author knows Gojo Satoru personally. they speak to him on the phone every night.#and this fic is ABSOLUTELY one of those like….. this gojo is Canon to me. i’m so serious abt it like that’s HIM !!!#and it just reminded me of why i love him sm bc this rlly does feel exactly like the gojo from the manga and that’s SO impressive 2 me ….#i’m in awe of u niku. i don’t even know where to begin w gojo bc i loved SO many lines and lil details u put in………. 😵‍💫😵‍💫#he’s just. soooooo charming :/// he truly is. he’s beautiful and handsome and he gives you his number every loop . w a star symbol!!!!#asks you for your phone or a pen and gets all excited writing his name… the mochi receipt…. 🥺 he’s so endearing we need to put him Down.#HE’S SO GOODDDDD I CAN’T SAY IT ENOUGH…. his convos with reader were a huge highlight for me and i loved loved LOVED #the moment he finally understands their situation. when they speak and he hears them out and he’s almost gentle. sooo reassuring.#starting to think you’re genuinely gege akutami btw like . gojo is so complex but you just. captured him perfectly???#he’s cocky and playful and teasing and a killing machine and he’s Kind. he’s playful even when you’re a stranger #and when he finally hears you out he speaks softly and says he’ll protect you :((( reader is better than me i would’ve cried LMAO #THE DIALOGUE IS SO GOOD N FEELS SO REAL ”did you fall in love with me just now?” NOOO ….. ☹️☹️☹️☹️ …. (maybe ……..)#ack. he’s the most charming man in the universe my heart was fluttering like crazy this isn’t… normal human behavior………#WAIT i almost forgot …. i too adore the jjk dub and every time gojo spoke i heard kaiji tang in my head <33 10/10 would recommend!!!#writing ✩

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cryptictongues · 3 months ago

Text

The Thrill of the Chase

pairing: Logan Howlett x Female Mutant!Reader rating: Explicit (MINORS DNI; 18+) word count: 7.1K summary: Logan ate part of your sandwich, so you stole his cigars. Things turn out differently from what you were expecting.

warnings: fluff and smut, teasing, slight predator/prey trope, banter, making out, dirty talk, oral (f and m receiving), vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, squirting, soft!dom Logan

Author's Note: My first Logan fic! X-Men used to be my world and the fact it is making a comeback has rejuvenated me. Also, I was picturing Logan from the first three trilogies but DOFP!Logan also crossed my mind so :)

Please read my pinned post before following me! Minors and ageless blogs will be blocked as this blog’s content is NSFW.

[AO3 link]

It was getting close to evening, everyone doing their own thing to unwind after a long day of classes and teaching. You had planned to do the same thing, planning to grab a quick bite in the kitchen before getting ready to relax in your room. You were whipping up a quick and easy sandwich, assembling it onto a plate before moving it to the island in the middle of the kitchen. You went to get a soda from the cupboard, only for your skin to raise as you sense something is about to happen: a certain someone was about to come take your sandwich.

“If you take one bite out of my sandwich Logan, I will kick your ass.”

You turn to see him, eyes wide along with his mouth, about to chomp into your dinner. He closes his mouth, only for him to keep the sandwich in his hands and an “innocent” smile on his face.

“Oh, you mean this sandwich?”

You shut the cupboard door, walking over to him with a stern, playful look. You know he is messing with you. That has been the dynamic of your relationship with him. Ever since he decided to stay here at the school and join the X-Men, you two have grown closer and closer, enjoying each other’s company over anyone else. It didn’t matter what either of you did. You both thrived in the presence of one another.

But something that has become common practice as of late was playful in nature. You both have always teased, but it has recently ramped up. If one of you started it, the other would find a way to end it before starting again. It was the push and pull between the two of you that you loved, and it has only made you long for him. You want to believe he feels the same, but even your mutation of precognition can’t fully confirm that.

“Yes, that is my sandwich. I worked very hard on it. I'll have you know.” You are standing in front of him now, having to look up at him slightly as you wait for his next move.

“I’m sure you did. It looks delicious.” He says, but rather than looking at the food, he is looking right at you. Cheeky bastard.

“Y-yeah, which is why I am asking you to put it down so I may enjoy it.”

“I don’t know. I think I wanna have a taste first.”

His hazel eyes are staring you down, almost begging for you to make a move. In reality, you really didn’t care if he ate it. You could easily make another and enjoy dinner with him. But you know that isn’t what he is doing right now. He is playing with you, wanting to rile you up. Well, it takes two to play that game.

“That sandwich is very precious to me. I’d think before you act.”

“Oh yeah?” He smirks, bringing his face closer to yours. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll take something precious of yours.”

He chuckles, turning his face to the sandwich. “I’d like to see you try, sweetheart.”

He takes a huge bite out of your sandwich, his eyes closing as he chews. You purse your lips, watching him savor your meal with gusto. You know he is overexaggerating to truly get at you, but little does he know you have a trick up your sleeve.

“Enjoying my meal?”

He turns back to you, swallowing before licking his lips. “Very much. I may have to take another bite.”

You get up in his space, settling onto your tippy toes so your face is by his ear. You let your breath waft against his skin, causing a shiver to shake his core. You can tell he is anticipating what you will do, always highly enjoying your responses to his antics. Oh, he is so in for it.

“That’s okay. You can have it.” You let your pointer finger trace his collarbone that is very much on display from his white, fitted tank. “And you want to know why that is, Logan?”

He takes a deep breath, very apparent that your actions are doing something to him. His left hand lets go of the sandwich to settle on your hip, squeezing the flesh slightly to ground himself. It is actions like that that make you believe you do something to him. Like you drive him just as insane as he does to you. You bring your left hand to his head, pulling him down so you can really get into his ear.

“That’s because I know where you keep your special cigars from Cuba, and I am going to take them.”

You couldn’t have run fast enough. You are already shooting for the stairs, taking two steps at a time as you speed to his room. You knew it had taken him a second to realize what had happened because by the time you got to his floor, you heard him yelling your name.

You burst into his room, locking it quickly. It was only to buy some time, for you knew he had a key. You were giggling as you went to his bookcase, plucking out the blue, hardcover history book. You open it, and smile as you see the unopened cigars there in the deep hole where text used to be. Just as you close the book, you hear heavy footsteps reach the door and a jingle of keys.

You panic, needing to find a way out before he opens the door. You could run around him, but you needed a head start. You could hide and wait for him to leave but you knew he’d sniff you out. There was only one option left, and that was to go out his bedroom window. You hear the key enter the lock, and with a quickness you didn’t think you had, you unlocked his window and flung it open. Just as the door busted open, you crawled out. You grasped onto the ivy that clung to the school’s exterior and began to climb down.

“Oh, when I get my hands on you, you are in for it!”

You look up to see Logan’s head popping out the window. He has a scowl on his face, but you could see the wild look in his eyes. You knew he was enjoying this, for he loves the chase.

“This is for taking my sandwich!” You yell, and continue making your descent.

You hear the window close, which makes you go faster, knowing he is rushing down those stairs to meet you at the bottom. You could sense that he would go to the front door, so once your feet touch the grassy floor you run to the back door. Opening it quickly, you determine your next move. He is probably at the front, ready to intercept you, giving you the opportunity to hide somewhere.

You rush to the hallway where many of the classes are held. You run into the first classroom you see, its door already open. You see the large oak desk at the back of the classroom, and quietly walk up to it. It has a space for leg room, so with haste you crawl in it, pulling the chair in carefully to not make any sound.

Your heart was racing, adrenaline thrashing as you hid. You try to steady your breath, trying to keep quiet. The atmosphere has become eerie, the silence defying as you try to keep it that way. You try to listen for any other sounds over your pounding heart, when another wave of cognition hits you. You can see it clearly, where he finds you under the desk, hands on either side to block you in. You know you need to move on, so you go to move the chair, but you suddenly halt when you hear his voice boom nearby.

“Where is she?”

You cover your mouth, trying to hold in your breathing as well as the gasp that almost shot from your mouth. His voice was coated in gravel, and absolutely primal. Even from afar, it was clear he was worked up, and it made you embarrassingly wet.

You hear footsteps enter the hallway, heavy boots against the shiny wooden floor. At first, you think you may have a way out, hearing him pass the room you were in, but you aren’t so lucky because you hear him stop. You grip onto the book and your mouth, even though you know it will do absolutely nothing. You know he senses you, and it is confirmed when you hear footsteps enter the room. You hear him inhale deeply, exhaling with sigh only to turn into a deep rumble.

“I know you are here.” He is slow in taking his steps, and each step gets closer and closer to your hiding place.

He sniffs deeply again, growling this time around like he was a wild animal. “No point in denying it. I could smell you the second I walked into the hall.”

You know he will find you, and he will block you in. So you decide to take a risk before he closes in on you. You push the chair out far enough to crawl out, before standing up behind the desk. You put your hands up with the book in your left one, trying to show off a sign of surrender.

“You have nowhere to go, dollface. No point in trying’ to run for I’ll snatch you up real quick.”

“You must really want your cigars back to block me in like this.”

He steps even closer, with him now standing right in reach of the book. He could easily grab it and take it, for he is much stronger than you. But he doesn’t make a move, staying glued to his new spot. You don’t know what’s running through his head, his eyes trained on you. It isn’t until he places his hands onto the desk that you take a step back and drop your hands.

“You’re wrong.”

You raise a brow, not sure what he is getting at. “What do you mean?”

He smirks, leaning his body over the desk. “It isn’t the cigars I’m after. Not anymore.”

Your heart is in overdrive. You know the answer, it is becoming obvious. But you ask anyway. “Then what are you after, Lo?”

“I think you know the answer. Now it is a matter of will you let me take what’s mine.”

You want to give in. You are becoming more aroused by the second, but you are starting to really enjoy the chase. Seeing how much it gets him going, to see this side of him, only makes you want to push him more. You want to see what he will do, especially when he gets his hands on you.

You walk around the desk, book of cigars still in hand, getting closer to him until you are toe to toe with him. “What’s the fun in surrendering?”

He quickly blocks you in, the desk pressed against your back. He has the most seductive, but feral grin upon his lips, like he thinks he has won his prize. His head leans down to yours, forehead against forehead, before he whispers his next sentence against your lips.

“The fun is in what follows.”

His lips are on yours, desperate and needy. You can’t help the moan that leaves your throat, mind going hazy as his lips devour. You have craved him for so long, you want this to last forever. However, you cannot give into him like this. You will not make this easy for him.

One of your hands goes to the hem of his tank, fingers lingering before going under. He feels so solid, the coarse hairs on his tummy spread thick as you go to his left side. You can feel him shudder over you, and you try to hold back the smirk that wants to curve onto your lips. You move your fingers sporadically over the left side of his ribcage, causing him to jump back. This gives you the chance to run like hell.

“Hey! That’s unfair!” You hear him yell and it makes you giggle profusely. You must thank Jean later for letting you in on that little secret; that the broody, grumpy man with the metal bones was insanely ticklish. You wish you could turn to see his full reaction, but you are too determined.

You can hear him running right behind you, and you have never been more aroused. You shouldn’t feel so turned on by Logan chasing you around, but the thrill of the chase was seeping into your loins and you were addicted.

More people had shown up around the school, meeting with friends to study or hang out for the evening. You were dodging people left and right, and everyone looked perplexed as they saw Logan charging his way towards you. Many of them probably assumed it had to do with the book you were holding, and while they would have been originally right, they are no longer even close.

You don’t have time to hide again, not with him so close behind. You make it back to the stairs, hauling ass as you try to make it to your room. You can hear him right behind you, breathing heavily and grunting with each step. Your room is at the end of the hall, and you are basically flying with how fast you are running. The second you reach the door, you swing it open and throw yourself in before slamming it. You had gotten it shut, mentally pumping your fist in victory, but by the time you went to turn the lock, it was too late. The door flies open, sending you back a couple feet back as Logan stands at the door's entrance.

“I have you right where I want you. No more running.”

If looks could kill, you’d be ash. He enters your room, closing the door behind him with his eyes staying on you. He takes one step forward, with him now hovering over your smaller form. The way he is looking at you makes your knees faint, for you felt you could hear what he was revealing with his stare.

“I still know your weakness, Logan.” You smirk, holding the book up to your face to dodge any attack he was planning. It is pointless, you know, but it is the best defense you’ve got.

“Do you now?” He walks towards you, in step with you as you go backwards. The back of your knees hit the edge of your bed, telling you that you truly have nowhere else to go. He is right on you, grinning now that he has the upper hand.

“I’m afraid that book won’t save you from me.” He snatches the book, tossing it to the side of the bed.

You are in for it. You don’t know what he is planning, and the element of surprise has overcome you. However, with the way he is looking at you, you guarantee that what is about to happen will be just as exhilarating as when he was hunting you down.

“What do you plan to do with me, hm?” You let your fingertips walk along his chest, dancing all the way down to his side like you did earlier.

He is quick to grab your hand, bending down to lift you up in his arm before tossing you onto the bed, following swiftly as he pins both hands above your head.

“Don’t even think about it. I know you all too well.” He growls through his teeth. “As for what I plan on doing, what’s the fun in telling when I can just show you. Would you like that?”

You simply nod, breathless at how he is handling you. However, that wasn’t good enough for him, as he takes hold of your wrists in one hand so his other one can grip your chin.

“I wanna hear you say it, pretty girl.”

You huff, getting frustrated already that he is dragging this out. With your legs still free, you wrap them around his hips, your heels digging into his back causing him to grunt. Your lips are practically on his, faint contact making you antsy. “Show me what you’ve been wanting to do with me.”

Your lips are squashed by his instantly, hunger and desperation clear. His hands go to your thighs, grabbing at the flesh. With your hands free, they go straight to his hair, gripping and tugging on it which causes him to moan hotly into your mouth.

His hands travel up to the hem of your blouse, pushing the fabric up past your stomach before his hands go under. You moan at the contrast, rough hands, that have been through so much running along your unmarred body. He swallows what you give him, groaning happily at the effects he was causing.

You are in heaven. You never thought you would be here like this with Logan. You never thought you would be under him at his complete mercy. It makes a shiver travel down your spine, traveling right to your core that is a heated mess because of the man before you. To be with the man you have pined for is riveting, and you could cry that he seems to return those feelings.

You don’t know what triggers your mutation, but it is sudden. Your vision goes blurry, a strong aura surrounding you. It is overwhelming, a whimper bubbling from your throat as you see what is about to happen. Logan releases your lips with a grunt, looking at you intensely as you start to shake. You feel his rough hands cup your soft cheeks, stroking them gently.

Your cheeks feel hot, your vision turning you into a horny mess. Your hands grip onto Logan’s chest trying to ground yourself to reality. It’s too much. Your visions rarely last long for they are just snippets of future events, but this was different. It was as if you were in a trance, and could feel everything he was doing to you. You don’t know if it is your heightened emotions, especially with him right on you. All you knew is that pleasure was present, and you were starting to fall apart.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” You can hear his demeanor change, worry laced in his tone.

“Fuck,” you couldn’t help but moan, unable to control yourself. “I can feel everything, Logan.”

There is a pause, hands still touching your face. A few beats later, he lets his right hand go down, only to stop at your thigh squeezing tightly.

“Tell me what you see, baby.”

The rumble in his voice intensifies everything, causing you to grip onto him tighter. “Oh God please don’t make me say it out loud.”

You try to look away, but his left hand shifts so it is grabbing your chin. He forces your head back up, bringing his face down to yours like he had in the classroom. His breath fans over your lips, taking in the way they move as sounds leave them.

“I’m fucking you, aren’t I? Making you lose yourself on my cock? Is that what you are seeing?”

You can barely talk, too enthralled in your vision. You grab the hand that is on your thigh and bring it to the top of your black pants. Logan gets the idea and angles it so he can slide his hand into them. His fingers brush over the fabric, feeling the damp spot that has formed drastically. You hear him curse under his breath, the vibrations hitting your lips as they brush against one another without full pressure.

“Oh sweetheart, you are so wet.” He murmurs, pulling his hand out to bring it up to his nose, inhaling deeply before releasing a sound so feral that you could sob. “And you smell so fucking good.”

You can’t help but nod, not knowing how to respond. All you know is that you need him. Need him to take you on your bed and do whatever he wants to you. You’ll take anything he is willing to give you, for all you want is for him to make himself known to you.

His hand had gone back down to your crotch, cupping your pussy through the material. “Does she want more attention?”

“Logan, please do something.” You choke, your mind steadily coming back to reality, but still not fully letting go. You start to grind down on his palm, desperate for anything he will give you, but he removes his hand, going to the back of your head to grip tightly.

Damn him!

“I know she deserves something, but do you? Do you deserve me after getting me so worked up like that?”

“Logan, I am begging.” You cry out in frustration, your nails digging into his chest causing him to groan lowly. “I want you. God, I’ve always wanted you so please take what’s yours!”

He is back on you, kissing you till the air in your lungs dissipates. He starts to kiss away from your swollen lips, kissing down to your neck. He nips at your pulse point, going up to your ear to give it a light lick before going back down. With every kiss, he takes a deep breath in, which only makes him get more aggressive. Soft kisses turn to an open mouth lather to nips that could have easily broken the skin.

“I don’t think you know what your scent does to me. It draws me in every time.” He bites down particularly hard at your collar bone, and you wouldn’t be surprised if blood had come to the surface.

His hands come back up to the front of your blouse, carefully unbuttoning the garment before revealing your breasts that are almost spilling out of your bra. His hands mold over the cups, squeezing hard and slow as he makes his way to your sternum.

He is being so gentle with you, a complete 180 from how you thought this was going to go. He was so rough with you in your head, fucking you until you couldn’t even say a word. This side of him was endearing, but you crave more from him.

“For someone so feral for me, you sure are taking your time.”

He bites the top of your left breast, making you gasp at the sudden pain. “I don’t think you are ready for that side of me, dollface.”

Your right hand goes to his head, taking a handful of his hair and yanking his head up. You know he wants to absolutely ravish you, and if it’s some convincing he needs, some convincing he is going to get.

“When I said to take what’s yours, I meant it. I want you to make me beg until I’m dumb, so fucking do it.”

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, Princess.”

His hands go under your top from the back, unclipping your bra before letting them resurface. He starts to yank your top off from the shoulders, only to smack your thigh that causes a light sting.

“Arch that back for me.”

You do as he says, allowing him to take the rest of your top off along with your bra. He flings them both across the room, only to do the same with his tank. You’ve seen his upper body plenty of times, as there would be instances in which he disregards it for a training session. But this? This was very different. It’s a different atmosphere, and rather than everyone getting an eye full of his muscular, hairy body, it is now for your eyes only.

He’s looking down at you, pupils flared as he takes you in. You shiver as his palms stroke your tummy, slowly going up until they encompass your breasts. Your nipples pebble from the rough texture of his skin, and you can see it excites him. So much so that he takes the opportunity to take your nipples between his fingers and pulls them gently with a pinch. Your back bows off the mattress, adoring the pain he is providing, and let out a mewl as he lets go to run his thumbs over the tender peaks.

“You sound so good,” Logan murmurs. “I need to hear more.”

His right arm goes under your back to keep you up, holding you there as his mouth goes to your left breast. He takes your nipple into his mouth, sucking with his eyes still on you. Your cheeks flush, head tilting to the side to avoid looking at him. It’s too much. It’s too fucking much.

Whimpers slip from your mouth, his treatment of your breasts making you want to rub your thighs together to soothe the ache, but he keeps your legs open. He eventually does the same to your other breast, working to match the work he left on your other nipple: hard, and tainted red.

He lets up, sitting on his knees as he unbuttons your pants, hands sliding the material down your legs in earnest. He tosses your heels off before stripping away your bottoms, and he hums as he admires the black, lacy thong you adorn.

“Fuck,” he snaps the elastic, eyes entranced. “You sure you didn’t see this coming earlier? Wearing something sexy like this?”

“They work better with my pants.” You huff, his fingers lightly running along your covered slit.

“Hmm, no wonder your ass looked so good today.” He grins. “But this pussy? I could play with her all day.”

He lowers himself, sliding off the bed only to bring you with him, your body gliding across the comforter with ease. He clutches onto your thighs, letting your legs rest in the crook of his elbows. He keeps his hold tight, bringing his lips down to kiss and suck on your thighs. You gasp at the aggressiveness, swearing you will see dark purple marks on you later. You moan at the idea, as it feels like he is finally claiming you; like are his to mark, to claim, to fuck, to love.

He makes his way to your center, sniffing deeply before releasing a feral growl. He lets the tip of his tongue lightly drag from the bottom to the top of your heat, still fully covered by the damned thong. He flicks at your clit, a ghost of a touch that has you bucking your hips. And he draws back every single time. His self-control is impressive but frustrating all the same.

He starts to suck on it through the material, creating a bigger wet spot with his spit. The more he pushed his tongue against your folds, the more the material would rub just right against you. It made you clench, panting at how much he is teasing you. He pulls away, blowing on your sensitive spot which only makes you whine.

“Awe what is it?” He chuckles, the vibrations barely hitting where you need him. “You want my tongue to play with you?”

His hand lets go of your thigh, fingers tracing the fabric before pulling it to the side. “Lucky for you, I love to play.”

He goes right in, mouth over your bud as he consumes your very being. Your hands shoot to his hair, not prepared for the onslaught of pleasure he is delivering. The swirls he is landing on his target is mind numbing, a tangible pressure that makes you want to curl in on yourself.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he groans, the sound vibrating right on your clit. It makes you buck your hips up, but his left arm presses you down to keep you secure.

“I know you want more, but you are going to have to be patient. I’m not done tasting this sweet pussy. Fuck, you are so sweet.”

You feel one of his fingers near your hole, circling it teasingly before pushing in. His tongue is back on your nerves, mouthing covering it to add slight suction. Even with his big fingers, it’s not nearly enough.

“Logan, please add another.” You say, emphasizing as you clench down on his single digit.

He sucks a little harder, ripping a yelp from your throat. Still, he listens and inserts a second finger with the first. He goes in and out, drawing sighs from your lips as he builds you up. His mouth is going crazy, moving his lips with a vengeance. Your blood is hot, traveling down as your release starts to come to the surface.

You can’t stop clamping down on his fingers, your pussy having a mind of its own. He is pistoning them now, causing your fluids to make its way down your ass onto the comforter. The sounds coming from his handiwork edge you further, your release imminent.

“Oh God, Logan! I’m cumming!”

Big mistake on your part.

He pulls away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A smug look appears on his face, and you have the urge to shove his face back into your aching cunt.

“Your first time cumming with me will be on my cock, sweetheart.”

He pulls your thong down your legs and moves you back to the front of the bed. He stands before you, making light work of removing his belt from the loops of his jeans. His jeans are next, pulling them down with his briefs.

You don’t know what you expected. You weren’t surprised with how well endowed he was, not with the way he is built. But to see it in person is so much different from your imagination. The details that your mind didn’t conjure up, especially the vein that starts from his lower stomach to the tip of his cock. It makes you salivate, wanting to run your tongue along it.

“You like what you see, darlin’?” He noticed you staring, but you have no shame. Not anymore.

“Yeah, want it in my mouth so bad.”

He walks over to you, his cock in your face. His hand goes to your head, stroking the baby hairs that are starting to stick to your temple. “As much as I would love that, I am dying to give you the fucking you deserve, sweetheart. However…” he brings your head up closer to his cock, your lips not even an inch away. “How about you get it nice and wet for me.”

You don’t have to be told twice. You work up a good amount of spit, letting it drip from your mouth onto his hard cock. You start to lick at the sides, spreading your saliva all over until he is covered. You are basically making out with his dick, your lips and tongue moving like you had when you were kissing him earlier. It isn’t until you get to that vein of his that you start to go wild, licking it up and down.

Logan is groaning deeply, and pulls your head back, a string of saliva connecting before breaking apart. You hear him curse under his breath before crawling back onto the bed, his hands holding your face as he brings his lips to you. His kisses are slow this time, letting it sink in that this is happening; that you two are about to be connected.

“You did such a good job. You are such a good girl.” He murmurs against your lips before sitting up.

His dick is now sitting heavy on your mound, and the weight of it feels delicious. He taps it against your clit a few times, your hips thrusting up in kind.

“You ready for me, sweetheart?” He lets his cock rut into your folds, thrusting up into your clit. “I think that sweet thing of yours is.”

“Give it to me, Lo. I need you so bad it hurts.”

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take that pain away.” He promises.

And as promised, he places the tip right at your aching hole and pushes in slowly. Your jaw slacks, the pressure as he continues his descent much more intense than you anticipated. It’s been so long since you’ve given yourself to someone. It all feels new, and you are thankful; thankful that it's with him.

He is fully seated in you, and you can only describe it as euphoric. With the way he sits heavy in your cunt, filling you up completely, you can honestly say that this was meant to happen. Logan was meant to be with you in every single possible way imaginable. It’s the only explanation.

“How does it feel, baby?” Logan asks, hands rubbing up and down your thighs soothingly.

“It feels,” you whimper, gripping down on him. “It feels so good, Lo.”

“Yeah? My cock makin’ you feel good, doll?” He groans, clearly being affected by your behavior.

Before you can mutter a pathetic answer, your brain turning to mush, he shifts back. His cock slides out until the mushroom head is at your entrance, and then he slams back in; hard and slow.

The constant back and forth of his cock has you shaking, his hard thrust knocking the air out of your lungs and the slow thrusts feeling oh so good. And with the way he is watching you, his face mimicking yours as he receives his own pleasure, is sending zaps of electricity to your cunt. It makes you grasp onto him hard as he gets you more worked up.

Logan sits up straighter, grabbing your right leg and bringing it up to his shoulder. His left hand keeps it steady as he speeds up slightly and presses gentle kisses to your ankle in the process. It lets him go deeper, kissing your cervix every time it goes in. The pressure feels incredible, and the more he speeds up, the more your cunt starts to spasm out of control.

“That’s it, baby. You are taking me so well, like you were fucking made for me.” He growls out, biting your ankle.

“God yes, Logan! I’m yours!” You cry out, him and his cock making you utterly delirious. “You were made for my pussy!”

“Fuck, you got a mouth on you.” He chides, his right hand going to your right breast.

He is squeezing your tit so tight; his hips are on autopilot with how fast he is taking you. Your hands don’t know where to go, going from gripping the fabric below to holding onto his wrist. He is putting you into a completely fucked out state, and you can’t get enough of that treatment.

You can tell you are on the precipice of cumming. You are clenching on and off rapidly, no longer in control of your muscles. The sounds coming from your coupling, wet smacking echoes that are music to your ears. You can feel the telltale sensation of being overwhelmed, and you know you are now on the track of no return.

“Logan, baby, I’m gonna cum!”

He snarls at you, a crazed look in his eyes as he slams into you. He lets go of your tit to grab your chin, keeping your eyes on his. “Do it, darlin’. Cum around my cock.”

You are over the edge in seconds, a silent scream taking over as you tremble and quake. Your pussy is convulsing like crazy, small gushes of liquid coming out. You see Logan look down at where you two are connected, and he is grinning like crazy.

“What a fucking sight. There isn’t one thing about you that isn’t pretty.”

You could sob at his words, especially with how overstimulated you are becoming. You work his cock, wanting him to cum inside of you.

“Give me your cum, Logan. Fill me until I’m dripping.”

Your words must have triggered something because next thing you know he has let go of your leg and face and is falling onto his forearms with his mouth landing on yours. You hear the sound of his claws, completely unsheathed from his skin, causing him to bellow into your mouth, rutting like a madman which causes cum to leak out from your hole onto the bedding.

He slows down, milking out the rest of his spend before stopping all together. He lets go of your lips gasping, face buried in your shoulder as he tries to calm down. Your hands go to his back, massaging the taut muscles as he shakes.

“Fuck, Logan,” you sigh, catching your breath as you come back to earth. You feel so relaxed, even with your guts feeling completely rearranged.

You hear his claws sink back into his skin, and it is then that he pulls out, falling to the other side of the bed. His chest is going up and down with every heavy breath, and you can’t help but admire him like this.

He turns his head over to you, his hand coming to grab the hand by your side. “C’mere, sweetheart.”

You make it over into his side, head laying on his chest as you both bask in the post-sex glow. You can’t help but smile at this turn of events, not expecting to have been in this position with Logan. But here you are, laying on his chest with his arms around you.

You notice something in your peripherals and see splintering from the headboard of your bed. There are six holes in the wood, and it sends you into a laughing fit, a euphoric glaze covering your entire body.

“What’s so funny?” He asks gruffly, pulling you into side as you continue to laugh.

“Your claws pierced my headboard.”

You see him glance back, and you see him sigh, relaxing more into the mattress. “I’ll fix it up for you, darlin’. I’m sorry about that.”

“No need to say sorry.” You snuggle your face into his skin, breathing in his natural musk as you relax more into him. “I just can’t believe we did that, but I’m glad it did.”

“I can say the same.” He murmurs, stroking your hair gently. “Seriously, I gotta know, did you see this coming?”

You shift up, going to lay your arms across his chest only for you to rest on them. You look into his eyes and the need in them is still there, but not in the way they were before. They were searching, looking for any confirmation that what you both just did truly meant more. It makes him look vulnerable, something he rarely shows. It makes you smile at the prospect of him opening up even more.

“Not until today. It’s strange now that I think about it.”

“And why is that?”

“I never saw you coming, I guess. Even when it is clear as day how you felt about me, I never got anything that told me it was real. I didn’t want to potentially screw anything up between us.”

He hums, a look of contemplation on his face before taking a hand and rubbing his face, a long sigh coming out in the process. “I suppose that’s my fault.”

You can’t help but look confused. His fault? “Why do you say that?”

“I haven’t been fully honest, but ever since I came here, no matter how welcomed and appreciated I am here, I have contemplated leaving.” His hand leaves his face to go behind your neck, lightly scratching the skin at the nape before continuing. “I’ve been alone for a long time. Having a family has never been in the books for me. It is easier to not let people in.”

“So, that’s why I couldn’t see you coming. You hadn’t made up your mind?”

“It’s possible, but it’s just a theory.”

“But, if that’s the case, have you made your mind up?” You start rubbing his chest with your palm, feeling his heart pulse slowly. You are confident you know the answer now, but you want to hear him say it.

He grunts in laughter, shaking his head slightly before letting his fingers curl around the back of your neck. “I think you know the answer, princess. But if you really want to know, come up here.”

You push yourself from him, moving so you are straddling his torso. He brings his hands to your face once more, pulling you down so you are face to face with him. He kisses you, slowly initiating intimacy with his lips. He isn’t saying anything, but you can feel what he is saying through the act alone.

“I can’t close myself off from you,” he says between kisses. “And I don’t want to. Especially if you’ll have me.”

“I think you already know the answer to that, Lo.”

“Still, I wanna hear you say it.”

You pull away so you can look into his eyes, giving him all the sincerity you can muster. “I love you, and I want you to stand by me.”

He smiles teeth and all, and pulls you back down, kissing all over your face causing you to squeal. “Hmm I love you too, sweetheart. Always have.”

You both stay like that for a while, basking in each other's company in post-coital ecstasy by continuing to taste one another. Another thought came over you, and you can’t help but laugh again.

“If I had known sex would make you like this, I would have made a move a long time ago.” Logan jokes, breathing them in.

“I’m sorry, but I’m laughing because it took me taking your cigars hostage to do it.”

Logan throws his head back, chuckling at what you presume is the same thing you are laughing about.

“Speaking of those cigars, can you grab them for me?”

You perk up, pushing away from him to lean over to your side of the bed. Your fingers stretch for the book, getting a grasp on it before getting settled back with Logan. He pulls you in quickly, hurdling you into his side. You see he has his lighter ready, which he must have grabbed while you were getting his cigars.

“You gonna smoke one?”

He hums, taking one out. “I only smoke these on special occasions. I think this qualifies.”

He carefully unsheathes a claw, cutting the end before it sinks back under his skin. He flickers the lighter, letting the bright flame linger on the end to get a good burn going. He then lays back, pulling you even closer into his side, before taking his first puff.

You smile, laying your head against him as you let your eyes drift closed. You feel yourself drifting away, the smell of his cigar and the sound of his pulse lulling you to a deep sleep; a sleep with dreams that you hope feel like déjà vu in the near future.

#logan howlett x reader #logan howlett smut #logan howlett #wolverine x reader #wolverine smut #logan fic #logan smut #x-men fic #my fics

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shararan · 1 year ago

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Types of comments I've gotten on my swedish fics after I started posting them:

I can't believe there's swedish fics in [fandom], and I liked it

I am learning swedish so it was really helpful to read something from [fandom]

I am so desperate for more of this pairing/trope that I put the entire thing through a translator

#and mind you i would marry all of the above i love them all #i sincerely NEVER expect to get even a single read hit on those fics #as theyre a different type of self indulgent than the way ships or tropes are #its a way of going nuts within my comfort zone and just not worry about the things i do when writing in english #which is a combination of the matter of fluency as well as different levels of rigidness in literary expectations #theres like 800 or something swedish fics total on ao3 which is larger than a few years ago like its a huge boost #but to put it mildly its not THE most sought out fic language #but english has definitely taken over as fandom language since many years now #and things dont get translated as much as back in the day cause ''well everyone speaks english so''#and i mean fine but i hated how my entire validity started to depend on english #it was enough that i risked losing access to basic education because i struggled learning it in school #didnt want to deal with fandom side eyeing anything non english on top of that #sdklkgsd MY POINT BEING it helps me to shake off expectations + get caught up in arbitrary numbers and let those affect my enjoyment #i dont care for clout generally but yeah writing swedish fics helps squash the beginnings of worrying that maybe i should #because no?? it literally does not matter???#im glad to bond with people and im happy when they enjoy my things #but its good to remind self regularly not to place ones self worth in the amount you have of it #IM RAMBLING WHAT ELSE IS NEW #sharan talks

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witchywithwhiskey · 7 months ago

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the alpha next door

pairing: alpha!steve rogers x omega!female reader

summary: you and your neighbor are harboring feelings for each other, but both of you think the other is too sweet. then, things take a turn when your first heat since moving in hits, revealing the depth of your feelings for the alpha next door—and his for you.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), omegaverse AU tropes (heats, knots, purring, mating, scenting), piv sex, breeding kink/pregnancy kink (reader's on birth control tho), accidental voyeurism, masturbation (m + f), dirty talk, praise kink, daddy kink, little bit of mommy kink, size kink, pet names (baby), mutual pining, idiots in love, dual pov

word count: 8.9k

a/n: here's my entry for @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420's Cum Together Extravaganza!!! i used the A/B/O AU and breeding kink prompts—and this is my very first omegaverse fic!!! so uhhh please be kind because i don't know what i'm doing 😅 also loosely inspired by "too sweet" by hozier!! anyway, this ended up a lot longer than i thought it would be....whoops!! hope y'all enjoy!!!

When you first moved into the little pink cottage next door, Steve Rogers decided that you were too sweet for an ex-soldier alpha like him. An omega like you was filled with sunshine and gentleness, and you deserved an alpha who would treat you like the precious thing you were.

The kindest thing Steve could do for you was stay away. The thoughts you inspired in his alpha hindbrain had him hating the rough and greedy animal side of himself. He wanted to dig his fingers into your plush hips and bend you over, make you present your pretty little body in the way the alpha in him craved.

But he reminded himself you were too sweet. Too sweet for the obscene thoughts that plagued his mind. Too sweet to be defiled by a big alpha like him. Too sweet to be swollen and round and glowing because you were carrying his child…

Still, you were his neighbor and Steve couldn’t avoid you entirely, even though everything he saw only reaffirmed his belief that you were too good for him.

The little pink cottage beside his house had come with a front garden filled with pink roses and all manner of other pink flowers that Steve couldn’t even begin to name, but you tended to them like you’d planted them yourself. Steve would get home from work, park his truck in his driveway—which had a perfect view of your front garden. He’d watch you from behind his tinted windows as you took care of your flowers, looking like a garden fairy come to life.

When Steve eventually grew uncomfortable with how long he’d been watching you, he would get out of his truck and call a gruff hello to you as he made his way inside. Your melodic voice returning his greeting would follow him into his house, where he’d close his door and lean against it, panting like he’d just escaped a warzone while his cock strained against his jeans. But Steve wouldn’t stoop to jerking himself off to the thought of you—at least not while you were just outside.

On weekends, Steve would work in his backyard, mowing the grass and tending to the shrubs that ran along the line separating his property from yours. When the weather was nice and pleasantly warm, you would sit out on your small back porch, curled up in a wicker chair reading some book or another.

Steve would offer to mow your lawn, just for an excuse to stay outside longer, and be a little bit closer to you. You’d let him, and thank him for his efforts by giving him some ice cold lemonade, smiling up at him while he drank it. Steve wasn’t the least bit surprised the lemonade was more sweet than tart.

As the weeks and months passed since you’d moved in, Steve couldn’t help but feel his desire for you growing, becoming a living thing curling around his heart, making it beat for you. You were the sweetest and prettiest omega he’d ever met, and he’d be lucky to be your alpha, but he kept his distance, certain you could do better than him.

That is, until your first heat after moving in next door changed everything.

That was when Steve learned you were far more than the innocent little omega he’d determined you to be—you were a creature of sex and desire, made to take an alpha’s knot and be pumped full of come in the hopes that their seed would take root in your womb. When your heat hit fully, your keening wails echoed from your cottage, and they were a siren song that called directly to Steve’s alpha heart.

But he kept himself away. After all, there were polite ways of going about these things, and he’d never even asked you out on a date, so he certainly wasn’t going to assume you wanted his help to get you through your heat. Besides, you hadn’t asked for him to join you, anyway.

That didn’t stop Steve from keeping an eye on you, though.

He’d noticed the slight change in your scent a few days before your heat truly set in, his cock reacting even more to your perfect omega body than normal. Steve felt like he was walking around with a constant bulge in his pants after getting a single whiff of your scent, but he ignored the niggling feeling telling him he needed to be close to you and did his best to hide his reaction. He knew you had other things to worry about than the comfort of the alpha next door.

Even though something in him compelled him to go to you, Steve couldn’t bring himself to walk over to your cottage. It occurred to him that even if you didn’t want him to help you through your heat, he could offer to go to the store to get the food and provisions you’d need. But he didn’t. He was worried about what he’d do if he looked into your home and saw your nest and smelled your sweet perfume.

So Steve kept his distance, watching you from his truck and the windows of his house as you brought home a week’s worth of provisions—protein bars and sports drinks that would keep you nourished enough to make it through your heat. Steve wished he could carry the heavy-looking bags into your home, but his cock was pitching a tent in his sweatpants, and he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with the way his alpha body reacted to your omega scent.

Finally, as your heat drew closer, you locked up your cottage, closing all the windows and drawing all the curtains. Steve couldn’t help but notice, though, that you left the skylight in your bedroom cracked open a tiny bit. Steve’s alpha hindbrain itched at the thought that you’d only left it open because you couldn’t close it yourself, and he had to hold himself back from going over to your cottage to offer to close it.

Steve knew omegas liked to keep their nests dark and warm and locked up tight. They wanted to keep all the scents created during a heat trapped in their nest, at least until their heat broke. So it was curious that you’d left the skylight open, even a little bit.

But when your heat hit in earnest that evening, your pitiful whimpers and desperate moans filtering through the open window and directly to Steve’s ears—through the window of his bedroom that he’d thrown open the moment he’d heard you—he forgot about what omegas typically wanted. Instead, all the blood in his body rushed to his cock, making him harder than he’d ever been in his life.

Steve stood at the window of his bedroom, which overlooked your cottage, his eyes glazing over as he listened to you pant and whine and cry out for an alpha that wasn’t coming. Because of course Steve had noticed that no alpha had arrived to help you through your heat. He assumed you were using any number of the toys that were sold precisely to help unmated omegas get through their heats without an alpha’s help.

But it meant you were alone, in your nest, riding out your heat on some silicone knot. That thought nearly made Steve storm from his house and barge into your cottage to demand you let him help you, but he reminded himself you were too sweet, too sweet, too sweet for him. So instead, he fisted his cock and listened to your raspy pleas fill the night sky.

“Need your knot, alpha, oh god, please,” you babbled, your voice beautifully melodic to Steve even when you were desperately begging for something he knew he shouldn’t give you. “Fill me up, daddy, I need it—need your knot, alpha—daddy, daddy, alpha, please, please, please!” Your moans grew louder and Steve could only imagine the thick silicone knot that was filling you up the way he should be filling you.

One of Steve’s hands gripped the frame of his window tightly, using the feel of the wood digging into his palm to keep himself grounded as he physically fought with his alpha instincts. He wanted to break into your cottage and rip your toys away from you so he could help you through your heat. Like he was meant to. It should be him inside you, sinking into your warm, welcoming cunt while you looked up at him with those beautiful eyes of yours.

Steve’s other hand gripped his cock, pumping his hard, stiff length with a fist so tight, it was nearly punishing. It helped a little, but his fist was a far cry from your perfect cunt, which would be gushing with wetness and so hot, Steve would feel like he was sinking into heaven and hell at the same time. And when he came, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfying as emptying his balls right against your cervix, pumping your womb full of his seed while knot locked your bodies together so it would be almost certain he’d knock you up.

That is, if you weren’t on birth control. Which most unmated omegas were, Steve reminded himself.

Still, the alpha in him was a beast barely caged—he wanted to breed you.

Steve wanted to see you impaled on his cock and his knot, so bloated from how full you were with his come that he could see it in the way your belly bulged, giving a preview of what you’d look like growing with his child. He wanted to knock you up, he wanted to see you swollen and round with his pup.

He wanted to keep fucking you even as you carried his child, watching you bounce on his knot, your tits swollen with milk and your belly big and round while he tried to fill your womb with another before you’d even popped out the first. Steve wanted to keep you pregnant all the time, your pretty little omega body always ripe and swollen with his pups, taking his knot and his come every moment of the day so he could make sure you were always glowing with the radiance of motherhood.

It was that image of you—beautiful and knocked up, your eyes hazy with pleasure that came only from being impaled on his cock, and being locked on his knot—that made Steve come.

He grunted as the pleasure of his fist and his thoughts of you finally became too much, wrapping both his hands around his thick length, one squeezing his knot while the other pumped the rest of his shaft. His come erupted from the tip, streaming over the windowsill and dripping down to his bare feet on the wooden floor of his bedroom.

A growl tore from Steve’s lips while he came, a deep, dark part of his alpha hindbrain responding furiously to the fact that he was wasting his seed. He should be emptying his balls deep in your fertile cunt while your slick walls gripped his knot and milked every drop of his seed into your womb, where it belonged.

Steve’s release seemed to last for ages, longer than he’d ever experienced before, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his head finally started to clear when it abated, he would’ve been worried he’d gone into rut. But finally, Steve surfaced from the depths of his pleasure, and winced when he remembered the thoughts that had made him come.

Steve was appalled by the direction in which his imagination had gone, and felt guilty for imagining you in such a state as pregnant and bouncing on his cock—even as the reminder made his cock leak one last spurt of his release. Cursing and castigating himself, Steve moved away from the window to clean himself up and wipe down the spot where he’d been standing.

The entire time he was cleaning up after himself, Steve felt off-balance. He’d never felt such a pull toward an omega before you, and he’d never been so close to going into rut just from listening to an omega whimper and moan. If he didn’t know better, he would think you were his mate—the one omega in the whole world who was perfect for him.

But Steve pushed that thought aside and reminded himself you were too sweet for an alpha like him. You might’ve sounded desperate and needy while you suffered through your heat alone, but you deserved better than an alpha who could think of nothing else besides pumping you full of come and knocking you up with his child.

Steve felt disturbed all over again when he thought of the vivid, obscene things he’d imagined while he’d jerked himself off. He’d never been the type of alpha to get off on the idea of breeding, let alone pictured anyone swollen with his kid while they were impaled on his cock. Steve felt so far out of his depth, he swiped his clean hand down his face to try to regain the equilibrium that had been shattered by your pretty omega sounds.

Thankfully, you’d gone blessedly quiet at some point when Steve had been coming all over his windowsill. He tossed the rag he’d used to clean up his mess into the laundry and flopped down on his bed, knowing he wouldn’t be getting any rest that night. It was a good thing he’d called out of work on heat leave.

Even as Steve lay in his bed, the refrain that you were too sweet for him repeating in his mind, he couldn’t help hoping that you were getting some much-needed rest. He’d never been one to worry over much about whether someone was sleeping or eating, but he wondered if you’d had a protein bar and drank a sports drink before falling asleep. He knew you needed to keep up your strength if you’d make it through your heat.

His thoughts spinning around in his mind, Steve fell into a light, fitful sleep, his alpha hindbrain remaining alert and attuned to the sounds coming from your cottage. Little did he know, it wouldn’t be long before everything would change. Something would happen that would force Steve to finally give in to the connection between him and the omega next door.

When you woke on the second morning of your heat, it was to a burning need cutting through your core, urging you to roll onto your knees and sink down on the silicone knot toy that had slipped from your pussy while you slept. Unbidden, the face of the alpha next door, Steve Rogers, popped into your mind and you sobbed through another wave of aching desire, wishing desperately that he was with you to help you through your heat.

You hadn’t met the alpha until after you’d moved into the little pink cottage next door to his much larger home, and you were instantly smitten with the former soldier. He was big—so much bigger than you—with broad shoulders and bulging biceps that were barely hidden beneath the tight t-shirts he always seemed to wear. But it was Steve’s thighs that were always so distracting to you, so thick they made you want to ride them until your slick was drenching his jeans.

A pitiful moan fell from your lips as you reached between your thighs, grasping blindly for the toy you’d discarded in your sleep. With your face still shoved into a pillow and sleep still clinging to the edges of your consciousness, you slid down on the thick silicone cock, pretending it belonged to Steve.

The alpha next door was just so…sweet.

It hadn’t taken you long after moving into your cottage to learn your neighbor’s schedule, and you made sure to always be working in the garden in front of your home when he got back from work. You lived for the growly greetings he would call to you, and the faint blush that would graze his cheekbones, like he was shy around you, his harmless omega neighbor.

And on the weekends, when you knew Steve wasn’t working, you sat on your back porch reading—though you were more often ogling the fit alpha’s shoulders and arms as he worked in his backyard. The sun would shine on Steve’s blond hair and make him look like a golden god, with sparkling blue eyes that would occasionally flick in your direction, though you didn’t think he was really looking at you.

Of course, when he’d offer to mow your lawn, you’d let him. Then, to show the alpha your thanks, you’d make him some nice refreshing lemonade. If that meant you could watch him quench his thirst while you imagined his sweet mouth on your body, drinking your slick as eagerly as he drank your lemonade, then that was just a bonus to being a good neighbor. Right?

It had become abundantly clear to you that you harbored a crush on Steve, and it was nearly excruciating living next to him when he didn’t seem interested in making a move on his omega neighbor. After all, it had been months, and he’d been nothing but friendly and respectful and sweet.

It was obvious, at least to you, that Steve was too sweet for you—too sweet to be the rough, dominant alpha you craved. Too sweet to bend you over and impale you on his thick cock with one stroke. Too sweet to shove his knot into your cunt and make you come so hard you saw stars. Too sweet to knock you up over and over again, filling up that big house of his with pups that you’d created together.

You’d told yourself it was for the best that Steve kept his distance. If he couldn’t be what you needed, then you didn’t want your crush to develop into unrequited feelings. But your heart didn’t listen, so you kept putting yourself in situations where you’d get to see your neighbor—working in your front garden when he got home, sitting on your back porch while he was in his backyard.

Then, you began to feel your heat coming on, and your thoughts about the alpha next door only worsened. It wasn’t uncommon anymore for unmated omegas to ask alpha friends or acquaintances to help them through their heats, but the prospect of asking Steve for his help, getting to come all over his knot for days on end, and then trying to go back to the way things were sounded torturous.

Instead, you went about your heat preparations as you always did, gathering supplies from the grocery store and stocking up the minifridge in your bedroom with sports drinks while you piled your bedside table high with protein bars. You closed and locked all the doors and windows of your cottage, drawing the curtains tight to keep out the sun.

You knew you were a bit of an odd omega, and you didn’t like total darkness in your nest, which was why you had been the only one interested in the little cottage. It had a skylight in the bedroom that any other omega would want closed and covered during their heat. The window itself was covered in a film that dampened most of the direct sunlight and you enjoyed the natural light, even when you were deep in your heat, so it was perfect for you.

It occurred to you, as you were preparing your room, that if you cracked open the skylight, the sounds you made during your heat would filter out from your cottage. Your desperate cries for a knot might even be heard by the alpha next door…

Later, you’d blame your decision to leave the skylight open on the dangerous combination of your pre-heat brain and the exquisite agony of your crush on Steve. But by that time, the little decision you’d made in the urgency of your heat preparations would’ve irrevocably changed your life—for the better—and you wouldn’t give a thought to regretting what you’d done.

Still, on that second morning of your heat, when you were woken by the need to be knotted and flooded with come, you didn’t even remember that you’d decided to leave the skylight open. So you had no idea whether it was working or not, whether Steve could hear you—but he wasn’t far from your thoughts as you rode your silicone alpha toy, trying to slake the need that burned through your body.

Your heats were always a little hazy, like most omega’s, with desire and need pounding through your blood so insistently, you couldn’t form any coherent thoughts. Your mind could only focus on getting a cock inside you, then a knot and, if you’d had an alpha to help you, the gush of their come. Since you were so mindless, you uttered words that you’d forgotten the second they fell from your lips.

The first night of your heat, when you’d had a moment of clear-headedness enough to gulp down a sports drink and scarf a protein bar, you’d hoped you hadn’t cried out anything that would embarrass you—like Steve’s name. You’d had a vague memory of calling out for an alpha, which was normal for an unmated omega, and a daddy, which was normal for you, given your desires when you weren’t going through your heat. But you’d breathed a sigh of relief when you didn’t remember calling out for Steve specifically.

You couldn’t imagine what would happen if you cried out Steve’s name while in heat. But you were about to find out.

The silicone toy in your cunt wasn’t cutting it. It had been just fine that first night, though you hadn’t felt as satisfied as you normally did, and you hadn’t slept as long as you typically did in between waves of your heat. Something about this heat felt different. You weren’t just desperate for an alpha’s knot and come, you wanted more…

You wanted a pup. You wanted an alpha’s cock shoved deep in your cunt, unloading their come against your cervix, filling your womb with a seed that would take and knock you up. You wanted to be bred—and not just by any alpha. You wanted the alpha next door to breed you.

Steve. You wanted Steve. You needed Steve.

“Please,” you gasped, the word leaving your lips as you thought of your big, sweet alpha neighbor. His face came easily to your mind, those sparkling blue eyes and soft lips, that strong jaw and the way a blush turned his cheeks the most perfect shade of pink. “Please, alpha, need your knot, need your come,” you whined, speaking to the image of Steve in your mind.

You pushed yourself up onto your knees, grabbing one of the many pillows from your bed and shoving it between your thighs, forcing the silicone alpha cock deeper into your cunt. Still, it wasn’t enough, even as you tried to make due.

You rocked your hips, trying to replicate the feeling of fucking yourself on an alpha’s cock, but it paled in comparison. A desperate whine worked its way up your throat, filling your room and slipping from the skylight into the morning air.

“Please, daddy, wanna have your baby,” you cried, your hands going to your tits and tugging on your nipples so roughly, pleasure and pain swirled through your body, creating a tornado of sensation that only fed the need burning in your core. “Wan’ you to knock me up, alpha, wanna give you pups, wan’ you to suck on my milky tits while you fuck me, daddy.” You groped your breasts, pinching your nipples like you were milking yourself, the sensations making your cunt gush slick all over the toy inside you.

The pleasure was gathering in your core, making you more desperate to reach the pinnacle of your climax. Your hips worked, humping the pillow and cock between your thighs, shoving yourself down against the knot at the base of the toy, knowing it was what you needed to come, but your pussy was still too tight to take it.

“Oh god, I need it, alpha, I need it, I need it,” you babbled mindlessly, fucking yourself furiously on the toy and still wishing it was Steve’s cock.

You pictured him beneath you, his cheeks tinged pink, not with a blush, but with the flush of his desire for you, his blue eyes nearly black from his pupils blowing wide as he stared up at you. His soft mouth parted as he groaned, his thick cock buried in your tight cunt, twitching as you squeezed him.

It was with that image in your mind that the fateful words spilled from your lips. You cried out desperately, “Knock me up, daddy, gimme your pup, please—please, breed me, Steve!”

So close to the edge of your release, you barely heard the distant crashing sound that echoed between your little cottage and the house that belonged to the alpha next door. All you heard were your gasping breaths and mindless moans, the toy shoving into your cunt making low squelching noises that only managed to turn you on more.

It was only when a much closer smashing sound preceded the swirl of cool morning air infiltrating your home, and flooding into your nest, that you were able to drag your attention away from your own desperate frustration. Your omega instincts were going haywire, part of you telling you something was wrong, while another part unfurled and shifted, like a flower blooming toward the sun.

Blinking your eyes to clear away the haze of your heat, your mouth fell open in an ‘o’ of surprise at the sight of the alpha in your bedroom doorway.

Steve’s big body filled the doorway, his hands clutching the wooden frame while his chest heaved with heavy breaths. It looked like he was trying to hold himself back, his grip so tight on your doorframe that a distant part of your mind worried it might splinter beneath his palms. But you couldn’t think too closely about that, not when your neighbor was staring at you with a crazed look in his eyes, like he wanted to fill you with his knot as badly as you wanted to be filled.

Your too sweet alpha neighbor’s mouth—which was normally curved in a soft, friendly smile—was twisted with ferocious lust, and when he spoke, his voice was a rough growl like nothing you’d ever heard from Steve.

“Invite me into your bed,” he rumbled, the order clear in his voice even if he didn’t use his alpha command. “Ask me to help you through your heat, tell me you want me here,” he went on through clenched teeth, an edge of desperation in his tone that called your heart—and your cunt. “Tell me you want me, omega.” His fingers gripped the doorframe tighter, and you heard the wood creak beneath his strength.

Your pussy spasmed and your heart lurched when Steve called you by your designation, but it was when his scent hit you that you felt something inside your being shift and lock into place. Steve smelled like home—like safety and security and love. He smelled like a future of wrangling children together and making love together and sitting on a porch swing together and growing old together.

In that moment, you knew what your instincts had known from the moment you met Steve—he was your mate. He was the one alpha in all the world who was meant for you, just as you were the omega meant for him. And once you knew that, it was the easiest thing in the world to part your lips and beg him to join you in your nest, in your bed, and help you through your heat.

“Please, Steve—please, mate, please help me,” you begged, your voice breathy with need and excitement, tears of joy shining in your eyes.

Something shifted in Steve’s expression when you called him your mate. You watched as he took a deep breath, scenting you the way you had him. A riot of emotions swirled in those beautiful blue eyes of his—disbelief, acknowledgement, acceptance, satisfaction, pride. You saw the moment he realized what you’d only just discovered, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.

“My omega, my mate,” Steve growled, finally letting go of the doorframe and launching himself at you.

Finally—finally—Steve was coming to you, closing the distance between you, and you’d never been happier in all your life. The alpha next door was your mate, and you hoped that meant he would be more than willing to knock you up and breed you like you needed.

Steve had woken from his fitful sleep to the sound of your sweet cries that morning, though they sounded much more desperate to his ears. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but you sounded less than satisfied with whatever toy you were using and Steve slid a hand down to his already hard cock, thinking you should’ve been riding him instead of some silicone dick.

He’d lazily stroked his cock, trying to restrain himself from coming all over his stomach, while listening to your increasingly desperate cries. Steve had fisted a hand in the sheets of his bed, hoping it would be enough to hold himself back from storming over to your cottage and taking your heat into his own hands.

Then, Steve heard you cry out his name and something in him snapped. Before he even knew what he was doing, he’d thrown on some boxer briefs and stormed out of his bedroom, leaping down the stairs and throwing open the front door of his house so ferociously, he’d ripped it off some of the hinges.

Not even caring that he was leaving his door open, Steve charged over to your cottage, taking a little bit more care with your front door when he broke the lock and pushed it open, flinging it closed behind him. He knew it was likely stuck closed thanks to the broken lock, but Steve only cared that it would prevent anyone else from getting into your home. He’d deal with getting out later. Much later.

Finally, Steve got to the doorway of your bedroom, your nest, and he’d stumbled to a stop at the sight that lay before him.

You were perched in the center of your big bed, a pillow wedged between your thighs, the knot of a toy barely visible while you humped futilely on the fake cock. Your delicate fingers groped your tits, squeezing your soft flesh and pinching your nipples like you were milking yourself—that thought making even more blood rush to Steve’s cock. Desperate whimpers and whines fell from your lips, more pleas to be knocked up and filled with pups, and they were nearly his undoing.

At the last second, Steve gripped the doorframe, holding himself back from pouncing on you, as he tried to remember why he shouldn’t be there. You were an unmated omega, in heat, and he hadn’t gotten permission to be in your nest, let alone help you through your heat. And you were too sweet for him…

God, you looked sweet, though. Sweet enough that Steve’s mouth watered with the thought of how slick you were, how good you would taste on his tongue. Even from the doorway, he could see the way your wetness had soaked the pillow between your thighs. He wanted to taste you, to scent you, he wanted you.

Steve was seconds away from launching himself at you when your gaze finally landed on him. It was the delighted surprise in your eyes that urged him to ground out a desperate plea for consent to enter your room and help you through your heat. Blessedly, you seemed coherent enough to answer—but you didn’t only answer and beg for his help, you called him your mate.

That word struck a chord in Steve’s chest, his heart pounding even harder at the impossible prospect that you were his mate—that you were meant to be his. But he took a deep breath, taking in the scent of you and opening himself up to the possibility that you were his.

You even smelled sweet, like the pink roses in your front garden—or, rather, the peace Steve felt when he came home to find you tending to your flowers. You smelled like the warmth of a gentle fire and the giddiness of butterfly kisses. You smelled like life, like the time unfurling before the two of you, years and decades spent with each other, making each other happy.

It was as if Steve truly came alive for the first time when he scented you, and the last tether of the self-restraint holding him back from you snapped.

“My omega, my mate,” he rumbled in a low purr, a voice he’d never even heard himself use before. But he didn’t have time to think about that too closely—he only knew he needed to get to you.

As quickly as he could, Steve surged into your room, tearing off his boxer briefs—the only clothing he’d had the presence of mind to put on, and he was thankful for it, since it saved him the grief of a public indecency charge—in the few steps it took to get to your bed.

By the time Steve tackled you into the tangle of blankets and pillows, he was naked as the day he was born, his cock throbbing with need and brushing against swaths of your soft, bare skin, leaving his precum behind. The alpha cradled your body in his strong arms as he rolled you beneath him, his narrow hips slotting perfectly between your plush thighs, his hard length resting against your mound.

But there was something in his way, something that shouldn’t be inside you and Steve couldn’t help but growl, “Get that fucking toy out of my cunt, ‘mega.” He softened the fury in his voice with light, fleeting kisses to your cheeks and temple and forehead, greedy to taste the sweetness of your skin.

“Yes, alpha,” you gasped, fumbling between your bodies to wrench the silicone dick from your tight hole.

The sweet submission in your voice was too much for Steve—he had to taste it. Slanting his lips to yours, Steve kissed you for the first time, groaning into your mouth at the wondrous feeling of your mouth beneath his. You tasted better than you smelled, like radiant sunshine bursting on his tongue and casting a golden glow over his entire body.

Deepening the kiss, Steve plundered your mouth, stroking his tongue against yours and nipping at your lips until you were gasping and panting beneath him. Your entire body trembled with unslaked need, your fingers clinging to his bulging biceps as you cried out for him, all of which stroked Steve’s alpha ego so much, his cock twitched and leaked against your belly.

“Please, Steve—daddy—alpha—I need you inside me,” you wailed in a broken voice and Steve’s instincts took over.

He shifted his hips back, the tip of his cock finding your slick hole and he pushed forward, sinking his hard length into your cunt with one thrust. Steve’s entire world realigned, his heart stuttering in his chest at the feeling of your tight heat consuming him, overwhelming him. An animalistic groan left his lips, and he buried the sound in your neck, breathing in your scent as he tried not to come immediately.

With Steve’s cock finally buried inside you, he felt your body relax beneath him, your moan of pleasure dissolving into a sigh of relief. Steve’s hindbrain felt a deep satisfaction at the way you melted in his arms, your submission to him apparent in the loosening of your muscles. Finding your lips again, Steve kissed you sweetly, cherishing the moment of calm before your heat urged the two of you to move.

“Thank you, alpha,” you whispered, your voice soft and blissful and the most content Steve had heard it since your heat began in earnest the day before. “The toys weren’t working.” You pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek on your way to burying your face in the crook of his neck, breathing so deeply he could hear your inhale, making his cock twitch in the depths of your pussy.

Then, your words pierced through the haze of pleasure in Steve’s mind and he purred, smiling into your neck when you relaxed further beneath him, responding to him.

“You needed your mate, didn’t you, baby?” Steve cooed, lavishing your neck with kisses until you were whining and squirming beneath him. “Needed your daddy to pound your needy little cunt like only your alpha could, huh?” He started rolling his hips in tight circles, grinding into your cunt, his knot rubbing your clit in a way that had you clenching deliciously around him. “Needed me to pump your sweet little womb full of come, huh, needed me to give you a pup?”

As soon as the heated words fell from Steve’s lips, he wished he could take them back. He’d heard you beg him to breed you, but that was when you were riding a silicone alpha dick, not when you were seconds away from taking Steve’s knot.

Mentally, Steve chastised himself for letting his mouth run away from him so soon. He’d barely gotten his cock in you and he was already talking about knocking you up. He didn’t want you to think he was that kind of alpha, one that only wanted an omega to pump out babies for him—even though the thought did make Steve rock hard.

“Sorry, ‘mega,” Steve mumbled, shifting his arms beneath your body so he could cradle your head in one hand, holding you still while he rocked his hips into yours, kissing your cheek and jaw and neck and anywhere he could reach.

“Sorry for what?” you asked on a gasp, hooking your legs around Steve’s sides and clinging to him so you could grind on his thick cock.

Thankfully, you didn’t seem turned off or scared by Steve’s breeding talk. If anything, the way you arched your spine and shoved your cunt down on his dick made him think you liked it. But surely that couldn’t be true.

“Didn’t mean to mention pups so soon,” Steve said gruffly, hiding his face in your neck so you wouldn’t see the blush that he knew was turning his cheeks pink.

“Oh god,” you moaned, your cunt squeezing Steve’s cock as your body writhed beneath his. “Wanna give you so many pups, alpha,” you cried, humping up from beneath Steve’s big body, riding his cock harder than you’d been riding your toy when he’d walked in.

Steve went cross-eyed at the assault on his senses. Between the perfect heat of your slick pussy gripping his cock, teasing his knot every time you rocked against him, and the sound of your sweet voice confessing you wanted him to knock you up, Steve’s body shuddered with the effort it took not slam his knot home and flood your womb with his seed to give you exactly what you wanted.

“You like that idea, huh?” Steve rumbled, hungry passion and desire coursing through his body and urging him to move faster, to fuck you harder. He pulled out of your fluttering pussy and slammed back inside, relishing the desperate cry that left your lips and the way your fingers dug into the muscles of his arms. “You like it when your alpha tells you how much he wants to breed you?”

Despite his best efforts, Steve could hear the thread of insecurity in his question, and he wasn’t surprised when you cupped his face and moved his head up so you could look into his eyes. What he didn’t expect was the sheer amount of pleasure and desire in your hazy gaze, or the mixture of sweetness and depravity in the little smirk you gave him.

“I do, daddy,” you said, your voice breathy but no less firm in your resolve. “I want to hear everything you’ve thought about doing to your little omega—want you to breed me, alpha.”

Everything else in the world melted away as Steve focused on you—his omega, his mate—and the fact that he was going to try his damndest to give you what you wanted. After all, that was his duty as your alpha. You were his to take care of, to provide for, to protect, to cherish—to fuck and to knot.

You were his to love—you were his to breed. And Steve planned on loving you and breeding you plenty.

You’d never felt anything so good as Steve sinking his thick alpha cock into your weeping cunt, and you nearly sobbed in relief as the edge of aching, burning need finally abated. This was what you needed—not a toy or any alpha’s cock, but your mate’s. Your body and omega instincts had known something was wrong, and it had taken a slip of your tongue to fix it.

Even if it had been an accident to cry out Steve’s name, you couldn’t feel embarrassed about it, not when you finally felt something like satisfaction. The need of your heat still burned bright beneath your skin, but for a moment, you could revel in the feeling of being so intimately connected to your mate, your Steve—the alpha next door.

The words of thanks had slipped past your lips before you could stop them, and you loved the teasing way he responded. But then you felt a shift in Steve. He’d seemed to feel guilty for mentioning pups, but even his apology turned you on, making your arousal burn hotter. Your body had been unable to still when you needed him so badly—needed to give him pups, needed to grow round with his child and know that he had claimed you in the most primal way possible.

Your brain had short-circuited when Steve had said he wanted to breed you, but you’d still heard the anxiousness in his tone and you’d guided his head up so you could look at him. The uncertainty and guilt in Steve’s beautiful blue eyes nearly broke your heart. He was too sweet for words, wanting to make sure you were comfortable with even the words he said in the heat of the moment.

Between one breath and the next, you fell in love with Steve Rogers. He wasn’t simply the alpha next door, he was your mate, and he was yours. A fierce possessiveness filled your chest as you smirked up at your alpha, determining to show him exactly how much you wanted everything he’d said.

“Want you to breed me, alpha,” you begged on a moan, your hips rising up off the bed to meet the brutal thrusts of your mate. “Fill me up with your pups, daddy, please, I need it!” You held Steve’s gaze, letting him see the pleasure on your face, hear the genuineness of your words.

You saw the moment Steve’s insecurity and guilt melted into desire and determination. His blue eyes darkened and his face twisted into a mask of sinful resolve. He looked like a fallen god, with his golden hair and tanned skin, framed perfectly in the little bit of morning light filtering in through the skylight above your bed. Your pussy clenched around his cock, fluttering as he thrust inside you, teasing your hole with his knot.

“Don’t worry, ‘mega,” Steve rumbled, ducking down and capturing your lips in a sweet kiss that left you gasping for breath. He pressed his forehead to yours, staring deep into your eyes. “We’re making a baby today.”

“Yes, alpha,” you cried, spreading your legs wider in an effort to let Steve fuck you deeper. He grinned, shifting his hands to your thighs and pushing them up against your chest, folding you in half and pounding you into the bed.

“Gonna fill up your perfect cunt with all the seed in my balls, and if it doesn’t take today, ‘m gonna fill you up until you’re overflowing with my come—until your belly’s bulging with it,” Steve growled, rutting into you with a ferociousness you never would’ve expected from your sweet alpha neighbor. But Steve’s sweetness was never far from the surface, and he proved it by lowering his voice to a deep rumble that you felt in your belly, asking, “Mm, ’s that what you want, baby, want daddy to give you a pup?”

You were pinned beneath Steve, his cock fucking you so hard, your room was filing with the wet squelching sounds of your soaking cunt and the sharp rhythm of your alpha’s thighs slapping against your own. But still, it was his words that seemed to have the most effect on you, turning you into a writhing, needy creature who’d only be satisfied when Steve emptied his balls deep in your cunt.

“Yes, alpha,” you cried, your fingers clinging to Steve’s shoulders, digging into his warm, golden skin while he fucked you into oblivion. “Want you to knock me up, wanna give you a pup, wanna grow big and round with your child and feed you both from my milky tits,” you babbled, throwing your head back and screaming when Steve’s cock hit against your cervix, pleasure and pain swirling like an inferno in your body. “Please, daddy, god, I need it, I need it—knot me, breed, me, Steve, please!”

“Baby,” Steve groaned, capturing your lips in another kiss while he rutted into you faster and harder, his knot pressing against your tight hole with every thrust and teasing you with the stretch of it. “You’re gonna get a pup, alright,” he growled when he pulled away, pressing his forehead to yours. “You’re gonna pop out a kid for me and then I’m gonna fill you right back up.” Steve moaned, his body shuddering and you knew he was close. “Wanna watch you bounce on my cock with your belly ripe and swollen with my pups, your tits heavy with milk—the prettiest mommy and mate an alpha could ask for.”

“Steve,” you sobbed, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to hold him close, kissing him and thrusting your hips up to meet his. “Please, make me a mommy, alpha—wanna be a mommy, please, daddy, daddy, please!” Then your lips were too preoccupied with Steve’s, kissing him messily in between desperate moans while he fucked you hard and fast.

Finally, Steve pulled back and thrust forward with so much power, his knot pushed inside your tight cunt and you screamed in pleasure, the feeling of his thick bulge stretching your tight hole sending you over the edge into the most earth-shattering release you’d felt in your life. It was a transcendental experience, coming on your mate’s cock, your alpha surrounding you and filling you up in every way possible.

As your body squeezed Steve’s cock, he groaned loudly in your ear, burying his face in your neck while his hips stuttered against yours, trying to fuck you with his knot but unable to move because your bodies were locked so tightly together. Then, with a moan of, “my mate,” you felt the moment Steve began to come. His cock twitched deep inside your cunt, a warmth filling you as he shot rope after rope of come against your cervix, filling your womb.

For a long time, the two of you stayed locked together, riding out your releases in each other’s embrace. Giggles and moans filled the room, each of you kissing the other wherever you could reach while you basked in your pleasure together. You breathed in the scent of Steve, your lips dragging up and down the column of his throat while he kissed your neck and shoulder and just beneath your ear, making you shiver.

Eventually, when the squeezing of your cunt was reduced to a flutter and your body had milked every last drop of seed from Steve’s cock, the two of you settled. Your heat had abated for the moment. Though need still burned low in the core of your body, reminding you it wasn’t over just yet.

But you had a bit of a respite, and you took the time to revel in you newfound mate. Turning your head, you pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek, which was flushed pink with pleasure.

You felt Steve’s smile against your skin and then he was rising up so you could see the full blush that tinged your alpha’s cheeks. He looked so sweet and ruined, his blond hair a mess, his blue eyes bright with satisfaction, a deeply smug smile on his plump lips.

“Feeling better, ‘mega?” he asked, though there was so much male satisfaction in his tone, you were certain he already knew the answer.

Still, you liked seeing this side of Steve. Typically you didn’t like cocky alphas, but Steve looked so hot when he was confident, your pussy fluttered around his knot at the sight of his smirk.

“I am, daddy,” you said softly, smiling up at your alpha, enjoying the way his smirk deepened as you confirmed what he knew. You couldn’t help but stroke his ego a little more. “Now that you’re here to take care of me.”

Steve’s eyes softened and he pressed a heated kiss to your lips. “Good,” he said when he pulled away. Then his arms were wrapping around you and he rolled onto his back, dragging you with him until you were splayed across his broad chest, your bodies still locked together by his knot.

It would deflate soon enough, but you reveled in the feeling while it lasted, snuggling into Steve’s arms. Sleep called to you, but Steve was still moving and you when you opened your eyes, you found him reaching for your stash of provisions on your bedside table.

“Gotta eat and hydrate, baby,” Steve murmured as he unwrapped a protein bar and began feeding it to you. Even though you were exhausted, you knew he was right and you let him feed you, only sitting up when it was time to gulp down some of the sports drink he offered you. “Good girl, ‘mega, doing so well for your alpha,” Steve said, praising you while you ate and drank.

When you were done, Steve tossed the empty wrappers and bottles back onto your bedside table and relaxed into the many pillows on your bed. You settled down on his chest, your body sated in every way possible, muscles going loose when your alpha began to purr.

“Thank you, alpha,” you mumbled, the urge to sleep more insistent since you were fed. Steve’s hands smoothed down your back, tracing your spine lightly with his fingertips in a way that made you melt even further into him.

“Don’t need to thank me,” he grumbled, pressing a sweet kiss to your temple. “You’re my mate, ‘m gonna do everything I can to take care of you—and our kids.” He added the last bit like it was an afterthought, but you knew Steve meant it, and your heart warmed at his protectiveness.

You smiled into Steve’s warm skin, nuzzling into his neck beneath his jaw, breathing in the scent of him—the scent of home—but his words made you remember something you should tell him.

“Steve, ‘m on birth control,” you murmured sleepily, pressing a lazy kiss to the thick column of his neck. “Thought you should know.” You snorted a little, laughing at yourself for the silliness of your last statement, even though it was true.

The rumble of Steve’s purr changed as he chuckled, his strong arms tightening around your waist for a moment before he grabbed a blanket and pulled it up over your cooling bodies. “Figured, ‘mega,” he rumbled, his voice so warm, you could hear his smile. “Doesn’t mean ‘m gonna stop picturing you round with my pup, even if it’s a while before that happens.”

“Mm,” you hummed in acknowledgment, then pouted as you processed his words. “As long as it’s not a long while,” you muttered, hardly listening to what you were saying because you were so close to sleep.

Steve chuckled again, his hands squeezing you lightly. “It’ll be as long or as short as you want, baby,” he assured you in a gruff voice that was thick with just as much tiredness as yours. “I’d give you a pup today if I could.”

You smiled, your heart filling with emotion, and pressed your lips to your alpha’s neck. You might’ve been exhausted, but it didn’t stop you from murmuring the words your heart urged you to say, “I love you, Steve.”

Steve’s purr deepened, and he held you close, no hesitation in his voice when he said, “I love you, too.” Your alpha brushed a kiss to your cheek and smacked your ass very lightly. “Now rest, omega, we still have to get through the rest of your heat.”

You fell asleep with a smile on your face, feeling safe and protected and satisfied in the arms of your mate, your bodies still locked together by Steve’s knot. You never would’ve expected anything to come of your crush on your neighbor—and you never would’ve expected he’d be a perfect fit for your desires, let alone your mate.

But, you knew the two of you were going to live a happy life together—and you couldn’t wait to spend every moment of it with the alpha next door.

6K notes · View notes

seraphdreams · 6 months ago

Text

GOT MILK? | TOJI FUSHIGURO.

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — synopsis. what happens when you invite an unexpected guest into your home? lucky for you, this one cares about your health!

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — cw. fem!reader / milkman!toji, smut, cliche porn trope, size kink, coercion, food play, a bit prey/predator dynamics, 1950s-esque setting, toji’s huge, unprotected “love-making”, mdni <3.

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — word count. 3.3k

𓏲 ࣪₊♡𓂃 — dolled up! it’s been a while, hasn’t it? i’m so so sorry i’ve been away from writing :( but trust me, we’re so back !! this is actually my first full length toji fic n i’m so excited 4 you all to read it . . i wanted to keep it light and cliche for all of our pleasure. this took me about two months to write on n off, but !! if you like this n enjoy it, please comment / reblog ! i’ll make you all a glass of seraph’s special milk, thank u ♡ a big shoutout 2 @gh4ul for beta reading ! i love u so muchie!!

fluorescent shimmers of the setting sun pierced through your living room window, beyond pastel curtains, and onto the curvature of your face as if the sun itself used you like its own canvas while you lounged upon the couch. soft murmurs of whichever television show you had fallen asleep watching hummed within the four thin walls of your flat, creating the perfect ambiance for a peaceful late afternoon nap.

it wasn’t as though you had done much during the day, aside from indulging in your boredom with the mundane baking of cookies, taking two batches to get right, alongside tidying your room.

although currently, you slept soundly in a way that came off as daunting to others; torso clad in a thin tank top paired with little pink shorts that could’ve been mistaken for underwear by any onlooker, with your hand rested just below your abdomen, chest rising and falling in the most harmonious synchronicity.

vulnerable, like prey unknowing of its predator.

fortunately, the neighborhood you resided in was safe. some sweet suburban city where everyone knew each other more than they knew themselves, and the thought of anything being remotely out of place sent residents into a frenzy. it was innocuous to assume that not much out of the ordinary took place. or that was the case, until —

knock, knock.

“delivery for y/n?”

stirring in your sleep, you prayed that the owner of the baritone voice that had woken you up was just some figment of your imagination, some effect of unintended lucid dreaming perhaps. yet, upon blinking open unfocused, bleary eyes, and the loud couplet of knocks on the door following soon after, you were pulled out of dreamland and into the vexing reality.

three more firm knocks paired with a gruff tone calling out flatly, “delivery,” was enough to have your body sashaying involuntarily to your front door.

whoever was outside was insinstently persistent. if they had thought to put even an ounce more strength into those compact knocks, your door would have been long gone by now.

“coming!” the dulcet tone of your voice was riddled with exhaustion and you were unsure if the sound had resonated with the stranger on the other end, your internal query being answered once the relentless abuse of your front door had ceased.

you had ignored the fabric of your meager top, not quite noticing the way the strap so slightly dropped from your shoulder, leaving such a beautiful expanse of skin exposed to, and for, anyone. swiftly, you had opened the door for your unexpected visitor.

there, stood some dark haired man, taller and bigger than any other man you’ve known in the neighborhood. he must have had to be over 6’0, with a stature so broad, chiseling muscles barely hidden underneath the thin fabric of his uniform. his white hat tilted upward, and as your eyes descended, you caught his matching suit worn just a bit too taut. it was as if the first two buttons of his shirt were hanging on for dear life to cover what massive mounds his chest was. not to mention, how his thighs were close to breaking free from their confines.

to the right of the struggling buttons, sat a little pin that read “toji.”

he didn’t put any effort into a friendly introduction, the only hint of expression you could trace was the furrowing of his brows at his forehead as he gave you an unreadable stare.

“was told to drop this off here.” toji spoke. he held out a small wired basket with two glass jars of white liquid, seeming to be milk. maybe it had been your fuzzy, half-awake mind, and what little thoughts were up there, but you couldn’t recall a time where you had placed an order for some strange fluid.

was it a thing the neighborhood would do every once in a while?

as you rubbed the sleep from your eyes and gave the handsome stranger a soft pout, you spoke airily. “what’s in the jar, sir?”

his demeanor shifted into pure displeasure, not fancying the query your hollow brain came up with. it remained undoubtedly clear that he wasn’t the most amiable of folks.

“it’s milk, darling.”

“i didn’t order any milk, sorry.” that same pout remained on your lips as you shook your head for the milkman to end a seemingly quick conversation, but just as you were about to close the door back, the pressure of his strong hand against the wood made your attempt futile.

to your surprise, a miniscule smirk was evident on his scarred features. “no?” his narrowed eyes drank you in from the bottom up as if you were lemonade on a scorching summer’s day. those same eyes skillfully darting from the spill of your breasts in your little top, up to your pretty pursed lips and doe-like orbs.

anyone could tell from a mile away what type of girl you were — the type that toji devilishly enjoys.

it wasn’t often he was presented with a doll such as yourself. sure, he could pick the mind of others increasingly well, could tell just when someone was planning to set him up (like some sort of off-duty criminal) but with you, it was as though not a thought could be lodged behind vacant eyes. everything about you was pure, untainted.

he stepped closer toward you, his foot conveniently placed between the barrier between your home and the outside. “try it for yourself. it’s fresh, and organic.” as he spoke, the glint in his deep gray eyes had overturned into a sly darkness. and when you shook your head at his advance, he only scoffed, peering in closer until he fully stepped foot into your abode.

“oh, c’mon,” vexation laced his tone. “don’t make my job harder than it already is.”

his hauntingly large frame eclipsed yours, the sun casting a backlit shadow behind his silhouette, like something out of a 50’s horror film. at that moment, you were in no position to deny his simple request.

it was just milk, perhaps he wanted an honest review.

your eyes met his, and you swallowed thickly as you hoped that courage would fill the void in the pit of your stomach. “how much for a glass?” softly, your question floated in tense air. a smirk upticks on his face as he reaches into the basket, holding up the larger jar of the two settled in the basket.

“for you, it’s free of charge.”

maybe you should’ve questioned the insubstantial value, for nothing in this economy was truly ever free.

you take the bottle from him, popping open the lid and taking a sip. the unnerving feeling of greedy eyes caused goosebumps to form over your skin. the liquid certainly had a thicker texture to it, possibly an ode to its organic nature; and as you sipped and sipped, you failed to notice the drippage that rolled amply down the side of your mouth to your chest. toji, however, caught sight of it — because, of course he did.

after you had your sample size, you took a manicured thumb to glossy lips, wiping your bottom lip to collect the remnants before taking your tongue to your thumb to lick up the remains.

in that moment, you reminded him of a kitten, some meek animal vastly trusting of the others in its environment.

his smirk grew wider and he closed the door behind him as he stepped closer, now merely a few inches away from your figure. “oh, but miss,” his voice full with anything but a genuine concern for you, he traced his finger along the trail of milk that lingered at your chest. “you missed a spot.”

his sudden touch startled you in such a way that shifted your body to jolt once you felt his cool fingertips. that same motion forced you to completely forget about the open jar in your hand, accidentally spilling an even larger amount of milk all over yourself in the process.

drenched in the liquid, your top became practically see-through with only the sight of your pert nipples showing underneath. it's candy for the eye, toji’s at least.

“you gonna keep that on, princess? you’ll catch a cold.” his voice feigns concernment towards you, as if he pitied the pathetic state he put upon you. in that moment, sheepishness clouds your empty head, and if you could cower away, you would; but instead, you took him up on his suggestion, turning your back to him and doing away with the thin barrier.

“gimme a minute to change.” you shyly said as you looked back at him with a hand barely covering your chest.

how cute you were, so willing to invite a stranger into your home and even strip for him — were you always this welcoming?

before you could scuttle to your room, you felt a firm grip on your arm. toji, now clearly having fun with you, had given you a menacing smirk along with a tsk of his tongue. “you’re still all wet,” he turned you back around to face him in one swift motion. “let me clean you off.” his hand slowly trailed up your arm and to the swell of your breasts where he cupped one in his large, calloused palm. the feeling of his rough fingertips over your bare skin caused you to break out in a shudder. “s-sir, i don’t think..”

he shushed you the moment his thumb rolled over your hard nipple, milk still dripping down your skin. with one hand, he pulled you in tight by your waist, and with the other, he aided himself in wrapping his lips around your nipple. you could only describe his touch as hungry, rough as if the opportunity to take advantage of your vulnerability would slip away into thin air. he locked steel grey eyes with you as he did so. once he got his fill of toying with your sensitive mounds, he switched his sucking motions into little bites.

his deep groans and your soft whines filled the space instantaneously. he’d rotate from one breast to the other until he felt you growing weak in his hold, the squeeze of your thighs telling him everything he needed to know about your desire. and when he felt satisfied with the level at which he teased you, he unlatched.

it felt as if all air had rushed out of your system from the raspy whines you had let out during his ministrations. you took a moment to catch your breath and regain composure as he stood up tall to his original position.

oddly enough, comfortability grew within you, possibly the adrenaline of a handsome stranger feeding your mind with illicit thoughts. “am i all clean now?” your voice comes out shaky, feeble with lust, and as your eyes scanned his formidable appearance, down to the bulge that left his sheer size to anything but the imagination, you grew greedier.

“squeaky fucking clean.” his response comes off as a growl. “how about some real milk as a reward, sweetheart?”

you tilted your head, as a confused puppy would, looking up at him with spacey eyes. “real milk? i thought i was just drinking it?” he smiled at your perplexity, finding you too cute to let go. “that milk,” he pointed at the bottle you set on the counter beside you. “isn’t as organic as it claims. you need the real thing in ya.”

toji fumbles with his belt buckle, unfastening it until he could comfortably whip his cock out. you had never seen something so large, so girthy that it instilled a blend of fear and excitement within you. “on your knees, pretty thing.” he demanded. “gotta make sure my girl grows big and strong.”

you complied, obviously. when someone as sturdy as him tells you to do something, it’s only natural that you do it.

with your weight now rested on your knees, your job was easy. you wrapped a feeble hand around the base of his cock, mouth agape in bewilderment that he could barely fit in the cusp of your hand. toji let out a hiss under his breath once your hand began to diligently slide up and down his shaft. slick dribbled into the rapture of your enclosed fist from just how turned on he was. as you continued to teasingly pump him, your tongue darted to place gentle kitten licks paired with tender kisses to his angry tip. “you’re real confident now, aren’t ya?” he goads, though not necessarily in a mirthful manner.

a soft pout forms at your lips upon hearing his words, urging you to increase your pace by a minuscule amount. once you had gotten familiar with the monster in your palm, you wrapped your lips around the head, slowly inching yourself down his shaft until your nose met the unruly hairs of his pelvis. he was heavy in your jaw, a telltale sign that you’d end up with a strong ache that’d take days to soothe; and the throb of his length only led to the gush in your panties.

as you began to bob your head, toji threw his head back, large hands gripping at your jaw to keep you nice and puckered for him. the sensation of his plush tip bullying the back of your throat causes you to moan, a sound, and a feeling, that toji doesn't miss. you pick up your rhythm, but shortly after, toji starts up his; slamming his cock into your unexpecting mouth with no remorse.

rough ministrations urged you to gag until you came to ignore the feeling and focus on his pleasure, innocent and teary eyes showing through a wall of thick lashes up at him. what a cocky bastard.

“c’mon, you can take more, can’t ya?” he goads, his vocables resonating in a choppy cadence underneath the guise of his groans. “dontcha want milk?”

the mix of saliva and his precum trailed from your mouth as his heavy balls slammed against your chin. you took notice of how his vigorous pace faltered, signally an orgasm just seconds away.

one thrust. two thrust. three.

he’d managed to hold your face to his pelvis as he fucked through his orgasm, a deep groan bellowing through the air while he painted your throat in his seed.

what a liar. he didn’t taste anything like milk.

slowly, he pulls away and spurts the last few drops of cum onto your swollen lips, where he took much needed amusement in your starry eyed gaze.

your heavy pants were like music to his ears, something he wished he could etch into his memory for years to come.

“it’s all messy.” you mewled, licking at the seed that dripped to your lips. his hands were glacial as you felt them on your face while he leaned down to be eye level with you. “oh, i know. lemme take care of that.” he swiped his tongue against your bottom lip, drinking in his own orgasm before taking you into a heated kiss.

it was a brief moment, so brief you were too lightheaded to even realize how he manhandled you into the perfect position — bent over to touch your toes.

he pulled away, roughly tugging at your little shorts until they pooled at your ankles. you felt him slide his cock over your panties just before pushing them to the side to line it up with your slit.

all toji wanted to do in that moment was slide right in, but he knew he couldn’t. you just weren’t wet enough to handle all of him. and besides, he definitely didn’t want to deal with a whining princess suggesting that it “doesn’t fit.”

instead, he slid his sensitive cock between your folds. “gotta get you nice ‘nd ready,” he spoke while reveling in the way that his tip catched at your poor, neglected clit. “feel flattered, i don’t do this for everybody.”

each slide jolted your body as the slightest tinge of pleasure coursed within you. it wasn’t enough to get you feeling close, no, but it was ample in gushing more slick from your hole.

“t-toji, sir, please..” you had let out a soft, vexed sigh at the lack of feeling, wiggling your hips to create friction in any type of way.

it reigned pointless, as most things did with toji. he was too busy focused on the sheen covering his cock from just toying with your angelcunt that whatever nonsense you were spouting was irrelevant to him. he continued his motions until the tightening of your core and fluttering of your pussy told him everything he needed to know.

satisfied with the level at which he teased you, he halted. just before you could fucking cum. you let out a frustrated whine that didn’t mean much to him, agitated by the loss of sensation.

in mere moments, he was pushing himself past your walls, stretching you out while your little cunt struggled to accommodate his size. “w-what if it doesn’t fit..?” you managed to babble out in your pathetic state.

oh, if your nosy neighbors knew that sweet little princess down the street was getting her cunt stretched out by the milkman, they would have a conniption.

toji smirked at your concern, ultimately brushing you off while continuing to urge himself even deeper. “let’s just make it fit then.”

the feeling of being stuffed full was unlike anything you’d experienced in the past. your past partners weren’t much to moan at, but toji? he had you grasping at any surface to give you leverage. as soon as he bottomed out, you could feel the tip rubbing so deliciously against the hollow of your cervix, the tinge of pain going unnoticed from how riddled with desire you were for him. with confirmation that he was fully inside, toji began to set a rough pace, strokes deep and firm enough to have you jolting forward with every thrust.

you scrambled to hold onto anything for dear life, afraid that your knees would grow weak and give out underneath your own weight. though, he kept his hands taut at your hips, only speeding up his potent thrusts to taunt you even more for your lack of stability.

fucked dumb within the first few seconds, drool dribbled past your lip, your eyes rolled into the back of your skull as you tried to take everything you were given.

with the intense way your walls were hugging around his cock, he couldn’t help but let out something of a deep, guttural groan. you had reached behind you to press a feeble hand to his abdomen, hoping it would ease his ministrations, yet your adorable action only caused the opposite.

he took your wrists in his one hand, pulling you up to hit deeper within your walls. “fuck! ‘s too d-deep!” you cried out, that familiar coil of pleasure tightening within your being, and to your dismay, he only held you closer against his chest, other hand gripping at your jaw while his cock milked your gspot for all it’s worth.

“too deep? this too deep for ya?” toji taunts. “i thought you knew how to take dick, you sure looked like it.”

his grip at your face only tighten an ounce more as he waited for whatever nonsense you could muster out.

“i-i can..! i c’n take it!”

only seconds later did your high come crashing down, sending your body into a flutter of shocks. a sensation so perfervid, it had your mind hazy while you creamed all over his cock.

following suit, in a bout of thrusts, toji was painting your insides with his warm wet seed, only pulling out once he felt you go limp in his hold.

“don’t tap out on me now, you haven’t even paid for the milk.”

4K notes · View notes

asahicore · 3 months ago

Text

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin.

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off.

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior.

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her.

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life.

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me.

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you.

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes.

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace.

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department.

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him.

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains.

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that.

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself.

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore.

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now.

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon.

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.”

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?”

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser.

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing.

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated.

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder.

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together.

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing.

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.”

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest.

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing.

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever.

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer.

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style.

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning.

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center.

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?”

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal.

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown.

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned.

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it.

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face.

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it.

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café.

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice.

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.”

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.”

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.”

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.”

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree.

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks.

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later.

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack.

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t.

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you.

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had.

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner.

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone.

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends.

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met.

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love.

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart.

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all.

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted.

That was his first mistake.

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”).

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least.

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game?

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?”

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long.

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.”

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority.

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over.

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him.

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal.

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure.

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute.

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too.

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger.

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.”

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.”

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly.

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?”

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner.

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down.

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper.

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?”

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance.

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his.

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.”

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain.

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months.

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-”

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in.

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.”

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all.

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego.

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth. He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind.

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you.

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had.

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner.

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month.

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely.

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you.

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex.

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was.

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there.

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well.

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere.

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you.

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment.

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away.

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?”

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there.

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm.

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck.

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern.

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you.

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace.

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public.

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party.

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it.

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything.

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends.

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep.

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy.

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point.

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention.

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes.

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth.

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says.

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently.

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye.

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment.

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.”

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper.

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside.

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?”

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing.

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you.

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours.

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history.

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?”

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears.

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)

#sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen au #sunghoon au #enhypen scenarios #sunghoon scenarios #enhypen imagines #sunghoon imagines

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pinkygirliee · 3 months ago

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FIC RECS

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

hey so it took a while for me to post another fic recommendations but I’m back!!

ABBY ANDERSON

my wait is you by @dollaches

abby x fem reader

content: pillow princess reader!, closeted abby, face sitting, porn with plot (my favorite), kinda eager abby. It was so good, honestly I haven’t enjoyed a fic this much in months.

not just anyone’s by @aouiaa

content: mean! abby, fingering (reader! receiving), oral (reader receiving), jealous abby, angst, doctor abby (love this trope), kinda dark content. 10/10 I read it every once in a while.

good luck babe! by @studioghibelli

content: reader’s boyfriend cheats on her with abby (abby didn’t know and was in the closet back then but now she’s a lesbian), cheating (but it’s on a man so it doesn’t count lol), strap on.

bad communication with rich! abby by @beforeimdeceased

content: angst, miscommunication (obviously lol), fake dating, femme! reader, it’s a concept but it’s so good I loved it, wish the writer made it a series.

abby so needy to fuck you by @k1ngpin42

content: THIS FIC made me realize that I have a thing for dominant women being needy lmao, needy abby (obviously), pillow princess! reader.

passionate sex with abby by @mystellenia

content: this is smut but honestly it’s so sweet and wholesome lmao I’m obsessed, pillow princess reader!

ELLIE WILLIAMS

baby no attachment by @anchoeritic

content: angst, friends with benefits, fuckgirl! ellie, pillow princess! reader.

welcome to the party by @lovelettersfromluna

content: toxic! ellie, kinda dark content, top! ellie, bottom! reader, it has two parts, ANGST, brother’s best friend! ellie, enemies to lovers (but it’s just ellie hating the reader lol), jealous! ellie, dry humping, fingering and oral (reader receiving).

selfish by @lonelyfooryouonly

content: ellie doesn’t like you but after she makes you a favor you both get closer, dealer! ellie, mean! ellie, you’re friends with ellie’s friends, this is a series and is so good, smut, top! ellie, bottom! reader, angst.

candy crush by @s-4pphics

content: grumpy x sunshine, mean! ellie, angst, reader is a baker.

romance is dead by @diddiqueen

content: PLEASE read this series, it’s so good. angst, mean! ellie, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage (reader is forced to be engaged to ellie’s brother).

like I want you by @loaksky

content: one sided pining, not actually unrequited love, reader is in love with ellie and ellie is oblivious, friends to lovers, angst.

the infinite space between you and I by @loaksky

content: mean! ellie, grumpy x sunshine, not actually unrequited love, angst.

unwanted attention by @les4elliewilliams

content: enemies to lovers, angst, coworkers, ellie doesn’t know she’s in love with reader so she’s mean lol.

already over by @elliesbelle

content: trying to get over ex! ellie but ending up being fucked by her, pillow princess! reader, angst.

ellie shows you who you belong to by @bonewreath

content: jealous! ellie, roommates to lovers, femme! reader, friends with benefits, pillow princess! reader, smut, reader tries to go on a date and ellie gets possessive lol.

campus escapades by @leiswxrld

content: strangers to lovers, top ellie, bottom reader, college au, piercer! ellie (as a dyslexic girlie who’s english is not her first language, you have no idea how hard it was for me to learn how to write the word piercer lol)

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

you have no idea how much I exposed myself with this recommendations lmao, it’s so obvious I don’t do anything other than read fanfiction omg now im embarrassed.

follow me for more fic recs

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

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planetallure · 3 months ago

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⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ dark!fic recs

CW: once again, these works contain dark and explicit themes that may be upsetting or triggering to some. please use your discretion and discernment.

@cherienymphe : when i first seriously got back on tumblr and got into dark!fanfic, cherie's was one of the first blogs i found. her writing was essentially my indoctrination. it was terrifying how much i loved it/her writing. truly phenomenal. i've read quite of few of her stories (mainly for rafe cameron, jj maybank, steve rogers, and peter parker) but i'll list my faves.

"when the party's over" - its something about this series...i think about it often. if you're into forced pregnancy or corruption tropes, tap in.

"wicked games" - i actually first read this one on ao3 before i discovered her tumblr and was absolutely gagged. another one i think of often.

"amnesiac" - the first series of hers that i ever read. absolutely traumatized me and i sobbed reading it. amazing storytelling.

"the hills" - another bangerrr. a one night stand ends in complete and total blackmail and entrapment. he just wanted to give her a better life *clown face emoji*.

"his father's son" - after ward death, rafe takes over the reins in more ways than one.

"teenage dirtbag" - this series single handedly made me a jj girl. the tension??? yup yup mhm.

"the less i know the better" - ironically my favorite part of this story is readers relationship with rafe but seeing jj slowly and then rapidly descend into madness? yeah.

"claimed" - a/b/o dynamics. brought me back to my wattpad days. still eat it up.

"daddy dearest" - steve meets a single mom and decides to be not the stepdad, but the dad who stepped up.

i'll be honest, i was a non believer in dark!peter but: "she's with me", "one last time." "suburbia" and "basic training" made a believer outta me. hands. down.

@lambtotheslaughterr : it absolutely amazes me the things that come from her mind. the level of creativity and originality needs to be studied. oona, you are criminally underrated.

“rise” - the first series of hers that i read. arguably the best series i’ve read on here thus far. this is the first part to her “the day the world ended” universe and it completely blew me away. i couldn’t believe that something like it had come from some silly little boat show. just brilliant.

“when the bough breaks” - the first work of hers i read. this one for me was a heartbreaking slow burn story, but the smut…makes up for it. yes yes.

“i burn” - sex!addict reader x rafe cameron. need i say more? actually, i will. the smut and tension in this one towards the end? it was shameful how turned on i was.

“one way or another” - buckle up, grab a snack, and prepare for the ride of a lifetime. that’s it.

“something wicked this way comes” - a single mom trying to escape her past, except her past is rafe cameron. this was one very spooky scary la la.

"summit" - the second part to the tdtwe universe. its still brand new but its already feeling like another banger, i mean it's oona. tap in.

@harryspet : rae was also apart of my indoctrination and boy did she do what needed to be done. her perfectly curated moodboards alone did it for me. very mindful, very demure.

"homestead" - what can i say...i'm a sucker for pregnancy stories :( and this series was no exception. absolutely delectable. enjoy.

"well kept" - classic millionaire ceo x reader, my younger wp reading self cheered gleefully. my love language is acts of service and boyy was this one speaking my language. had me at "scheduled braiding appointment."

"bambi eyes" - this one was one of those that made me want to take a good long look in the mirror and ask myself, "is this who we are...is this what we represent?"

@sherrybaby14 : this one is for the mcu girlies. more fics than you could ever ask for. everyone say "thank you, mother!"

"the distraction" - i'm starting to notice a kidnapping/stockholm syndrome pattern here...ANYWAY! work is realllyy stressful for steve and you just happen to be the perfect distraction.

@straywords : she's no longer active but her incredible writings remain so please, peruse. its like a beautiful museum over there.

"a break" - *gasp* another pregnancy story! stucky edition.

@darkficsyouneveraskedfor : an icon, a legend, she is the moment! another infinite library for my mcu girls. roo has all you could ever want or ask for.

@perlelune

"all too well" - yes, yes, another one, its who i am. rafe cameron proving once again that you can't escape him.

"lucky" - best friend!rafe x reader. he didn't know what he had until it was almost gone

"tag, you're it" - never read a scream fanfic before this one but boy did i have fun! chad is so pookie in this too :(

@honestsycrets : back when i was in my miguel era, sy single handedly kept me fed.

"starved | mio" - "mio", in which you babysit mayday and it gives miguel baby fever and "starved", in which he made you a mom...but its left less time for other activities.

"stung" - sex pollen/abo. reader gets bitten by an anomaly causing a reaction that only miguel can cure

"amor y respeto" - he just can't love you the way you need to be. so you and miguel break up...at the worst possible time.

"exclusive" - you and miguel are fuckbuddies. you want more, but miguel can't bring himself to give it to you. so you find company in hobie, who's there for you in all the ways that you need. miguel's not happy about that.

"canary" - you're a singer in the 1920s who's fallen in with the dangerous o'hara brothers.

"grande" - sex!worker miguel x assistant!reader. think...a pepper x tony kinda dynamic. except, miguel doesn't take kindly to certain slights. :)

@starfxkrinc : last but certainly not least! moony is a ridiculously talented writer and a mutal of mine. i found her early on during my resurgence on here. this is her new side blog (rip lovesickbrat and starfxkr!!) luckily she was able to salvage a lot of her past works and is back like she never left. i recommend her "western nights" series (really just the trailer park!jj tag in general) and her "ode to eaters" au. a queen of all things taboo. she does it for the girls who are drawn to the dark and scary. the gross and weird. <3

#lari's fic recs #dark!rafe x reader #dark!rafe cameron #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve rogers x reader #dark!peter parker #dark!peter parker x reader #dark!jj maybank #dark!jj maybank x reader #dark!ethan landry #dark!ethan landry x reader #dark!ransom drysdale #dark!random drysdale x reader #miguel x reader #miguel o'hara x reader #rafe x reader #jj x reader #rafe cameron x reader #jj maybank x reader

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zarameraki · 25 days ago

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🖊️💌 𝘀𝘂𝗸𝘂𝗻𝗮'𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗻-𝗽𝗮𝗹 🖊️💌

: ̗̀➛ tropes: fem! reader 𖥔 minors do not interact 𖥔 prisoner sukuna x his penpal 𖥔 just plot with porn 𖥔 mentions of abuse 𖥔 mentions of sexual assault 𖥔 pussayy eating rawr but also u suck his dick so 𖥔 uraume and toji found family 𖥔 he would kill for you 𖥔 alternate universe 𖥔 nsfw

: ̗̀➛ words: 10k?? idfk it's long

: ̗̀➛ notes: happy halloween, mamas! 🎃 i know ive been MIA for a while but thats because i wasnt feeling creative. but now ive dumped a 10k sukuna fic on you for you to read at 3 in the morning. this one's got a kick to it yall. its long but give the bitch a chance, shes good. if you have any requests, don’t hesitate to send them. pls follow, reblog, like, comment—whatever you want! okay love you and enjoy.

So, this was where you’d ended up—on a site for writing to prisoners. A pen-pal with an inmate.

How lonely did you have to be to fill out your info, pay a yearly fee, and do this? The answer: really, really lonely. Orphaned, friendless, and scarred from a relationship that had left you with broken ribs and a blind eye. And as if to top it all off, you wanted to reach out to a criminal. I guess you deserved at least that small bit of connection.

You scrolled through inmate profiles, noting their crimes—arson, theft, cybercrime, drug trafficking, money embezzlement, and so on. None of them were charged with homicides or serious offences.

One profile did catch your eye. The smirk in his mugshot suggested he’d probably killed someone and managed to evade the cops before they could pin anything on him.

“Sukuna Ryomen,” you whispered, clicking on his profile and staring at a laundry list of crimes. “Aggravated assault, drug manufacturing and distribution, kidnapping—Jesus—extortion, cybercrime, Satanism . . . what the hell?” You chuckled as you scrolled further. “Bank burglary, vandalism of religious properties—so that’s the Satanism part—illegal possession of firearms, stalking?”

Why was this man even on this website, given his long list of crimes?

You zoomed in on his mugshot. Was it wrong to find him attractive despite his record? He truly embodied the term “bad boy,” though he didn’t look like a boy at all. He was ruggedly handsome with hollowed eyes. His light-mink hair was swept back, with a few strands falling over his forehead, and he wore a single hoop earring in his left ear. Black tattoos marked his nose bridge, jaw, and the centre of his forehead, while narrow-eyed designs were inked on his cheekbones.

You wondered if he’d get any letters, given his long rap sheet. Maybe delusional women like you, who’s pussies sang for high-profile criminals, sure.

Licking your lower lip, you picked up a piece of paper and a pen, tapping the end against the sheet as you continued to study his face.

Then you started writing.

Hello, Sukuna Ryomen,

My name is Y/N.

You thought it over. For now, you'd keep it light before diving into your deeper issues. It felt easier to share your thoughts with someone you’d never meet face-to-face than with a stranger in a bar whose only interest was getting into your pants.

You kept writing.

Dear Sukuna Ryomen,

I’m currently living in an apartment complex that’s in desperate need of renovation. I’m harvesting cockroaches—no, I’m not eating them; the fuckers just won’t stop nesting in my kitchen cabinets, and I’m tired of spending money on pest sprays. On top of that, I’m pretty broke, barely managing to keep a roof over my head. I’ve even considered trying to seduce the landlord into reducing my rent, though I doubt any man would find a woman with one working eye appealing. I noticed you have an extra beneath your real eyes. Care to share?

Anyway, this is my first time writing to someone like you, so apologies if it’s a bit awkward. I wish I could send a nude, but I’m pretty sure you’d wish you were blind after that. I feel like I’m rambling like this is my diary, so I should probably wrap it up. If you want to write back, feel free. I don’t mean to sound privileged, but I’m lonely as fuck.

Thank you (?),

Y/N

P.S. About the Satanism—care to explain?

You didn’t bother proof-reading and folded the letter into an envelope, sealing it with a lick. From your drawer, you pulled out a pack of old stickers—remnants of your childhood—and placed one where the envelope met. You wrote the prison address provided on the website and added the stamps you’d bought during your walk, which was your final push into becoming a prison pen-pal. After selecting Sukuna Ryomen on the site and uploading your ID and other required documents, you waited for your profile to be approved.

After three days of waiting, you sent out the letter first thing in the morning and anxiously awaited a response.

Sukuna’s fists collided with the inmate’s face, each strike more brutal than the last. Blood splattered across his knuckles as the crowd of orange-clad convicts roared with twisted delight, their voices a chorus of vile encouragement. “Finish him!” they taunted, while others jeered at the barely conscious man, urging him to get up and fight back, to aim a desperate kick at Sukuna’s balls.

“Sukuna!” A guard’s voice cut through the chaos, and soon the officers were pushing through the throng, shutting the prisoners who dared resist their authority. “Get up, now!”

“Fuck off!” Sukuna snarled, his lips curling into a sneer as he shoved the guard aside. He watched with cold satisfaction as the man lay still, blood pooling beneath him. All this because the idiot had the nerve to laugh when Sukuna missed a three-pointer. Now, the bald bastard had paid the price for his arrogance, and Sukuna breathed in the aftermath—his own dark victory painted in blood and broken bones.

Officer Gojo Satoru strode into the circle, handcuffs gleaming in his hand.

Sukuna's eyes narrowed at the sight of the blue-eyed bastard, a wave of hatred surging through him so fierce he could almost feel his fingers tightening around Satoru's throat. The very thought of choking the life out of him fueled his dark desires.

Satoru’s father—the man responsible for dragging Sukuna down, catching him red-handed with crates of cocaine at the border, and sealing his fate with a fifty-year sentence. If Sukuna had known the old man’s spawn would end up as a deputy officer here, watching his every move with those piercing eyes, he would have never shown up to that cursed delivery. But no—he had wanted to play the good boss, personally seeing his precious cargo off. Now, every day behind bars was a constant reminder of that one fatal mistake, and Sukuna’s rage festered as he thought of the traitor, Yuji. The little fuck who sold him out would pay dearly, and Sukuna was already plotting the perfect revenge.

His own fucking nephew sold him off. Motherfucker wanted the throne for himself—an empire Sukuna built with his bare hands.

“Throw him in the ice box,” Satoru commanded, his voice dripping with that infuriating smugness. The officer roughly cuffed Sukuna’s wrists, shoving him forward. “Cool down, Big Guy. You’re not going any—”

Before he could finish, Sukuna rammed his forehead into Gojo’s nose, relishing the satisfying crunch as the lanky bastard staggered back. The inmates roared with approval from where they were restrained by the other officers.

Gojo chuckled, dabbing at his bleeding nose with a pristine handkerchief, the kind only a spoiled little bitch like him would carry. “You think that’s funny?” he asked, his tone laced with condescension.

“Hilarious,” Sukuna whispered, a dark grin curling at his lips.

“Okay,” Gojo replied with a casual shrug. Without warning, his fist slammed into Sukuna’s jaw.

Once.

Twice.

Three fucking times.

The officers stood by, indifferent, as their captain unleashed his fury. For them, it was just another case of self-defence.

Sukuna finally collapsed to the ground, his vision swimming. Gojo leaned over him, his voice a venomous hiss. “Who’s laughing now?” A final, vicious kick to Sukuna’s chest left him gasping for breath. “Keep him in that freezer until he’s begging to be let out. No meals for a week.”

Sukuna’s vision blurred as he glared at Satoru’s retreating figure, the ringing in his ears barely drowning out the disappointed murmurs of his fellow inmates. His body, battered and beaten, finally surrendered to the encroaching darkness.

When he came to, he found himself in the prison’s infirmary, cocooned in three heated blankets. Yet the warmth did little to pierce the deep, bone-chilling cold that gripped him. The need to piss gnawed at him, but even that seemed distant compared to the icy numbness that had taken hold.

“Welcome back to hell.”

Sukuna raised his head from the pillows to find Uraume, the prison’s doctor. They were also the only person he tolerated, and somewhat close to since he ended up in the infirmary more than once. He hoped they considered him a ‘something’ after he killed a two-hundred pound guy for groping their ass in the cafeteria. How did he do it? He knew Uraume kept a pocket knife in their doctor’s coat and quickly swept it out and stuck it in the dick’s jugular.

“How long have I been out for?” he asked, squirming his arm out of the blanket to rub his eyes.

“A day.”

“What?” Sukuna pulled himself out of the blanket by wiggling around like the fucking worms his cell mate Toji liked to collect every time they went in the courtyard to play. They’re better company than your grouchy ass, he said once. “How long was I in the ice box?”

“Barely an hour.” Well, that’s just pussy behaviour from him. “They pulled you out before hypothermia killed you. What a way to die, am I right?” They chuckled, preparing some pills in a small disposable cup. “Here, take these. They’re nutrients.”

“I could use actual food.” Sukuna downed them like a shot. God, he missed alcohol. “That blue-eyed bitch restricted my meals for a week.”

“Fuck him.” Uraume took out a sandwich from their bag and threw it in Sukuna’s direction. “Just fake illness when you’re hungry. I’m always here to feed my favourite dog.”

Sukuna snorted. “Go to hell.”

“Already here.” Uraume clipped back their white hair with the back dyed red. Like someone smashed their head into the wall and the colour just bled to the sides. “Oh, this came for you.”

Sukuna shoved the sandwich in his mouth and stretched his muscles before walking over, snatching the letter. It was already opened, a flimsy teddy-bear sticker hanging from the paper. “What the fuck is this?”

“A letter.”

“A letter? For me?”

Uraume broke their attention from the computer to look at him. “Remember when you had me register you on that prison pen-pal bullshit after Toji received a pile of fan letters?”

Sukuna blinked.

He definitely remembered being jealous when Toji got a letter from an artist who drew herself naked on paper for him, and a shit ton more asking for his dick size or when he’ll be out. Of course, Sukuna was envious of the attention. Plus, no one in prison made good company. He just wanted the taste of the outside world again after being locked in for five years now. Even if it was through ink on paper.

But then Sukuna looked down at his first ever letter torn open. “Why is this open? Who read it?” If it was Satoru, he was going to rip his eyeballs from his sockets and feed it to Toji’s pet worm.

“Relax. They’ve got to identify if there’s any substances attached to the paper, or any other shady shit. Whoever wrote to you is just a harmless nobody.”

Sukuna frowned, bringing the letter up to his nose. It smelled like a plain envelope. No drugs, nothing.

He found purchase on the bed again, pulling out the folded paper and ironing the creases out on his leg. Here we go.

He began reading each word carefully.

A week went by since you’d mailed your letter to Sukuna Ryomen. A week of pure torture to hear something back from the criminal. You’d relaxed on Sunday because the post offices are closed, but on Monday, you were at your mailbox, watching the mailman sort out letters and slip them through the boxes.

Once he left, you dashed to your box and flipped through the coupons, flyers, newsletters—

Your breath hitched.

Everything dropped from your hand except the cream envelope with an address from the prison. You didn’t care about reading it upstairs and quickly, yet carefully, tore it open from the side, reading the writing.

Trying to read it.

Sukuna had terrible handwriting. It made you giggle.

You leaned against the mailboxes and murmured the words written under your breath.

Hey, Y/N

I don’t know how to start a letter since I’ve never written one so don’t mind if I hurt your little feelings. Don’t know if you’re aiming to entertain me or bore me to death with this “dear diary” bullshit. I thought I’d get a nude, at the very least. Hell, Toji over here—yeah, the bastard who was on the news last year with a thing for setting houses on fire—gets way better fan mail every week. Pictures, drawings, mostly nudes. And I get your whining about rent and cockroaches?

Look, I may be locked up, but I’m giving you some advice here. Don’t fuck your landlord. You’ve got one eye? Good—use it. Hell, that’s already intimidating enough. Threaten the prick to call pest control, or better yet, trap those damn cockroaches and give him a taste. Stuff a few down his throat if he still doesn’t take you seriously. People respect action, not whining.

Speaking of. One eye? Really? Now, how’d it happen? Was it torn out? Still got some sight in it, or is it just gone? That’s gangster. Hot, even. I’d fuck a one-eyed chick. Maybe when I’m out we can cross that off my bucket list. Nah, I’m just playing with you.

Or maybe I’m not.

Think on it.

Hate (in a friendly way),

Sukuna.

P.S. Yeah, I took out some satanist scum who tried kidnapping one of my people’s kids. But don’t go thinking I’m in with those freaks. I’m just the Devil they wish they could be.

“Woah,” you breathed out, hugging the letter to your chest. This was it. This was what you were waiting for. A pull towards something real, something thrilling. It’s all you’ve been craving for eons now.

“Whatcha got there, sweetie?” The voice snapped you back, harsh as nails against glass. Your landlord had wandered out of his door on the first floor, wrapped in a faded bathrobe and gripping his mug like some king holding court. “Made a mess on my floor with your papers.”

“Sorry,” you muttered, quickly tucking Sukuna’s letter back into its envelope and reaching down to gather the stray papers scattered on the floor. When you straightened, he was already in your space, close enough that the coffee on his breath made you flinch.

“Excuse me—”

“You’re excused.” His smirk widened as he leaned in, his nose grazing your neck. The greasy warmth of his breath made bile rise to the back of your throat. “Just wanna take a little bite out of you.”

Sukuna’s advice echoed in your mind. You’d never—never—think of following through with his revolting insinuation. But letting this sleaze get away with treating you like this? No. Not anymore.

“Step away,” you commanded. “Now.”

He blinked, then chuckled, dismissive. “Feisty today, huh? Got a letter from your boyfriend in prison, sweetie?” How did he know that? Fuck. Did he go through your mail before it was deposited? “Let me guess—you think he’s got your back now?” He leaned even closer, the stench of his laugh wafting in the air. “Come on, where's that one eye of yours aiming, sweetheart?”

“Next person who mentions my eye eats the dirt,” you snapped, every ounce of your resolve boiling up. “And as for what I’ve got—it’s something way out of your league, old geezer. So get the hell back to your apartment, and call pest control now.”

For a second, he was stunned, face going pale as your words sank in. But you could feel Sukuna’s thrill, his twisted approval in the back of your mind. You’d tapped into something that wouldn’t settle. But then, “Well, I’ll be damned. Someone put on their big girl panties.”

Your jaw tightened as you held your ground, taking small breaths. You’d rehearsed this moment in your head, picturing a confrontation that ended with him backing down. But things never went as planned with him.

“I’m not here to beg,” you said evenly. “But I’m not gonna let you walk all over me, either. I pay rent. It’s your responsibility to keep this place livable.”

He snorted, raising his coffee mug and giving you a once-over that made your skin crawl.

“Not for free, sweetheart. You’ve gotta give me something worth my time.” His eyes travelled down your body.

Your pulse throbbed in your ears, but you squared your shoulders. “I’m already paying rent. It’s your right to ensure your tenant's safety.”

His face darkened, lips curling into a bitter smile. “Not when that tenant’s acting like a spoiled little bitch.” And then, with a flick of his wrist, he launched the mug’s contents right at you.

You dodged, but a few hot droplets scorched your arm, leaving a raw sting that only fueled your anger. He laughed, shaking his head with a mocking scowl. “Get the fuck out of my sight before I kick you out on the streets.”

You didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry. You turned on your heel, heading back upstairs with quick steps, forcing the tears back until you could lock the door behind you. Once inside, you slumped to the floor, breathing hard. The letter from Sukuna crackled beneath your hands, and you clutched it close to your chest, feeling the heat of humiliation turn into something fiercer, darker.

“Damn it,” you whispered to yourself, pushing back to your feet with renewed energy. You marched to your desk, grabbed your notebook and pen, and let the words pour out, hurried and jagged. If anyone would understand this kind of anger, it was him—the one man whose entire life was carved from rage.

And this time, you wouldn’t hold anything back.

“Letter for you, Ryomen.”

Sukuna dropped down from his top bunk, snatching the letter right out of the guard’s hand.

“From your girl?” Toji asked from across the table, flipping a card, halfway to beating Sukuna in Blackjack.

“Not my girl,” Sukuna grunted, tearing into the envelope. But still, he smirked as he unfolded your letter.

Hey, Sukuna.

Fuck my landlord to hell and back. I need you to know I’d kill him if I could get away with it. I’m trying to keep this “ethical” so they don’t cut off my letters, but let’s just, I hate the elderly. They should be rotting in retirement houses instead of owning properties and doing a shit job running them. That senile asshole threw hot coffee at me this morning. Burning. I nearly shattered the damn mug over his skull.

Sukuna’s eyes narrowed, his fingers squeezing the letter hard enough to crumple the edges.

And now he’s saying he’ll kick me out, as if I have anything to pay him with. This place is a dump, anyway. I might hit up one of those shelters for women, maybe hop from couch to couch for a bit. My job at corner store’s giving me scraps; it’s not nearly enough to get by. So yeah, you could say I’m screwed.

And to answer your question about my eye—yeah, I’m blind in it. Got it from a real piece of work I used to call a boyfriend. He decided my face was fair game, and thought I could just live with it. But he's dead now. Overdosed last I heard from his brother. Good riddance, am I right?

Oh, and for that kink of yours you mentioned—sending my picture along with a little extra treat.

Hate (because I’m about to go crazy here), Y/N

P.S. For all the things you’ve done, I can’t lie—the world you talk about sounds safer than this one. Well, except for you committing the most heinous crimes.

Toji clicked his tongue. “Look at that dumbass grin on your face.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sukuna muttered, flipping the letter over—and there it was: a stick drawing of a woman lying on a bed, two messy circles for her chest, legs spread wide, and what looked like . . . well, he didn’t need to guess. Sukuna went from grinning to outright laughing. “She’s hilarious.”

“Not just that. She’s sexy as fuck,” Toji said, holding up a photo, ripped clean in half.

Sukuna’s eyes flashed. He swiped the photo and pieced it back together, cursing himself for tearing through the envelope like a brute. But as the two halves reconnected, he felt his pulse kick up, hard.

“Well, shit.” You were more than just beautiful. The way your hair fell, the curves of your body wrapped in that short black dress, standing under a streetlamp with the city lights glinting around you . . . But it was the smile—the easy, teasing grin—that really did it for him. “I’m definitely jerking off tonight.” Respectfully, of course.

“Can we get back to the game now, or—”

“Fuck the game. I’ve got a letter to write.” And a plan brewing to get you out of that dump and right where he wanted you.

Your landlord was pronounced dead.

An ambulance had arrived early in the morning, around nine, waking up every tenant. You were one of them, groggy from your sleep, and all the crying you’d done from realising how high rent was these days.

Apparently, he had a heart-attack, said one of the residents.

He was eighty, said another.

You stuck to the back of the crowd as his body was wheeled out on the stretcher. How could he have died just five days after you sent your last letter to Sukuna? It couldn’t have been him, could it? Maybe one of his associates? Given the man’s extensive criminal history, you suspected he had some serious connections.

As the crowd began to disperse a few minutes later, you joined them but didn’t head upstairs. Instead, you made your way to the mailroom.

And luckily, Sukuna’s letter was present.

All he wrote was:

You’re welcome.

Neutral,

Sukuna.

You broke out laughing, or crying. Whatever it was, it felt good. So good.

Hey, Sukuna!

These days, I’m feeling calm. Really calm. I’m sleeping well, eating better, even starting to enjoy work. Sometimes, I’m scared it’ll all get snatched away. By who? I don’t know. Life’s been that way, though. I’ve lost so much—my parents, my friends, even my left eyesight. At one point, I lost my will to keep going. But I guess some part of me held on, believing a better day would come.

Turns out, those days are here. Who would’ve thought a felon could make me feel less alone? I know it sounds crazy, but my life’s been full of surprises lately.

If you think you can’t bring happiness to someone, I’m here to tell you you’re wrong. I’m genuinely happy, and it’s thanks to you. I already think of you as a friend—and I hope you think of me the same way. You don’t get a choice in that, by the way.

Love (genuinely), Y/N

P.S. I’d like to come visit you sometime soon.

Sukuna lowered the letter, his eyes settling on the wall where he’d pinned up your picture. “Toji?” he called out, still staring at the photo.

Toji paused mid-pushup, raising an eyebrow. “What, bitch?”

Sukuna let out a low laugh, barely shaking his head as he spoke. “I think I’m in love.”

Hello, Y/N.

When I’m out in fifty years, I’ll give you a real surprise. And don’t write me any more of that sentimental crap, alright? Save it for when you visit. I’d rather hear it in person.

Hate (but maybe not so much), Sukuna

P.S. You’re beautiful.

You pressed the letter to your chest, biting your lip as warmth spread across your cheeks, your face aching from how much you were smiling. It was official—you were falling for Sukuna Ryomen. You’d have to look your absolute best for your visit. Just the thought of seeing him, hearing his voice, maybe even feeling his hand brush yours, made your heart race. You’d kiss him if they’d let you. And if they didn’t? What could the guards do? Throw you in jail? Now that would be ironic.

But fifty years . . . Would you really wait fifty years for Sukuna to be released? How high was his bail, anyway, that even his hidden cash stash wasn’t enough to cover it? He had to have some kind of pull with the right people, didn’t he?

With a sigh, you grabbed a piece of paper and began to write your reply.

Sukuna,

Fifty years is a lifetime, don’t you think?

Love, Y/N

Sukuna read the short note you’d sent, surprised by how much you’d poured into just a few lines. He noticed small, faded dots on the paper—tears, unmistakably yours. You’d been crying, and it didn’t sit right with him. His stomach tightened, but thankfully, he’d already secured your visit through Uraume, who handled it while Gojo was away.

Now, all that was left was seeing you.

He wondered how he’d keep his hands to himself after all the nights he’d spent memorising your picture, losing himself in thoughts of you. Every night before sleep, every morning when he woke, every time Toji was out cold and couldn’t hear Sukuna’s barely-stifled groans as he imagined you were there. God, he wanted to steal you away.

The day of your visit finally came. Sukuna was led to the visitor room, wrists cuffed, flanked by two guards. He hadn’t set foot in this room since a couple of his associates had visited months back with updates on the family business and Yuji’s latest fiascos. They’d kept everything running despite his brother’s mess-ups, and Sukuna owed them.

He glanced down at his hands. Fifty years. He’d been scheming for a way out since he first set foot in here, but now, with you in the picture, the urge to escape was relentless. Bail was twenty million. Even if he could scrounge it up, he doubted he could get it done without tipping off the wrong people. No, his only real option was breaking out.

“Sukuna.”

A soft voice pulled his head up slowly. He couldn’t remember the last time his name was spoken with such warmth.

“Y/N.”

He shot up from his seat, his eyes flicking to the guards stationed in the corner before letting himself drink you in. You looked stunning—a soft sundress, hair delicately curled, makeup enhancing every curve and angle of your face. His gaze lingered on your eyes, marvelling at the contrast: one foggy, hazy, while the other was bright and striking. A smirk pulled at his mouth, but he softened it for you.

“Hey,” he whispered, the one word holding more emotion than he’d ever admit, especially with witnesses around.

“Hi,” you whispered back, eyes lowering down his muscled body, the pattern tattoos like rings around his wrist and with the first three buttons of his jumpsuit unbuttoned, you found the top of the rings on his pecs as well. His light-pink hair was brushed down, the tendrils poking his reddish-brown eyes. A peculiar colour. “Hi.”

He smiled. “You already said that, baby.”

Baby. Gosh, you were even more nervous now.

“They said I can’t shake your hand.” You looked at the cuffs on his wrists and tossed a glare at the guards. “Or hands.”

“Fuck them.” Sukuna sat down and you followed. “You’re stunning.”

You blushed. “Thank you.”

“Not gonna compliment me back?” His deep voice was cocky, smug. You loved it.

“You’re handsome and you know it.”

“I sure do.”

You chuckled and Sukuna watched you with a soft expression. “Thanks for . . . you know.”

He understood the words you mouthed and smiled. “A little Ricin never hurt anyone.”

“How did you pull it off?”

His eyebrow arched in surprise. “Just because I’m stuck in this hellhole doesn’t mean I’ve lost everyone’s respect out there. Blood is thicker than water in my clan—except when it comes to my nephew. I just want to drain it out of him.”

Your own smile faltered. “Well . . . I’d like to have coffee with you. But fifty years, Sukuna, is too long.”

He sighed. “I know.”

“Isn’t there any way to get you out?”

Sukuna saw the longing on your face and wanted nothing more than to hold it in his hands and stare at you for hours. He just couldn’t believe you were real. He would’ve killed you if you were cat-fishing him. “I really want to touch you,” he whispered instead. He did. He really fucking did.

You pinched your lips in a smile. “Me, too.”

Sukuna placed his hands on the table and grabbed both of yours. They were so soft and small. He wanted to kiss each finger. Knuckle. Vein.

“Hands off, Ryomen,” the guard warned. He didn’t relent, and simply winked at you. “I said hands off.”

“Fuck you,” Sukuna spat back.

“Visit’s over.” The pair of guards pried Sukuna away, making you reach out for him with a protest.

“I’ll see you this weekend.” Sukuna winked and let the guards drag him away.

You sat stunned before the officers escorted you out of the visiting room and apologised on his behalf.

When the weekend finally rolled around, you found yourself standing at the prison gates once more, entering alongside a pair of guards.

Waiting by the visitor room was a towering figure with straight silver hair and striking blue-eyes. You got a closer look at the badge—Satoru Gojo. You’ve read the name in one of Sukuna’s letters complaining about him.

“Y/N. What a pleasant surprise,” he greeted, waving away the guards and pressing a hand on your back, leading you down the opposite direction.

“We can chat another time, officer. I’ve got to meet Suku—”

“He can wait. Prison teaches a man patience. He’s got fifty more years left. Plenty to visit then.” Gojo opened the door and guided you inside. The shutting made your shoulders flinch. The lock clicking had dread pooling in your stomach. “Sit. Would you like anything to drink?”

You eyed the dark setting bathed in a golden light from a corner lamp. There was a cart with a decanter set and a mini-fridge to the right. A bookshelf and a wardrobe on the left. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Gojo shrugged and poured himself whiskey before taking his seat behind his table. You sat opposite him. “So, what’s your relationship with my favourite prisoner?”

You blinked. “Uh, we’re just pen-pals.”

“Lying to a police officer is a serious offence.”

“I’m telling the truth,” you said. “We’re strictly pen-pals.”

“I’ve read your letters to know that isn’t true, Princess. So unless you want to sit there and lie to my fucking face, I suggest you start using that mouth for good and tell me the goddamn truth.” He slammed his glass down, but his face remained smiling with false politeness.

You felt suffocated in the office, eyes darting left and right for anything sharp in case he tried some other method to get you to talk.

“I’ve been in this field for a decade now to know when someone is hiding something from me,” Gojo continued, taking a leisure sip from his drink. “I have a file on you, Y/N. You’re an only child, with no proper education or a stable job. You’re one bad decision away from being trafficked. You’re submissive, a follower, who if went missing, no one would look for.” Tears welled your eyes at his words. “And I know that bastard’s the reason you’re still living in that dump you call home.”

That was the last nail in the coffin.

“I’ve been following you since your first letter,” he said quietly. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Oh, Princess, you couldn’t be any more wrong.” He stood up and rounded his way to you.

You quickly scrambled out of your seat. “Please. I don’t know anything. I—I don’t—Sukuna’s a friend, yes, but I’m not involved in any of his criminal activities.”

“Friend?” Gojo spat out. “That man is the last person you’d ever want as your friend.” He stalked forward and you retracted. “He’s committed more crimes in his lifetime than any other man. He’s killed half the people in this country, extorted money from politicians, burned down houses for fun, and killed my father!” He grabbed the collars of your dress and slammed you back into his wardrobe door. A cry ripped from your throat. “And you, a nobody, has the audacity to call that fucker a friend? Sweetheart, you’re just a ploy, a pawn, a time-pass for him. A hole to warm his cock in.” A sardonic chuckle. “That’ll never happen since he isn’t getting out anytime soon. But, hey, maybe I can prepare you for him.”

Your breath quickened, a whimper slipping past your lips. “How does that make you any better than him?”

Gojo smiled and brushed his lips over your ears. “Because I have the power to get away with it.”

Your eyes, frightened and flickering, dragged up to his blue-ones.

In the blink of an eye, you slapped him across the face, taking him by complete surprise and broke free from his hands. He leaped towards you as you unlocked the door and ran out and down the hall, shouting for help.

A pair of officers turned the corner.

“Help, please!” You fell into the arms of one of them. “Please, he’s going to hurt me!”

“Who?” one asked with concern.

“Satoru Gojo!”

They exchanged a look and briskly turned away, leaving you standing. Their spines straightened as Gojo walked down the hallway, flattening a hand down his chest. The duo saluted him and walked away with their heads down.

Your heart sank.

You had no power here.

“I told you, Princess,” Gojo purred, prowling towards you, “this is my domain.”

You cried out and ran towards the visitor’s room. The door knob was locked and could only be opened with a keycard. “Help!” You slammed your palms on the surface. “Please, someone! Help—ah!”

Gojo gripped the back of your hair and pulled you from the door. “Perfect timing, actually. I’d like to see the look on Ryomen’s face before I split his woman on my cock.” He swiped the card and opened the door, pushing you inside but controlling you with the grip he had on your head.

Sukuna was already standing and enraged, held back by two guards who struggled. He must’ve heard your helpless cries. You wish he didn’t have to. “Let her go, Gojo!”

“Oh, I will,” said Gojo, “as soon as I’m done with her.”

Sukuna growled, thrashing against his restraints. “You fucking prick, I’m gonna tear you in half if you touch her!”

“Like this?” Gojo squeezed your left breast and laughed.

Sukuna elbowed one of the guards in his nose, momentarily seeking freedom to hit the other. Hope blossomed in your chest as he fought them off and made his way towards you.

Gojo chuckled and pulled out his gun, shooting Sukuna in the leg. You jumped with a scream as he fell to the floor, clutching his thigh. “All this chaos for a common whore,” he muttered. “Come on, Princess. Let’s put you to good use.”

“No, please!” You shouted as he dragged you away. “Sukuna, no! Sukuna!”

“Y/N.” Sukuna reached his arm out, his hand curling into a fist and falling defeatedly onto the floor. “Don’t hurt her, please.” His face was squeezed in pain, as the guards kept him pinned to the floor. “Please! Don’t fucking hurt her—”

The door closed shut, and the last sight before your eyes was Sukuna crying.

Sukuna hadn’t heard from you in over a month.

He’d also spend the month in the infirmary after Uraume did an extensive surgery on his leg. It hadn’t hit a vital artery. He believed Satoru’s aim was calculated to keep him alive. To continue letting him suffer.

Sukuna also went quiet. He hadn’t spoken a single word to anyone except murmuring to himself. He read back on your letters, slept with the papers under his pillow, if he slept at all.

Every morning, afternoon, night, in and out of his dry sleep, he was plotting a way to get out of this hell and find you. Would you even want to see him? Would you even care? Were you even alive? He’d dragged you into his mess, put you in danger, and fell into Satoru’s disgusting trap.

“You need to eat something, Sukuna,” Uraume advised as they have been since his injury. They placed the tray in front of him. “At least eat the yogurt.”

Were you eating? Were you still living in his house? Were you alive? That question rang in his head again.

“For fucks sake.” Uraume brought forth a stool and sat next to his bed, staring at the side of his face. “What the hell do you want to do?”

He wanted to kill Satoru first. Then escape with Toji since he was the only bastard he trusted in this place. Then find you and run away from the law as far as possible. It was a simple plan that required efficiency.

“Are you gonna talk—”

Sukuna shoved the tray aside, the food falling onto the floor. He was irritated by the questions outside and inside of his head. “I need to find her,” he mumbled to himself. “I need to know if she’s alive.” Please, baby, please be alive.

“Everything all right in here, doc?” One of the guards stationed outside the door asked with his head peering through the door.

Sukuna stared at him, then went back to Uraume. They met his eyes with their blank stare. They scanned down his body, to his injured leg, then back to his head.

A sigh left them. “No,” they replied. “Do you mind helping me clean up the mess?”

Sukuna gritted his jaw as the guard walked in, closing the door and crouching down, grumbling curses at Sukuna. Uraume stood from their stool and made their way to the cabinet, pulling out a syringe and a small vial.

Sukuna's eyes lightened, spine straightening. A smile curved at his lip as they flicked the droplets from the tip of the injection and walked over, making small-talk about the weather.

Suddenly, Uraume jabbed the needle into the officer’s neck and pushed down the plunger. He fell to his side, clutching his neck and staring up at them as they shrugged. Sukuna watched with pure delight as his body began to convulse, foam gathering at this mouth and dripping from the side.

Then he stopped.

“He’s dead,” Uraume said before Sukuna could ask. “Works the night shift so you won’t have a problem running into anyone else. Change into his clothes. I’ll drive.” They walked away to grab a face mask.

“Why?” asked Sukuna.

Uraume sighed, head dropping. “Because I fucking hate it here.”

Sukuna was definitely going to hire them once he killed his Gojo, and his nephew.

He quickly changed into the officer’s clothes, giving him a hard kick in the stomach that had Uraume rolling their eyes.

Sukuna followed behind as they led the way. “Let’s take Toji.”

“Why?” they asked. “That’s a hassle.”

“Just feel bad.”

“And when did you start feeling guilt?” Uraume easily slipped past the security gate, waving to the officer who was busy on his phone.

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling because he knew. Sure, you’d only touched him once, but your letters were what truly began to change him. Just the other day, he’d lost a round of blackjack, stacking his debt to Toji by a million, and instead of knocking the guy out cold, Sukuna shook hands and called it a ‘good game.’ “On second thought, let’s leave him here for the time being.” Until he got his money in check.

Once they settled into Uraume’s car, Sukuna quickly discarded the officer's cap, tie, and badges. Uraume entered your address from the letters, and they drove in silence for the next thirty minutes.

When they arrived, the building matched your description: shitty.

Uraume stopped Sukuna before he could leap out of the car. They scanned the street for any signs of police presence. “Go. I’ll wait here.”

Sukuna nodded and dashed out of the car, walking inside the apartment. There was no buzzer system, which meant anyone could stroll in, armed and dangerous. This was a problem. He needed to get you out of here and into one of his safe houses—a hidden place even his bastard nephew didn’t know about.

He hurried up the emergency stairwell to the tenth floor, slightly winded by the time he reached door 1090.

This was it.

With his hands gripping the edges of the door, he hunched forward, heart racing. Please, be alive.

Finally, he knocked.

He chewed the shit out of his bottom lip, hissing impatiently through his teeth. “Come on, Y/N.” He knocked again, his impatience boiling over. “It’s me, Sukuna! Please, open the door.” He pounded harder, fear creeping in with each passing second. The Sukuna Ryomen was . . . scared. “Goddammit!”

“Sukuna . . .?”

He halted mid-breakdown and turned slowly, his heart dropping at the sight of you standing there with two bags of groceries. You looked so fragile, your complexion pale, and the radiance he remembered from your visit had completely vanished.

The grocery bags slipped from your hands and fell to the ground.

In an instant, you both rushed toward each other, and he lifted you off the ground effortlessly. You wrapped your arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably as he buried his hand in the back of your hair, inhaling the comforting scent of your body wash.

“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered. “It’s okay, I’m here.” His eyes were directed straight ahead, and he was shaking. Terribly. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

You pulled back, cradling his face in your small hands. Gently, you brushed aside his dark, mink-like hair, tracing the tattoos on his skin with your fingertips. “You’re alive,” you whispered, overwhelmed by relief. You couldn’t help but touch him, and he simply smiled, allowing you the closeness. “God, you’re alive. Sukuna—you’re really alive. How?”

“Of course, I am. I just needed to know you were alive,” he replied, his hands enveloping your cheeks. “Where did you go? Why did you stop writing to me?”

Your face went blank. “What do you mean?”

“Your letters. You stopped writing to me.”

“They . . .” Your voice cracked. “They told me you were sentenced to death.”

He was taken back. “What the fuck?”

Realisation dawned upon you. The second time you visited Sukuna, Satoru had literally dragged you out of the station, kicking you out the doors. He’d threatened to take you to his office next time, but since he had a meeting with officials that day, he’d reluctantly let you go. That didn’t stop you from sending countless letters, pouring your heart out until, two weeks later, you finally received a notification from the police station. Sukuna had been sentenced to death by lethal injection and was no longer alive. You’d cried for days on end. You imagined he had been cremated and reduced to ashes, stored away somewhere. The thought shattered you. For an entire month, you couldn’t bring yourself to leave your house.

Until tonight.

And he was here. Sukuna was here. He was alive.

“Y/N,” he murmured, his thumb gently brushing the area below your sightless eye. “Let’s head inside, alright?”

You nodded, pressing a soft kiss to the underside of his wrist. He held your hand tightly while using his other arm to carry your grocery bags. Once you reached your apartment, you opened the door and locked it securely. The deadbolt you had installed was a precaution against Satoru, just in case he showed up.

“I’m so happy you’re al—”

Sukuna kissed you before the words could leave your mouth. You wrapped your arms around his neck, moaning from the taste of his lips, the taste you’d been craving for months now. He didn’t allow you to breathe, didn’t pull away. You both stood there in the alcove, kissing for minutes, clinging to each other. He cupped the back of your head and drew apart from your lips, peppering kisses over your face, especially your foggy eye.

“I don’t want to fuck you, baby,” he whispered in your ear. “I want to make love to you. For hours.” Your grip tightened in his shirt. “Then I need you to pack everything in a bag and run away with me.”

“Run away?” You searched his dark-reddish eyes. “Run away where?”

His knuckles grazed your wet cheek. “Somewhere not even God can find us.”

You swallowed hard. “They’ll send out a manhunt, Sukuna. What if we get caught? What if they take you—”

He cut you off with a kiss. “No one is going to take me away from you. Do you get that?” His strong fingers moved through your hair. “I’d turn this world to dust before that happens.”

Your insides melted from the threat. “Take me,” you murmured over his lips. He kissed you. “Take me everywhere, anywhere, wherever, as long as it’s with you.”

Sukuna lifted you effortlessly, carrying you like a bride as he kicked open your bedroom door. He set you down on the bed, then began stripping off his clothes, revealing the geometric tattoos that marked his thighs and torso. You were caught off guard by how quickly he moved, fumbling to take off your sweater and jeans. By the time you looked back at him, he was already naked, and your gaze dropped to what you could only describe as a gloriously, long erection.

“Woah,” you whispered, feeling your mouth go dry. “You’re abnormally big.”

“You can take it.” He leaned over you, tearing your panties without a second thought. Before you could protest about them being your favorite pair, he spread your legs and went down on you. “Oh, my god—Sukuna—wait—”

“Waited too long,” he growled, his mouth finding your clit as he buried his nose between your wet folds. He nipped, licked, and bit, his tongue plunging deep into you, creating messy sounds that filled the air. You couldn't form words or catch your breath, gripping the roots of his hair tightly.

When you came like a flood, Sukuna lifted your hips, making sure not a single drop of you was lost to the sheets. He let out loud, deep moans as he sloppily lapped at your sensitive cunt.

He wiped his glistening mouth with his fingers and then pressed them against your lips. You eagerly sucked on his warm, thick digits, noting the lustrous glint in his eyes. He pulled his fingers out abruptly. “Suck my cock.”

Suck his what?

You looked down and saw him leaking at the tip. You clenched your legs, unsure. He wanted you to take that into your mouth?

You licked your lips, managing to kneel while he stood before you. He took hold of himself, rubbing the tip against your lips. You instinctively flicked your tongue out to taste him, causing him to flinch. “Sorry—”

“Don’t apologize.” He seemed to enjoy it. “Just take it in your mouth.”

You nodded, wrapping your fingers around his hot, veiny length. You opened your jaw as wide as you could and slowly took him in. His head fell back, and he engulfed your face with his palms. Your performance was mediocre, and yet he was entertained.

His tip pressed against the back of your throat, making you pull back to cough. He laughed softly, brushing your cheek with his hand.

“Come on, baby. You need to get used to it.”

“I’ve never done this before,” you replied, your voice shaky as you reached for him again.

“Stick your tongue out.”

You took a deep breath and extended your tongue. He rested the head of his cock on it and started to move his hips slowly.

Slowly, you took him in, feeling his satisfaction as he gently rocked his hips back and forth. He tasted warm and a little salty, and you found your hand wandering between your legs, seeking some relief.

“I’m going to pick up the pace, alright, baby?”

You nodded in response.

“Don’t be embarrassed if you choke,” he said, hooking a stray lock behind your ear. “It’ll just make me come faster.”

With that, he thrust deeper, and you gripped his hips tightly, struggling to catch your breath. He noticed and pulled back slightly to give you a moment, but it was brief before he pushed back in again. “You’re taking me so well, baby. Fuck.” His movements became more feverish, and you felt the pressure building as you choked and gagged, saliva escaping at the corners of your mouth. “Fuck, I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come down your throat.”

You tapped his leg, shaking your head.

“No?” He smirked. “You don’t want me to come down your throat?”

You shook your head again and pointed between your legs.

In an instant, Sukuna pulled out. He flipped you onto your chest, lifting your ass up in the air. Without a second thought, he thrust himself deep inside you, and you cried out his name into the pillow.

He felt so full, so thick, pushing into you with a force that made your breath hitch. It was everything you needed—so good, so fucking good. “Fuck, you’re tight,” he groaned. He filled you completely, driving into you with a fast rhythm that left you moaning, completely lost in the pleasure.

Your nails clawed at the sheets as his thick tip pressed against your womb, punctuated by the stinging slaps of his hands against your ass. He showered you with a blend of sweet and dirty words—“good fucking girl,” “cock slut,” “so perfect and tight,” “little whore”—and you pushed back, needing him deeper and deeper.

Sukuna released a torrent of warm cum inside you, still driving his hips against you, holding you securely by the waist. The sensation sent waves of pleasure through you, and he pulled out, flipping you onto your back. He bent your knees, driving himself back inside without hesitation. How was he still so hard?

Your hands cupped his flushed, beautiful face, a lazy smile stretching across both your lips. Sukuna leaned in, kissing you deeply before trailing his lips down to your neck while his hand found its way to your breast. “I’m not on birth control anymore, you know?”

“Good.” He pulled back to meet your gaze. “And don’t even think about getting back on it.”

“But we can’t afford the risk, Suku—”

“I love you,” he said, his grip firm on your jaw. Everything inside you exploded. “I love you, baby. I love you so fucking much that I’ll take every fucking risk.”

You moaned softly as he came again, your trembling fingers brushing against his lips. “I love you, too.” He kissed your fingertips, a promise in every touch. “I’ll take every risk with you.”

“Fuck yeah you will.” He didn’t pull out, his eyes locked on yours. “Starting with putting a baby in you.”

You happily accepted your fate.

Sukuna pulled the trigger, shooting another police officer in the back of his head. The sound of the gunfire mixed with the blaring sirens, echoing through the flickering lights of the corridors—a devious melody composed just for him. He chuckled low, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a grin as another officer lunged out, attempting to stop him—pathetic. A single shot rang out, and the man crumpled like paper.

The path to Satoru’s office was a long one, and the bodies he left sprawled out in his wake were only a brief distraction from the task at hand. He had things to do today, after all.

Another officer stumbled into view, eyes wide, panic evident. He didn’t stand a chance. Sukuna barely glanced at him as he fired, stepping over the man as he slumped against the wall. Blood splattered his shoes, but it was hardly the worst stain on his day.

You were going to be pissed. He could practically hear the biting tone, the disappointed scowl that’d meet him the moment he finally made it to Mai’s first birthday party. Sukuna scoffed as he shot a bullet straight through a door that dared open near him, knocking down yet another obstacle.

But this was necessary. He needed to do this.

Free Toji. Kill Gojo. And then, eventually, deal with his meddling nephew. Everything would finally align, and maybe—just maybe—he could stop all this. For you. For your daughter.

Satoru’s office was close now. He could smell the antiseptic scent of the door, the false air of authority that seemed to reek from it. He cocked his gun, steeling himself. Because when he was done here—when he’d finally finished what he’d started—he’d make it up to you.

Or so he told himself, as another officer charged and met the floor with a hole in his skull.

Sukuna didn’t bother with the doorknob. He slammed his boot into the door, sending it splintering inward with a loud crack. The office was stripped bare; Satoru’s usual pile of clutter, the irritating stench of his cologne—gone. Only the dust of where things once sat remained on the shelves and desk.

The bastard had fled.

Sukuna’s jaw clenched as he surveyed the room. Gojo knew he was coming and had bolted like a coward hours ago. He pulled his lighter from his pocket, flipping it open with a flick of his thumb, the small flame dancing aglow. Without a second thought, he stepped to the heavy, pretentious curtains Gojo insisted on, pressing the flame to the thick fabric. It caught quickly, embers licking up and curling black around the edges as the fire took hold, consuming Satoru’s last pathetic hold on this place.

He turned and walked out, ignoring the smoke that was already billowing into the hall. The prison alarm was still blaring, red lights flashing down the cold corridors as he made his way to the cells. Every so often, he’d pause, assessing the prisoner cowering behind bars. Rapists, pedophiles, molesters, abusers, killers of innocent lives—he moved on from them. But when he found those who didn’t quite repulse him, he took a single shot at their lock, releasing them in a stream of confused, wary freedom.

As he approached the far end of the corridor, a familiar sight greeted him—his old cell. And standing behind those hard, metal bars, arms crossed, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, was Toji.

“Didn’t think you’d come back to this hellhole,” Toji remarked.

“Not for long,” Sukuna replied, levelling his gun at the lock. He fired once, the lock shattering as the cell door swung open.

Toji stepped out of his cell, took one look around, then paused. “Hold up.”

Sukuna raised an eyebrow, watching as the man crouched beside a loose brick in the wall. With a wry smile, he pulled out an old, scratched-up plastic bottle with a wriggling, sickly-looking worm inside. He tapped the side of the bottle, making the creature twist and writhe. “Almost forgot my little friend here.”

Sukuna barked a short laugh. “You’re out of your damn mind.”

Alarms blared louder as they navigated the winding corridors and ran past prisoners surging toward freedom. Some guards tried to block the path, but they were quickly swept aside by Sukuna’s bullets and Toji’s fists. By the time they hit the outer gates, the entire prison was pandemonium, prisoners scattering into the open like ants from a burning nest.

Outside, a sleek, black car idled just past the gate. Uraume sat coolly behind the wheel, watching the stampede of convicts with bored detachment. As they approached, Uraume rolled down the window, glancing at them with their nose slightly crinkled.

“I could smell you two from a mile away,” they said dryly, eyes flicking to the stains of blood on their clothes. “Maybe next time, schedule a prison massacre that doesn’t fall on your daughter’s birthday?”

“Just drive,” Sukuna replied, sliding into the backseat with Toji following. Toji glanced at Uraume with a quick nod, still keeping a light hold on his bottle, the worm twisting inside.

“Welcome back to the real world, Fushiguro,” they said, starting the car as they drove off into the night.

The road stretched long and dark, winding into the depths of a thick forest. The further they drove, the thicker the trees became, their branches curving overhead to cast everything in shadows. The road narrowed into a rugged trail, overgrown and wild. Uraume navigated it deftly, until at last, the forest opened up, and they could see the soft glimmer of moonlight on the water beyond.

Perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean stood their safe house—a dark brick estate against the endless stretch of water. Waves crashed against the rocks far below, the scent of salt and sea heavy in the air.

Sukuna looked at the house, then at Toji’s surprised face.

“This is where you’ve been hiding for the two years?” he asked as soon as they were out of the car.

“Not for long if I fuck this up.” Sukuna slipped in through the garage, keeping his steps light. He had just one goal at this moment: reach the shower before you spotted the blood streaked on his clothes and the smell of gunpowder clinging to him.

But as he shut the door, there you were, arms crossed, eyes sharp as they landed on him.

“Sukuna,” you started, an edge in your tone that he recognized all too well. “Do you have any idea what day it is? Look at you; you're a mess!” You gestured at the dark stains on his shirt and his unmistakable smirk.

Instead of trying to dodge the lecture, he listened, that faint smile tugging at his lips as he watched you, soaking in each scolding word. You were the one person who never held back with him, and it made something dangerous in him soften, something in him settle. “I know, baby,” he replied, pecking your cheek. “But I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Barely,” you replied, sighing, though you couldn’t quite hide the relief in your voice. You glanced over his shoulder. “Toji, Uraume—it’s good to see you both.”

Uraume gave a slight bow, a wry smile still tugging at their lips, while Toji just gave you a quick nod.

You waved a hand, turning back to the kitchen. “Both of you boys—shower, now. I won’t have the two of you smelling like a prison while I’m trying to decorate my daughter’s cake. Go on!”

Toji gave Sukuna a knowing look and shrugged, as if to say, She’s right. Sukuna shot him a warning look, then followed up the stairs, chuckling under his breath as he imagined how you’d cornered him like this.

Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out of the shower, cleaned up, feeling far lighter as he tugged on a fresh shirt and came downstairs, catching the scent of the dinner you’d prepared.

He walked over to you, wrapping his arms around you and pressing a kiss to your temple. You rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide the small smile that melted your anger as he pulled you close.

“Gojo got away,” he murmured. “He knew I was coming, and he ran like the coward he is. But I’ll find him. And I’ll make him pay for what he did to you. I swear it.”

You paused, looking up into his eyes, your hand settling on his cheek. “I know you will, Sukuna. But don’t miss the important things here. We’re what’s important now, not just revenge.”

The words took root in him, grounding him, but that flicker of rage still danced in his eyes. He pulled you close, pressing his forehead to yours. “I’ll never let him touch us again. I promise you that.”

Just as you leaned in for another kiss, Sukuna heard the faint sound of your daughter stirring awake from her nap on the living room floor. Mai’s soft little whimpers broke the room’s quiet. Instinctively, he abandoned your kiss, his attention snapping to her as he practically floated over to where she was squirming in her pink dress, rubbing her tiny fists over her eyes.

“There’s my girl,” he murmured, scooping her up with all the gentleness he could muster. Her sleepy eyes blinked open, and he was rewarded with that toothy little grin she’d recently mastered, one that brought an uncharacteristic softness to his entire face. He pressed a cascade of kisses on her cheeks, nose, forehead—anywhere he could reach. “Look at you, sweetheart. All dressed up for your birthday, huh? The prettiest girl in the world.”

You laughed softly from the kitchen, watching as Sukuna held her close, stepping into an impromptu waltz around the living room, his steps surprisingly skilled. She squealed in delight, her small hands reaching up to his face as he spun her around. Even Toji, who had just come down from the shower, stopped in his tracks at the sight, a rare, amused smile tugging at his mouth.

Sukuna glanced up, catching Toji’s presence, and with a proud smirk said, “Toji, meet my daughter, Mai. She’s already got more spirit than most of the people you and I have met.”

Toji stepped forward, studying your daughter. He reached out a hand, and she looked at him with wide eyes, inspecting him with her natural, innocent curiosity. “She looks like trouble. Must take after her old man.”

“Her mother, mostly,” Sukuna said in your direction, bouncing her lightly. “She’s going to have a whole world to handle, with us around.”

In the background, Uraume was setting the table, their usual precision in each movement. They threw Sukuna a blank look, brushing off their hands. “Now that the table’s set, if you’d all just take your seats, maybe we can have a peaceful birthday dinner without the talk of blood and violence for once.”

Sukuna chuckled, shooting them a dry look before turning back to his daughter. Holding Mai close, he took a seat at the head of the table with you beside him. He looked around, taking in the sight—the cake you’d just set down, the quiet chatter as Uraume and Toji exchanged comments, and his daughter babbling in his lap, still pawing at his face with sticky fingers.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt peace.

The “Happy Birthday” song had been sung, candles blown out, cake shared, and Toji had crashed in the guest room, completely knocked out. Uraume, too, was resting in another room, finally allowing herself a few hours of sleep.

In your bed, the soft rise and fall of your daughter’s tiny breaths filled the space between you and Sukuna. She slept peacefully between you both, tiny fingers curled into fists as she dreamed. But you and Sukuna were both wide awake, eyes locked on each other in the moonlight. His hand drifted up, fingertips brushing your cheek.

“Do you remember my first letter?” you asked.

A smirk began at his lips. “You mean the diary entry about the cockroaches in your kitchen and how you thought seducing your landlord was a better solution than paying rent?”

You laughed, covering your mouth to keep quiet, not wanting to wake your baby. He loved that laugh—the way it sounded like music only he got to hear.

“Or how no one with one functioning eye could ever be taken seriously romantically,” he added. “Debunked, by the way.”

Your laugh softened, and you looked at him with a smile that held a thousand memories. “Do you remember the last thing I wrote?”

“The part about Satanism?”

You laughed again, the sound bubbling up and melting into the dark. And as he listened, he couldn’t help but chuckle alongside, his thumb tracing along your cheek, taking in the moment like he was trying to memorise it.

You took a breath, glancing down before meeting his eyes again. “I said I was lonely as hell, remember?” Sadness wove into your words. “And . . . I was. Back then, I thought no one could ever really understand me. Until you did.”

Sukuna shook his head. “You were never meant to be alone, baby,” he murmured. “Not then, not ever. Not while I’m here.”

You swallowed, heart catching as you looked at the life you’d built, the fragile happiness that now lay nestled between you both. “I’m just . . . scared sometimes,” you admitted. “I’m scared of losing this. Of losing you. I don’t know if I could protect what we have.”

“We’ll protect it together,” Sukuna affirmed. “Nothing will take this from us. Not while I’m still breathing.” He leaned forward, his lips meeting yours in a kiss that was deep, reassuring, exactly like the one he’d give you when you’d sealed your vows. When he pulled back, you met his eyes, a soft smile tugging at your mouth.

“I love you, Sukuna,” you whispered, fingers brushing his sharp jaw. “Genuinely, your wife.”

He took them and gave a kiss to the tips. “And I love you most, baby. Genuinely, your husband.”

Moments later, your eyes drifted shut, your breathing evening out as you finally slipped into sleep. But Sukuna stayed awake, his gaze never leaving you, or your daughter.

This was the family he’d fought and bled for, the life he’d killed to create. And yet, an unsettling undercurrent of unfinished business tugged at his nerves. But tonight, he forced it away, just for a while.

For now, there was no room for anything but the second chance he’d been given.

Genuinely, by you.

1K notes · View notes

eightmakesonebraincell · 1 year ago

Text

ateez as royals who fall for you (maknae line)

read hyung line here

genre: royalty!ateez x fem!reader, fluff, angst, smut, crack, a brainrot and smutfest of royal tropes

length: 11.3k

c/w: very nsfw scenes - mdni, explicit language (dirty talk, swearing, insults), death, violence, blood & injuries, weapons, heavy & mature themes (sex work, murder, assassination, execution, mentions of misogyny)

a/n: as much as writing royals was tricky, it's kind of 🤢 sad 🤢 to see this au end. that being said nobody ask me for a pt 2 pls i need to recover from the trauma LMAOO and as always, huge thank you to the queen of royal au's herself @sorryimananti-romantic for helping me finish the fic and for teaching me how to make moodboards using something that is *not* word doc :')

san

pov: you're forbidden lovers

“shh,” san hushes you with a teasing curl of his fingers that are buried inside you. “wouldn’t want everyone outside to know what a dirty little slut the princess is, do you?”

his other hand covers your mouth, stifling the breathy moans and desperate whines that escape your lips as you sit in between his legs, naked and pressed back to lean against his chest

there is the sound of water splashing over the edge of the bathtub when san hooks his feet around your inner ankles so that he can spread your legs wider for him

he presses the palm of his hand harshly against your clit and your back arches with a muffled worship of his name

“or maybe you like that,” he teases “you like the idea of people knowing how good i make you feel with my fingers”

san removes his hand from your mouth and lowers it to pinch your nipple, smirking against your neck as you babble incoherently

he coos as he adds yet another finger into you, “imagine that, everyone knows you as the princess who loves being fucked dumb. and by one of her servants, no less”

all caution is thrown to wind and you drop your head back to lean against his shoulder, mouth lolling open with unrestrained pleads for more, more, faster as he angles his fingers to hit that sweet spot inside of you

“cum, princess” he demands

you grip bruises onto san’s thighs and arms when the pace of his fingers doesn’t relent even after your orgasm has washed over you

his arms tighten around you as his thighs flex to keep you still in his hold

you let out a choked sob from the overstimulation, teetering between pain and pleasure

“give me one more, i know you can do it,” he coaxes

the hand that has been fondling your breasts snakes down to rub your clit

with his fingers knuckle-deep inside of your pussy and his other hand playing relentlessly with your sensitive clit, the scale tips over and your vision blurs as another wave of pleasure hits you, more intense than the first one

“princess?” and then a knock. “are you okay?”

san slowly draws out the remainder of your orgasm with lazy thrusts of his finger into you

you just know he’s enjoying himself when you have to hide the shakiness in your voice to answer back to your maid outside, “everything’s fine. i’ll be done soon”

“soon?” san smirks, lifting you up by the waist to align your folds with his swollen cock. “then we better make this quick”

because you and san do not have the luxury of time, much less the luxury of love

he isn’t just another one of the numerous servants who serve you

he is everything to you despite how taboo it is for a princess and servant to love each other

his insignificance within the palace makes it much easier for him to slip away; for nobody to take notice

but at the same time, his insignificance is the whole reason why you two must be secretive in the first place

you make sure san has safely snuck out of the bathroom before you finally exit the bathtub and stand on unsteady legs

you allow your maids to come in and help you into the elaborate attire you are to wear for the afternoon

your parents have informed you that you are going to have visitors, thus requiring you to look your best

without much time left until the appointed meeting due to your…escapade, you make your way to the great hall, catching a glimpse of san’s dimpled smile from amongst the other body servants and waiting staff in the room

you have only just settled into your seat next to the king and queen when the guard outside the doors announces the arrival of your guests - the monarchs from the neodonian kingdom

schooling your expression to one of neutrality, you watch as they enter

and then you realise it isn’t just the neodonian king and queen who have come to visit

but the prince as well

he is undeniably handsome and pleasing to the eye with his sleekly gelled hair, chiseled features and tall, sturdy build

the young prince catches you looking at him and breaks out into a friendly smile and-

he has dimples too

the king garners everyone’s attention with a clear of his throat, before he welcomes the monarchs

prince jaehyun, you learn his name is

“after much discussion between ourselves and king jeong and queen jeong, we are pleased to announce our desire for closer relations between our kingdoms,” your father starts, booming voice resounding within the hall

you can’t stop yourself from looking over at him as he speaks with purpose, a strange niggling feeling starting to twist your stomach

the tight smile that your mother passes you from your father’s other side does little to settle your nerves

“as such,” the king continues, “we shall look forward to the engagement between my daughter and prince jaehyun”

there is a roaring sound in your ears, as if you have been pushed to stand under a raging waterfall

engagement

the engagement

you

prince jaehyun

the engagement between you and prince jaehyun

it takes everything in your body not to bolt up from your seat

your hands grip the armrests of your seat with a grasp so tight you are certain you will leave a permanent imprint of your agony

instead, you look around frantically for the one person your instincts are screaming for

where is san?

you are afraid to see how much this is going to hurt him

you are desperate to tell him that you had no idea about this

you are aching to press confessions of love and reassurance against his lips

but just like the insignificance of his status, san is nowhere to be seen

over the two years that you and san have been in your secret relationship, he has gained extensive knowledge of which particular tasks allow him a greater chance of seeing you, which corridors reach you the quickest, and which times during your schedule you have a break

never would you have thought he would use this knowledge to avoid you

it continues like that for the weeks following the announcement

you have no choice but to spend time with your future fiance when your father tells you very clearly to “ensure the prince feels at home”

prince jaehyun is warm and you find yourself getting along with him like you two are friends, but that is it - there are no sparks brighter than friendship

when you spend time with him, you cannot help but compare him to san; san would’ve said this, san would’ve done that, san, san, san

jaehyun engages you in conversation, easily filling in the gaps and lulls with little comments here and there, equipped with a charming laugh and deep dimples

but it only reminds you of san’s dimples and crescent eyes when you two would race through corridors, fingers tightly interwoven as you both run away to a secluded area with hushed giggles

jaehyun points out that neither of you like mushrooms during a dinner and helps nudge the servings on both of your plates to one side

the smile as you say “thank you” does not fully grace your lips because you think about san, who boasts that he will eat all the mushrooms in the world so that you never have to lay eyes on one ever again

jaehyun offers a soft yet sturdy hand to help you down the stairs or when he notices you are walking in heels across an uneven surface

your body recalls san’s rough, calloused hands that leave a trail of goosebumps wherever they touch your bare skin as he worships your body all night long

jaehyun is handsome and he is kind, but he is not san

the night before the king officially announces your engagement with prince jaehyun arrives

and still, you have not had a moment alone with san since he disappeared during that first announcement in the great hall

hurt and longing consume you to the very core

some days it is manageable, a concealed yet incessant thought, like a sticker stuck to the sole of your shoe

other days it wraps around your soul completely like a constrictor tightening as it slowly squeezes the life out of its prey

but you know that you cannot be selfish

what you feel, san feels with an intensity multiplied several times

after all, you are not the one who must stand in the shadows as the love of your life becomes engaged to somebody else, powerless to do anything but watch and poison your own smile with lies

you are lying on your bed when a quick, sharp knock sounds on your bedroom doors

you make no move to acknowledge your visitor, having told your maids very clearly you did not want to be disturbed tonight

your last night as yourself before you become prince jaehyun’s fiance

but then the knocks come a little more urgent, a little more frantic, just like your heartbeat does as it starts to speed up in anticipation

you hold your breath as you hurry to pull open the doors-

and there he is

“san-”

he swallows the rest of your words in a desperate kiss, his hands coming up to cradle your jaw as he walks you backwards so that he can step into your room

he tilts your head and slots his lips against yours again while he nudges your door closed with his foot

it isn’t until you let out a whine as his tongue swipes over your bottom lip that he pulls back to finally look at you, both of his thumbs caressing your cheekbones

you grip the front of his linen shirt, afraid that he will disappear as soon as you let go

“san, i- i had no idea, i didn’t agree to any of this”

he shushes you gently, a painful smile adorning his handsome face

“i know. i know, so please don’t cry, love,” he murmurs softly

you don’t even realise the weeks of suppressed emotions have started making their way down your face in salty trails until san uses the back of his fingers to tenderly brush them away

“i’m getting engaged tomorrow, san,” your voice breaks as reality settles in

you are so afraid

you are so lost

above all, you are so in love with san

“i know,” he reassures again, “but until tomorrow, you are still mine”

and so you spend your last night together

time has always been precious; conversations, kisses and touches rushed and with fervour

but tonight, san takes his time with you

he lays on your bed with you cradled on top of him, limbs tangled together as he savours the taste of your lips against his

he turns you onto your back as he slowly undresses you, leaving tattoos of his love each time he bares another part of your body

he pleasures you with his fingers whilst whispering into your ears, creating a harmony with his praises and the melodious moans that leave your lips

and as he brings you both to your highs numerous times throughout the night like an ingrained dance routine, it is accompanied with confessions of i love you

san holds you against his chest under your blankets so tightly that you cannot tell where your body ends and his body starts

before you drift off, safe and protected in his arms, he murmurs against your temple, “no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what happens in the future, my heart will always be yours”

“as will mine”

you wake up the next morning to an empty bed and an equally empty heart

restless and drowning in a mix of emotions, you pace the empty corridors of the guest bedchambers

which is where jaehyun finds you as he exits his room

he is surprised but is quick to greet you kindly, “good morning, princess. what are you doing here?”

you pause mid-step

what are you doing?

“prince jaehyun,” you let the words come out of you before you can regret them. “can we talk for a moment?”

he nods, entering his room again as he pulls the door open wider for you to follow

jaehyun closes the door and then offers you a seat on his sofa, before pulling up his own chair and settling a respectful distance away from you

“i hope you don’t feel uncomfortable in my room,” he explains, “i thought that we would be less likely to be disturbed in here…considering most people know of our engagement today”

“actually, i wanted to talk to you about that”

“go on,” he encourages you with a dimpled smile

you take a deep breath

“i’m sorry,” you blurt out

and then you are admitting to the prince that he is lovely and charming and caring, but you just don’t see it working out with him

you don’t want to get engaged with him

because your heart already belongs to somebody else

“good”

“i’m so sorry, i should have been honest with you from the start but- wait, what?” you look up from where you have been nervously picking at your cuticles

jaehyun is smiling at you - a genuine smile that you did not know he had

“i’m actually relieved to hear that, princess,” he admits. “because i…also have someone that i love back home”

and for the first time, you and jaehyun truly see each other in the same light

“who is it?” he asks

“his name is san,” and then you add on, “he has dimples just like you do”

you ask him the same question

you see the way jaehyun’s expression softens with love from just the mere thought of the other

it makes you wonder whether you have the same look on your face when you mention san

jaehyun jokes, “want to be the one who tells your father we’re calling off the engagement? i don’t fancy getting executed today”

but despite what he says, mere hours later, when you are both standing in the great hall before your parents - the kings and queens of both your kingdoms - he is the one to speak up

“your majesty, we have decided to part ways peacefully and would not like to proceed with the engagement. our kingdom will always be your ally, regardless of marital relations or not”

“what?” you see veins starting to appear across the king’s forehead as he tries to maintain his temper, but the queen and the jeong monarchs seem to be taking the news much better

disappointed, perhaps, but understanding

the queen leans closer to remind the king that they had all agreed to this engagement on the terms that the decision would ultimately be yours and jaehyun’s

you suddenly speak up because this may be the only time you have the courage to

“i have one more thing to say,” you declare. “i revoke my noble status and thus declare nullified all the privileges, rules and traditions that come with nobility. i have someone i love and i wish to marry them as myself, not as the kingdom’s princess”

the king roars furiously, “that is enough! leave!” and he slams his hand against the throne’s armrest

shocked and betrayed by your father’s reaction, you rush out of the great hall with tears welling in your eyes

only to run straight into the waiting arms of san

“oh, princess,” he murmurs against the crown of your head as he engulfs you in his embrace

he doesn’t have to say anything for you to realise that he has heard the whole conversation

but you do not care about anything anymore

you are where you want to be, held by who you want to be with

“how are you here?” you sniffle

“jaehyun approached me earlier. i thought i was going to get beat up,” san’s attempt to make you smile is successful

when you lift your head up to look at him, you realise his eyes are wet as well

then you feel his body stiffen as his eyes shift to focus on something behind you

someone

he immediately steps away from you, bowing deeply as he greets the queen

you turn around to see her face adorning an endearing smile

“it’s fine, sannie,” she says, and you are not sure whether you and san are more surprised by the fact that she knows him by name or by the affectionate nickname she has used

“i’ll, uh, leave you two to talk,” he flusters

she thanks him with a teasing remark, “i won’t keep her away from you for very long”

san waits further down the corridor, back turned to give you two a moment of privacy

and then she is stroking your hair affectionately

“i am so proud of you. you’ve grown up so well and you are so brave,” she says

you don’t understand

you ask, “why aren’t you angry?”

“oh, baby,” she fondly runs her fingers through your hair, just like she used to when you were younger. “before my duties as the queen to my people, i am the mother to my daughter. i love you and all i want is for you to be happy”

your lips tremble with emotion as your mother pulls you into a hug

“does sannie make you happy, dear?”

you nod, “the happiest”

“then that is all i want. now go,” she takes a hold of your shoulders and gently turns you in the direction of san. “i’ll talk to your father”

with one last encouraging squeeze, you race down the corridor towards san

he hears your footsteps and has already turned around with open arms waiting to catch you

you hear him let out an oomph! with how hard you throw yourself into him, but he is then swaying your bodies side to side

san pulls back slightly with an incredulous look. “does this mean we can be together? together together?”

“i goddamn hope so because i gave up my princess privileges for you. no more carriages, no more assorted sweet delicacies, no more daily massages-” you fold down your fingers as you continue listing things off

he cuts you off with a tickle to your sides as he says, “that’s easy to sort out”

“first, you’ll still be my princess,” he unfurls one of your fingers so it stands upright again

“second, i’ll carry you myself so that you never need to use your feet again,” he unfurls another finger

“i’ll give you a treat whenever you want,” he kisses your lips, nibbling on your bottom lip with a teasing tug

“and, dear princess,” he pulls you flush against his body and you have to steady yourself on his chest to avoid tripping over, “i can give you hourly massages…”

smirking, he starts to lower his head to suck pretty marks onto your neck as he whispers in a low voice, “...if you can keep up”

mingi

pov: you're the prince's maid

for what you are about to do, you could very well be executed should somebody catch you

but desperate times call for desperate measures

and there’s no guarantee that you and all the other staff will not be executed anyway…

not with what has just happened in the palace

you push the door closed behind you with a soft click, using the brief changeover of guards to slip inside the bedroom of the youngest prince, unnoticed

you call out softly but urgently, “prince mingi”

when you hear him groggily murmur, starting to bubble towards the surface of consciousness, you dare to give his shoulder a rough shake

“prince mingi, please wake up”

his eyes flutter open, confusion starting to clear the fogginess in his head as he struggles to comprehend the sight of your face hovering inches from his, deep into the hours of the night

“w-what’s going on?” he clears his husky voice, “are you okay?”

you wish you could reach out and smooth the wrinkles of concern from his forehead

reassure him that everything will be okay until he falls back asleep

but there is no time

“the crown prince is dead and we must leave. now.”

the effect is immediate, like you have just driven a knife into his chest

although you suppose it must not feel very different for prince mingi right now

“the crown prince is d-” the word tastes vile on his tongue, so he asks after his second oldest brother instead. “what about prince eun?”

you must drive the knife into him once more

“he was the one who murdered the crown prince, but he has framed you for the murder. there is no time, prince mingi, we must leave now”

“the court will find me innocent,” yet he lets you tug him out of his bed

you hastily help prince mingi into a dark brown robe while you shake your head, “not when your inscribed sword is currently covered in the crown prince’s blood. we do not know who is secretly working for prince eun. until we know for sure, we do not stand a chance of clearing your name”

he knows that you’re right, even if his heart is hoping that you are wrong

the prince slides his hand into the gap between his bed and wall, pulling out a spare sword and wrapping the belt around his waist

eyes sweeping across his chamber one final time, he locks eyes with you grimly before turning to flee

you follow the prince through a back passageway - it’s not entirely a secret and it won’t be long before the royal guards come for the prince, discover his empty bedroom and give chase

but it is long enough to give you two a head start

he helps you up onto the back of his personal horse before he swings himself up easily onto the saddle behind you

with a nudge of his feet, the prince sends the horse into a gallop

you startle with a yelp, having never ridden a horse before, much less one at this pace

prince mingi presses himself a little closer to you and slots his chest against your back as he leans forward to guide your hands to hold the reins with his

“here,” he murmurs, “just follow me”

he shifts one hand to settle on your waist, guiding your body into a comfortable rhythm that dances in sync with the horse’s movements and his own

when he’s sure you’ve gotten the hang of it, the prince places his hand back on the reins, yet he stays close, keeping you safely encased within his arms to prevent you from falling off

you’re not sure how long you two ride for

but at some point the prince slows the horse to a canter

with the slower sway of the steed, the steady clack of hooves against the forest floor, and the warmth of the prince around you, you drift off to his whispered, “sleep, i’ve got you”

you wake up to find yourself on a scratchy pile of leaves

the events of last night piece themselves together when you spot prince mingi, still adorning his deep blue silk pajamas, leaning against a tree a few feet away

it would have been a sight to see if not for the fact that-

“what are we going to do now?” you sit up, and the prince’s robe, you now register, falls from around your body

the prince gives you a warm smile as you rub the sleep from your eyes with fisted hands

“we’ll head into halsburg. the town is small enough the news should not have traveled that far yet. we’ll replenish some supplies and go from there”

it’s unspoken

the fact that there is no solid plan from there

even if the two of you have managed to escape the royal guards, for how long can you two run?

plus, it will be impossibly difficult to find evidence while on the run, when the answers are within the castle walls themselves

but you push those thoughts aside as you two enter halsburg, the prince’s hood pulled up over his face

you do the bulk of the purchases, less likely to be recognised by the townspeople

it’s mainly food and water for yourself, the prince, and his horse, and a simple tunic to replace his royal pajamas - something you have been teasing him about since you woke up

later that night, hours away from the outskirts of halsburg, you two settle for a couple hours of rest

a small fire crackles away to the song of the cicadas, an occasional pop as the licks of flames cast shadows across your faces

you glance at the prince sitting across from you, who is idly fiddling with his pajama top

specifically, the royal crest of the song family embroidered onto its front pocket

your heart clenches painfully, knowing the death of a family member is hard enough to process without the additional weight of being framed for murder, much less by your own brother who is the real culprit

“prince mingi…” you start, voice low

he glances up at you, eyes softening as he curves his lips up into a small smile, “i’m okay.”

you hesitate for a split second before letting the clench in your gut pull you to your feet, and you shuffle to settle back down in front of the fire, except this time beside the prince

all the while his eyes never leave you, not even when you nudge his shoulder softly and say,

“you don’t have to be strong. not in front of me…”

and he knows

because despite the differences in your social statuses, you are the person he trusts the most

you, the girl who used to trip over the lengths of his robes that you carried, now a woman who holds herself righteously and bravely

you, who chose to risk your own life from the moment you woke him up in his chambers

you, who is still risking your life to flee with him

“only if you stop calling me prince,” he jokingly nudges you back, attempting to make the atmosphere lighter despite the wetness that is starting to paint his eyes. “with you, i am just mingi”

“okay, prince mingi,” you tease

yet, you still extend a hand out to him, palm upturned in a silent invitation for comfort should he wish to seek it, because you can tell that he isn’t quite ready to seek it verbally

mingi laces his larger fingers through yours, tucking your interlocked hands closer to his body as he draws his knees up so that he can rest his chin upon them

mingi thinks that he feels numb more than anything, but he finds he isn’t as surprised as one would expect him to be

perhaps he always knew of his middle brother’s thirst for the throne

he just never thought it would be enough to spill blood

for now though, he lets himself be distracted by your thumb tracing mindless patterns against his knuckles

he lets himself relish in the heat radiating from your side that seems to warm him from inside out, even as the embers of the fire slowly lose their glow and die out with the darkening night

the days start to repeat themselves

you two cover as much distance as you can while sparing what time you can afford for yourselves and mingi’s horse to rest

mingi has decided to travel to prince yunho's kingdom, an old and trusted ally who may be able to provide you two with protection while he pulls strings to fight back against prince eun

from his calculations, the journey will take at least another two weeks

and although mingi doesn’t tell you this, deep down he does not know whether you two have two weeks left

the threat of the royal guards catching up hangs over the two of you like a hangman’s noose

neither of you have brought up that night by the fire either

but something has definitely changed in the way you seek comfort and reassurance in each other

as if so long as you have each other, everything will be alright in the end

when you feel him tremble as he sleeps curled around you, restless from a plaguing nightmare, you hush sweet nothings and brush his locks away from his forehead until his breathing steadies out again

and when you’re seated on the saddle in front of him, you now having long grown accustomed to horse riding, he still finds himself resting a comforting hand on you somewhere - your hips, thigh or over your own hand

sometimes when he is laughing softly with you, your arms brushing against each other, you imagine a different story; one where you are worthy of loving him

sometimes when you are tucked into his chest, small exhales escaping your open lips as you sleep, mingi imagines a different story; one where he is able to love you freely

because despite the blood running through his veins that has ultimately led to his downfall, you still look at him as though he has placed the stars in the very sky that you two have spent countless nights under

and although he knows the reality is that he cannot, he tries to write his own story, even if just for tonight

you are lying in his arms, legs tangled together, when the question comes tumbling out of his lips

“will you stay with me, forever?”

he feels you still in his embrace, before you’re pulling back a little to look at him with a chuckle

“you should be asking a princess that, prince mingi, not somebody like me”

“you are a princess in my eyes”

you can’t help the endearing look that crosses over your face as you lightly tap his nose, “you know that is not how it works”

“then we can run away. for i am already as good as dead to my kingdom,” he tells you with boyish determination

“you cannot, mingi. your people need a good prince”

“but what prince would i be if i cannot even boldly love you? the person who is dearest to me?”

under his sincere gaze and the weight of his words, you allow him this moment of solace

because perhaps, you want it just as much as he does

“okay, i’ll be your princess,” you breathe out

“forever?”

“forever”

that night, it is just you and mingi - no titles that separate your world from his, no looming threat of death - just two people in love

even as an uneasy pit settles at the bottom of mingi’s stomach, a growing feeling that gnaws away at him into the early hours of the next morning

he is startled awake, your expression frightened, and he immediately understands when he hears the thunderous chorus of hooves hitting the ground towards you two

mingi had known there was not much time left, but he did not think that the inevitable confrontation would happen this soon, only mere hours after the soft kiss he had pressed against your forehead

the desperate attempt to escape once more is futile, the royal guards closing the distance within minutes

left with no choice but to stop, you and mingi demount and the guards move to flank you both in a wide semicircle

when the head of the guards, prince eun, saunters forward, mingi matches with a stride of his own so that he can step in front of you

“you killed the crown prince, eun,” mingi spits at his brother

“running and denying your actions up until your very last moments, i see,” prince eun laughs condescendingly. “and you even took a little dog with you, too”

mingi presses you closer to his back, hiding you from the leering gaze of his brother

prince eun smiles smugly at mingi’s reaction, before he takes out a scroll and unravels it

“for high treason of the assassination of the crown prince, the king hereby decrees the immediate revocation of nobility of his third son, song mingi, and for the execution of song mingi and his maid upon sighting.”

you press your nose into mingi’s back, taking one last inhale of his familiar scent

the bowmen all take aim as prince eun sneers, “any last words, brother?”

mingi turns around, and all you can see in that moment are his warm eyes and dimpled cheeks

“i love you, my princess,” he proclaims

“forever,” you reply

he brings his lips down to connect them with yours, drowning out the distinct vibration of loosening strings and the hiss of flying arrows with the roaring symphony in your hearts

you’re unsure what pain swallows you whole first - the pain as an arrowhead sinks into your chest, or the pain as you realise that this is the end of your short-lived love with mingi

you struggle to keep the smile on your face as you lock eyes with mingi, trying to memorise the loving gaze that adorns his own face

you see his mouth moving, but the pain exploding throughout your body is too loud for you to make out his words

with your last breath, you gasp out your final confession, “i love you too, mingi. we’ll meet again in the next life”

as the world starts to fade away, cold creeping into your limbs, you hope that in another story, in another lifetime, you and mingi will be able to find each other again

wooyoung

pov: you're the princess of a rival kingdom

“absolutely not, advisor lee,” your mother raises her nose in the air

“your highness, i understand but-”

“oh please, do not flatter yourself, queen cho,” queen jung spits out, “you are not the only one who abhors the idea”

you glare at the prince sitting across from you, your own gazes reflecting the tension in the room

advisor lee has suggested that your family and the jung family host a joint royal ball as a grand display of amity between the two neighbouring kingdoms, particularly between the princess - yourself - and their prince - prince wooyoung

there have been spreading rumours in town of the strained relationship between the two royal families

which aren’t entirely untrue

as a child, the two kingdoms have been loyal and steadfast in their alliance and friendship

in fact, it is not uncommon to find you joining prince wooyoung in his kitchen, begging the chefs to let you two lick the spoons

or to find prince wooyoung squatting next to you in your garden as you both look at the ladybugs

but as power imbalances emerge and political agendas start to diverge, a wedge is driven between your families

the relation is now dangerously close to severing completely, but not without the increasing attention of the towns surrounding the two kingdoms

and one of the last things both royal families need is unease and disunity amongst the commoners

which brings advisor lee to look on with exasperation as he tries to do his job - advise

except neither your mother nor queen jung look ready to accept his advice

your father nods slightly at the two of you, “you are dismissed, as are you, prince wooyoung”

you curtsy as the prince takes a slight bow, before you obnoxiously flick your hair over your shoulder and turn away on your heels

you escape to the garden, knowing that the meeting will take at least another hour before you are required to bid the jung family farewell

except, surprise surprise

who do you run into

you narrow your eyes at prince wooyoung as he steps towards you, who has one eyebrow quirked, “a royal ball, he says?”

“absolutely not,” you fold your arms across your chest

“oh please, do not flatter yourself, princess,” he sneers, not dissimilar to the nasally tone his mother had voiced her dissatisfaction earlier with

neither of you back down, daring the other to say something else

before you two break out into giggles, eyes glittering scandalously

“did you see your mother deliberately pass the salt instead of sugar for the tea?”

“and then the face my mother made when she took a sip of it-”

he pulls you to crouch behind an azalea bush as you both chortle like children, out of sight, before he brings you in for a dizzying kiss

you sigh, resting a hand on his chest

“do you also abhor the idea of dancing with me, prince wooyoung?” a teasing lilt in your voice

“absolutely,” he nods grimly, “why go to all that effort when there is a much grander and longer-lasting solution?”

“and what is that, my prince?”

he sneaks another chaste kiss from your lips, “for me to take your hand in marriage, my princess”

at his words, your smile dampens

“you know that i would say yes in a heartbeat. it is not i who needs convincing, but our parents”

because despite the growing hostility between your two families, the relationship you share with wooyoung has, ironically, blossomed into one of well-concealed adoration, intimacy and love

you two have come to learn that that one slightly lighter stone on the western side of your kingdom’s outer walls comes loose, and is the perfect size for slipping a piece of paper behind it

you two have also come to learn that every fourth week, if you ask your personal tutor enough questions about the plants laid out on the store’s table in front of you during your scheduled lesson in town, you’ll be able to drag it out long enough for you both to just catch a glimpse of each other as he and his escorts cut through the town on their way back to his kingdom

and of course, you two have come to learn the most isolated spots in your own respective kingdoms, like the second stairwell leading down to the cellar in wooyoung’s palace

and amongst the azalea bushes in the back garden in yours

which is exactly how you knew that he would appear, how you knew that he would give you those sweet kisses you have been craving so desperately

as wooyoung cups your jaw to kiss you once more, one that leaves you wanting to chase his lips forever, he bets you that it’ll only take two weeks of close-quarter meetings between your royal families before one of your mothers blow up and the ball idea falls through completely

in response, you bet him that they won’t even last two weeks - one at the most

except you’re both wrong

the meeting turns into two, followed by several more as the planning goes ahead

sometimes, the meetings are held in the jung palace

other times, their family journeys to your kingdom instead

one thing that stays constant is the malevolence in the air

the parents are sarcastic snipes and saccharine smiles

and on the surface, you and wooyoung are further extensions of your own parents’ simmering loathing for the other

but under the intricately-carved wooden table, you two are playing footsies, jeweled heels and leather shoes engaged in a playful fight

you see how many times you can slide your heels up along his shin, gradually inching closer towards his inner thigh with each coquettish touch

he has you pass him anything and everything under the guise of forgoing the help of the numerous royal butlers and maids around the room to deliberately irritate you

really, it is to accidentally brush his fingers over your hands; to see the pretty shade of rose that settles over your cheeks and ears as you both try not to break out into giggles

and perhaps, during the meals that may take place during the meetings, there have been a couple of peas flicked at each other here and there when no one is paying attention

(unbeknownst to you two, the maids and butlers alike must hide their own endearing smiles)

the weeks turn into months and you practically have a permanent glow radiating from you, now that you have been seeing the prince so frequently

(which also does not go unnoticed)

as you select a necklace from the assortment of choices to emphasise the plunging neckline of your off-shoulder gown, you wonder how the day of the royal ball has arrived so quickly

your personal maid, jihye, carefully fixes the clasp of the necklace around you before stepping back to let you look in the mirror

you smooth a hand over the soft lavender charmeuse of your dress, nervously looking at jihye

“how do i look?”

“stunning, my princess,” she assures you, before adding, “prince wooyoung will definitely love it”

“prin- he- what? i- sorry?” you say unintelligibly, before you try to salvage the situation by tucking a lock of hair behind your ear as you laugh her off

but jihye just looks at you knowingly

meanwhile, prince wooyoung is already at the grand hall, the jung family having arrived two days prior for the final preparations of the ball

he and his friends, princes from kingdoms located further up north and towards the east, are lingering around one of the tables decorated with flower arrangements and elaborate candle holders, ignoring the longing glances of other attendees, women and men alike, thrown at their striking posse

wooyoung is trying to keep his gaze subtle, scanning the vast number of people at the ball without craning or turning his head, searching for one particular face

yours

prince yeosang nudges the others, jerking his chin to motion towards the distracted wooyoung

when wooyoung finally realises he isn’t as subtle as he thinks, all his friends are already looking at him with varying degrees of smirks

“just know that if there were not so many people here,” wooyoung begins with a pleasant smile, “i would flip you all off right now”

before he can try stepping on his friends’ toes in the form of petty revenge, prince seonghwa points towards the entrance as his smile grows impossibly wider

“look”

wooyoung turns around

and like any typical man who is head over heels in love, the world around him slows down

the gushing whispers spreading throughout the ballroom fade into the background

because finally, there you are, gracefully stepping past the threshold of the arched doorway in all your alluring beauty, accentuated by the way your curled locks and flowing gown frame your body

for the briefest moment, you lock eyes with him, and wooyoung feels his brain shutting down on him

“you’re going to catch a fly in your mouth, woo”

“pick up your jaw. it’s on the ground”

prince yunho pretends to dab wooyoung’s mouth with the ruffled sleeves of his cream shirt, “you’re drooling, darling”

at that, wooyoung smacks his lips dazedly before coming to a moment of realisation, blinking hard twice to bring himself back to reality

“god, you’re hopeless. just go up and talk to her,” prince hongjoong snickers. “the whole point of this ball is to show off how ‘close’ your families are anyway”

wooyoung grumbles that he knows, he’s just looking for the right timing

which, unfortunately, does not seem to come

you spend what feels like the next two hours being whisked around, feigning polite interest as you are forced to engage in dull and bland conversations with numerous men of differing royal statuses, all of whom are no doubt trying to make an impression on you in hopes of becoming a potential suitor in the future

not that you have eyes for anyone apart from the one who already has your heart

the very same person who is currently fed up with watching you converse and let your hands be kissed by men who are not him

even if he knows you are pretending, he thinks that you sure are damn good at giggling at all the right times

you are trying not to let your smile turn into a grimace as the older-aged man, lord ryu you think, boasts of his wealth to you, when wooyoung enters your peripheral vision

“princess, lord ryu,” he greets you both, before looking down at the latter, “pardon me as i take the princess for a dance”

lord ryu, visibly irked but unable to say anything to the prince of significantly higher status, lets go of your hand to step back into a bow, “of course, prince wooyoung”

you giggle, this time genuinely, as wooyoung takes your hand to gently lead you towards the center of the ballroom, where several others are starting to waltz to the soft music that is now playing

you rest a hand just below his shoulder, feeling the sturdiness of his muscles flexing beneath his shirt, as he places his other hand to settle on the dip of your waist

a little possessively, you might add

“you look beautiful today,” he murmurs lowly, away from any prying ears

“only today?” you quirk an eyebrow teasingly

his voice drops down an octave, “well it’s not every day that i can tell you, princess”

wooyoung’s eyes flicker down hungrily to look at your lips

you run your tongue slowly over your bottom lip, knowing it will drive him absolutely crazy that he cannot just take you right there and then in front of everybody

and you can see the moment his resolve snaps

“meet me for some fresh air in ten,” bringing his lips as close to the shell of your ear as he dares

and then he’s gone

you become progressively antsy as you wait out a generous amount of time after he leaves for you to also slip away from the ballroom

wooyoung pins you against a pillar as soon as you emerge in the garden, aching to kiss you and fight for dominance until you’re both breathless and light-headed

“you don’t know how desperately i wanted to kiss you in front of everyone - let the whole world know that you’re mine,” he nips at your bottom lip

you rest your hands on his chest, fingers curled around the pleated front of his satin shirt to hold yourself steady as he turns your lips into an artwork of swollen cherry reds

he tilts your head back a little more, your mouths moving in tandem, soft moans drawn out of you, when-

“what in god’s name is going on?”

you and wooyoung startle apart at the shriek

the blush dusting your faces pale almost immediately at the sight of not just your mother, but also queen jung and a few of the royal staff

it’s kind of amusing that of all things for the two queens to have the same mindset about, it is the discovery of you and wooyoung’s secret relationship that unites them, both sharing twin expressions of horror and revulsion

you’re ripped from each other’s arms as you are forced back into the confines of your bed chamber, royal ball long forgotten

your only solace is learned later that night, when jihye brings a trolley of food you have no appetite for, that the jung family have not yet returned to their kingdom

they are still in your palace somewhere

yet that does little to soothe your tears, overwhelmed by the drastic turn of events, and you do not know when you fall asleep that night

all you know is that it is to a bed too cold and a longing in your heart too gaping to ignore

“princess,” you look up to see jihye standing at your door the next morning, almost apologetic, “the king and queen request for your presence in the throne room”

as you approach the room after tidying your appearance, your breath hitches when you spot him just by the double doors

you barrel forwards into his waiting arms, uncaring of the staff following behind you

not that they have the heart to stop you either way

“i thought you would have been forced to leave,” you blurt, unable to believe that wooyoung is right in front of you

“i’m still here,” he chuckles. “i have been summoned by your parents”

your heart drops down to your stomach at his words as you realise what this meeting is about

“and i am glad they did, princess,” wooyoung is quick to interject before your apology makes it past the tip of your tongue. “i am going to ask for your hand in marriage. officially”

“what if they banish us from ever seeing each other again?” worry overwhelms you as your breathing quickens

wooyoung gently laces his fingers through yours, bringing up his other hand to cup your face and run his thumb comfortingly over the curve of your cheekbone to keep you grounded

“no matter what happens today, no matter what the outcome is,” he looks at you with the fierce determination of a man ready to give up anything and everything for your sake, “i will never ever stop fighting for you”

he presses his soft lips against yours

“for us,” he vows

your breathing evens out, and while your heartbeat still pounds inside your ribcage, you know that it marches in rhythm with the man in front of you

this time, not afraid to appear in front of the rulers of your kingdoms - your parents - you and wooyoung nod in reassurance at each other once more, hand in hand, before you both push the doors to the throne room open

together.

jongho

pov: you're under his protection as your royal guard

over the din of volunteered names in the meeting room, jongho steps forward

“your majesty, i will accompany the princess,” he declares

“choi jongho?” your father scans him up and down with regard before nodding in approval, “it is decided then”

“him? surely i need another person with me as well?” you protest

your father quirks an eyebrow at you, a subtle reminder that whilst he is your father, he is also the king

“no, you will need to travel in disguise and stay as discreet as possible. only jongho will accompany you as your royal guard”

your father looks away and starts to address the next item on the meeting agenda; it is quite clear there is no room for argument

meanwhile, jongho sidles up to you

“you trying to catch bugs or something? close your mouth, princess,” he teases under his breath

you nudge him with an elbow, “you’re the only bug i see around here”

he rolls his eyes but you both snicker in unison when one of your older sisters turns around to shush you with a dirty look

regardless, you stay silent for the rest of the meeting

you’re not sure why jongho stepped forward to take on this task

because for someone who is your main royal guard and is supposed to be loyal and obedient, he sure makes it clear that his job is about as gratifying as babysitting

(“you can’t talk to me like that. i’m the princess”)

(“no, you’re not. you’re an idiot”)

in fact, when you had been notified a few days prior that you would be traveling with one other royal guard - who had yet to be decided at the time - jongho had spent every single day gloating that he would finally get a break from babysitting you

and yet here he is

with the opportunity to hand you off to somebody else

but instead, baring his teeth at the other guards who offer themselves up for this scouting mission

he would never admit to it either, but jongho personally spoke to the king years ago about being rostered on as your main bodyguard since he’s “known the princess for the longest and so i can protect her the best”

you don’t want to travel to the border

you’re in charge of maintaining security and defense along your borders and with neighbouring kingdoms, usually dealing with complications remotely through the ministers and advisors who work for you

this time though, there has been recent unrest near the southern borders of your kingdom near denport, a city notorious for bandits and fugitives

the situation has worsened with increased risk of bloodshed, thus has the need for you to survey the borders in person

and as the youngest sibling of five, the king has made it very clear that this is your opportunity to prove your capabilities

jongho makes sure to remind you of this fact when you grumble your way through packing a satchel of essential items to take with you

(“your fluffy slippers are not essential, princess”)

(you listen and throw them back onto the floor of your bedchambers, but stuff in a few paperweights when he isn’t looking out of petty revenge because you know he’ll end up carrying your bag for you later when you ask him to)

it’s a relatively long journey to denport, so as soon as you are ready, jongho having long finished packing his own bag, you leave your kingdom with him at your side

by the time the sun is starting to set later that day, you’re passing through a small town

he suggests calling it a night and recuperating at one of the inns

you wait while he inquires about available rooms and then follow him through a small alleyway to the inn that he has chosen for the night

you take all but one look at the rotting wood and creaking sign at the entrance before you are crossing your arms like a petulant child

“there’s no way i’m staying the night in this sorry excuse of an inn”

he merely blinks

“you’re technically not the princess right now so you better listen to me or god help me, i’ll-”

“you’ll what,” you challenge, nose-to-nose

or nose-to-throat, you suppose

but before you can dwell any further on your height difference, jongho picks you up, slings you over his shoulder like you are nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and walks into the inn without a care in the world that you are screaming bloody murder

you resign to your fate and flop uselessly against his back as he carries you up the stairs

instead, when he throws you onto the bed upon entering the room, you look up at him sultrily and smirk, “ooh, now i’m turned on”

jongho shakes his head with exasperation but you don’t miss the redness that is creeping up the back of his neck as he turns around to close the door shut

“wait,” you sit up on the bed, “we’re sharing a room?”

“it’s safer. i’ll sleep on the sofa”

you scrunch your nose at the arrangement, but you do admittedly feel a little more at ease in the unfamiliar room of the inn

you start to take a shoe off before a thought flits through your mind and you point the shoe in your hand at him like a weapon, “you better not snore”

jongho rolls his eyes as he steps forward to take the shoe out of your hand, and then he is bending down to help slip off the shoe from your other foot

a thank you lies on the tip of your tongue

“you’re the only snorer in this room, princess”

nevermind.

it’s gone.

you’re settled in bed, waiting for jongho to finish washing up and turn off the lights, when you spot it

holy shit

your immediate reaction is to seek his protection

“jongho!”

the door to the bathroom swings open almost immediately as he rushes out, eyes alarmed, alert, and zeroing onto you

water drips off the ends of his hair and you can still spot suds on his exposed torso

“what’s wrong? are you okay? are you hurt?” his voice is laced with restrained panic

you point to the corner of the room and then he sees it too

his body stiffens completely

because, mere metres from the two of you, presence sinister and dangerous…

is a fucking spider

all is quiet and still for a while, your eyes flickering back and forth between your royal guard and the spider in a tense standoff

then, just as you are about to speak up, jongho grabs his bag and swiftly turns on his heels to head towards the room’s door

“where are you going?!” you shriek

he looks at you forlornly from over his shoulder, “to prepare for my execution”

“what the fuck are you on about, jongho?”

“for abandoning my duties and failing to protect you. farewell, princess. you are on your own from here-”

his sentence is cut short as the spider scuttles towards him

and that is how you two, disguised, but still a royal princess and royal guard no less, are given an eviction warning because he streaked through the corridors of the inn half naked and screaming at the top of his lungs

needless to say, the innkeeper ends up having to remove the spider for the two of you

“you’re so embarrassing,” you whisper to him once you two are finally settled in bed and on the sofa

“no, i’m jongho,” he cackles

you don’t humour him with a response, but you know he snickers himself to sleep that night

you can’t help but let the corner of your lips tug up as well

a few days later after leaving the town, you two are resting side by side against a tree trunk when you decide to grace jongho with the opportunity to redeem himself

he’s currently halving a sandwich so you two can share

“if i were trapped in a forest full of spiders and you were the only person who could save me,” you ask gravely, “what would you do?”

without missing a beat, he replies, “prepare to grieve your death and make sure your pet cat is well fed in your honour”

he passes you the bigger sandwich as you turn to look at him with the most scandalised expression

“can you at least pretend to think for a bit?” you grumble

there’s a hint of a smile on jongho’s face when he apologises, “okay, sorry. ask me again”

you hit him with a different scenario this time

“if you had to fight a giant spider who had taken me hostage, what would you do?”

he hums thoughtfully for a few seconds, unscrewing a canteen of water for you and placing it by your side

“i would say, she is all yours, your spidery majesty, and then i would bow and walk away”

“fuck you,” you shove him good-naturedly with your shoulder

he swipes the canteen before you can knock it over and presses it into your smaller hand instead, giving it a quick pat as he dismisses your insult, “sure, if you think you can handle my dick”

“like they say,” you waggle your eyebrows at him as your voice drops down lower, “practice makes perfect”

jongho’s stoic facade finally cracks when you lean in closer and he hurries to stand up and put some distance between you and him

he shifts his legs subtly, clearing his throat to say, “we should go, denport is close”

when you’ve finished off the last of your sandwich, you dust off your fingers and grab jongho’s offered hand to stand up too

“let’s go”

one thing you have both noticed is that the closer you get to the border between your kingdom and denport, the quieter and thicker the atmosphere seems to get

the small towns you pass through have less people roaming around; in fact, most people seem to flee back into the refuge of their own houses, locking their doors and closing their windows when they catch sight of your pair

and then it happens

your plan goes awry

you and jongho are harshly awoken by a commotion outside the small room you have rented for the night

there’s a sickening smell accompanied by wails of grief in the air

when you rush outside, all you can see is a huge crowd of people gathered and your ears strain to pick up on the broken hushes of information being thrown around

“his son is lucky to have been spared”

“lucky to have seen his father slaughtered by bandits?”

“i heard it wasn’t money that they were after, though”

“those damned denport devils are up to something”

that’s all you pick up on before jongho snatches your arm and leads you back into the inn, telling you that it’s too dangerous to be out there; too dangerous for you two to continue traveling

which leads to the very first argument you ever have with him

you two butt heads all the time with your own fiery fronts and hardheadedness but more often than not, he yields to you

you’re facing him in the dim room - it is shadier than that first inn you two made a stop at weeks ago, but you’re both sharing one room just like you two have done at every single inn since

“we need to go check it out!” you shout at him

jongho takes a shaky breath as he tries to keep his voice even, “no, we should go back to our kingdom, report on the situation and call for backup!”

you throw your hands up into the air, “we’re already here - we’re basically at denport! what if something blows up soon? it might be too late by the time we go back”

jongho steps in closer as his eyes narrow

you don’t cower because you know he would never hurt you, but you do step backwards because you don’t think you can keep a clear head when he is standing so close to you, proximity dizzying like the buzz of alcohol

“of all times for you to play hero and do something that you weren’t asked to, why now? why put yourself in danger?”

your back hits the wall as jongho corners you

your chest heaves, as does his, both of you overwhelmed with emotions

he holds your gaze but his eyes are rounded with agony and distress

you don’t understand why he is so against your decision

you don’t know what to say, until your eyes flicker down involuntarily at the movement of his lips parting to exhale-

“damn, jongho, your lips are real chapped. you should use some of my lip balm”

he blinks hard at the absurdity of what you chose to say

he looks at your lips

he makes a decision

“then give me some of yours,” he says, a little breathless

and then he’s pressing his chapped lips against your smooth ones, the taste of coconut filling your mouth as your lip balm smears

suddenly, he pulls back with the audacity to look shocked as if you are the one who kissed him

and then he leaves the room without another word

he doesn’t return that night and you don’t manage to sleep either

you wonder when you started becoming used to falling asleep with him in the same room

jongho clears his throat awkwardly when you open the door in the morning and find him leaning against the wall just by the doorframe

you’re not sure whether he came back not too long ago from god knows where, or whether he was actually standing guard outside all night

you think you know which one it is, even if he doesn’t confirm it

“we’re checking out,” he mumbles, shuffling briskly into the room to grab his few belongings he had left and exiting the room again with you trailing behind

neither of you say much more to each other

you think that he’s going to lead you back the way you two came, lead you back and undo the weeks’ worth of journeying and go back to the castle

but then he’s sighing, deep and burdened, and he gently takes your hand to continue on towards denport

he’s never held your hand before

not like this, at least, tenderly tugging you along with every step so that you are no more than a few inches away from his side

you want to bicker with him and chortle together like usual but you keep quiet, giving him the space that he appears to need even if he is physically ensuring you are tucked right into his side

you two walk until the sun has dipped below the horizon

from what you know, you are right along the southern border and denport will only be another half day’s walk away

jongho makes a small bonfire before he joins you to lean against a fallen log

he shimmies off his coat and drapes it over your legs and then the forest also settles into silence along with you both

it’s now or never

“why are you so against us going to the border?” you ask him

he runs his fingers through his hair

an unruly tuft of hair stays upright and you fold your arms to stop yourself from reaching out and smoothening it for him

he looks at you as he says, “i’m fine with me going to the border, it’s you i’m not fine with. you do remember that i’m your royal guard, right”

“is that all there is to your reason,” you push, “that you’re my guard?”

you both know you’re referring to more than just the argument itself

jongho’s gaze breaks away, looking ahead at the flames of the fire instead

he is silent

for once, jongho is unarmed; no immediate snark or teasing remark to toss back at you

you hear him swallow and take a breath

“i…i don’t know,” he starts. “all i know is that with each passing day, the more i want to keep you safe”

jongho looks at you again, eyebrows drawn down ever so slightly

“why do you make me feel so worried?”

at his words, your heart clenches in an unfamiliar way and you attempt to lighten the mood, “maybe you like me”

“maybe i do”

oh.

with the reflection of the fire dancing in his eyes, it almost looks as though he is about to cry

“please, don’t go to the border, princess,” he begs softly

his plea remains unwavering and you find your heart doing the exact opposite

after a few seconds of silence, you say

“okay, jongho. i won’t”

the tension from his shoulders seeps out and he gently tugs you towards him so he can tuck you into his side once again

“you promise that we turn around and go back tomorrow morning?”

you nod against the warmth of the crook of his neck, then murmur, “do you think father will be disappointed in me? for returning?”

he rubs a hand up and down your arm soothingly

“of course not, princess. you’ve already done so much more than you needed to. he’ll be proud of you”

and then he adds on, “just like i’m proud of you”

this is the first time anyone has ever really validated your efforts; being the youngest of a large family means you are often overshadowed

caught off guard, all you can do is whisper out, “thank you, jongho”

he hums and you feel his smile against the crown of your head

you’ve never been drunk before, but you think that this is the closest you have ever gotten

you are intoxicated by him

“if you’re thankful,” the rumble of jongho’s voice against your cheek is pleasant, “can i ask for something?”

“whatever you want”

he eases you from the comfort of his neck and tilts your chin up slightly with a finger, cheeky grin plastered across his face

“can i have some more of your lip balm?”

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