#that fucking name will haunt me to the grave

[thesiltverses]

Hello, beloved audience members. Please. Come in. Sit down.

It’s time I confronted a very serious matter. A persistent, mocking question that snaps at my heels, haunts my every waking move, and which has done so day and night for the past three years. I have tried to address it before, and I have failed.

I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. I must speak out, or fall silent for ever.

'Jon would know the real answer', as B. put it. Well, let this be my real answer.

*the lights dim as a slide projection screen descends very slowly from the ceiling*

Here in England, where I unfortunately reside, Richard has been an extremely commonplace name for the vast majority of our recorded history - remaining in the ten most popular names right up until the 1990s, if the Office for National Statistics is to be believed.

Like 'Henry', it retains many deeply-embedded positive associations around leadership, heroism, empire, and power - most notably in regards to Richard the Lionheart, still a fondly-remembered king in this country despite his costly and ultimately inconclusive adventurism upon the Third Crusade, acts of brutality against prisoners and civilians in the Middle East and France alike, the outbreaks of anti-semitic violence that occurred during his reign, and his particularly parasitic absentee rule. (For this legacy we can perhaps partly blame the early modern ballads which decided he was Robin Hood's buddy who rides in at the end to dole out pardons and restore the natural order of things.)

More subversively, the name might remind us of Richard III in Shakespeare's infamous portrayal, another scheming soliloquiser who finds his performance coming to pieces in moments of stress.

With these uneasy regal connotations in mind (coming alongside Charles and Edward) it felt to me - with less than a moment's thought behind it - like a fitting chosen first name for Faulkner, and a way of thematically matching his brothers.

I have since understood to my lasting regret that the name provokes a particular reaction amongst some of our audience members. A kind of mirth, if you will; even an amazement that Faulkner should select such a name.

I still do not fully understand whether the name is genuinely such a rarity in the modern-day USA where much of our audience resides and thus provokes a kind of parochial ridicule, or if the joke is simply that Faulkner, as a trans man, has chosen a name which features ‘Dick’ as one of its several possible diminutives.

While the use of this nickname dates back to the 12th or 13th century, ‘Rich’ would probably be a much more common shortening here in the modern-day UK.

We did not have such prominent 20th/21st century public figures as Tricky Dick, Dick van Dyke, or Dick Cheney, and as such these examples did not immediately occur to me as red flags when I thoughtlessly selected the popular, apparently uncontroversial, and thematically-rich (ha, ha, ha) name 'Richard'.*

I trust that I have now explained myself fully and laid this matter to rest.

Good day to you all. Gods bless.

*We did have beloved children's author Dick King-Smith, I guess? It's a mixed bag of dicks.

Hey there, I didn’t know you had a tumblr and am excited to find you here! Thanks for the inadvisable transition goals (i.e. Faulkner)

I got a question though. Do you have any insight as to why Faulkner chose to name himself Richard? Cause that got revealed and I had to stop the podcast to laugh myself onto the floor

Thanks, hope you’re doin well

hi!! i'm so glad to have helped facilitate inadvisable transition goals (that's such a mood tbh)

i actually don't know why faulkner chose to name himself richard! i just remember seeing that in the script for the first time, without warning, and losing it because damn boy that's a hell of a name to pick

my guess would be it's either a family name, or it was so he could match his brothers (charlie, eddie, richie), but jon would know the real answer!

[synthaphone]

finally drew a colored picture of this character, because I’m going to be playing an au version of him in a d&d campaign and needed to make a ref for my character token

[bambisspeckles]

Simon is Hopelessly Devoted to You

CW: lowk heavy religious undertones, simon is fucking obsessed with you, allusions to p in v sex no details, needy and desperate simon as always, mildly edited!! Let me know if I missed anything <3

─── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ──────

Simon loves you like you're a god, he is completely and utterly devoted to you.

Every time he's near you his body fills up with a sickeningly, sweet desire that makes his teeth rot and his stomach ache. He can't breathe when he's away from you but he fucking suffocates when he's near you. You're his angel, his god, his fucking salvation. Simon never believed in redemption for himself until he met you. The day you smiled at was the day he was redeemed, he never considered himself to be religious but god loving you was the closest he's ever felt to heaven.

When he'd be gone for months at a time, covered in the blood of his enemies while terrors of the past haunted his dreams, he'd wake up to pray. Not to any god or gods but to you. He'd hulk his large body onto the ground and whisper your name over and over and over in prayer. He didn't need a god to save him if he had you, he didn't need anyone to help light his path home, he'd crawl out of a grave with half of his bodied decayed if it meant seeing you again.

Every time he came home it felt like he had been fucking baptized and made new. You'd welcome him home with a soft smile and loving arms, your body fitting so perfectly into his. He'd inhale your scent and his eyes would roll back into his head, you smelt like love, warmth, home. You'd cook him a whole feast and place yourself on his lap as he ate, doting on him, cooing soft praises and running your hands through his hair. He felt like a fucking king, like he made it. It made his ego soar to know a fucking goddess chose him. He was a sick man, a bad man, a man who'd bite the hand that feeds him without a second thought, but you still chose to bless him.

And when the day finally ends and he has you on your back, your eyes glossed over, and your thighs trembling around his waist, he'll look down at you smile. His own personal redemption, his own personal salvation, all sprawled out just for him, all sweet just for him.

Simon knows he's been dealt some shitty cards but as he pulls you into his chest, your even breathing filling the silence of the bedroom, he can't help but think maybe somewhere out there someone is looking out for him, that someone out there sent him the angel that keeps the other side of his bed warm <3

─── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ──────

Take this as my apology for slacking off! Thank you guys so much for all the support I'm truly blown away <3 Likes and reblogs are always appreciated and please please send me reqs/asks !!

[motherlvr]

just friends?

she fell first, he fell harder

wc: 2.2k

pairing: Earth-42! Miles Morales x f! reader

Summary: In the early years of your adolescence, you made the grave mistake of asking Miles to ‘practice kissing’ for future suitors. That mistake would come back to bite you every following day.

Warnings: cursing, childhood friends to lovers, friends that kiss, jealousy, started off the fic with a bang cuz i dont believe in small talk, possessiveness

A/N: what happened to hello? what happened to how are you?

----------

Your current predicament was straddling Miles' lap as you both kissed like this would be the last time you ever did. His hands grabbed onto your thighs that encased his legs. Pulling away for a second, you watched as a small string of saliva binds both of your lips.

Looking down at him, you asked out of breath, "We're still just friends, right?" The question caught him off guard. But he responds with a teasing smirk, "Yeah, yeah ma. Just friends." You nervously bit your bottom lip, nodding at his response. Wrapping your hands onto his braids, you smashed your lips against his yet again to ignore your conflicted thoughts.

It's times like this when your past mistake comes back to haunt you. And he made sure you never lived it down. The mistake in question was made on the playground with Miles when you were both ten. Being the young and innocent child you were, you proposed to 'practice kissing' for potential lovers in the future. As all kids do. He accepted and it all sprouted from there. You were each other's first kiss.

That first kiss was only one of many to come. You both had urges, after all. Since your younger days, it turned into something a bit more than just practice. But you never gave it a second thought. Until of late. What used to be a silly playground crush on Miles only grew stronger as the years passed by.

In all honesty, you had no clue where you stood with Miles. What were you, friends that kiss periodically? That was how it was, you suppose. But what you did know was that you'd stay by his side no matter the circumstance. Even if it meant that your friendship would never develop into more. Although occasionally you wished you never initiated to 'practice kissing' with him in your naive and prepubescent years. That would solve your problem at its roots and prevent the rapidly growing feelings you had for him. It was no doubt a mistake in your mind.

Separating your lips for a second time, you pulled away again. He stared at you in confusion. You looked frantic, "Shit, what time is it?" Glancing at the time on your phone, you cursed. It was 3:30 pm. "Fuck, I have a date at four o'clock. I gotta go, Miles." You jumped off of Miles' lap on his bed and swiftly started packing up your things.

Miles felt jealousy start to boil within his stomach as his lap felt empty. He was right here, why would you need to go on a date with some other guy? Furrowing his brows, he irritably questioned, "Fuck you mean you gotta date? With who?" He tried to conceal his annoyance but failed miserably.

"Some guy from my physics class asked me out, sorry but I gotta go." Grabbing your bag, you pecked his cheek lightly as a goodbye. Glancing in his mirror one last time, you tamed any stray strands of hair.

Your response only fueled his jealousy, "Do you even know his name?" He started interrogating you.

"Of course I do, it's..." You paused for a second to think, and your conclusion was unclear. Your mind was foggy. "I think it's Javi? Or maybe Jake? Jacob? Shit, I think you kissed the thoughts right out of my brain." You rambled. Your words made him crack a slight smirk, and he said, "Nah, you ain't going on that date ma." pulling you back into his hold by your hips.

"I can't just stand him up, Miles." You told him, starting to regret agreeing on going on the date. "I could take you on a better date than he can, mami." He suggested.

He was full of surprises this afternoon. Usually, he didn't display such possessiveness. You didn't even like the supposed guy you were going on a date with. You just thought he could help you get your mind off of Miles for a few minutes.

Raising an eyebrow, you asked, "Is that an offer?" "It's a promise." He responded without an ounce of hesitation. The way he was staring at you almost made you take him up on it. "Tempting, but I'll have to take a rain check. See you tomorrow. Alright, Miles?" You waved goodbye and walked out his door.

"'Ight, ma. See you." He gave up. As he watched you walk out the door of his room, he groaned in frustration.

The unfortunate recipient of his frustrations was a punching bag in his Uncle Aaron's apartment. Striking the bag with all the force he could muster, the punching bag rumbled on the chain it was strung upon. His knuckles were slowly getting bloodier with each hit, but he couldn't feel it. He could only feel you. It was the only thing he wanted to feel, anyway.

His Uncle inevitably noticed his behavior. Cleaning off one last knife, he set it down and walked towards his nephew. He held the punching bag steady and questioned him, "What's up with you, man?"

Continuing to throw punches at the unsuspecting punching bag, he responded sharply. "It's nothin'. Just my girl going on a date with some other guy." His nostrils flared slightly.

With those two sentences, his Uncle understood his sour mood. "That doesn't sound like nothing. And you just let her? I don't think you're my nephew, man." Shrugging, Miles took a quick water break. Taking a long swig of water, he replied, "You know her, she's stubborn." He had introduced you to his Uncle a while back. His whole family knew you, in fact. Every time he went back home, his mother asked about you. How you are, and when he’s going to tell you how he feels. It seemed everyone knew. Except you.

"Hey. If you want this girl, you gotta show her before someone else does." His Uncle wisely told him. Miles stopped hitting the punching bag and started wrapping his bloodied knuckles in bandages.

Those words stuck with Miles for the rest of the night as he made his way back to his dorm.

Laying on the bed of his dorm, Miles stayed up thinking about what his Uncle told him. His dorm felt empty without you there, he realized.

The next afternoon in his dorm again, you laid on your stomach on his bed, kicking your feet in the air. You frequented his dorm so often that you were more of a roommate to him than his actual one. Glancing at Miles, you noticed the bandages on his knuckles. ���Ay, Miles. What happened?” You asked him, taking his hand into yours to inspect it. He disregarded it, "Don’t worry 'bout it.” He continued, addressing the elephant in the room. “How was your date with Javi, Jake, or Jacob?"

You casually respond, "Actually, his name was Jason. And it was fine, I suppose. Although I called him by the wrong name a few times until he corrected me." You mumbled the last part, embarrassed. Not to mention, you almost called him by Miles' name. Not just once but multiple times.

"Just fine, huh?" He replied, intrigued. And slightly satisfied that you didn't have too good of a time.

"Yeah. I mean, he tried kissing me by the end. But his breath reeked of garlic, so I looked the other way and pretended I didn't notice." You said with a grimace, pretending to get flashbacks. In reality, Miles ruined kissing for you. You couldn't stop seeing Miles' face as your date was leaning into you. He wasn't him.

Stifling a laugh, he grinned at you. "So, that mean you wanna take me up on my offer?" You whipped your head to him in surprise as you said, "You were serious about that? I mean, I'm down." Friends go on dates, don't they? You thought to yourself.

Nodding his head, he said, "I made a promise, ma." He started to stand up, gently grabbing your hand to pull you up with him. Locking your hand onto his arm, he led you out of campus.

Miles brought you to an endearing cafe only a few blocks away from the campus. A diamond in the rough, you thought. As you both sat down across from each other, you felt your nerves spiking.

Truth be told, he still made you nervous at times. Although you've undoubtedly been friends with him for longer than either of you could remember. The both of you ordered food and you started to speak, "So, you take all your girls here, Miles?" Putting on a calm facade, you teased him. You were glad he couldn't see your leg bouncing with anxiousness underneath the table.

He let out a slight puff at you, "What girls? Solo eres tú, mami. You know that." Your heart fluttered slightly at his words. Widening your eyes, you murmured, "I didn't know that, actually." You cleared your throat and enunciated, "How'd you find out about this place then?" Your voice piqued with interest. You didn't believe he would frequent this cute cafe in his spare time. It wasn't exactly his scene, so to say.

"This is where my dad took my ma on their first date." He said with an unusually soft tone, staring into your eyes for your reaction. You would never guess it, but he saw a future with you. Ever since that day on the playground, he knew it was real. His affection for you never dimmed since then.

As you both locked eyes, you realized then that he took you to a place that was sentimental to him and his family. This cafe was where his parent’s story first started. All of a sudden, this date felt a bit more serious than he had originally let on.

Under his stare, you felt your face go warm, "That's beautiful, Miles." After a few moments, you continued, "I suddenly feel like I'm intruding, though." His response came quick, "Never, mami. What makes you say that?" You confessed the thoughts that swarmed your brain right when you walked into the cafe, "I mean, this place feels a bit intimate for people that are 'just friends'" You said with air quotations.

"I think we're past that stage. Don't you, princesa?" You nodded at him. He was right, you thought. After all, friends don't usually have an oral fixation for their friend's mouth.

Your orders came at the same time. You both comfortably conversed. It was a nice change of pace after your date from yesterday. After you both ate your orders and paid, Miles and you walked down the street with his fingers settling on your waist. You spoke up, "Thanks for bringing me here today, Miles. I had a good time with you." You wanted nothing more than to reach up and kiss him til he couldn't breathe, but resisted.

"Anytime. If it meant you'd stop going on dates with other guys." He said casually, but his grip firmed on your waist. Your head turned to him at his words. After your date with Miles, you were sure he ruined dates for you as well. Just like he ruined your ability to kiss anyone else. "Yeah, I'm not even sure I'll want to go on a date with anyone else after this." You said under your breath. He silently grinned.

As you both made your way back to Miles' dorm, the urge to brush your lips against his only became stronger. You could tell he felt it, too. You noticed how he walked a bit faster to go back to his dorm.

Once the door to his room opened, you gave in to your desires and pulled him in by his hoodie to connect your lips. He backed you against his door as his hands traveled all over your body like it was a new territory he was unfamiliar with. He couldn't get enough of you. Groaning into your mouth, he deepened the kiss impossibly more. You both parted for a moment to get a quick breath of air.

Staring into his eyes, you told him before you lost the courage, "I don't want to be just friends. Friends that kiss sometimes when they feel like it." He looked at you like you just told him he won the lottery. In his eyes, this scenario was better than winning the lottery. He grinned as he kissed you again. Full of heat, his kiss spoke louder than words. "Then why don't we be lovers that kiss?” He pulled away to whisper against your lips. “Yeah, I think I like that idea.” You smiled against his lips.

That kiss from yesterday would be the last kiss you shared. As friends, that is. And this would be your first kiss as lovers. From the very first chapter of your life, he was there. And to the present-day chapter of your life, he's still here with you. In the end, It'll always be him and you.

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

solo eres tú - it’s only you

princesa - princess

[angelyuji]

ghost stan haunting the mystery shack after it closed down years ago.... walk with me.

18+!!!!!! minors dni!!

cw // dubcon (under the cut), monster??ghost sex, reader described with female genitalia????? idk how else to describe it

you moved to gravity falls a longggg time after the mystery shack closed down and the realtor in charge of the shack was sooo hype to just get it off their hands, so u got the place pretty cheap. you'd clean up the place, excited to renovate ur new home and explore the very old mystery spot.

it would start off as cold touches like you’re sweeping and you feel a cold hand on your back, you’re cooking and it feels like an arm wraps around your waist. you ignored it all, knowing the place was old and odd. so you ignored it. you ignored the cold spots, the occasional feel of a hand on your ass, the feel of someone watching you shower, the feeling that someone else was in the house with you because, at the end of the day, nothing bad has happened to you!

you ignored it all until one night. you were wrapped on your covers, warm and peacefully asleep, when a chill runs through your body as your blankets are pulled off. you open your eyes, blearily looking around for your blanket. your eyes focus on a blurry image of a man, standing at the edge of your bed. fear paralyzes you as you register the ….

his hand was cold and rough, almost transparent as he slides it up your leg. you can hear his voice, but nothing registers in your head. he pulls down your pajama bottoms and slides a cold finger up your leg, you couldn’t move, paralyzed in fear. you swallow a moan as he presses a thick finger against your underwear. “w-who are you?” you choke out as he starts to pull your underwear.

“i’ve got a lot of names, baby.” the old man dips his head to your shoulder, whispering into your ear. “mr. mystery is one of my favorites though.” you try to stop him, but your hands go through him, unable to grab hold of him. he laughs at your antics and grips your legs tight. he smiles wide and pushes a cold, thick finger inside you. you clench around him, chills going up your spine. “come on, cutie. just relax and you’ll have fun.” you feel him pull out and push in, slowly, savoring the feel of your cunt clenching around his finger. “fuck,” he grunts, “so fucking hot.” you arch your back, as he pushes two fingers in, freezing you to your core. you moan as he brings you closer and closer to the edge, mind going numb.

but as you clench your thighs together, he pulls his fingers out. you whine, “please, no- i need-” he laughs at your begging. he shoves his fingers into your mouth and you suck them clean, tasting yourself around two translucent fingers.

“i’ll be back, pretty.” he grins. you blink and he’s gone.

ghost stan doesn’t come back for a couple days after that and you notice when you realize no one had felt you up while you were in the shack. you had done some research on the shack in that time and realized that it was not a weird dream but the stan pines who was haunting the place. a couple more days go by, and you were getting restless, hoping to see the man and question him. you try some summoning bs you found on the internet- nothing, you call his name 3 times like beetlejuice in the living room- nothing, and you even try to find his grave or living relatives- nothing. at some point, you gave up and went back to convincing yourself it was just a dream…. until a month later when stan decided to pop back up.

[muntitled]

𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐬

Pairings: Fratboy!Sungchan x Shy!reader

Warnings: Language, Enemies to Lovers, Manipulation, Bully!Sungchan, Smut +18 (Minors DNI), Hate sex, Non/Con, Choking, Fingering, Size Kink, Massive Degradation Kink, Praise Kink, Breeding, Choking, Spitting, Rough Sex, Unprotected Sex, Coercion

I needed bully smut, so I wrote bully smut. Also I'm ovulating so don't mind me.

To say you were tense was a grave understatement.

You were forced to sit through your lecture feeling absolutely haunted by the presence beside you. A class you would normally find yourself enjoying is suddenly marred by the stretch of shadow that is Sungchan.

Making comprehensive notes had proven to be difficult when you had to keep a peripheral gaze on the slouching figure seated on the shared desk beside you.

Everything about him vexed you absolutely: The stupid way he wore his snapback (reversed). How he slouched beside you, nearly dozing off on multiple occasions.

Most harrowing was the fact that Sungchan did not make any notes during the entire course of the lesson. In fact, his notebook remained closed. His laptop, untouched.

“Damn,” Sungchan croaks when the professor concludes the end of his incessant rant, “We done?” He asks, “already?”

You only hum in affirmation, keeping your head low as you gather your belongings.

Sungchan watches you scramble to pack up - scramble to get away from him - with unreadable expression.

“Hey, I need to ask you something.”

Your heart plummets when his hand makes contact with the notepad you were shoving into your backpack. You bite the inside of your cheek while your stomach plummets lower and lower.

“Actually, Sungchan… I kinda have somewhere to b-”

“Nah, you're good. It'll only take a few minutes,” he says, lightly tugging on the sleeve of your button-up to lower your butt back down to the chair. You watch with sullen eyes as the rest of your fellow students file out of the classroom.

Two of Sungchan's frat brothers eye you both suspiciously, but Sungchan only gives them a flick of the head in greeting as he leans in to whisper, “You know I don't bite, right?

You didn't care to calculate the validity of that statement because you knew everything this boy had to say was completely and wholeheartedly false. It was almost a marvel, the way he could aimlessly switch from terrorising you one moment to bathing you in unprovoked friendliness the next. It gave you a terrible case of whiplash. Before you're able to respond, however, your professor speaks up from the front of the class. The only other body in the room.

"I hope you plan on actually doing something about those grades this semester, Mr Jung.” Your professor says, eyeing you both through the windows of horn rimmed glasses, “I trust you understand the severity of your current predicament."

Sungchan leans back against his seat, regarding the teacher with a passiveness that made you sweat with nerves.

"Being suspended from basketball definitely sucked," Sungchan's jaw is tight when he speaks, so obviously vexed by the inquiries of your lecturer. "But I've got a secret weapon this semester, Prof," the boy says, slamming his basketball on the conjoined tables, enough to make you jump. "I'll be back on the court in no time."

The sound of your name slipping from your professor's mouth was enough to have you snapping your head up from the weathered pages of the book you had taken out a mere second ago. Sungchan watches, slyly enamoured by the way you sit up when addressing the teacher. The way you correct your spine and elongate your neck. Closing your book with a finger propped in between the pages so as not to lose your space while simultaneously lending the professor your optimal focus.

You were such a fucking prude.

"S-Sorry Sir?" You couldn't have heard him right.

There was absolutely no way.

"I assume you're the student Mr Jung is referring to?" Your professor seems oblivious to the way your face threatens to fall, but Sungchan catches it in the slight twitch of your left brow.

"Oh- I-" everything in you was screaming to send out an SOS signal. Your neck still hurt with the imprint of his palm from when he had terrorized you just a few hours ago... Willingly choosing to be put in a space with Jung Sungchan alone seemed like a viable death wish.

"She already agreed to help tutor me yesterday, actually?" Your heart plummets when the boy turns to face you. "Very admiral."

A wave of nausea washes over you and you try your damndest to just not fucking cry as he places a tentative hand on your thigh underneath the table. Everything in your being responseded negatively to this man. Everything perhaps except your eyes.

While you could not deny that he was the spawn of Satan, you couldn't deny that he had the biggest, most brightest, most kindest eyes you've ever seen.

And that was the fucked up part.

"You said it yourself," Sungchan shoots back at the professor as his nails sink into the sensitive, plush skin of your thighs, "She's the best of the best so I figured, only the best can get me back on that court,"

You wanted to cry. To break out into a blaze of uncontrollable hysteria. Anything at all that might convince your professor to get Jung Sungchan away from you. The tempest of emotions swirling inside, the humiliation, the vile, disgusting feelings that only make themselves known in the vulnerabilities of the AM's...

It all threatens to boil over like an abandoned pot left on an open stove.

Perhaps Sungchan notices the quiver in your lips.

"I trust you'll get started as soon as possible then?"

"We're getting started right now, actually," Sungchan says, peeling his eyes away from your bowed frame, just in time to catch your professor gathering his belongings by the desk, "Basketball season is just around the corner, so you know how it is,"

All his fingers are digging into you thigh now. You have to resort to biting down on the inside of your cheeks to avoid letting that torrid screech rip its way through your vocal cords.

"I'm very impressed by your work ethic, Mr Jung," your professor says, completely oblivious to the way your eyes widen at the sight of him filing his way out the classroom, "And a very special thank you to you, Miss L/N. This is incredibly admirable and something I most definitely will not forget,"

For the briefest moments, the sun peaks through the murky, heavy clouds and you're awash in not only the approval of your professor, but by the possibility that you were perhaps one step closer to making TA. It would undoubtedly look wonderful on your resume, and having a member of staff essentially vouch for you would be... fucking miraculous.

"Wipe the drool off your face, it's not very sexy," Sungchan's grumbles have you hurtling out of your daydreams and straight back down to earth where you're left abandoned in a lecture hall with the only person in the entire world you believed deserved death.

Sungchan's head is leaning back passively against the chair, his legs are spread and his hand has yet to leave your thigh.

You try to keep your voice remaining steady as you ask "How much work do you plan on putting in?" Your voice is dripping monotony and is ice cold, nothing at all like the lazy smile flitting across Sungchan's face as he watches you, still slouching like he couldn't give less of a shit.

"None." His words have you snapping your head towards him, eyes blazing with the signs of your very first tear growing pregnant in your tear ducts.

"Th-Thats impossible- you can't do that!"

"I can't do any of this shit," Sungchan snorts as he motions with his other hand towards the blackboard scribbled with details on Austomarixsm, your most recent study, and most daunting assignment.

"Sungchan I-" You exhale, completely and utterly dumbfounded, "Sungchan, I have my own work to do. I have school, a-and a part time job- I have my own assignments due- just the other day I fucking passed out from a stress migraine-"

The calluses of his palms rubbing against the inside of your thigh, momentarily bring you out of the reverie of your own self pity, “I'm sorry that happened to you, Angel,” he begins, in the most sickeningly sweet voice you've ever heard anyone utter to you, let alone a man you found so incredibly... attractive.

You're not immune to Sungchan's charms and that was perhaps, part of the problem. You feared that if it ever came down to it, you might fall on a fucking sword for him, “Just make sure you get my assignment done on time, yeah?”

Your eyes are focused on his hand. The size of it. The labyrinth of veins running the expanse of it. The way it's rubbing against your inner thigh with a dizzying mysticism.

All it takes is for the first tear to fall directly on his palm before you're lifting your head and murmering, “No.”

Sungchan's hand stops all movement on your thigh and for the first (but certainly not last) part of this evening, you're utterly, and completely filled with fear.

“Sorry?” he shakes his head, displaying that sunshine smile, “What did you say? I don't think I heard you right.”

“You heard me perfectly well,” you tip your head back in defiance, letting your nose raise higher than it's used to being. Finding that glimmer of confidence that lay wasting, like an old relic somehwere inside of you.

“I said n-”

His hand was encircled around your throat before you could even get the final word out and he is pushing your face down on the table with immense force. A dark shadow settles across him, only intensifying his glare.

You writhe underneath him but Sungchan's grip on the side of your face only doubles in force as he slowly rises from his chair, towering over your bent frame as he twitches his head a little to side.

“Come again?”

You're struggling to breath under the pressure of having your cheek pressed so completely against a flat surface and your limbs are shot with panic.

He's far bigger than you though, your movements mean absolutely nothing. “I couldn't hear you the first time, Angel, what did you say?” His shadow bleeds across your form, like an immense, horrible darkness and so you squeeze your eyes shut, hoping that whatever this is, whatever that was about to be inflicted on you would disappear.

“I know I didn't just hear you say no to me, baby,” your limbs stop their idle protests when Sungchan's hand slithers up your skirt, “You're too good an angel to ever say no to me, right?” Your mouth is trembling as his words wash over the side of your face, “You're too fucking pathetic to say no to anyone.”

“Sungchan- please-”

“Please?” He asks, swiping his fingers past your underwear, “Please stop or Please carry on?” Your mind is completely overrun with both panic and a second, more sinister second feeling that you truly did not want to confront in a moment like this. All you wanted to focus on was escaping the iron grip, keeping your cheeks pushed against the desk, where a small puddle of drool had accumulated from your open mouth.

You writhe underneath him, valiantly trying to get his fingers away from you, but your movements only cause the first bit delecrable of friction against your cunt.

“That's it,” He whispers, “That's a good little slut,” Sungchan watches as you continue to push your cunt back against his fingers, subsequently raking the first moan out of your clogged throat.

“Look at you…” He marvels at the sight of you. How easily you've gotten wet for him despite being completely and wholeheartedly defiant just a moment before. Sungcham doesn't know whether to look at your pussy desperately trying to pleasure itself with his fingers, or your face, and those pretty half lidded eyes rolling to back of your head.

“You can't so no to anything, can you?” He finally pushes two digits in, immediately causing you to gasp underneath him, “You'll let anyone fuck this pussy raw, hm? Even me?” His words are enough to have you writing even more underneath him.

“F-Fuck you-” Sungchan buries his fingers inside of you, all too pleased to watch you attempt to stave off the pleasure coursing through your body. His cock is fucking aching at the sight and it only has him fingering you harder and faster.

“You're gonna cum on my fingers, yeah? You're gonna cum like the sick fucking slut you are?” Your body is racked with unbearable spasms as you're forced into your first orgasm. The room goes white and all you're consumed by is the feeling of Sungchan's massive fingers inside of you and your head still pressed to the side of the table. You're fucking back against his fingers and he watches, completely enamored with his mouth hanging limply open. He is utterly taken with the sight.

“Fuck, you're so hot,” the room spins and it takes a few seconds to notice you're not pressed against the desk anymore.

Now you're being pulled up and pushed with your ass against the desk while Sungchan towers over you, hurriedly fiddling with his belt as he glares down at you with monotonous lust. He doesn't smile. He doesn't crack any incessant jokes, he only grabs you by your neck and forces his hand in your mouth.

“Spit,” you do more than that. You gag around his fingers, until Sungchan is finally satisfied with the string of saliva when he slips his hand out.

“Watch,” his forces you to bow your head and watch him coat his aching red cock with your spit. He jerks himself off right in front of you, loving the way your eyes stay glued on his dick.

“You're such a dirty fucking slut, you know that?” He is saying it to himself at this point. Words drenched in arousal and uttered through clenched teeth, “You’re such a pretty fucking slut, aren't you, Princess?”

You can't stop your eyes from watching how he fucks himself, you can't bare to look away.

“Are you gonna fuck me?” Your voice is hoarse and shaking,

“Are you asking me to fuck you?”

All it takes is one nod before he's pushing you backwards against the small table and forcing himself between your open legs. “Then I'll give you what you want,” he whispers before pushing himself inside of you, completely knocking the wind out of your lungs.

He's too big. Far too big, and you try to tell him this by pawing lamely at the lapels of his letterman.

“F-Fuck, this pussy is so fucking tight!” Sungchan rolls his head back and you stare up at him as if he were a God as he drags your hips towards his, fucking you completely dumb on his cock.

“Is this what you wanted, Angel? You wanted my dick inside you like a needy fucking slut.”

“Sungchan I'm c-cumming, FUCK-” Your orgasm quite literally sneaks up on you and it has you throwing your head back while Sungchan continues to fuck himself into you. He watches you writhe and scream and he feels you clench his dick impossibly tighter.

“F-Fuck you're gonna me me cum,” he whispers, causing the very familiar feeling of alarm to pour out of you. You struggle against him but Sungchan keeps his palm lpcked around your neck, keeping your body very much against his.

"S-Sungchan, please."

"Stop moving or im really gonna cum," you try to push him away but your movements only succeed in raking a broken moan out him.

"You can't cum inside! Fucking- Stop,"

Sungchan is completely caught in the throes of his own prgasm. You're not sure if he hears you at all through all his mumbling and moaning.

“Fuck, angel, you're gonna make me-” Sungchan's thrust grow incredibly sloppy and you nearly start crying until he guides himself out of you, spilling his seed all over your drenched cunt. "F-Fuck, I pulled put, see?" He's breathing heavily as he continues to milk out tye rest of his cum and your lips are quivering, "I pulled out, Angel, don't worry."

The palm across the side of your face is warm, almost disarming, "You'll help me out, right? You'll help me get back on the court." Your lips have yet to stop their horrible quivering, "I need your help, Angel. You know I do,"

<3

© to @mphountitled on tumblr; do not repost

[capslocked]

STARLET

male reader x cho miyeon

part 1 of another name up in lights

28k words (special thanks to @passingnotions for helping make all my work possible)

“I would rather throw up,” you murmur out of the corner of your mouth, “than do another take of this scene with you.” “Okay.” Miyeon tilts her chin. The lights begin to dim over the blonde hair she has falling over an upturned brow. “Then throw up.”

It takes a few beats—while production staff scurry about the tense silence rolling through the studio—for everything to fall perfectly still.

Miyeon takes a deep breath, and whispers: “I can get you a bucket.”

“Action!” (The one where Miyeon ruins your career, and you ruin her too.)

- That first time the two of you are photographed together, it’s wholly unremarkable. The entirety of the cast is in frame, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the banner at the presser and pretending that someone had just whispered something worthy of a belly laugh into your ears. Cho Miyeon hangs delicately off your arm, hand wrapped just above your elbow, and all of you are at your most jovial—looking like you’re simply having the most wonderful time, smiles wide and beaming. Because if that isn’t part of the act. You sell the characters, the fiction, the drama even when the cameras aren’t rolling.

The second photo is what gets people talking. 

Anyone with half a brain ought to know that if you were sincerely seeing your co-star, an untruth that the general public is apparently beyond happy to eat up, you wouldn’t be so careless to post up outside a small cafe. Certainly not at a trendy place aside one of the busiest streets in the city, but these tabloids are rabid. Like a head injury, that self-condemning desire to get clicks and hits at any cost has long clouded their ability to think, and so it gets plastered right there on the front page of every rag in the industry. Don’t get it confused, the photo looks good. It’s got allure and mischief written all over it. And that’s exactly what you’re going for.

Miyeon’s hair is up, tied into a messy bun, because she’d have hated to obfuscate the work that her floral shoulderless dress was not doing in hiding from the world the most immaculate pair of collarbones you’d ever seen. Then in her hands—between her teeth—she fiddles with the earpiece of her sunglasses, shooting you with the clearest, most flagrant fuck me now eyes that only a blind person might not pick up on (doubtful still). And you’re there, smirking back at her, for even if a photo tells a whole story, this one really only ever needed a sentence: sparks flying, the two of you really hit it off. 

It’s a point of contention later—several times actually—but regardless of how you feel, the girl can act.

Now the image that really gets the media whipped into a frenzy is a lot less polished. It’s grainy and the lighting is poor and in a change of pace, the quality of the photo would lead you to believe that it wasn’t premeditated. Which, unfortunately, is exactly how it goes down.

Even still, it's all framed perfectly, infamously, a straight-up disaster. Miyeon is immediately recognizable, unabashedly blonde and gorgeous as ever. You’ve got your mouth on hers and the problems absolutely do not end there: her back is flush against the bricks of the alley, pinned under your weight, and yes, your hands are busy. One up her skirt, the other in her shirt, she’s blushing into you, and you wouldn’t know from the photo, but she’s got her fingers working at your belt and as a collection, it’s all utterly shameless. Everything up to that point had been muted in subtext; both of you know the value of intrigue, the art of letting everyone else connect the dots—this, however, unintentionally becomes a phenomenon.

Lights the internet on fire for a minute.

The shocking part of all this, what ends up being labeled a calamity by people whose opinions actually concern you, is the photo that you assume will haunt you forever and follow you to your grave isn’t even the one where you’re making out with the starlet du jour in the harsh yellow of an exterior floodlight—in the relaxed wickedness only two AM might ever know. No, it’s this photo, the press’s favorite, given how it shows up everywhere. Miyeon’s holding the award for best actress in a lead role in one hand, knuckles tight around the podium microphone with her other. She’s radiant. She’s flustering. She’s breathtaking. She even trips up on her words in a way that’s endearing. And every fool with a blog is infatuated by all of it.

Your own thoughts on the matter aside, the most neutral and economic way to describe it is unintentionally funny. You were with her when she picked out that silver sequin evening dress, sparkling in the demand of stage lights and camera flashes. It spills from where the garment ties around her neck over the lines of her body as if it has no bias itself for any form or structure, only curving on its journey to her feet at the behest of where her breasts sloped down from her collarbones, the flare of her hips just below her waist. She’s the spitting image of perfection, a damn icon—the headlines are supposed to be about her—but there you are: tucked into the corner, in a sea of faces all justifiably mesmerized by the beauty that walked delicately onto the stage and adorably needed to adjust the microphone stand down to her height. 

As It turns out, the absolute displeasure in your scowl isn’t any less captivating. Envious. Spiteful. Arrogant. You catch some serious flak for it.

For months, it ends up being the subject of commentary online, in print, on television—your names on the tips of everyone’s tongues. All with their own theories, but no one manages to guess the truth for a long time, because no one could even begin to believe it:

You hate Miyeon, and Miyeon hates you.

-

Oh, there are plenty of clues, if you aren’t already keenly aware of it, that your career is slowly sliding into obscurity. Years ago, walking into your agent's office was an event: eyes widened and turned to you immediately. The quiet smiles, the blushing, the batting of eyelashes. The pomp and circumstance of the agency’s biggest client strolling into Soyeon’s office like you were crossing the Rubicon into the streets of Rome. It was glorious and it always meant something big was about to happen.

To be clear, you’re not saying you need the attention, but today, no one even offers to take your coat, which is a shame, because it’s been raining biblically for the past week, and there’s puddles in your shoes, squeaking obnoxiously as you parade unceremoniously through a row of desks. Even so, sounding like a dog’s chew toy, it’s sheer and utter avoidance—eyes glued to monitors and unlifted from scribbled notes as though you’re simply another courier delivering a parcel (which hey, in all honesty, someone like that might even have some of that magical potential). 

“Hold up. What do you mean they’re passing me up?” you ask, eyes narrowed and leaning forward in your seat so that the blatant abandonment of all your grace and charm doesn’t get lost in translation across the length of Soyeon’s desk. “That part had my fucking name on it.”

“It did.” Soyeon drums her pen against her keyboard. Comes close to making a face. “And now it has someone else’s name on it. Someone the studio trusts.”

“Oh, for christ’s sake, he’s twelve years older than me. The character is supposed to be thirty, not a dinosaur in a Kingsman suit.” 

“It’s the silver fox thing. He markets easily to women.”

“And I don’t?” you stammer out, and Soyeon lifts an eyebrow. “Only a date night staple for almost a decade, Soyeon. Can you honestly sit there and say I wouldn’t play it better? The man plays nothing but himself in every role. Every. Single. Role.”

“Well, it just so happens that he brings people to the theater in droves,” Soyeon snaps back before you have the chance to say anything you could possibly regret. “Look, I told you I have good news and bad news, and it sounds like you’ve figured out the bad news already.”

“Oh please don’t tell me it’s charity.” You wave your hand flippantly. “We’re not doing this.” 

Discount parts for struggling actors. If they were worth more than the paper in the scripts they were printed on, Soyeon would’ve been negotiating them this very moment. 

There’s a lot about it to unpack, your fall from grace. You aren’t bringing in commissions, directors aren’t lining up in front of the firm to shove their scripts in front of your nose, and your last few films are better remembered for the comedic value of their scathing reviews than the actual screenplay or cinematography.

One such review of your most recent work, an ill-fated screen adaptation of Blood Meridian that had ‘studio interference’ written all over it right from its woeful inception, reads: I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the implied sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the subliminal insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

There are plenty more just like it, and plenty worse, but it’s never done you any good, mentally, to sift through them.

“Really. I’m serious, these parts aren’t bad.” 

Soyeon has enough confidence in her voice to sound convincing, but you’ve also never heard her come across any different. You catch yourself pausing to think about it, which is a clear tell that you’re perhaps nearing wit’s end, considering you’re not one to shy away from blurting out the first thought that forms half-coherent into your head.

“Now, they’re not what you’re looking for, admittedly, but I just think with a little luck, they could end up being a fortuitous move,” she adds.

“Go on, pitch,” you say, before sinking a little lower into your chair because even though it pains you to agree with her, she’s right.

“If you’ll dismount from your high horse for a moment,” Soyeon starts, waiting for you to finish rolling your eyes, “the Coens called again—”

“I’m not.”

“The part is interesting.”

“The part is small, it’s side-cast. Don’t sugarcoat it. I’m not taking one of their rescue-shelter-for-the-has-been supporting roles. That’s the equivalent of throwing in the towel.”

“It’s done wonders for careers in worse shape than yours, to be candid.”

“Careful,” you warn her, lifting your chin and glaring—a look you are definitely not known for—but if there’s anyone in the industry who could hold her own, deflect your best, and make you feel foolish for thinking you could cross swords and come out unscathed, it’s Jeon Soyeon.

“May I remind you that I’ve been nominated for best actor three times? That no one in their right mind predicted any of those movies to be any good? I’ve got talent. Let’s not sit around and pretend like I need to be put on life support here. I’m capable.”

Soyeon just steeples her fingers together. “I don’t need the reminder. I made that exact point in a call with a producer this morning, but it’s hard to get people to look past the fact that some of your recent choices have been—”

“If you’re going to say I told you so,” you grumble, letting out a sharp sigh, “let’s get it over with.”

She doesn’t say anything right away. Just pushes a folder across the desk and into your hands like she’s betraying national secrets to a foreign adversary. “Listen, don’t walk out in disgust. At least not right away.”

It takes only a moment. You recognize what’s going on here immediately. “Soyeon.”

“I know. I know. I know.” She waves her hand. “But hear me out, give it a chance.”

“It’s a rom-com, Soyeon.” “I’m plenty aware of what it is.” “I can see it already: smart, sophisticated, funny.” It takes a lot not to curl your lip. And then it fucking curls anyway. “I thought… I thought I had climbed out of the depths of romantic-comedy-hell, Soyeon. This is like suggesting that I get back into a relationship with an abuser.”

“I know, but this one actually is different,” she says, and you take a moment to remember you’ve always respected her honesty, paid her for it, and should’ve probably listened to it on more than one occasion. It’s the reason you’re here of all places. 

“You’d kill the part,” she adds. “You spent years killing parts just like it. There’s no shame in that. And the director’s asked for you, specifically. By name. She’s willing to double your asking price.”

So maybe your eyes widen at that, even if it’s the absolute worst way to admit defeat, that you’re just as talentless as you’ve always feared: retreating back to the comfort of the role, all that expertise in acting with—no scratch that, acting at—some barely legal starlet ready to show a little skin to get ahead. 

(That’s the nature of the game, and it’s your roots, unfortunately, but it’s safe, and if the money is there, then better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.) “Ah, yeah okay, well here’s the thing: they’ve already decided on the female lead.” You lean forward, like you’d have to listen to this next part in a whisper, because anything louder than that would make it too difficult to bear. “And?” Soyeon clicks her tongue, runs her thumb across her lips, thinking of how to soften the blow. “I mean she isn’t what you’d call an actress, exactly.” “What the hell does that mean, exactly?” “Cho Miyeon,” she starts, and you’re actually just sitting there, tasting at something in your mouth like it’ll help you make sense of it, if only for the reason that you’re not quite sure who that is. “She’s, uh, well, she’s a popstar, you see.” “Oh you’re not kidding.”

There’s a sincerity that lives somewhere in Soyeon’s lack of any expression at all, perfect poker-face armed and readied. You have to squint to really take it in. Heavens.

-

Exactly how much Soyeon actually knew about this girl, you’ll never know. She claimed first that they met through a mutual friend who does publicity work for another studio, and on a separate occasion saying that they went to school together, determinedly avoiding anything like names or corroborating details. Of course you believed her, because how were you supposed to know any different?

“Wait, you mean like actual royalty?” you ask a few days later, after Soyeon explains Miyeon’s nickname to you, because in this industry, it’s really not that ridiculous a question. 

“It’s just a running gag,” she says casually, and you both watch the waiter wordlessly grate pepper into her salad until Soyeon puts a hand up.

“So,” you continue, incredulous, “it’s supposed to be funny?”

“Look, it’s a whole thing.” Soyeon picks up her fork, but doesn’t quite end up doing anything with it. “I promise she’s only half the disaster you think she is.”

“Then do me a favor: kick my shin when I’m supposed to laugh.”

“Do yourself a favor, and try to be a little amiable.”

“You say that like I don’t know how to be charming,” you deadpan, sipping at your coffee while Soyeon’s glare stands its ground.

It’s nothing official, but Soyeon had organized a script reading. The Director is off in some foreign land scouting for the perfect beach with perfectly white sand on an island that already has enough problems, and tells you in three separate text messages to just read the fucking script. You’re groaning, rolling your eyes, and then, curled up next to the fireplace in your readers at three in the morning, it hits you—like really hits you. And you’re shocked, mostly, that there's brilliance in these pages. It’s not the kind of flick you expected, the kind that has journalists at the Atlantic, real writers with academic chops and know-how, publishing articles with titles like: Why Are Romantic Comedies So Bad?

Which, hey, isn’t that a great question. There are a couple of answers, you imagine. You haven’t read the piece of course; you’re the last person that would ever need to. But perhaps among the most fundamental obligations for the genre is that there must be some degree of obstacle, a challenge to nuptial bliss that the hero and heroine must overcome, all before the story’s happily-ever-after. And, to put it simply, such obstacles have only gotten harder and harder to come by. They used to lie in heaps and piles on the ground, ripe for the picking: parental disapproval, difference in social class, unfulfilled promises, the classic and creatively bankrupt friendship-blossoming-into-romance. Nowadays there’s quite literally nothing new under the sun.

So take that all into account, and then add in the fact that you’ve got your hands on something innovative and creative and tasteful—it’s insulting, absurd even, that you’d hamstring the movie by shooting one of the leads out of a cannon and into the hands of a novice who may or may not be able to act her way out of a paper bag. The part calls for subtlety, not the ham-handedness and dramatic stylings of a girl whose experience with the camera extends to knowing when and when not to wink.

Only here’s the thing, it’s not absurd. Like at all. Because enter Cho Miyeon.

She appears in profile first, before pulling a chair out from the table and taking a seat all with the confidence of someone who’d probably be welcome at any table, anytime, anywhere. And almost immediately, you’ve got the answer to those hundred different questions of why. Why a rookie? Why a pop idol? Why ‘princess?’ 

Well, see, on a basic level, she’s fucking breathtaking.

The devil’s in the details if you aren’t disarmed completely at a glance. Dignified, regal, royal, this girl has it all, and then some. Her hair frames her face as though it were in any need of succor, perfectly messed and ash-blonde and tumbling effortless down her shoulders. She flutters her lashes; her lips part, close again in a way that is oddly captivating; and she gets a tilt in her chin that’s worth a thousand words (most of them admittedly, jesus, fuck, and my god). It’s like she not only understands every cliche in the book—but she’s gone out of her way to make them hers. “Miyeon,” she says, voice gentle and saccharine sweet, extending her hand towards you. 

It dawns on you that there’s a certain authority that comes about from saying your own name, even when you know no one has ever needed it—contrast to the way her hand fits in yours, dainty fingers, wrist flawlessly delicate; she’s five-two, arguably five-three in her socks and you’re the one who could crush her. Even so, it’s your mouth that runs dry. You’re catching your breath, and you have to clear your throat to even return the favor.

“I’m a huge fan of your work,” she adds. 

“Oh,” you start, shifting gears, getting ready to lie straight through your teeth, “me as well.” It’s shamelessly performative. And Soyeon knows that. The wince she struggles to hold back from across the table is hard not to notice.

But then so is Miyeon, your eyes trailing down her body like a palpable touch over every curve.

Black mini skirt, pre-torn sheer tights, a pair of knee-high combat boots with a hell of a heel on them, and you’re just realizing you can see how perfectly flat her tummy is, peeking out beneath where the hem of her shirt decides to taper for the betterment of mankind. Ah, you get it, so apparently idols really do dress like that—anything and everything to tell you, keep your eyes on me now.

The feet of your chair scrape loud on the floor as you stand on your feet. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

“Alright,” Soyeon tuts as she stabs at her salad, “let’s dial it back.”

It takes two tries to meet her eyes properly, these beautifully dark and dangerous things, but Miyeon just blinks at you, quirks her lips gently into a small smile. And you smile right back, just a little, because maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all.

-

It isn’t anything like the romance Miyeon will later make it out to be. 

Even though sure, you’re both there laughing, blushing and coy—all of it enough to make the characters in the script look even-keeled, something a little more sane. “Please, it’s called chemistry,” you begin crafting excuses toward your agent when Miyeon takes a phone call on the terrace. “I have it with everyone.” And maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t. But be careful, there’s nothing noble about what’s going on here. 

“Sorry,” Miyeon apologizes, like she’d ever need to, pulling her chair right up next to yours. “Where were we?”

Just the part where the characters realize everything they’ve ever been looking for is right there in front of them. You spit the pen cap out of your mouth to answer: “the epiphany.”

For what it’s worth, the actual work to be done goes smoother than you expect. Sure, the initial delivery is rough around the edges and in need of a little tender love and care, but that’s far more than what you’d been prepared to give Miyeon credit for.

Not too long after, Miyeon suggests splitting a bottle of wine, something light and sparkling. It goes down easy.

Soyeon figures it’s time to fabricate some way to gracefully exit this whole thing, fingers tapping wildly at her phone, when you and Miyeon start touching each other. It’s subtle at first: she leans over your shoulder when you point something out in the script, pulls back a curtain of blonde hair right back over her ear before brushing up against you, lingers just long enough so that she can flick her eyes up to yours—doesn’t even care to look away whenever you catch her staring. And that’s just what can be seen above the table.

With a coat tucked under her armpit and her belongings all hastily gathered, Soyeon turns her face back over her shoulder one last time; she’s glaring, opening her mouth to say something but decides against it at the last moment. You get the message: don’t sleep with her.

You simply wave her off. Hide your own disappointment that she thinks you’d even need the reminder, because you would never.

“I guess I'm really looking forward to it,” Miyeon says, once the sun’s finished its daily dive into the horizon—once there’s only a mess of papers and empty wine glasses trailing in your wake. 

(The restaurant’s in the middle of whipping itself into shape before a slew of dinner reservations come through. It feels rude to camp out at a table any longer.)

Miyeon turns to you, standing with a hand on her hip like the two of you are neighbors who share a mailbox, and says, “think it could be fun.”

Oh, surely you’ve done a better job at masking a grin. Miyeon picks up on it instantly.

“I’m serious,” she adds, letting the timbre of her voice shift into this juxtaposition of suggestion and naivety that has you doing a double take, mentally. Because the lines in her picture perfect face are so very easy to latch onto—even if you’ve never seen anyone as perfectly sculpted as her, you can’t shake the feeling that all humans ought to come out looking like this—but at the same time, there’s something that lies beneath the surface, something undoubtedly complex, something that quietly chides you for having such untoward thoughts of a subject so innocent and docile.

“I’m not trying to take the air out of your sails or anything,” you say as you guide her through the door, hand pressing at the small of her back, “but these shoots can end up being a lot less enjoyable than they look.” “Of course,” Miyeon says, laughing, because here she is, the rookie, and it’s all very natural for her to appeal to some innate desire in you to come off as the authority on anything—film, stardom, the lack thereof, navigating life as a young pretty thing, the authority you’d discover in bending her over your kitchen counters—to some extent, she has you at least a little figured out. “What I mean is I’m looking forward to working with you.”

You watch her smile slant, shift quietly towards something more suggestive when you slip your coat around her shoulders—it’s a foregone conclusion, not that either of you are willing to look it straight in the face.

What you should have done is grabbed your phone and called her a car; there’s thousands of them in this city. What you should've done is driven home, alone. That’s all it should have been. Just some starlet you charmed for an evening to get your career back in order. Nothing more, nothing more. And instead of getting her for a few months plus change, you get her for life. This should’ve been extra clear when she leaned up against the passenger side door of your car, and found a new angle, something she’d only to that point allow to muse about your idle thoughts:

“And here I was, thinking you were just someone playing a part. Only ever a romantic for the camera.” 

You can’t even say it all happens so fast. 

Not when you take in consideration how you watch Miyeon delicately, slowly, purposefully grab a fistful of your shirt, balling it between her fingers, and begin to twist. This is probably where you’ll start, you think, when you explain it all in a tell-all book long past the age of your youth. Because, oh, what a pleasant surprise. She’s perfect. Flawless. A natural. You can’t keep your eyes away from her, and she’d have it no other way.

“Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?” you ask, if only to resist the urge to pull her in.

“Well, I suppose I’ve got a few ideas,” she says, and there’s a glimmer at the surface of her eyes, dark and intelligent and flashing with something like danger, something like the worst decision you’ve made in years. And that’s saying a lot. “But I’d like to think you can show me.”

You give her a practiced smile, stretching just right, careful, careless, carefree. Trust me, that smile says. It’s a scene from a movie, one of many. It’s familiar. You’ve been here, with weapons in a caliber all of your own, and Miyeon’s cheeks start to ever-so-perfectly redden, porcelain skin come aflame. 

“You know,” you say, making your voice drawl until Miyeon shuffles her weight between her feet, “if it was up to the writers, I’d kiss you here.”

“If it was up to me,” Miyeon starts, chin up at you like a challenge, “I’d let you.”

The way Miyeon explains it later is that you duck your head and hold your lips next to hers just long enough to let your next breath make her swoon, all before interrupting her with a hungry exhale and an open mouth pressing into hers. A hard, biting kiss that sends shivers down her spine. That you angle your mouths just right so your tongues can slip together, so you might sweep this girl right off her feet and into your arms—if Miyeon has a face that has fantasy written all over it, then so do you, and she says you ought to know what it does it to people. She’ll be half right. 

Only when you lean into her and start filing away those mental notes of how perfect her tiny waist fits in your hands, you pause at the sound of a cricket chirping, a reminder of the neighborhood around you.

“Not out here,” you murmur, casting a wary eye over her shoulder. “Let me take you home.”

Miyeon sniffles, blinks a few times, and nods.

-

Really, it starts with you. A month before you begin shooting, you suffer from a little insanity of your own. Miyeon’s got the second boot only halfway off her foot, lit up in the soft darkness of your foyer, when you take hold of her. 

It’s not like you figured this was your last chance for happiness—swallowing down the gasp that comes off Miyeon’s lips like it were your only shot at tasting heaven—but that’s exactly how you kiss her. Mouth open and hot and heavy against hers. It’s hard to explain, and it doesn’t quite add up; you’ve got your Furies, your own personal pantheon, the girls you’ve most dreamed about and had running through your thoughts—who’d eventually find their way between your sheets in some manner or another, melting in your hands. But somehow, Miyeon’s different, you convince yourself. Or she does rather, starting with her tongue sliding languidly against yours before she decides to bite down on the swell of your lower lip. It hurts. 

She knows it hurts.

“Watch it,” you say, coming off kind of harsh, before you can realize what all is going on here. Before you come to the understanding that she’s untouchable, priceless, that you can’t afford to break her—and that it’s precisely what she wants out of you.

“What?” she asks, the corners of her mouth slanted up ever so slightly. “You’ve got nice lips.”

How you’ll ever be able to forget someone like her, you haven’t a single clue, because Miyeon uncovers and undresses you down right to the bare soul. Your mouths crash again, just enough subdued to keep your teeth from clicking together like you’ve never done this before—like you’re reading her, getting lost in a new paradox: the intrigue of her tongue caressing yours, the familiarity of her thumb rubbing circles into your back. There’s the Miyeon that was cracking wise and sipping wine with you an hour ago, and now there’s this.

“So, how are we doing this?” she asks, breaths wet and heavy as she fidgets with the button on your pants. “How do you want me?” “Well.” You’re sliding a hand up her stomach, across her ribs, until you hit the silky fabric beneath her shirt. “I’m not sure I know what you’re asking here.” “Don’t play dumb.” Miyeon looks you straight in the eye, and she’s close enough that you can count the flecks of gold dancing in her irises. Brows furrowed for a second, she ends up indulging you anyway: “I’m asking how you want to fuck me?”

Every turn in her voice sinks deeper, reels you in further, coaxes you into shoving her to the wall between the door and a coat rack. The way she yelps first in surprise as her back hits the hard surface, whimpering later in delight at the grip your hands make onto her hips, it gives you the sense that she’s flustered, unable to come off as anything beyond embarrassingly forward and drowning in anticipation—

“Miyeon,” you say, slowly, getting a good read on just how much she likes hearing you say her name. That it’ll kill her, you figure, when you’re fucking her with slow, deep, deliberate strokes—once she’s inches within cumming and falling apart and it’s arriving right in her ear. “What do you think?” That lands even more pointed somehow. More dangerous than you could have ever predicted, the charm and practiced charisma in your voice coming out in lethal force: “Maybe, oh let’s see… should I fuck you right here?”

Miyeon starts with her fingertips across your scalp before threading them through your hair. “Well,” she says, teasing the callback, drawing the syllable out as though running it conceptually through her head. “If that isn’t a spectacular idea, I don’t know what is.”

“Yeah,” you murmur into the delicate skin under her jaw, and after lifting off her shirt and tossing it aside, she kisses you with a consuming, needy kind of hunger one more time. Until you’re both just out of breath. “I think so too.” Miyeon dips her fingers into the waist of your pants before anything else. Function of the fact that men’s clothing is so straightforward and predictable, she’s able to shimmy them down off your hips until they hang unceremoniously around your thighs. “Um,” she says, sinking her teeth into her lip a moment, right after curling her fingers around your cock, “you’re like, really hard, you know that?”

“I was going to mention it earlier. You’re kinda my type.”

She leans into you, sighing a little into your neck. “Which is?”

“Oh, you know,” you say nonchalantly. “Pretty. Small. Ruinable. That sort of thing.”

“Right.” With a jerk of her wrist, Miyeon brings your cockhead flush against her stomach—pumps you there leisurely. “Wouldn’t want Soyeon thinking you were planning on ruining me.”

“Quick learner,” you murmur, bunching her skirt up over the rise of her hips.

“Well, we’re really not so different, you and me.”

“Hm.” She doesn’t know what she’s saying—you’re you—storied, seasoned, and only heeding right now to the wail of torn fabric. There’s a hole in her tights already, and your fingers work fast. Rip, tear, threads screeching undone. “I’m curious to hear what all gives you that impression.” 

“The way I see it, we both know what we want,” she says, unashamed, and the sound that escapes her mouth sounds a lot like a hiccup, some little hopeful noise or another, swallowing for air at the touches skating across her underwear, where it’s soaked and hot and begging. “Suppose that’s true.” “Not afraid to go for it either.” She tightens her grip around your cock, squeezing like she’s waiting for you to tell her to stop and running her thumb across your slit. “Won’t settle for anything less than you—”

“A word of advice,” you start, and the authority in your voice makes her melt just a little further in your grip. “From someone who’s not so different… A little flexibility goes a long way, sweetheart.”

“Oh.” It’s smug, the way she says it. Her eyes are heavy, hooded—honing the perfect hue of haughty as she drags her panties to the side. “I’m nothing if not a little flexible.” You bend from your knees, because Miyeon is tiny where she stands, up against drywall with her dainty arms thrown over your shoulders. And in a way, she’s right: you see the parallels, cut from the same cloth, the two strained noises or another buzzing in your throat indistinguishable when you hook your hand around her thigh, raise it, and barely slide yourself inside her, just an inch.

Miyeon’s mouth opens like she’s going to speak, and then hovers there, brows turning and knitting together—something you more than understand, because you’re on the verge of losing your mind too. She’s wet and slick with heat and so fucking inviting that you think the world might end if you don’t bury yourself into her this very second. Not that there isn’t near commensurate satisfaction in drawing out the moment, you fast discover, teasing mercilessly until you can hear Miyeon’s frustration. Her eyes shut tight, and her breath becomes ragged as you allow her another inch—almost keening when you pull back before pushing your cock into her cunt again, fucking her open slowly.

It’s only when you hear her beg please, please, please that you sink all the way in.

And she feels amazing. Tight and hot and clinging, she sleeves onto you like a glove. Immaculate enough to chip away at your positions regarding fate, the ridiculous notion that under the stars there was a girl out there for you, that you’re in orbit with some inevitable conclusion and her name is fucking Cho Miyeon. So outright sinful that you still need a beat to come to terms with it, and you make an effort to voice that: “Fucking hell, Miyeon.”

She lets out a whiny, punched out breath, tilting her chin to the ceiling and revealing the long column of her throat to you like an invitation, though you press your lips to her temple first, the taste of her skin and the sweat aside her brow like wine—sweet and woozy and intoxicating. There’s the rise and fall of her breathing against your chest, your fingers spread out across her creamy skin, and a sudden jerk from her hips, as if to bring you back to the present.

“Oh my god,” Miyeon gasps as your hips are drawn back again. 

Only this time you’ve got the soft cheek of her ass spilling through your fingers. Waning self-control. Even less reservation about pulling her right back onto your cock. And though you’re mostly silent each time you work your entire length back into her, Miyeon is anything but—all these appreciative noises coming from low in her throat.

It might be the hottest thing you’ve ever witnessed: the way she darts her tongue out to wet her lips, how her breath hitches when you move, each and every sound she makes as you fuck wildly into her cunt—slamming in, in, in, and you can hear her begin to whimper, feel her caressing the curve of your ass with her… ankle? She tugs on you, grips you, and does whatever she can to keep you deep inside her. As though you’d ever, ever stop.

“I can’t,” Miyeon starts, and it’s nearly comedic—you’d be in fits if you weren’t delicately unraveling this girl in your hands, taking her apart piece by piece, blow by blow. The poise in her voice is gone; what’s left is shattered, unrecognizable mostly. Even those dignified lines in her face start to twist and wobble, threaten to come undone. “Please, I need… oh, please make me cum. I need to cum on your cock.” “Breathe,” you tell her, feeling her slip a little against the wall, puddling further in your grip. It surprises you, the way your words come out like the crush of gravel beneath a boot, and it grips at something within Miyeon too, clues her in on how much she needs you—sucking air in through her teeth and sinking her face into your shoulder. The lines that mark where you end and Miyeon start are quickly eroding, boundary become meaningless. “I know you want to cum, but I need you to breathe for me, Miyeon.”

Her palms are damp with sweat, wrung around the back of your neck, hair sticking to her forehead and darkening in a beam of pale moonlight, not to mention what you hear: harder, faster, more—the needy requests make it sound like she’s almost sobbing. 

“I promise, I promise,” you whisper into her mouth, “I’ll do anything for you. But first, I’m going to use this tight little cunt—gonna make a mess of you.”

Your fingers dig into her soft skin, tighter, tighter; you’ll leave bruises, marks, fingerprints, all this damage she’ll trace back to you—evidence that’ll queue memories like a roll of film, bring her right back to how you have her mewling and moaning at the end of your cock, tears welling on her lashes and mascara running dark beneath her eyes.

 “Fuck,” slips out of her, nearly pouting like it’s your fault, that she’d never curse in front of anyone and here she is, teeth gritted—because, god, she’s all coiled muscle, tightened around your cock and meltdown imminent—you get your fingers under her chin and tilt her head to you.

“Gonna make you beg, Miyeon.”

“I… fuck…” Her voice gets locked up in her throat, choking back on something that turns into a wail when you adjust your angle, hit deeper, fuck harder—“I can’t,” she whispers, “I can’t,” but you keep fucking into her tight hole, nowhere close to letting up.

There’s just something so fascinating about a girl like this, a girl like Miyeon, with a gaze that inspires all this admiration and idolatry. It ought to pierce right through somebody like you and leave you for dead, bring you to your knees, but you’re nothing like she expected; you’re everything she hoped. So instead, as you watch her gasping mouth that was coyly smiling in your favor all afternoon; her small tits spilling forward when you lift up her bra; how she’s slumped back against the wall, relaxed and trusting you implicitly to carry her weight for as long as it takes; the shadowy place where your cock is drenched, glistening and disappearing between her thighs—oh, Jesus, is that a visual—it all clicks in your head: Miyeon is so, so astonishingly submissive. 

Whether it’s the fingers at her throat, or the grip hooking under her thigh, the one thing that’s clear is this: you’re using Miyeon. Fucking her within inches of irrevocably falling apart. You, the hammer; her, the nail—pounding her further into the drywall until she’s quivering and moaning and gasping into your mouth. Oh, the places you’ll pin her. You’re relentless, merciless; it’s the fact that she gets off on it that’ll stick with you. For a long time.

“Gonna make you beg for it, princess,” you amend, lips now pressing into Miyeon’s ear, and she immediately shudders apart.

It’s filthy is the thing: you’re railing the girl with deep, harsh strokes, and Miyeon’s pussy is  writhing in both protest and penury. She’s so creamed you can hear it through all the sounds of skin on skin, the percussive soundtrack of your thighs slamming up into hers. Each squelch, the wet sinful sound of it—it’s how you know your cock is making a total mess of her wrecked cunt. More and more each time it fills her and brings her that much closer to toe-curling-climax. 

Let me, she breathes against you, barely held together. The hand you have under her asscheek is doing most of the heavy lifting. “Please let me cum, please, please, please let me fucking cum all over this cock, I need to cum on this perfect cock, oh my god—”

When Miyeon finally turns up at you, she’s biting down on her bottom lip again. Her head tilts a bit, something deep and pleading in those big, brown eyes, and it almost, almost makes you feel guilty. Nearly ashamed that this delicate little thing had fallen into your lap and your knee-jerk reaction was to fuck her so hard she started to wail, cracking at the seams.

“Your cock,” she blurts out, breath jagged and uneven, “is amazing. You are—”

Like you said, almost. 

“—amazing.”

There’s nothing you can say to that, is there?

“Again… want to… again…” she demands of you, like she’s in any position to be making any. Her hands are all over you, finally undressing you, and all things considered, you don’t have the heart to tell her no. You’re hoping that never becomes a problem.

Miyeon scoops up easily enough into your arms after her orgasm had knocked the architecture right out of her legs, wobbling against the wall and almost sliding to the floor. And It all plays out again, just minutes later, after you set her on a barstool in your kitchen and slip back inside her. Sure, it’s a different setting, but you recognize it for what it is: the same story, with the same characters and the same ending, the one where you’ve got your cock fucking hard and fast into her cunt.

“Fucking, oh my god…” she rasps, just a waving white flag short of total surrender. “You’re going to make me fucking cum again. Yes, yes, yes—”

Until everything seemingly comes undone at once. And it quickly turns into stuttering cries of please and fuck and need it and all sorts of things you’ll have to promise you never heard, filth unfitting for a perfect mouth like Miyeon’s—the one now curving into that unforgettable shape while she chokes back on moans and mewls. It hits her like a brick, and her head rolls back as she groans, furrowing her brows and screwing her eyes shut.

You tell yourself it’s the fact that she’s so sweet, so docile, and all at the flick of a switch. Just moments after you’ve bottomed out in her pussy—after you’ve sent her higher and higher to where she’s reduced to nothing like the royalty everyone expects of her: needy, begging. 

It’s whiplash really, from callous and cruel to caring and soft in a matter of seconds. Your foreheads come together while you catch your breath. That’s an image all in itself. And when she laughs slightly, there are the quiet tremors, the spasms of her diaphragm clenching around you. It’s hard to tell what’s going through her head, before she covers the exhausted huffs out of your mouth with a kiss that lives in the gray area between sweet and harsh and consuming. Fuck. You’d stay here forever.

(Forever ends up being a hell of a lot shorter than you expect. Because Miyeon takes to cumming on your cock like water takes to paper.)

“Wanna ride,” she tells you, breath having caught up to her and wiping sweat from her brow—something like an inciting incident, taking the two of you all the way to the living room. 

She doesn’t outright tell you that she wants you to just hold her down and fucking use her, but she doesn’t last long on top of you either, leaning back from your lap with her hands hooked around your neck and dragging you forward, until you’re once again spilling over her, pounding her hot, sopping cunt like she needs. 

You’re cautious, usually—responsible. It isn’t like you, really. The excuse you’ll settle into later is that Miyeon’s cunt is impossibly vice-tight when you make her cum a third time. She’s in the midst of being swallowed up in the cushions of your sofa, the soles of her cute little feet pointed skyward, knees folded to her shoulders and pressed under your weight while you make sure she’s well fucked through the apex of it all.

“Good girl,” you tell her—the praise cutting straight to her final lifelines, tearing them to ribbons and leaving them for dead—and you’re shifting the angle, the depth to try and get her to scream the exact same way she did the first time. “Go ahead Miyeon—cum for me, princess. You’re going to fucking cum all over this cock again.”

And she does. Hard.

Quivering. Squirming even, she comes apart, fucked deep and hard into the springs of a chaise lounge and leaving stains on leather that won’t ever quite go away. Though it doesn’t manage to arrive with anything like an announcement, as it had before, heralded by curses and the elegant simplicity of meekly choking out the word cumming through a fit of gasps and hiccups. Her voice now is so fragmented, so utterly debauched and ruined, that she only manages to husk out a pathetic whine.

“So fucking pretty, Miyeon,” you rasp, watching the blush sear right across her nose, “so gorgeous when you cum for me. And god, this fucking pussy…”

The hands on the clock spin out, numbers running forward and back, and you’re long past the point of temperance. Each stroke in and out of Miyeon’s tight, throbbing, well-fucked cunt twists further at the knot in your stomach, the edge of your own, eager to indulge your fair share of recklessness: “Miyeon, sweetheart, I’m gonna cum.”

Miyeon understands immediately. She’s whimpering, nodding, sinking her fingers into your back—it’s not even a question. “Inside me,” she repeats, several times, until you’re hilted completely in her pussy. It’s hot, sweltering, perfect, and you can’t bring yourself to care that you’re pressing a handprint into her thigh so hard that it hurts. That the sounds leaking out of your throat aren’t anything particularly becoming or that you’re fucking your cum deeper into her cunt with each waning thrust or that you’re not sure if you ever had a better fuck.

“Fuck,” you groan, slumping on top of her petite frame once you’re completely finished. So thoroughly milked and drained.

Miyeon brings her small hands up and cups your face. Just stares like you’ve got something stuck to it. Her gaze drops to your lips—and you’re left thinking for a moment that she’s going to kiss you again, though it never does arrive.

“Hey,” you say finally, panting. Both of you are heaving restless. Everytime her chest rises into you, you’re acutely aware of how her small breasts feel against you, her heart still racing as your softening cock is still warm inside her. “You’re staring.”

“Well, I was going to mention it earlier,” she starts, fluttering her lashes and pressing her lips to the crook of your neck, “but you’re kinda my type too.”

-

The least unusual thing happens.

And if you end up thinking for even a moment that Miyeon is being sincere when she suggests you exchange numbers, you haven’t been paying attention. “You know,” she says, sitting in your lap and tapping her number into your phone, “for work.”

“Ah, of course,” you answer, willing to be fooled, if only just a little, “for work.” 

- Narratively, it’s all out of order: the banal text messages, the playful back and forth, the coy innuendos, the precarious game of being interested without asking too many questions. Both of you are quite content to play your cards close to your chest as though she doesn't know how good your fingers feel in her cunt or that you’re somehow not aware of the small freckle on the seam of her pelvis, another on the inside of her left thigh. That’s just how it goes. But it’s fine, you figure. Especially when you compare it to the alternative: of taking things too fast and careening straight off a cliff. To where, historically, you've burned up in a violent supernova of messy hookups and drunk calls and regrets you’ll carry with you into the next life.

A nice change of pace, if nothing else.And it’s hardly anything unusual either, or at least until you’re standing in the grocery checkout line a few days later. Miyeon decides enough with all that about the rules of engagement. She’s going to call you:

“I was planning on swinging by in a bit to grab my watch,” she starts, and you can make out another voice, maybe a friend? A roommate? in the background of the call, getting shh’d by Miyeon before she continues, “I left it in your bathroom. I think. Maybe on the bedside table.”

“Yeah, I was going back and forth on deciding whether that was purposeful or not.” “Accidental. I swear.”

“Still a little convenient though, isn’t it?” “Nothing convenient about not having my watch.” She laughs out loud. Maybe it’s a bit of vanity on your part to make assumptions, but you’ve got her pieced together, at least a little. Everyone else already reveres and adores her—it’s the fact that you’ll level with her, that she loves a proper challenge.

“Well, I won’t be back for quite a bit. I’m running a few errands.” You smile at the lady at the register. She’s halfway into figuring out who you are.

“Why don’t you do me a favor then… bring it with you to the press event on Friday?”

“Now that’s a surprise,” you tell her. “I’d figure you’d take the chance at face value, to get yourself back over to my place either way.”

“Look, if you’re going to make me need an excuse to sleep with you… let’s put our heads together and come up with something later.”

Oh, of course. Let’s, she says, really leaning into the plurality of it, hoping it’s something you can get used to. And given the fact you figure that Cho Miyeon has never been hard pressed to be anyone’s favorite anything, she is incredibly optimistic you’ll see just how sweet of a deal that all is. You’re answering the woman behind the register first: “paper bags are fine.”

“Are you at the grocery?”

“I am.”

“Sounds fun.” she says, after a considerable pause—the length of which tells you she’d rather dip into the mundane with you than hang up. “What’d you get?” “Breakfast cereal, bananas,” you tell her, staring straight into the conversational deadend. If only you knew any writers. You clear your throat, but Miyeon beats you to it, pulling the emergency ripcord: “What would you do if I was there with you?”

“Dunno,” you start, “take you to the bathroom maybe. Go down on you until you cum.”

At this point the cashier has put it all together. She recognizes you, and is unsure whether to be shocked or disgusted or what, so she just hands you your receipt as you shoot your near-award-winning smile back at her and gather your things.

Miyeon laughs. “Has anyone ever told you you’re horrendous at phone sex?”

“I’ve never had phone sex,” you tell her, “seems like a waste of time when you could be instead, you know–”

“Okay,” she interrupts you, “first off, it’s like the first rule in the geneva convention of phone sex: you’re supposed to ask me what I’m wearing. And just for your information, I’m wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt.”

“What color?”

“Yikes. So bad at this; you’re supposed to tell me to start taking it off. It’s a gray shirt, the pants are blue. What are you wearing?”

“A pair of khakis. And a sweater.” “Great. Take them off, slowly.” “Miyeon, I’m in the middle of a parking lot.”

“Okay prude, then you tell me what to do.”

You end up listening to Miyeon from the front seat of your car for almost half the hour. There’s a wistful hum from the other end of the phone every time you tell her what to do with her hand, walk her through every area of her body you want her to touch and how. You let her know about the finger you’re tracing over your own pants and she can’t help but let a soft noise out at the thought of it.

“If you invited me over for dinner right now,” she says after she cums, slightly out of breath, “I wouldn’t say no.”

You stifle a laugh. It’s folklore at this point, but there’s wisdom in it surely, so you’ll lean into that old rite of passage and play hard to get. Love is all about the complications, all the ways it can go wrong: endless rules and customs to observe, obstacles you’re determined to put in the way.

“Oh princess,” you start, knowing exactly how it’ll land in her ear, what it’ll do to her. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

-

The press event itself is simple and straightforward. There’s only ever going to be a singular moment during a movie’s production where no one in the cast wants to murder someone else and it’s in that brief period of time before filming starts. So grab onto that by the horns and show the media what a fun time this is all going to be. Go team, go. 

It’s the same series of questions as always: how did this cast come together, what do you think of the scripts, how is this going to be a challenge for you, what are you looking forward to, etc.

You’ve been through this song and dance enough times now to keep your answers evasive and beguiling, because at the end of the day, it’s the most productive way to do anything in this industry. It’s routine. It’s practiced. But the thing you notice almost right away, is just how infatuated the press is with the girl at the end of the table, how they heel almost immediately to her every gesture, the way Miyeon answers questions all with the confidence of someone’s who’s been at it for ages, but with the doe-eyed blinking naivety of a starlet ready to bare it all. You have to consider that part of the reason the media ends up so hot on Miyeon’s trail is all that god-given wit and charisma and charm. She’ll make fun of herself and her group mates and her co-stars and the staff, and she’ll tease the press and give them shit in a way that makes you feel as though there’s this cool, gorgeous, very important girl who’s noticing you and liking you enough to give you shit. Then sometimes she’ll wink for no reason at all, or she’ll get that flip of her hair over her shoulder just right that you think to yourself: wow, that’s an idol.

It doesn't mean a whole lot to you now, though you’ll be wringing your wrists about it later, but the takeaway here is this: Miyeon is universally loved. Full stop.

Please root for me, she says, again and again. All the stuff she’s supposed to say. I’ll do my best to make everyone happy. And she looks down the table, right at you, when she says: “My co-stars are all so wonderful and I’m so lucky to have them here with me, I’ll go ahead and thank them in advance for taking such good care of me.”

-

The press release is worth nothing to anyone with only the opinions of a bunch of attractive people paid to be on television. What it needs is photos. Specifically the ones where Miyeon hangs off your arm like you two are just a little bit more than meets the eye.

Sex sells. Suggestion is priceless.

So you’re standing there, grinning, wide and open, practiced and sure, toward the army of photographers. You look good. You know you look good. You’d know you look good even if Soyeon hadn’t crossed paths with you behind the stage just a few minutes ago and said, “wow, you look hot,” and “if I was any bit straight, I’d bang you right here.” Though it definitely helped. The exact shade of charcoal on your suit jacket is engineered to make your skin glow, and your hair is coiffed just right so that it sits effortless. You didn’t grow up imagining you’d have hairdressers or a stylist or for god sakes ever be wearing tailor-fit suits that cost someone else a fortune, but that’s how this all works. A rag-tag militia dedicated to making it look both like you’d just rolled out of bed and that’s only how things were ever meant to be—it’s your whole deal, all with the comprehensive appeal of a mischievous smile. The first flash, and you can feel your whole soul dilate in response. Hey! Look over here for me. Click. Click. Click. Raise your chin—hands at your sides—hold that for me—perfect. Click. Click. Click. It’s calming in a way. All the piercing lights, the clattering of camera shutters. The feeling that never grows stale is seeped in the familiarity of it all; your roots are here. It’s home. And there’s something unique about the blur of lights, something hard to put your finger on exactly, that it feels like the perfect backdrop to just zone out in. And the fact that you can’t really hear those anxious, gnawing thoughts in your head over all the shouting, the chattering, the commotion—boy, that feels good too. Though what you can hear is all the cameras turn, in unison. Something like a premonition.

It’s not the first time you’ve seen Cho Miyeon. You know how she looks in and out of her underwear, the way her blonde hair sits on her porcelain shoulders, how she’s all curves and pointed angles in the right places; you’ve seen her up close. Hell, she’d already taken your breath away, which in some regards is completely unfair, now considering that you haven’t any more breath to give. 

She doesn’t care; she’ll leave you asphyxiated, with a smile. Perfectly. It makes it feel like every smile you’ve seen before are just failed attempts. Like this is the real deal. Click. Click. Click.

The thing that has you lost for words is that it’s hard to know where exactly to start. Not only is Miyeon drop dead gorgeous, but here she is, pretending that she’s finding all that out for the very first time, blush burning across her cheeks like she’s not used to the attention. Her hair is pinned up, delicately placed into a perfect bun, wispy blonde strands falling aside her ears. And a pair of long, dangling earrings reflect the camera flashes aimed in her direction, scattering the light in every which way. Then it’s the fucking dress: it’s skintight, champagne, which is a good color on anyone, spectacular on her. You can’t let your eyes dip down all the way through the plunging neckline or you’d be staring at her midriff and thinking just how badly you want to undo the whole thing; pull gently on the tie at the back and let it all slump to the floor; get on top of her and have her cursing. Make her hot and flustered and moaning your name until you shoot a hot load all over that fucking tummy. Jesus. Fuck.

“Hey stranger,” she says, with restrained delivery, still smiling at the wall of flashing lights as she hooks her hand under your elbow.

“You’re late.” Maybe—just maybe—if you can somehow manage to find anything to be at fault, you can keep your thoughts as innocent as her doe-eyed countenance. She tilts her head, pulls back her soft, sweeping hair over one shoulder, and when she gets her eyes on you… god, it’s a tall order.

“Do you have any idea?” she asks, starting in half sentences because there’s not a lot of time between poses. Everyone’s looking at her, looking at the combined-unit, the you-and-her, and demanding more. “Just how hard it is to slip into something like this? I swear to god, I think I’m still holding that first breath.”

“Hey,” you whisper, clasping your fingers together. “You look great.”

“Of course I do.” Her other hand is at your waist, gentle and misleading, much like the rest of her. “Just about any girl would look good next to you.”

Falling is just not the correct term, to be precise. Too clumsy. Hardly does what’s going on here any justice. This is a meticulous process wherein Miyeon delicately binds and traps your heart into love—maybe even the platonic ideal of the femme fatale, and you’ll take twenty, thirty paces into quicksand before you realize you’re trapped, waist deep, unable to move, totally and proper fucked.

“Here,” she says, tugging gently on your arm until you’re hunched over slightly, ear sitting perfectly at her lips where they begin to part, whispering: “This will drive them crazy. Just this little private conversation. They’ll be guessing what I’m telling you here, right now, for weeks.”

You laugh as you watch everyone with a camera scoot to the edge of their seats, expecting something unexpected. On the off chance they’ll get lucky and catch the shape of that murmur out your mouth: “And what exactly is it that you’re telling me here?” “I’m curious,” she starts, “how bad do you think I want you right now?”

Oh. You register your whole body shifting its weight onto the other foot. Twice, the muscles in your legs tensing when she wets her lips with her tongue. A problem, maybe. Your eyes dart about because you’re in front of all these witnesses, and the instinctual urge from somewhere deep and unruly in your head amounts to something like a death wish: to get your hands on her in public, to throw caution to the wind and let her have access to you under all this scrutiny. It’s automatic; you’re leaning back on old habits; humor’s never failed a face like yours. “What, like on a scale of one to ten?”

She leans back, takes both your hands in hers and just grins. “I heard there’s sort of an afterparty later. You going?”

You swallow, collect yourself. “I am.”

“Yeah?” Miyeon’s lip pulls up at the corner, smirk cocked, ready to fire, and her eyes are sparkling, literally; every flash of a camera fills her dark irises with a sharp glister of gold. It’s actually kind of mesmerizing. “Me too.”

“Maybe I'll see you there,” you tell her, leading her to the stage exit.

“Hm, maybe,” she says, and she rubs a few circles into the back of your knuckles. “Though it’d be a sure thing if we go together, wouldn’t it?”

-

Truth be told, you never make it to the afterparty. You get sidetracked. You get distracted.

“Feels so good, oh my god.” Miyeon’s jaw clenches, teeth together so tight you can feel her body tense up. “So deep, so good, so, fuck—”

What Miyeon is ultimately trying to do in the backseat of your car is ride you hard and fast to the point where she’s mixing up her words, gasping for air, and blathering filth and obscenity from her pretty lips. Until her legs lock up and her eyes shut tight before cumming all over your waist. So yeah, the charcoal slacks end up being a little fortuitous.

She bucks into you hard, holding her weight with two hands on your chest, though she can’t bounce up and down on your cock like she’d much prefer. The way her clit rubs against you as she ruts into your hips like a wild animal feels awesome, even better for her, you reckon, but that’s no substitute for the heavensent sensation she gets running down her spine when you fill her starved cunt repeatedly with long, deep strokes. It’s cramped and awkward and your knees and elbows knock and scrape and she’s taking that frustration out on you. As best she can without hitting her head on the ceiling of the car.

You can certainly appreciate the irony of it. Because you’ve got the poster girl for a disney princess in a state of half-dress (half-undress? under duress? it’s not entirely clear), the champagne hem of that dignified gown bunched up around her hips, furling in supplication, and she’s fucking you in pretty much the least elegant fashion possible.

“God dammit,” she spits out before sinking her teeth into her lower lip, as you offer to help her grind on top of you with two handprints sunk firm into the round of her tight little ass.

It’s clumsy and uncouth, though still, riding you amounts to a religious experience for Miyeon, given the way her cunt is quivering, torrentially wet, and so, so, so hot. Clenching on you in something like worship, in adoration. She should probably be more embarrassed about some of the noises she’s making. They’re high-pitched, whining, desperate even. You can’t quite hear what she’s saying—not over the hollow echo of your sex through the small cabin of the car—but there are only so many iterations of, oh my god, please, fuck, faster, harder, need it, right there, faster, I, ah, ohmygod.

“Baby,” you whisper, wrapping an arm around Miyeon's waist and sinking you both further into the seat. “Fuck, I cannot believe this pussy; you’re so tight, fuck—”

She’s still smiling, though it’s absolutely devilish. Maybe that’s the praise she lives for. Everyone’s already telling her she’s gorgeous, that she’s talented, that she's beautiful inside and out, but she just simply can’t get enough of it: how you’ll slap her ass so hard she yelps and growl against her throat, cum in her cunt and tell her she’s perfect.“Want your cum, baby,” she murmurs, cheeks aflame, lips again parting open, “I want to watch you cum in me.”

“Miyeon,” you groan, “such a good fucking girl for me,” and she just nods, like a fantasy come to life.

She lifts herself up again. Comes crashing down. Good fucking god. Every little roll of her hips is a touch more agonizing than the last; she feels so fucking incredible around you that it all betokens danger. You’re buried so deep inside her that if let go of the breath you’re holding you would drown in the heat of her cunt, the velvety touch of her skin, the fact that she smells fucking amazing—all worked up and starting to sweat.

“Can you?” she asks, propping up the tall heel of her shoe onto the seat and trying to ride up and down your shaft just a bit faster, a little harder. You pull at her dress again, twisting it in your hand until you can see where your cock disappears between the creases of her thighs and into the warm embrace of her cunt. She’s fucking you reckless and sucking sharp gasps of air past her teeth, asking, “do you think you can cum like this?”

“You want me to finish in your pussy that bad, Miyeon?” you ask, shifting slightly in the space beneath her. “Want it so much, want to feel it,” she starts to pant, words disappearing in wet exhalation every time her thighs come spilling onto yours. “Want to feel your cock throb in my pussy, want to feel you fill me up.”

Even accounting for the fact that she’s so small on top of you and even easier to manipulate with nothing more than the firm grasp you have on her waist, it’s a whole ordeal to maneuver about the cramped backseat. Especially considering Miyeon would rather die than feel your cock leave her cunt. She lets out a needy whine, like you’ve done her some sort of injustice, when you find a hand under her shoulder and start to move. “Please…” she groans, grabbing desperately at the collar of your shirt. Searching hard for the unrealized potential of the tie around your neck.

You twist and turn, slide and shimmy until you’ve got Miyeon’s arms pinned behind her back, wrists trapped in your fingers and her svelte frame arching into you. It’s a little precarious, and it takes a few tries to find any sort of rhythm—holding her in place and gliding up into where she’s soaked and aching—but the moment you start slipping your cock up into her cunt, it dawns on you: you can absolutely cum like this. She’s so mind-numbingly tight, so hot, so easy to use; it’s not a challenge. Not in the slightest.

“Oh my god.” She cuts off those incredible noises, breath hitching in her throat. She doesn’t have an inkling of how to react; there’s no way around it. Not when you’re fucking her—truly fucking her—within an inch of her life and pulling her small body down onto your cock harder, faster, faster. Again, again.

Miyeon’s hair is the first thing begging to be ruined. Delicately fixed and pristinely manicured. Gentle waves tumbling over her shoulder as you trace your fingers up the curve of her spine, knead at the back of her neck, and thread into a handful of those ash-blonde locks. 

“Fuck.” Her whole body melts into you, and her voice is seeped in lust and need and want: “right there, right there, right there—”

Your fingers tighten in her hair, grip, pull. 

“Feel good?” you whisper into her neck, all this soft pale skin begging for a press of your lips.

“It feels—I, fuck.” Miyeon just stutters, eyes watering and chest heaving through all these incoherent breaths as you drive her to silence. Fuck her to submission.

“Princess,” you start, bringing your other hand up to her cheek. It’s the small details that truly send her: the thumb wiping away at the small tears on her long lashes, how you tuck a few misplaced wisps of golden hair behind her ear, dominance soft and doting—it’s not just the fact that you’ll pull her apart; it’s that you’re the one putting her back together. That’ll never be a secret she keeps from you, you figure, because she’s reduced to a whimpering, shuddering mess when you take her lips softly in yours. A chaste, gentle, unscripted kiss. Unbecoming of the reality that has you currently fucking raw and senseless into her creaming cunt.

“Tell me what you want, Miyeon.”

Sure, you’ve got in your hands the script of sin and innocence, and you’ll settle into an assigned part, a role to play. Though to be truthful, you just simply can’t help yourself. She’s delightful. The whispers out your mouth sink once more against her skin, sweaty and red and hot to the touch. She whines like your words cut right to the bone, lethal. Your hips come up, hilting deep in her cunt, and it’s enough to shake an earring loose and into the depths between the seats; you’ll spend a literal lifetime looking for it later. Her breath hitches, regressing to huffs and sharp draws of air when you drag your cock just along the right spot, apparently.

“Please, please, please,” she begs finally, sputtering with the waning energy of air escaping a balloon.

“I want to know what you need from me,” you tell her, letting your voice come out in such tantalizing fashion that it’s the kind of thing that could coerce the truth out of anyone.

“You,” she rasps, “all of you.”

How quick she turns to putty, muscles softening and tensing all at once. And you’re generously allowing her to take more, capitulating to her pleas of right there and harder please, pushing in as deep as you’ll go. You soothe her when she shudders and quakes—just a broad hand at her back—helping her adjust to you.

“Shit, Miyeon, you look perfect like this,” you mutter, watching the small tears that come from the corners of her hooded eyes. “Can’t get over how gorgeous you look taking me.”

Those small hums and moans leaving through closed lips are all she can muster. She clutches ahold of you even tighter, feeling the sharp bloom of everything trickle closer and closer like a dam about to break.

“Is that what you like to hear, princess?” you ask, fucking her right through her own orgasm and realizing it’s hopeless; you’re going to fall in love again and again with that pink stain in her cheeks. “Do you want to be my cumslut? Let me use your pussy whenever I want. You’re so tight and wet for me, Miyeon. You want my cock all the time, don’t you?” 

Some of it—maybe all of it—hits hard. She starts to shake. You’re fucking her cunt, steady and resolute, even as she fucking collapses, and her lips part like she’s going to wail, though never makes a sound.

“Words,” you order, breathless. “Oh…” It’s slow at first, that steady stream of fuck and please spilling out of her—curses flowing as easily as the air she breathes. You’ve got her at your complete control, a seeming extension of your will, and she presses her forehead to yours, gasping, “want to feel you fucking cum in me. Please do it, do it, I need to feel you, I want your fucking cum in me so bad. Please, please, please fucking make me yours. Do it, need you to use this little pussy and cum.”

You’re deep inside Miyeon, clutching hard around her waist and pulling down on it as you vault over the proverbial edge. Breathing heavy into her chest as you fuck all this hot cum into her cunt. She keeps rolling her hips, slowly, as if by instinct, to ride everything out of you, until you’re yanked back to the here and now.

“Oh my god,” she coos. Because it’d be impossible to not notice, leaking out of her and onto her thighs. 

“Miyeon.” The next sound that comes out of you is near indescribable: gravelly and plucked from deep in your throat. 

“So, so much for me,” she adds with a hint of exultation, running her fingers through your hair. 

Some part of you expected her to perhaps be more resilient, put up some semblence of a fight, but this is Miyeon, you realize—the roughness in your voice, the gentle touch of your fingers, the severity of an open palm, your lips at her throat—she loves it. Her hands are soon again cupping at your face, tongue reaching into your mouth. And she shudders at the way your cock slides out of her pussy.

“Messy,” you murmur into her kiss, quietly, and you hear her swallow when you skate your finger over her hips and down her stomach, tracing gently at the place you were pressed together, thoroughly covered in your cum, her slick.

“Uh.” Miyeon makes a face. Wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

“Oh please,” you say as she cuddles up to you as far as the backseat of your car will allow. “You know you love it.”

-

Here’s the thing you fail to realize about a girl like her, a girl like Miyeon:

She’s more than just the physical, than the sum of her parts. She’s a feeling.

Oh, there’s plenty about the ways you touch her, the way her hand fits into yours, her hair running silky smooth between your fingers—how you can leave bruises on her thighs and marks on her neck, or reduce her to a whimpering mess with nothing but a firm grip. She laughs and it’s something that moves you to your core. She’s easy to admire from afar. And even easier up close, where you can appreciate the mastery in those brushstrokes.

But pay attention to how your blood drains from your cheeks, how the world stutters on its axis when you look at her. Because you can’t help but feel like you’re living life the way it’s portrayed in fiction when you do. Like you’re slipping into a world where no matter how insurmountable the odds, the good guy always wins.

-

“It’s all bullshit, that’s what it is,�� someone is telling you with an almost unsettling confidence, even though their voice is shaky and ever-so-slurred with drink.

You’re sitting there, slightly listless, on one of the stools at a four-top, busy zoning out at the neon smirnoff sign behind the bartender like it might move if you look away for even a second. Your fingers are tapping on the table, and the fact that you can’t taste the kick in your heavily doctored gin and tonic means you’re already drunk. Probably. You’ll have to thank Miyeon later.

“Hey,” the someone starts again, “are you even listening to me?” It’s a little deep, raspy, but it sounds like it belongs to a girl.

No, you think.

“Sorry,” you say after blinking a few times and pulling yourself away from the sign. The girl sitting next to you frowns. “Have we met?”

“Yuqi,” Miyeon says, handing her a beer and setting her own drink down on the table. It’s pink and full of ice and in a ridiculous looking piece of glassware.

It goes without saying that you couldn’t show up to the main event—late, attached at the hip, and with Miyeon’s hair all disheveled and half-repaired like you two were fucking in secrecy—so Miyeon pitches the idea to you while you’re in the middle of wiping cum off your pants with napkins from the glove compartment: If you’re interested, there’s a bar nearby. My friends are there, it’s quiet but it’s nothing too pretentious.

“And you met Sana earlier,” Miyeon adds, lifting her chin in the direction toward the girl buried in her phone, tapping away furiously at a series of text messages—the way she hasn’t looked up in minutes and how her drink is nearly untouched implies some sort of drama. 

It’s kinda weird—you’re realizing you might have a type: they’re all some sort of blonde. Shockingly easy to look at too. With bodies that could fill a nighttime of fantasy, and supposedly somehow they’re best friends? Look, you’ve never seen two pretty best friends; it grinds against cosmic law, ain’t one of them supposed to be not so pretty? (Though maybe the rules are different when you land on odd numbers? If it isn’t all a little perplexing.)

“Know each other from work,” Miyeon explains, holding her hair back from her face and barely touching her lips to the rim of her glass.

“Uh.” Yuqi pops the top of the bottle off against the side of the table. “And we live together.” “Roommates?” you ask, carefully trying to keep your tone from sounding judgemental, and Miyeon gives you a solemn nod. There’ll be time to pry later.

“Look,” Sana says, only after finally putting her phone face down in front of her. There’s a story there. Maybe you’ll hear the end of it. “I’m not saying I’m proud of this attitude, okay, but that’s the truth: I make judgments based on what drink people order.” 

She fixes her eyes on you, and god, she’s gorgeous. It’s a different kind of beauty, a lot less subtle, way more in your face, and she knows she can get away with it. (Though it’s the patented hundred-megawatt smile of hers that’ll stick with you.)

“Like if you were drinking a cosmo or whatever the hell it is Miyeon’s got—”

“What?” Yuqi scoffs, and her eyebrow turns when she sees Miyeon wrap her arm around yours. “And just like that he’s not sexy or sophisticated, smart or virile? Is that it?” “I suppose…” Sana twists her lip between her teeth. “Maybe it’s context?”

“No, that makes sense,” you say, and you dab at a ring of condensation on the table with a bar napkin. “Like I wouldn’t hesitate to take a cosmo if I was stranded in an airport in February and the planes are getting de-iced and the pilots are deciding whether to take off or go home.”

“I’d order a double,” Miyeon says, and you swear she’s closer to you each time you check.

“So then tell us, what’s the quintessential manly drink then?” Yuqi asks, skeptical, and a little disappointed to even be entertaining the question. “If pink cosmos are on one end of the spectrum…” “Dunno.” Sana crosses her legs, and rubs at her chin. “I suppose anything that comes in one of those squat, burly glasses.”

“The kind that real men hurl across the bar at another man’s head,” you deadpan.

“Oh my god.” Sana springs forward in her seat, and her gaze pins you to where you’re sitting. “You get it. Do I know you from somewhere? I swear you’ve got a face that’s familiar.” “Maybe I just got one of those faces,” you tell her, and Miyeon squeezes her fingers gently around your knee. 

“Maybe.” Sana tilts her head, letting out a mostly unentertained chuckle, dry and humorless. You can see the gears slowly churning in her head.

Yuqi’s got her bottle turned up nearly perpendicular to the ceiling, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand—it’s all oddly charming—and she just lets out a wistful sigh. “Someone should make a movie, an old western maybe, where someone flings an oversized martini glass. You could start a movement.”

You’re not really thinking about anything in particular when the conversation ebbs and flows, except that you’re content; buzzed with the bitters in your drink; and the ephemeral touches of the hand in your lap, gentle, curious, teasing. There’s something laid back about being in Miyeon’s company that draws you in, something effortless, like the world seems less maliciously unfriendly, even if she ends up managing to embarrass you in a game of billiards. She finds the table at the end of the bar and readies a flip comment while rubbing chalk into the end of a pool cue. You watch as it leaves white streaks all over her chic dress, and you’re kind of enamored by the fact she doesn’t seem to care. “You’re sure you’ve played before?” she ribs, pulling a hairpin from her clutch, and clipping it to the hair at one temple to keep it from interfering with her game.

“Aren’t you a wealth of talents,” you say, in admiration.

“Do you mean, appearances can be deceiving?” she asks while sizing up a shot, grins—a smile that suggests mischief, which is normal, except that this one invites you to be part of it. “I think you might be putting words in my mouth.” 

“Oh,” she says, and with her lovely, slender, fingers pressing onto the green baize, she sockets three shots in a row. Misses on the fourth. “So now you don’t like me putting things in your mouth, is that it?”

“Hm,” you say, ignoring the obvious bait and lining up a shot. “This is going to be a weird question.”

Miyeon drops her arm and tilts her head quizzically. 

“What do you think of the script?” 

“The one that has us heartbroken and lost and wandering until we rediscover love is right where we left it?” 

“That’s the one.”

Miyeon covers her mouth to laugh when you take your shot and it misses in such grand fashion that you can’t help but hang your head. “It’s the dress shirt,” she says to comfort you.

“I’ll take what pity I can get.”

You’re watching Miyeon in action—hair carefully swept back, earrings sparkling, and heels set firmly on the floor—all together rather enchanting. She makes several more shots, aimed with perfect precision and seriousness, before finally answering you: “dunno, seems a little psychotic.”

“I mean that’s the thing about romance,” you begin, “there’d be no story if the writers weren’t at least a little psychotic.”

“Oh by the way.” Yuqi’s voice booms at that moment, with all the subtlety of a bulldozer: “I’ve gotta take Sana home. She’s late to getting plowed by her new manager. I’ll catch you later.”

“That isn’t—” Sana huffs, pinches at the bridge of her nose, and stops herself short, before reapproaching it in a more bracing way. “I’m telling you he gets all worked up whenever I’m out drinking this late.” 

“Worked up, huh?” Yuqi grins at a parody of a smile, and turns to you, laughing. “That’s how she likes him.”

“Yuqi,” Sana groans.

Miyeon rests her cue up on the table and crosses her arms, smirking in your direction. “Life imitates art, right?

-

“You’ve got a girl here, don’t you?” Minnie asks, at nine in the morning and standing in your living room. It reminds you of the fact that you have a meeting on your calendar on today’s date between you and your agency’s lawyer at nine in the morning.

She's not some expert sleuth. At least, not as far as you're aware. It could be one of any number of things that tips her off: Miyeon’s heels are in your foyer, her champagne dress folded neatly over the back of your couch, or maybe it’s the pair of underwear that landed perfectly on the corner of your television. What it is not, however, is the reddening outline of Miyeon’s lips on your Adam's apple; you’re doing a pretty good job of coyly covering that up with your palm.

“I mean yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

“I don’t know if you could’ve answered that more ominously.” Minnie laughs, shuffling past where you stand in the door frame and setting her bag down on your kitchen island, surveying the mess in your apartment. She stands before you, wearing all black and looking down her nose at you.

(She’d pretty much cornered the market on wearing all black and looking down her nose at you, and you always take a moment to marvel that anyone could live on the earth only twenty-some odd years and manage to wear all black and look down their nose at you with such timeless self-assurance.)

“If you need her to sign an NDA, I’ll have to swing back by the office to pick up the proper paperwork.” “I don’t need her to sign an NDA,” you say, turning on water from the faucet and filling a kettle. The hand you have running through your hair helps you remember that you are still very poorly put together: a mess of bedhead, t-shirt, underwear, and only a singular sock to your name. Not that it matters, you suppose. Minnie’s seen you worse.

“Wow. Things must be getting serious, huh.” Minnie drums her fingers on the counter. “Well whatever it is, I’ve got stuff for you to sign.”

“I thought we walked through all the contract boilerplate already.” “We did.” “And?” “Contracts change.” The pen she has in her fingers, scanning over a stack of papers, is poised. Her slow nod studious, blandly puzzled. “That’s why you need me.”

“Now if that isn’t an unfortunate truth,” you say, and Minnie raises an eyebrow. “Good change or bad change?”

“Depends. Have you met Cho Miyeon, the other lead? She’s cute, blonde.” Minnie hovers her hand an inch in front of her nose. “About yea high.” 

“A few times,” you answer, sorta truthfully.

Minnie tilts her head, and licks her thumb to flip through the first couple pages in the stack. “Well, the producers want you two to be seen. Together. Somewhere high profile and suggestive.”

“Okay.” You’re pouring hot water from the kettle over coffee grounds and a filter when you realize you have no idea what that’s about. You voice as much: “I have no idea what that means.”

“Well, here’s the general thought: they figure they can get some free marketing, brush up a little media buzz, get people talking about this movie if some paps snap some pictures of you two where it looks like you’re—”

“Where it looks like we’re dating. Okay, sure, wonderful.”

“Your words, not mine—or the producers, legally.” You fall silent, thinking: there’s no such thing as fairytales, it was bound to happen, a trip up, a snag, a snare. You know, in essence, it’s trouble.

“Um.” Your shoulders drop. “The producers want a scandal, Minnie.” “Again, I’m not legally allowed to call it that.” She shakes her head, before putting something down on a lined memo pad with great industry. “And if that’s your assessment, you came to it all on your own with no help from me.”

But yes, she mouths to you silently. You got it, aren’t you clever, now play along.

“Does this not feel like shaking a hornet’s nest?” you ask her. “Surely there’s a better way to go about receiving death threats; she’s a damn idol.”

“She certainly is,” Minnie says, passing you the pen and giving you her practiced professional-but-still-definitely-sardonic-smile that always manages to emote, please don’t be difficult. If she’s hoping it inspires confidence, it does not. “Sign the new contract.”

You’ve got plenty of reasons to have reservations, but here’s a fun fact not a lot of people know: there’s a part of you perfectly content shutting up and doing what you’re told. Maybe it’s something about pretty girls with dark eyes, long legs and a curl in their lip that upstages anything like subtlety—an Achilles heel of sorts. Except instead of your mother forgetting to bathe your feet in the river styx, you’ve just got some mother issues in general.

“There,” Minnie says, watching you initial on the dotted line. “Was that so hard? Someday, you’ll look back and think, yeah, that’s where it all goes to shit.

-

Three weeks into filming, you make good on your promise.

It would have been neater, perhaps, if all the sneaking around and impropriety caught up with you and used this moment as a catalyst: if, filled with embarrassment, you owned up to everything that was going on between you. Might’ve saved you some hurt.

You watch Miyeon’s hand shoot up to her mouth only to find whimpers leaking out from beneath her palm.

What if all those cameras had instead gotten pictures of you and Miyeon here, in the restroom of a cafe that Miyeon swore up and down would be crawling with paparazzi—where Miyeon had dragged you by the wrist halfway through a bottle of dry chardonnay, locked the door behind her, and flicked the skirt of a her floral dress up over her hips. Imagine the way it would look: you on your knees, face buried between Miyeon’s legs— 

“I swear… your fucking mouth,” Miyeon murmurs, fingers running through your hair. 

—all you know is that it would have been a different kind of disaster.

“Oh,” she moans, and you swallow heavily at the sight of her above you, following the movement in her face: every wince, every flinch, pleasure absolute and wringing her dry. She’s pretty as always, eyes dark and twinkling under the cool fluorescent lights. It’s that damn blush again, and you’re convinced eating Miyeon out feels like the most normal thing in the universe, like you’ve done it a million times before, and you’ll do it a million times more. Just listen to how Miyeon’s breath stutters when you lap softly at the heat between her lips, lifting her hood and swirling her clit once, twice, before bringing the narrow point of your tongue back to the shallow depth of her aching entrance. She shudders at all how you tease her, slick pooling in your mouth, down your chin; a pinched off moan filling the bathroom when you add another finger inside her. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” she says, gasping out on top of an embarrassed little sigh each time time she bucks against the touch of your hand. You spread her lips, get your tongue flatter, deeper, and she drops her shoulders, laughing in that high-pitched skittery way she does when she’s struggling not to cum all over you with her eyes clenched shut.

It’s a sight to behold: Miyeon twisting her brows and biting into her lower lip—chewing off all the lip-gloss you know she just put on because you watched her make a show of it at the table like it was the most delicate thing in the world. She looks soft, docile even, and hums out a wistful note when you squeeze your hand into her thigh. Swallows back a moan when you reach up and knead at her chest. Yeah, she is soft. Tender and malleable and perfect. How easily you keep her pinned in place with just a flex of your wrist.

“Now would you look at that, princess,” slips out of you, totally carefree, lifting your lips from her pussy and wiping the wet from your chin. She sways slightly, and you’re leaning into her space, voice nearly coming out breathy and flooded as hers, asking, “You’re so wet, Miyeon. How do you want me to make you cum? On my fingers?”

Miyeon just sighs, lust and need glittering in her eyes. If there’s anything you’ve picked up from all of this so far, from all the raunchy sex, every manner in which she’s puddled in your grip, all the times she’s begged for you to hold her down and rail her—more than anything else, Miyeon loves, loves, loves to be teased. 

But it’s the way her smile stretches, just perfectly, or even just one glance from those doleful eyes—fuck, goddamnit, one day I am really going to fucking die written into the shy curve of her lips—you’re never quite that cruel. Her panties are dropped to the floor and hanging around her ankle, soaked, ruined, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be too; you bring your lips back to her pussy. Fingertips curling up against that spot that drives her up the wall and your tongue running laps around her swollen clit.

“Oh, like that,” Miyeon whines, barely able to make any noises louder than a whimper, “just like that, please, yes, like that—”

And then you catch the aching swell of her clit between your lips. Slowly, start to suck.

“God,” she breathes out, still writhing from the fingers you have inside her, your thumb rubbing against wet, slippery skin, right how you’ve learned she likes it. And she gasps, head rolled back, brows furrowed up: “Oh, yes, oh God, you — you’re perfect. It’s — ”

That really never gets old.

Everything stills for a moment. Everything besides your fingers fucking her quietly while her orgasm quakes through her. She’s catching her breath, staring at you—skin dewy with sweat and chest heaving. Her warmth wraps around you, surrounds you, and you’d be content to stay like this forever, pressing kisses into her stomach and never, ever letting go.

That is until she looks at you, lashes fluttering, as if she’s trying to gauge your emotions. Until she speaks. “I want it,” she gasps, breath steadying, “I want your cock.”

She knows you, right down to the basics: you can never deny her anything.

-

(You’re being cautious—covering your tracks, you convince yourself—but then there’s all this evidence to the contrary, no shortage of close calls, times where you’re so nearly caught: Miyeon’s lithe, tight body grinding desperately against yours in a costume closet or her dressing room or in the backseat of your car; the way she keens when you slip your fingers inside her, how she wails in delight when you really fuck her in earnest; you cutting off those unabashed moans with your mouth or your hand or even just two fingers shoved between her lips so she might have something to bite down on.

It’s this whole thing, the sneaking around, the indiscretion—Miyeon loves it. And the danger of it all become something like a siren’s call, you are just as attracted to the idea too, that you’re masking who you are in the dark, just past drawn curtains and under fitted sheets.

“Wow, I never noticed, but you guys are, like, weirdly close,” Soyeon says once, sometime near the beginning, and perhaps when you’d begun to stare a little too obviously as Miyeon was tying her hair back. It has you both laughing off the observation as something trivial, like Soyeon was the odd one out for noticing anything at all. But fast forward a few hours, and you’re sprawled out on a set of hotel linens, having a laugh again all while Miyeon fucks herself on your hard cock, delighted at how easy it is to conceal everything in plain sight.)

-

“Um,” Yuqi says, walking into the living room of Miyeon’s apartment with her laptop precariously perched on her forearm.

You’re out there on a Wednesday, hanging out, kissing Miyeon every now and again, but talking mostly. The rationalization is that you’re practicing and memorizing lines, ironing out kinks that aren’t really there. Which is all how you know things are getting out of control, if not among the other hints: Miyeon’s added a spare toothbrush in the cup on your bathroom vanity, a pile of women’s laundry atop your washing machine that never grows any smaller, beauty products under the sink, and there’s all those damn bobby pins that show up in every corner of your apartment. “It’s just casual”, you overhear her say once, on the phone with Sana, and you do your best to never, ever think about it.

“You idiots, you’re trending.” Yuqi sits down on the sofa next to you, not at all disconcerted that you’ve got your hand in the ends of Miyeon’s hair or that she’s practically sitting in your lap. You learn pretty quick that Yuqi feels like she belongs anywhere. In some ways, that’s her charm. “And?” Miyeon asks, dismissive.

“Are you both insane?” Yuqi turns her laptop around so you can read her feed.

There’s a series of pictures on the screen attached to a headline that starts with breaking in bold capital letters, like its only true purpose is to fuck up the internet. Your eyes start on Miyeon first, the tilt of her chin, her fingers floating across her collarbones, smile radiant—looking at you the way she always does when she’s mentally undressing you. Fortunately, she’s still perfectly made up, hair tied up above her shoulders and the mascara under her eyes not quite yet running; this photo is before you made a mess of all that, gotten her moaning your name in the restroom. You’ve got your hand at the back of your neck, and you’re laughing. The glint in your eye screams complicity. 

Miyeon says emptily, “you’re overreacting.” 

Yuqi’s frown deepens fractionally, but you’re putting the pieces together. It’s pretty unhinged.

 “Christ,” you start, “get a look at some of these retweets: I’m just thinking of what those kids would look like, the genetic payout; fuuuuuuck I need to see that sextape.” You laugh. “Look, this one just says: sex.”

Miyeon leans forward in your lap, cheek nearly pressed against yours. “Here’s one: how much do you wanna bet Miyeon tops when they—”

Yuqi bursts out laughing, clearly almost snorts, and you both raise an eyebrow at her. “What? This girl here isn’t topping anyone.”

“Shut it.” Miyeon rubs her hand at her chin, turns her eyes up at you, and without an ounce of irony continues, “How much do you wanna bet? That these are your fans.”

Yeah, probably not, you think. “I’m sorry. Do you have any idea how my demographic skews? Not like your fans who are…” Miyeon’s face lights up. “Are delightful?” “Have a sock at home with Miyeon’s name on it?” Yuqi chimes in, grinning. “I mean if somebody wants to make a puppet of me,” Miyeon says, practically huffing out the words, “that’s not really any of your concern.”

Yuqi makes a face. You watch as she slowly twirls one of those long waves of pink hair around her finger (strawberry blonde, Miyeon called it, and you don’t know shit all about that, but it does sound pretty, so that fits, you guess). It goes all the way down to her waist, and you’ve noticed, possibly for a second or third time, that she looks killer in a pair of high cut jeans—what all with the long legs and an ass that more than plenty fills them out, she could be peddling denim on a Levi’s catalog.

“What should be your concern,” Yuqi says, “is that the internet thinks you’re getting railed on the regular.” It’s quick—blink and you’d have missed it—her eyes lingering for a moment on your expression before she lifts her chin and laughs, dryly, almost nervously to fill the silence. “What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

-

Yuqi’s expertise, first and foremost, is talking. Go ahead, take a moment to consider how wildly dangerous that is, for a girl with a face like hers and a body like that to be good at talking. Every so often you catch her staring at you with her huge, beautiful eyes, these deep pools of pure anthracite; the sort of charming that keeps you smiling and laughing without even knowing why. She’s equal parts badmash and coquettish, you realize, and somewhere in the seamlessness with which she swaps between the two is a hint that both are facades. (That there exists a third Yuqi, the one who determines which mask is appropriate for which occasion but who is otherwise veiled, obscured, entirely impossible to know.)

Whatever your theory for it, the charm, the innuendos, the suggestion, it all gets dialed up to eleven.

Yuqi suggests you stay for dinner in a way that is impossible to refuse, and Miyeon grumbles something inaudible, but you think you’re able to piece it together: this is a regular thing for them. Miyeon and you haven’t talked numbers or cleared up the bodycount, haven’t talked about anything serious at all—the most incriminating thing between you being Miyeon laying her head on your chest, cunt still full of your cum, saying, I’m really glad I met you—of all of Miyeon’s princes-in-waiting, you’d be a fool to think you were the first. And you’re willing to wager Yuqi’s done all this before.

“Hey, how do you take your whiskey?” she asks, pouring olive oil over a bowl of cherry tomatoes and chopping a sprig of fresh basil. If Miyeon wasn’t glaring at her, the quirk in Yuqi’s lip has you swearing she would’ve thrown a wink in your direction. Just for good measure.

“Neat is fine,” you tell her, and Miyeon rolls her eyes. -

It’s actually not true that Yuqi kisses you first. Not the whole truth anyway. “Hard to explain it in words, huh?” she asks, leaning into your space and nearly pushing you over the back of the sofa. Her knee is between your thighs, pressing up on your crotch in a way that feels good and threatening. She knows that’s the only thing she needs to keep you in place, so she leaves her hands at her chest, fingers toying with the top button of her shirt—ruminations of whether to unbutton it herself or wait for you to finally tear the whole thing off her.

(There’s a million different ways you could do this, but you’re perfectly content seeing how this plays out.)

“With just a few of them that is,” Miyeon says, drying her hands with a towel at the kitchen sink.

“Oh,” Yuqi starts, and her lips twist into an approximation of a smile. “You’re saying you two don’t have a label.”

“We’re coworkers technically,” you tell her, faux-casual, like it doesn’t beg twenty more questions.

“I don’t know; the internet thinks you guys are in fucking love.” Yuqi’s fingers come to a decision: slipping the button out of place with a little effort and resting at the next one down. Her neck is pale and tender and you’re only pulling away long enough from the glint in her big gorgeous eyes to know you want to get your lips on it. “And you’re telling me you wouldn’t be jealous—even a little—if I started sucking his cock.” 

She gets jealous easy, is how Yuqi explains it to you, freeing an ounce of soft cleavage, a sneak of black lace with another button. Look, it’s just chemistry—you have it with everyone. Who can fault you for it?

“Hm.” Miyeon shrugs, looking put upon, and leans back against the counter where she spends a long moment with her arms crossed, before running her thumb across her chin. “Can I mention something?” “Anything for our princess,” Yuqi says, finally touching you. Just two fingers at your sternum. “Right?” “Why is it you’re never the one bringing anyone home?”

“I’m not a slut,” Yuqi says, straight-faced, and Miyeon’s whole expression goes awry. That’s probably where she seals her fate.

Not that you think for a second Yuqi had recused herself from the attention of boys, girls—none of it in short supply—and for all her “fidelity”, you refuse to believe the things she does with her words are unintentional, that her talent for seduction is somehow innate, something god-given.

“How can you be so sure?” you ask, fingers threading through Yuqi’s hair until she tilts up her chin and smiles.

Eventually there comes a moment where Miyeon meanders around the kitchen island and gets a hold of you. Figuratively and literally; eyes hardened on you in a way you’re not sure you’ve seen before. 

Mine, is what she’s telling Yuqi in no ambiguous terms, hands hooking into the waist of your pants.  

“Tell me something,” Yuqi starts with your name on her lips, “does she beg for it? When you’re fucking her, does she whine and cry until she’s collapsed and panting? Really, I’m curious. Does she look at you with those pretty eyes and plead for you to pump her full of cum?”

“Yuqi,” Miyeon says, kind of sharply.

To be clear, you’re not totally without blame here either, seeing the opportunity as it appears, seizing it for yourself—and you say the words as you think them: “it’s kind of her thing, I guess.”

“Total cumslut, right?” Yuqi’s hands are all over your arms, your chest, and you’re spread in both directions, reaching around Miyeon’s waist, and toying at the tight fit of Yuqi’s jeans. She leans forward a little, side-eyeing the way Miyeon’s lip ever so slightly curls when she enters that anxious proximity a breath's distance away from you, whispering: “I’m nothing like that, I’m so much better.”

“You’ve got a real mouth on you,” Miyeon tells her, watching her shirt fall down her petite shoulders. “You know that?” Yuqi’s eyes are flaring hot, dripping with untoward intent, and they stay on you just long enough for her to make certain you’re paying attention before she turns to Miyeon. “I know you love this mouth.”

You realized it long before dinner, it’s true, probably long before today: Yuqi likes you, which, at present, is pretty obvious. She likes it when you smile, likes it when you rub your hand at the nape of your neck and laugh at her witty one-liners, likes it when you ruffle your hair just like you’ve done in front of the camera your whole life. Yuqi likes you just as Yuqi likes Miyeon, and she’s twisting her hand at your shirt tighter yet, hoping one of you might just kiss her. “Miyeon,” you say after an inhale, commanding tone right where you left it, and it’s comical how fast both girls heel. Isn’t that good to know. Filing it away in a mental folder of sorts, you straighten yourself onto your feet, slowly. The thing that ends up flipping the table—the thing that has Miyeon’s expression of general discontent rally to something a little more impending—is just how much taller you are than Yuqi. And when that hits her, swallow visible through the hollow of her throat, there’s a waver in that deadly expression of hers, a weakness, something you can exploit. Your hand finds purchase under Yuqi’s jaw, gently, and you tilt her face toward you like you’re about to kiss her. Only instead, you run your thumb across her lower lip and say, “I don’t blame you, her mouth is gorgeous.”

“And?” Yuqi finds her composure quickly. “What do you want this mouth to do?”

 “Oh, Yuqi,” Miyeon says, malice hidden under a voice tender and semi-sweet, before you can think to prepare an answer. She’s twisting Yuqi’s bra strap between her fingers as it comes down around her shoulder. “I want you to get me ready for his cock.”

“I,” Yuqi starts— 

“Hm?” Miyeon asks, and that’s a pitch in her voice you’ve never heard. You’re looking over both of them enigmatically, ready to walk away from this with a clear picture of who Yuqi is, obviously, but then it’s the expression on Miyeon’s face—so unbothered, so lewdly satisfied, you have to know more.

“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m just gonna watch.” Yuqi reaches up on her toes before Miyeon can react. 

Kisses you right in front of her.

-

It’s not really clear to you who, if anyone, is piloting this thing, only that it’s moving at near out of control speeds. And even though Miyeon’s bed isn’t even quite big enough to hold you all, that ends up doing little to slow either of them down. 

Miyeon is between your legs, preening a few strands of glossy hair back behind her ear that have real determination to keep falling in front of her face. You’d offer to help, to get your hands in it and pull tight, but you’ve come upon an acquired taste for the blowjob Miyeon’s barely giving you right now. A masterwork in its own right: a certain finesse in each flick of her tongue, the soft cushion of her pouty lips, the way every gentle kiss finds you that much fucking harder in her fingers. She drags her tongue up, tastes the pre-cum weeping from your cock. Just smiles like she knows how bad you want hold her tight and fuck her throat. The glint in her doe-like eyes tells you that you will.

She gets it. Terror lives in anticipation, not the bang. That sanguine expectation of pleasure becomes pleasure in of itself. Her instincts tell her to tease, tell her to kiss and lick; only when you’re finally shuddering a wet breath through your teeth, does she part her lips around the head of your cock and start to suck.

She takes in an inch, maybe another. Slides her tongue slowly under your cock, and christ, her mouth feels fucking amazing.

You sigh like you’re stepping into a hot bath, and Miyeon’s satisfaction is equally palpable: corners of her mouth stretching around you into a pretty little smirk, something you’re more than happy to feel running up and down your cock until she slacks her jaw and takes you in full, past her soft, wet lips.

Though when finally you look up, you realize Yuqi’s barely on the bed actually—just one knee and it looks precarious—unfazed that she’s spilling off the end; working her hands into the bottom of Miyeon’s skirt like she’s done it a thousand times. She drags her underwear down her thighs, and Yuqi reminds you that she’s got the exact kind of wicked streak that’ll never let an opportunity go to waste:

“Oh,” she says, head up over Miyeon’s ass, blinking in admiration, “she’s even buying new lingerie for you, huh? I didn’t realize how head over heels—”

“Jesus Christ.” Miyeon’s lips are still half complicating themselves with your cock; she pumps her slender fingers around you in consolation, and murmurs, “do you ever fuck? Or you all tease.”

“Well if you insist,” Yuqi purrs, a mean tilt to her voice—because in the end, she knows that she wants to; that with her small body right between you, like this, there's plenty of her to share; that when it comes to Miyeon, there always is. “Hm,” she hums, slipping a finger or two inside Miyeon’s pussy. Your vision of it being the way Miyeon’s face twists delightfully, eyebrows sewn together in a perfect discord with the rest of her angelic features. “Baby, you’re so wet—”

“She loves the attention,” you say, and Miyeon’s eyes track yours while she lowers her lips slowly down your shaft once more. “If I had to guess, the only thing better than me fucking her perfect little cunt, is if there’s an audience there to watch it.” Your hand rests below Miyeon’s ear, fingers kneading at the back of her neck and guiding her just enough so that her tongue is flat and slick where you want it. “Isn’t that right, princess?”

Yuqi separates her lips from Miyeon’s asscheek, that heavy, open-mouthed kiss at the curve of creamy skin coming to an end just long enough to catch you smirking. She’s fucking the girl’s cunt open with her fingers, slowly, reminding Miyeon that she doesn’t have it confused—that she knows she’s nothing like the princess everyone believes her to be, that she’s so much more. “Always such a good slut, baby. Go on, show me how you take that cock.” “How about you come over here,” you tell Yuqi, before looking back at Miyeon’s eyes, innocent and blinking like she isn’t taking you in and out between her tightly-sealed lips. “Help me cum in her throat.” At that, you feel Miyeon’s jaw slack open even further, and the fingers she has corkscrewing around you find room at your hips instead. It’s hard to get over how perfectly submissive she can be, the way this always plays out; you’ve never needed anything like safewords, because Miyeon trusts you implicitly. Trusts that you’d never, ever hurt her. Trusts that you’ll get your hard cock in her and fuck her until her knees are wobbling and she’s practically unable to walk. Trusts that you won’t even hesitate when she asks for more. Yuqi lands a few more kisses at Miyeon’s cunt, along her ass, and then, without warning, sinks her teeth into all that soft, pliable skin. Miyeon winces, something you can feel, a sharp moan becoming sealed in against your cock and leaking slightly between her lips like it’s the drool running down your shaft. Apparently the image of you firing off a salvo of cum deep in Miyeon’s throat is as hot as it sounds, because Yuqi is grinning like a cheshire cat as she slides off the bed. “I just hope you realize you’re on the docket for quite a lot here.”

“What’s that, high expectations?”

“A lot more than a throatpie,” Yuqi says, hopping onto the bed next to where you’re sitting, where you’re slowly fucking Miyeon’s mouth. Each time you lift her face up and down the length of your cock, you feel the back of her throat, start to catalog the noises she makes as she starts to slobber onto you.

“Yeah,” you say, fisting a second hand into Miyeon’s hair. “I was kind of counting on it.”

“Go figure.” Yuqi’s voice is low and raspy, right into your junction where your shoulder meets your neck. She reaches an arm around you, leaving ephemeral kisses at your jaw, your cheek, getting her lips right next to your ear, where she whispers, “you’re actually kinda depraved.”

“Well, welcome to showbiz, I guess.” “Hm,” Yuqi says, watching you shudder as her fingers arrive around the base of your cock, fucking you with them in tandem as you sleeve yourself in out of Miyeon’s hot mouth like she’s some toy to be used, to be fucked, to be ruined.

Your mouth opens and closes, twice, before sputtering, “I’m actually—”

“One of the normal ones?” Yuqi tightens her grip. She’s picking up all that slick drool and precum where it threatens to leak onto your waist, and it makes her touch every bit as life-endingly-incredible as the tight fit of Miyeon’s mouth. The combination of which has you groaning audibly.

“Yeah, sure,” you breathe, “something like that.” 

“And a narcissist too.” Yuqi pulls at your face to unstick your gaze from the sight of your cock disappearing between Miyeon’s soft, pretty lips. You recognize the touch of her hand as it wanders down to your balls, gently, but still very much present. And right after the silence stretches, just a little too far, she says, “aren’t you two just perfect for eachother.”

Yuqi kisses you hard. These sweltering, stinging, asphyxiating kisses that grab at your lips with no intention of letting go, and everything becomes oddly quiet. All you can hear, outside of those messy, strangled sounds from Miyeon’s throat as you fuck your cock into it, is the dull pulse of blood rushing through your head. It’s as if the two of them are pleasure in resonance, channeling onto the same wavelength: Miyeon’s tongue is doing just about fucking everything each time you pull your throbbing cock out of her throat, and she slips it past her lips—starts lapping—when you weave your fingers in her hair even tighter. She gets messier, sloppier, her composure fading like it’s the mascara beneath her eyes. You can feel the flutter of her lashes against your waist right as you pull her mouth back down your shaft. It’s hot and wet and you don’t even realize you start bucking your hips, dragging Miyeon’s lips around your cock quickly, quicker, quicker—

“God,” you mutter, final threads torn apart, and that’s the exact reaction that has Yuqi smiling against your teeth, whispering into your lips, can feel you fucking throbbing. Cum in her for me, cum in her throat. Cum.

Mnnph.

Yeah, that’ll push you right to the edge, teetering. In freefall, actually, jaw snapping shut first—fingers shortly after—you tug hard at where you’ve gathered slipshod pigtails of shimmering, silky-smooth hair, and Miyeon quite nearly chokes as you release everything into her mouth, deluge-like. You’re going to make a mess, you think. You’ll make more.

Mmnnppph.

Okay, it’s filthy is what it is; the sounds of it alone are fucking filthy. That seal of soft lips around you starts to break, leaving you with the flood of cum and spit spilling down your cock and into Yuqi’s fingers as Miyeon gasps at an overwhelmingly desperate draw of air. The struggle to swallow you down is beyond unreasonable, but she brings her mouth back onto you again—closes her eyes and sucks. 

“All of it,” Yuqi whispers still. That’s the kick, and your whole body commits to sighing as she jerks your cock into the wet heat of Miyeon’s mouth. She twists gently, pumping, pulling, fucking every last bit of tension out of your muscles and draining it thoroughly into Miyeon’s throat.

(So that’s what you like, is how you think Yuqi says it, eyes studying your torn expression in equal parts apathy and awe.

She licks your cum off the sharp edge of her knuckles, from between her fingers, and she glances down at where Miyeon is still lapping her tongue at sensitive skin and sucking and cleaning you between her lips. Her lipstick is smeared, makeup running, with tears visible at the ends of her lashes, her cheeks still burning hot and embered. Miyeon looks perfect in many ways, but only flawless in one.)

“Good lord.” Yuqi’s eyes are creased in laughter near the end of your recovery, lighting fast and pulling you over Miyeon’s delicate frame. It’s the kind of laughter that’s genuine and contagious. Sweetly harmonic.

Calling you to join in while you glide your cock between Miyeon’s thighs and press the small of her back into her mattress until she’s practically prone to the bed, tight little ass angled up, proffering, and simply begging for you to pound away. 

“And I mean this in the most respectful way possible,” Yuqi says, with a hair tie between her teeth and fixing back her long waves into something more manageable, hoping it might be something you can pull and yank. What’s the saying—a brave man dies once, but a coward ought to know that Yuqi will always, always, always get what she wants.

“You two are actually really fuckin’ weird.” Her eyes are smoldering, lips quirked into a careless little grin. “I love it.”

-

“Alright, I’m going to have to ask,” Miyeon says, “do I need to be worried about this?”

Someone probably should be. The realization you’re hurdling into is that there exists both a waking up with Yuqi and a waking up with Yuqi, much in the same way there exists both a sleeping with Yuqi and a sleeping with Yuqi.

The three of you do first wake up together, just this ridiculous tangle of limbs that really only has one realistic conclusion, and when Miyeon reminds you—bent over the bathroom sink minutes later and cumming on Yuqi’s fingers—she has to be at the studio in an hour to refilm a few of her over-the-shoulders shots, and it’s not fair that you get to laze around all day, and that her manager is literally going to be here to pick her up any minute, Yuqi and you do the most natural thing in the world. You continue waking up.

You wake up in the shower, on the kitchen island, back again in Miyeon’s room since it’s already kind of fucked up anyway; Yuqi wakes you up all while her knuckles turn white around the door handle of the refrigerator, the back of the living room sofa, and it’s not really that convincing when she turns to Miyeon, one eye shut tight, and tells her, “no, not at all.”

Because when you try to voice something similar, your words get caught pretty deep in your throat, stuck and unmoving. That's become pretty familiar. It’s all pretty fucked, actually.

Yuqi’s on her knees in front of you, fist tight around your cock and jerking all this hot cum onto her face. There’s sin tucked everywhere into these pages. Particularly on her nose, her lips, her cheek, bisecting one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. You have your proclivities. The tendency toward destruction, toward ruin, and what is Yuqi if not a gorgeous masterpiece begging for someone, anyone to be just a little destructive and ruinous. She flinches every time it hits her, pumping her fingers around your cock again until a rope of creamy white flies right into her pink hair. 

We’re fine, is what you tell Miyeon, huffing and repeating yourself: “We’re fine, I’ll catch you later.”

Miyeon crosses her arms, and that’s when it becomes a little clearer. The juxtaposition here is striking and immediate: black heels, black leggings, pencil skirt, prim and pressed white-collared shirt, the cute little suit jacket that fits barely over her dainty shoulders—she’s dressed head to toe in business casual like she’s about to put in eight hours hole-punching or making copies or writing emails and it’s so effortlessly sexy that the only thing that could possibly distract you from it—

“He’ll be fine,” Yuqi says, not even chagrined in the slightest that she’s fucking covered in cum. You watch her stand up, wipe her eyelashes free of mess with the back of her forearm, and start leading you to the window with her wrist still flexing out tiny motions around your cock. “I’ll make sure of it.” 

“Just a reminder,” Miyeon shouts, even-pitch and tone slightly indignant, which makes a lot of sense. “You promised you’d sit in for my line reads.”

“And I will.” 

It’s almost idiotic—here you are, the expert in the room, a professional in spinning ludicrous little lies, purveyor of fantasy and fiction and fuck if it’s not obvious that you’re planning on fucking Yuqi’s pretty little cunt until you’re both forgetting how to function. Miyeon reads that from across the room. From where the stench of sex is so heavy it’s probably hitting her too.

“Oh relax princess,” Yuqi says to her, and her lips slant to something more mischievous. Her shoulders are slumped back against the pane of glass and she’s rubbing the head of your cock through the soaked folds of her pussy. Neither of you are in search of ideas, for inspiration. Want for nothing. You’ll fucking ruin this little cunt—get me screaming and so addled I can’t speak straight, Yuqi’s telling you with just the corner of her mouth, curling. 

You grab hold of Yuqi, grappling with her for a moment before you spin her around in your hands—until her tits are plastered onto the window. It’s a show of force, a drill in shock and awe admittedly, but also you’ve got two perfect rows of bite marks above your collarbone. Honest to god, a full dental record, right in your shoulder. You sense the inspiration in it. Yuqi fucks like there’s inspiration in it, like she’s trying to kill you, in a way, but you’re paid for maintaining an image just a tad more wholesome than that. Ideally with a little less blood where a camera could catch it.

“Jesus christ,” Miyeon says, tapping away at her phone. “You guys are gross.”

“He promised. Didn’t he?” Yuqi mutters against the pane, the condensation in her breath fogging immediately. If that isn’t a perfect preview of what you’ll do to her. Perfectly premeditated by the way she fucking keens when you slip back inside her tight cunt. And Miyeon is very unimpressed with all of it: “Yeah okay, whatever, I don’t care, stay hydrated or something. I’m going to wait downstairs.”

“Told you,” Yuqi purrs, grinning all over you, in the breadth of quiet that the door leaves slamming shut behind Miyeon—stage exit, fade to black; you know that sometimes the magic of film isn’t what’s shown on camera, but rather what isn’t. 

“Told me what?” you ask, still enthralled by how Yuqi is so small underneath you, how when you’re both reaching for control, you don’t really even care if she beats you to the draw.

She gets jealous, Yuqi’s trying to explain, in between the sounds of you fucking her open and raw. You hesitate. Like you haven’t always had that effect on people, blossomed into blessing, complexed into curse. You reach your hand up Yuqi’s ribs, her chest, around her throat, and let your words bite at her ear: “oh, I think you will too.”

-

“I get hate mail,” you tell Miyeon. You’re on set the following week, ducking out of the path of a mic boom that is swinging way too fucking low, and there’s this story trending that heavily suggests you and Miyeon are knocking boots and it has a few disheartened fans absolutely outraged. “Like physical hate mail, in envelopes and stamped and everything.”

“It’s because of the stubble,” she says, rubbing a finger under your jaw. The girl in charge of costuming is adamant that beard prosthetics are lazy and cheap and you are neither. Even if you need it for only one scene. “It makes you look…”

“Uncouth?”

“Rakish,” she says, blinking. And as an afterthought: “Like, of all your thoughts, the one you have of pulling my shirt up and kissing at my tits until they’re sore is somehow the least vulgar.” 

Her shoulders pull up into the slightest shrug. “I mean I’m into it,” she adds.

“That’s not fair,” you tell her, “I’m not considering anything like that.”

Miyeon pulls you aside and up one of set’s staircases to nowhere, fingers warm at the crook of your elbow, and says, “well, it’s all I can fucking think about.”

-

Take a second for some personal reflection: you’ve never really tried to make a habit of anything and at the same time been successful. When it happens, it just kind of happens. We are what we repeatedly do.

In a way, it all started in public, this thing between you and Miyeon. Your roots are here, out with the blurs of passing people, daring to be seen, to be recognized, to be identified. You had long thought—and think, you do, particularly when doing the unthinkable—that a girl like Miyeon would steer away from the prospect; fucking you instead in private, comfort realized in the security of drawn curtains and shuttered blinds. A stark contrast to the part of your lives lived out in the open, subject to scrutiny and skepticism, unguarded from microscopic observation.

She only has everything to lose, you understand. And you aren’t more than a few paces behind her either. Reckless, she’s muttering while you sink to your knees and get your fingers up her skirt, so reckless—like this whole thing isn’t her idea.

The crazy part about all this that you actually do get caught. Not just one time either. 

You’ll bring it up in discussion with Soyeon later, when you run into her at the movie’s premier event and you’ve realized the value of having a good confidant:

“I literally told you one thing,” she’ll say, hands on her hips and looking like the mother that has to call the school, has to call the parent of the window you’d shattered with a baseball. It’ll all be highly disappointing. You are unbelievable—is what she won’t be able to say, even though she’ll really, really want to—I told you not to sleep with Miyeon and you slept with Miyeon why would you sleep with Miyeon you absolute moron.

-

There’s the time on set: in a fucking storage closet of all places. You’ve got Miyeon laid back on a table, fucking her slowly. Her panties are in her mouth, and the toes of her foot are curling against your cheek. It starts with a kiss, which most people might consider poetic, just your lips against a heel, the narrow bend of her arch to where she’s got her delicate toes perfectly colored in pastel white; Miyeon’s too cock-addled to do anything like comment on the fact you take them between your lips, slowly, and again, sucking, kissing her feet until she laughs at the way it tickles.

“Oh my god,” a voice says. One of the production assistants. “Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry.”

-

There’s the time in the woods near where you’re shooting a few of the outdoor scenes. You’re stepping out of a tall brush, and Miyeon’s cheeks are so red, glistening in sweat and cum and there’s a technician running an extension cord to god knows where to hook up more lights to the rigging.

“Um,” he says, just staring and unwinding more cord.

“We were looking for her earring,” you tell him.

“In the fucking woods?” He laughs out loud, just this self-amused grunt of a laugh. “Did you find it?”

You actually can’t look him in the eye, and Miyeon is just standing there, mortified. Your forehead creases a puzzled line and you say, with absolute conviction: yes.

-

“Jesus christ, Miyeon.” You swivel on your stool in your dressing room. Think possibly to kneel, but you know what might happen if she sees you on your knees, supplicating.

Let the record show, you and Miyeon are on day six of your self-imposed moratorium—the ban that prohibits the two of you fucking eachother at work, so it’s not like it’s the fastest capitulation in the world either.

Miyeon does a spin, pleated hem of a navy blue plaid skirt flaring out to the sides—how do I look?

There are answers in your throat, no doubt—like sin, like fantasy, like a submissive, fuckable fantasy. Like it should be illegal.

“Uh—I mean,” you nearly stammer, massaging your thumb into your temple. It’s certainly not natural for you to be here, on the back foot, and it has Miyeon’s mouth slanting into a predictable smirk. In an almost inexcusably banal act, she puts a fingernail to her teeth and shimmies her waist so that you’re lost to the moment, tracking how the skirt’s fabric ruffles between her legs.

Is it the fact that some maniac in costume has gone and put her in a school uniform?

Yes. 

That's a great deal of what’s going on here, which is a whole fucking lot. Is it the way her shoulders vanish in a tailored blazer with a nostalgia-inducing insignia above the breast pocket—her fingers poking out from the cuffs and toying at the lapels? Is it that the dress shirt beneath it is made of the cheapest cotton one could find (because the thing doesn’t really need to hold up over multiple washes) so you can see how her stomach flattens, that gentle rise in her chest, the sharp angle of her collarbones, all when the light catches it just right? There’s the stockings, dress shoes, a fucking ribbon in her hair and you’re ignoring the fact that the tie around her neck is a little loose and you might be able spin it over her shoulders and tighten your grip and—

“Cute, right?” She skips across the room and perches on your knee. Really selling it.

“I’m curious,” you say, looking for a narrow gap, something to stow away into, something that might take your mind off the fact that when you look at Miyeon, you’re transposing and overlaying images of an eleventh grade crush, and that’s not a mood you were prepared to be whipped into at just the flash of blue plaid and a charcoal blazer. “When was the last time you wore a ribbon in your hair?” 

“Oh gosh.” One corner of Miyeon’s mouth frowns, ruminating. She hovers her hand up to her ponytail, twisting it gently until it bounces back into place. “It’s been such a long time actually, I don’t know, seventeen, eighteen years old?”

Okay, that’s certainly not helping. A more direct approach, perhaps: “what are you doing, Miyeon?”

“Oh,” she says, nonchalant, because isn’t it obvious, “I’m here to get fucked.”

This is trouble, and among other things, a perversion, you think, but your mouth is too dry to say any of that, and Miyeon leans in and places her fingers beneath your jaw. Tilts your chin and presses her lips to yours, gentle, feather-light.

One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand. Four one-thousand.

Shifting slightly, the inside of Miyeon’s thigh presses to the outside of yours, only ever the slightest movement, and it has you sighing into her mouth. It’s impossible to decide whether you ought admire her confidence or find fault with her gall. She’s a delightful lapful—and a handful, and a mouthful—so you’ll flirt with danger, abandon those last vestiges of inhibition, and lean into the former rather than the latter.

Miyeon’s breath lands against your lips, hitching as the kiss breaks.

“Look,” you say, lip smacking back into place when she finally lets it free. There’s a response, bubbling up from your gut, because on one hand, this is the exact kind of impropriety you were hoping to avoid. And on the other, well, nothing ventured, nothing lost—you suppose. Your eyes are flicking to the top buttons of her shirt, collar agape and that gentle invitation of cleavage snuck behind it.

“Oh my god,” Miyeon says, inches from your face, and she starts to laugh. “You have grays in your beard.”

“No there aren’t.”

“I’m serious.” She wraps her hand around your cheeks, and twists your face to the vanity mirror, like it’d be helpful. “Look,” she says, twice, pulling her lip between her teeth and staring at your reflection.

“Those are stress grays,” you amend, before turning back and shifting her weight more comfortably into your lap, soft thighs straddling yours. “Just to be clear, I’m barely any older than you are.”

“Older,” she says, smiling.

“Don’t have to dwell on it.”

“I mean there’s a silver lining to that though.” Miyeon’s fingers are spread across your face, thumbs gently rubbing into your cheekbones. She’s close enough for you to forget her manager is going to come looking for her at some point or another. “Just means I can call you daddy, and it won’t be weird.”

“Uh.”

“You know,” she adds, sliding her fingers over your ears and pressing a kiss into your jaw, “while we’re doing it.”

“No, I understood that part.” You give her another once over and firm your hands on her waist to stop her from grinding her hips any further into yours. “I’m not sure it’s age that potentially makes it weird.”

“Come on,” she says, letting her voice slip into that slightly deepened register that suggests not only will she disobey you, but you’ll love every second of it. “I know you love to play with me.”

“It’s not a trick question. What are you asking for here, Miyeon?”

“Sex,” she says.

“Yes,” you answer, blinking back at her, expression skeptical. “I was there for that part of the conversation. It was about sixty seconds ago, if I recall.”

She lifts your chin, looks straight in your eyes, and asks, “and?”

“I’m just trying to puzzle out what you're telling me.” You slide your fingertips past the waist of her skirt and onto her ass. The quiet hum of satisfaction in Miyeon’s throat says you’re getting warmer. “What it is you want.”

“Any ideas?” she presses again, the lilt in her voice filling you with hundreds—the countenance behind it providing even more. Her hips grind into you further, bucking toward your waist and silencing the anxious distance between you.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Your hand snakes around the curve of Miyeon’s ass, down to where her underwear feels hot and unmistakably damp, where you can feel the shape of her lips through the fabric and the heat smoldering between them. There’s a tiny wanton whine from her throat when you circle your fingers; a sharp draw of air past her teeth when you apply a little more pressure. “Want my fingers inside of you? Hmm?”

Miyeon nods almost immediately.

You kiss her. Slide your mouth over her lips and recognize the strawberry in her lip gloss and hold onto your exhale, breathing the same air. Her eyes open first, lashes brushing yours. “You want me to fuck you, Miyeon.”

“Want you to tell me what to do,” she says, and without even running the word experimentally around her mouth, without testing its taste or the way it feels on her tongue, she fixes her dark brilliant eyes on you, saying, “want daddy to tell me what to do.”

You’ve got all this about nature and nurture running amuck in your head to the backdrop of the sound of a large cable snapping. It’s dangerous. It’s not like you, you’re not the type, you’re telling yourself, and a lot of other rubbish that isn’t concerned by the fact that Miyeon’s here, fucking dressed like this, ponytail bobbing, ribbon in her hair begging to come undone—

Lock the door, you say to her, and she does. Turn around. Take your jacket off, and she pauses first, before twisting her arms from the sleeves and folding it neatly over the back of a chair. You’ve got a hand outstretched as she walks toward you; your panties, hand them over, and she reaches down beneath her skirt, rolling her underwear down her smooth thighs, her calves, eyes never once leaving yours—watching you watch her. 

Sit.

Touch yourself. 

Slowly; slower—

It’s almost ridiculous. You’ve hardly even laid a hand on her, and she’s got her eyes looking up at you like you’d just set all her biological clocks an hour forward, cranked up to ten-minutes-to-midnight, and replaced all her coherent thoughts with just one simple thing: how bad she needs you to cum in her cunt.

She’s settled at the front of the vanity counter, feet against your chest, head tilting back against the mirror, and she’s gently slapping her own pussy with the pads of her fingers, covered and wet in her own anticipation. Your hands are nothing like hers—these slender, delicate things—and it’s driving her up the wall. You’re spreading her thighs, opening her up, bringing the roughness in your fingers, the heel of your palm so close. Miyeon can’t help it.

“You’re such a slut,” you tell her, watching her shove one, two fingers past the glistening lips her pussy—biting back a laugh as she starts to fuck herself slowly for you. “And already this fucking wet.”

Miyeon just smiles, eyes hooded and looking at you with such perfectly sinful intent. “I thought that’s how daddy likes his little girl.”

(Don’t get it confused: it’s never been a challenge to play a character, to be someone you are not, to emotionally identify and aspire to the details of a part. But this is different. This is seamless. This is you leaning into that space, living in it, loving it. A physical part of you. Genuine and true.)

You grapple Miyeon’s wrist, pulling her hand away from the want of her pussy, denying her all of that friction. She whines, but puts up little to no fuss when you bring her hand to her face and clear your voice of anything that doesn’t inspire authority—deliver an order, sternly, with her fingers in her mouth, suck.

“Here’s a lesson.” You click your tongue as she closes her eyes and sets her jaw in motion to clean her own slick off her nails, her knuckles. “The only thing that goes in my princess’s cunt, is daddy’s cock.”

“In that case,” Miyeon says around her fingers still between her lips, a smile spreading across all of her perfected features—voice lilting, reeling you in, sinking its teeth into your skin: I think daddy’s going to have to punish me.

Oh, you’re one step ahead of her, thinking of all the ways how, and the sound of your zipper coming undone makes Miyeon's eyes go wide with want, with need. Her petite, perfect, fuckable body still locked away behind fabric, she starts hiking her skirt even higher up her hips, lazily unfastening the buttons of her shirt. 

You tell her to put her feet together, wrapping a grip onto her stockings and pulling her legs closed—twisting them to the side and letting her heels clack together over your shoulder. The gentle motion of your thumb between her thighs gets her sucking a sharp draw of air. Always so vocal Miyeon is at the slightest provocation.

Your cock is harder than it’s ever, ever been; harder yet as you tease it at the folds of Miyeon’s entrance, pushing it against sensitive skin and earning you pleased little chirrups from deep in her chest, repeating, “yes, yes, yes—”

She’s only halfway down the buttons on her shirt, collar gaping open and lolling to the sides of her soft shoulders, sliding partway downway her arms, and then it’s that fucking tie still loosely hanging around her neck—so impossibly irresistable. The motion is practiced, near effortless: you slip right into the tight embrace of her creaming cunt. When she makes it through the length of a heavy breath through pursed lips, you sink even in further.

“Oh, this pussy is fucking incredible,” you sputter, voice come to reckon with the fucking bind that is Miyeon’s body, coiling beneath your weight the deeper you cock reaches inside her. “I don’t know that I could ever punish you. Maybe I should just spoil you, princess; get on my knees and make you cum on my mouth instead—”

“No.”

“What was that?” you coax, fucking into her cunt slowly, and your little girl growls at you. You can’t help but chuckle, making a tight grasp of the tie around her neck, and start to twist. 

Miyeon’s flushed all over, eyes glassy, but emblazoned still, a spark of defiance in those deep shimmering pools that makes her all the more alluring. Her lashes flutter—whole body tensing in response—as your thighs crash into her, cock deep inside the tight grip of her cunt.

She feels amazing.

“Yes, please,” she tells you, huffing out the words and changing her tune as you begin to let her have you, let her revel in the determined rhythm of you fucking her like she’s come to expect. “God, yes, daddy please…”

It’s so easy to fuck Miyeon—muscle memory and learned behavior—so easy to sink your fingers into her ass, her thighs, her tits, wrap your arms around her waist and start fucking her so quickly it has her pussy so wet it’s not even slowing you down in the slightest when you pull harder on the tie around her neck, draw her writhing body into you, and start to use her.

“You’re fucking, god, you’re fucking tearing me open,” she tells you with her brows sinking over eyes screwed shut, “it feels so fucking good—tell me, do you like fucking me? Do you like fucking your little slut?

“Fucking love it,” you whisper against her ear.

It doesn’t even cross your mind for a second, whether she wanted to be fucked like this, wanted to be used and choked and pounded so hard her legs buckled and her muscles ached and she could barely remember her own name—she landed in your lap, flirted with this danger, both of you immediately aware of what all it entailed. 

Miyeon didn’t just invite it, the girl fucking craves it.

Just like this, she’s muttering, voice barely rasping into anything audible under the weight of your grip, fuck your little slut just like this—bathing your cock in the delicious cream and slick of her pussy so that you might fuck it all back into her. When she starts moving like this, body shaking in quakes and quivers, voice woven into her mewls and moans, you know she’s so fucking close, only in want of a little encouragement—

“There you go, good girl,” you breathe against her lips, kissing them abruptly, before letting her weight fall back to the vanity counter with just the slightest release of the tie in your fist. “Cum for me, princess, I know you want to—know you want to cum all over daddy’s cock. You’re practically sobbing for me, baby. Go ahead, just cum.”

Sheltered somewhere in quiet of those sloppy, wet, lewd sounds, the score of your cock sliding in and out of Miyeon, is the strangled cry that sneaks out of her throat, gasping: “cumming, I’m fucking cumming, please, I—god.”

Accentuated by the fact that her arms are still halfway trapped in the cotton of her shirt, she can’t do a thing from underneath you. She’s near trapped under the weight, the sheer tempo of at which you’re ruining her cunt. You’re ripping your name in moans and prayers off her lips and she can hardly move beyond that slight squirm in your arms, writhe in the way you mold her to you, overcome in pleasure at how she’s left so full, perfectly remade to the shape of your cock.

Her fingers are splayed across your ribs, holding you, bracing against you, and none of it’s anything you haven’t told her before—so pretty, take it so well, your cunt’s perfect, you’re perfect, so good sweetheart—but in aggregate, taking the length your cock, taking all of you, she shatters apart.

Your hands are on her cheeks, thumbing strands of tousled hair ever-so-gently back into place, and you’re feeling the way her skin burns bright red, feeling the way she gasps for air in shallow pants, feeling her cunt clench hard around you. It’s the moments like these, where she’s delicate to touch, soothed only by your lips pressed to the tip of her nose, her forehead—finding comfort in the arm she swings over your shoulders—she’s so wildly beautiful. 

“So fucking—” She lets her voice even out, and after multiple attempts, gets the words she wants in the right order: “so good, how do—so fucking good baby, how do you want? Cum. How do you want to cum?”

“Could fucking paint your pretty face,” you tell her, moving your hips back to life and fucking into her soaked, messy cunt slowly. The way you push a kiss into her soft lips—now wet and slightly swollen from how she’d been biting them—is a little at odds with the suggestion.

“Ha. I think I get it,” Miyeon starts, the shy smile filling her mouth taking over the shape of her ragged huffs and pants, “we throw daddy around a few times, and suddenly you’re afraid to cum inside me, is that it?”

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s not it at all.” The fact that she’s recovered an ounce of resolve, chip steadily reappearing on her shoulder, is nothing more than a facade, and you’re drawing back the curtain, finding her body still wracked, plenty malleable, puddied and easy to manipulate with a firm grip around her waist. “Let me show you.”

“And just what is it that I’m—” 

Miyeon’s voice breaks almost immediately as you turn her over in your hands. Her knuckles hit the vanity counter and her legs wobble where they land precariously on the floor. She’s so wet and well-fucked that the mess you’d made of her cunt is effortless to slip back into. You allow her more, pushing in as deep as you’ll go, faster than she can blink, faster she can think to protest. It’s the angle that makes her back arch with surprised, sudden pleasure. The depth that makes her eyes shut tight, a gasp not quite making it past her lips. 

Watch.

She can see it all, in the perimeter of fluorescent bulbs, reflection staring back at her. The way her porcelain skin lights aflame. There’s sweat beading across her forehead, blonde hair darkening at its roots. Her lips are parted slightly, tender swell cushioning the bite of her teeth—her eyes are hooded, chin tilting, and she’s watching herself moan and curse as you start to fuck her. She’s perfect, and she knows she’s perfect.

You pull her skirt forward over the round of her ass, fingers sunk into the soft skin, and fuck her harder, until the counter is shaking with it, until she’s crying out, any concept of shame or embarrassment long forgotten. 

“Oh, please,” she starts, settling into your cadence, feeling delighted at the way you fill her.

Her fingers are white-knuckled as she clings to the edge of the counter, and in between breathless little noises, these sharp gasps and whines or another, between the unyielding motions of your cock in her cunt, she writhes.

“Please, please, please, please make me cum again,” she barely manages, blathering and stuttering over her own words. “Please use this little cunt, fucking use me, fuck me, fill me—”

“Anything for my princess,” you say, and after pressing a long row of kisses into the curve of her spine—a heavy kiss of your lips into the sharp edge of her shoulder—you bring a hand to the back of her neck, the slippery-smooth locks of hair already bundled and begging for your fist, becoming your grip.

“Oh my god,” Miyeon mutters, watching her body bend to your will, arching backward into your cock and becoming flush all over. Her eyes flick up to yours, begging you to fill her deeper, fuck her faster, fuck her harder. “Daddy please…”

The way her cunt sleeves onto your cock is so hot, so wet, so unbelievably tight, especially when the fingers woven in her hair flex taut—and so does she—how could you ever think to do anything but?

You pull harder on her hair, tension building in the curving bow of her body, arching further and further into submission. Her face is close enough for you to kiss, to lean into her ear, to whisper, “Miyeon, baby, I’m going to make you cum again. Gonna make you cum all over my cock. Be a good girl for me and take it.”

Miyeon’s voice is flooded, drenched and soaked in meek cries. More so by the minute. She’s whining and gasping and fighting for air like she hasn’t been coached a thousand times on how to keep a clean image. Beyond the curses and filth, the nonsensical string of obscenities falling off Miyeon’s lips, it’s gratitude: “thank you, thank you, thank you, please keep fucking me, please just use me—”

It’s obscene, filthy, it’s practically pornographic–-all framed for her to see. Miyeon’s costume is still barely clinging to her tiny frame, coming off in pieces. And you’re sliding your hand across her smooth stomach, up her ribs and hooking fingers between the cups of her bra, until it comes down far enough around her waist that it simply unclasps and falls to the floor. Every time bring your hips forward, fuck your cock harder into her cunt, you track the movement of her body in the mirror: shoulders lurching, mouth gasping, tits shaking—Miyeon recoiling. 

Even the ribbon in her hair can’t stand against the intensity of it, untangling from her ponytail and falling to the counter, defeated.

Beauty is a picture in motion, and Miyeon is nothing if not elegant. You slow your pace to admire her, hands at her breasts, her waist, still holding firm around her hair and curling her body into your control. She whines louder when you kiss her temple, rasping against the sweat building in her hair. “Make yourself cum for me baby, fuck your little cunt on my cock until you cum again.”

“God,” Miyeon rasps, nodding slightly against you with her eyes carefully fixed on her reflection, and she starts to roll her hips—fucking herself and choking back a whimper every time she finds where it’s mind-numbingly sensitive, where she’s wet and needy and begging for the hard shape of your cock. It’s unbelievable how desperate she ruts against you, grinding her way to her own release.

“Such a good girl for me.” You’re reaching a hand down to her cunt, the hot mess between her legs, and you’re slipping your fingers around where your cock is inside her, skating your thumb across her aching lips, barely touching her clit—

“I’m gonna cum,” she moans out, breathless, “you’re gonna make me fucking cum.”

A final kiss at the hot skin beside her temple, your nose in her hair—drowning in the sweet stench of her sweat, her sex—you’re telling her, “I know I am princess,” and when you release the grip you’ve made of her hair, Miyeon collapses, palms flat over the countertop.

It’s hard to miss, all written on Miyeon’s reflection in front of you, cheeks exquisitely red, lips slacking as she cums, brows twisting together and eyes heavily lidded—and that’s just what you can see. You fuck her quivering cunt, thrusts coaxed into this reckless chase as she spasms around you—holding tight to her waist, fucking her faster and faster until your cock is aching and you’re hunched over her, telling her what she’s been dying to hear: “I'm so close to cumming in your cunt sweetheart, you'll be so filled up and perfect that way, princess.”

There’s no mistaking it. Pleasure palpable in the reflection in front of you, eyes smoldering and holding onto you. The hold she has on your cock, the vice that is her cunt around you—it shouldn’t even be possible to feel this fucking amazing—is far and away too good for you to do anything else: you grab her hips, fuck hard and fast into Miyeon’s sopping cunt, and on a thrust deep and unrelenting, you let go. You can barely even register the way your cock pulsates, firing shot after shot into her tight hole.

Miyeon’s still stuttering and gasping for breath when she feels your cum pool inside her. Even like this, wracked, writhing, and barely held together, she’s breathtaking.

“God, fuck, it’s so good,” she cries out, face still spun in pleasure, in ecstasy, feeling you spill more and more inside her. “Can feel you cumming so much, daddy.”

And that’s how you stay, pouring want and jittery contentment into the air by way of your ragged breathing alone, for the remainder of the minute, the hour, what ultimately ends up feeling far too short. 

Her knees buckle and if you weren’t still pressing bruises into her hips, she’d sink to the floor, a hot mess, a real meltdown of a girl. So she remains right where she is as you soften slowly inside of her, until she has to nudge you off. And as you finally pull out, there’s cum still leaking from your slit, and you catch a glimpse of more leaking out from between her soft, reddened thighs, just a few drops that land on the floor, enough to make something inside you tighten with want.

You kiss her one last time, and say, “c’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”

-

“You need to come up with a better excuse than I needed to get fucked for when you show up like you are to costume,” you say a few minutes later, dabbing at Miyeon’s forehead with a handtowel. “They won’t be too thrilled with me messing up their handiwork.”

Miyeon leans forward in your lap, reaching around your shoulders and placing kisses into the broad shape of your shoulder. “I love the way you mess me up.”

You almost open your mouth again, to lodge a complaint, but nothing comes out.

(You’ve long avoided looking backward, the introspective stuff, the kind of thinking that makes your heart begin to ache in all sorts and manners of cliche. It’s difficult to look straight at the image, to take it in all at once—so full of regret and missed chances.

But for the first time in as long as you can remember, you believe in the things you’re afraid to say. As though you’re more than the weight of all your memories, that the darkness can remind you of where light can be. This is not the end of you, you remember, this is the beginning.

As though you fell so you could land next to her.)

-

It hits you in the middle of a workday. Nothing cathartic or dramatic about it like you’ve come to expect. Dramatic lighting, theatrical score, the meticulous scripting from a team of writers—there’s none of that; which is how you know it’s real.

Miyeon’s watching herself on the monitor. 

And there’s a part of it, you’ve come to understand, that never quite goes away, like listening to how your voice plays back on a recording, the uncertainty, those pangs of doubt—but you wonder, if perhaps, Miyeon can manage to enthrall and captivate even the greatest cynic, quiet her own insecurities and enchant even herself. She nods every now and again, wets her lips with her tongue when she hears her delivery, and furrows her brow. 

It’s not like that.

The sort of girl whose kisses can spin straw to gold—taste of liquor when she’s not even had any to drink—Cassis, juniper berries, gumdrops, sugar cane and molasses, all soft and steamy and sugary sweet. Quote, unquote. That’s what you said.

Don’t—

Please look at me when I tell you I love you. Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed, you will never be lovelier than you are now, we will never be here again.

The whole studio is watching it: the triumph of your lips on hers, holding her softly and kissing her like if you closed your fingers she might shatter into a million pieces. All they did was hold the camera, and it saw what it saw.

Miyeon looks at you, rubs your knuckles with her thumb and says, “you don’t like it.”

Something’s off.

“You think we need one more take?”

(It doesn’t really make sense—the fact that you can’t put a finger on it is bothering you more than anything else. It’s clean, perfect even; smells like a swimming pool: a bleached sea salt, a flower with chemical petals; and not in a good way. Looked at from another perspective, the scene is just as it’s written, as it was rehearsed, but you’re hesitating. And you don’t know why.)

“You think we need one more,” Miyeon says again, inquisitive.

You make a face, and Miyeon squeezes your fingers.

“Yeah. Okay. You think we need one more.”

“I suppose,” you say mildly, “if it’s not too much of a hassle.”

It’s not as simple as that. At least the way you see it. It rarely is. A better guy could probably recognize what it is you’re feeling and put it into words, but you are not a better guy. Spend too much time living on the words of characters and in the confines of a scene, you start to lose sense of the bigger picture. There’s you—outside of the frame, strangely unfamiliar at times, unknowable right now. There’s Miyeon, and she’s not just gorgeous and perfect like everyone knows her to be; she’s gorgeous and perfect to you.

“Here’s what I think,” Miyeon starts, staring straight through you, a pulsing rush of longing—the whisper, irresistible, magic that could make the sanest man go mad. You just want to hear me say I love you one more time.

Everyone’s eyes are glued to the monitors, witness to the story that is you and her, but you’re looking at Miyeon, directly at her, for once not even lost in the details—simply lost in everything, like a stone down a well. It does scare you. That of all things, she might be right.

-

The incident, as it will later be known, is more realistically a sequence of events, but no one has ever been interested in anything other than how it ends. 

(It's always the changes we don’t ask for that change everything.)

There are just a handful of scenes and shots that need to be filmed on location on an island in the Maldives, one that is just about everything you’ve grown to resent. Garishly extravagant resort, beaches of white sand so combed and manicured they yearn to be trampled, and the only locals in sight are either changing sheets or caked up in makeup and hanging around the hotel bar from the twilight hours of the evening and into the early morning. A real lovely place, you admit, maybe you’ll come back never.

It’s as if the universe cashes in on your bad karma all at once via the series of unfortunate events: your flight’s delayed, a storm turns a three hour layover into a two day nightmare, your bags get lost. And the moment you step onto the tarmac, the heat punches you right in the gut, and upon curling over in defeat, the humidity figures it’ll kick you right in the head—this all, by the way, before you find out the air conditioning in your room is fucked beyond repair and the hotel staff have no interest in helping you fix it.

When a series of mistakes has you shooting a scene over and over until you’re pretty sure it’s fruitless—that the exhaustion has brought you to your knees—you quickly find yourself starting to slip.

Miyeon’s standing next to the director, watching the scene playback, and hearing her say, “that’s better,” while everything that could ever go wrong in the history of linear time is happening is the best part of this whole debacle, if anything, for its raw comedic value.

The absolute worst of it, however, is the gaggle of bumbling entertainment journalists (the lowest of the low) following in the production’s wake. There’s a lot a ground to cover: the movie’s nearing completion, the premieres, the fact that everyone thinks you’re screwing Miyeon, the fact that you actually are—

How has working with your co-stars, Miyeon in particular, bettered your understanding of what it means to be an actor? The insinuation, if it’s even an undertone enough to call it that, you do find insulting.

Though it’s hardly the question that trips you up. It’s trifling. And when you force a smile, everyone takes your pandering at face value. Now whether it’s out of envy, confusion, plain old cynicism, possibly a mixture of the three, or just because the part of your brain associated with temperance and self control is melting at the current head index of a million and two, is unclear.

But you fuck up.

It’s under your breath, out of the corner of your mouth. It’s not even directed at anyone in particular. The challenge here—the thing that will come to ruin you in about one media cycle—is that the damn microphone clipped to your shirt is still absolutely live, and it’s broadcasting every thought that should stay quiet:

Acting? From Miyeon? Hah. Swallowing cum maybe… but acting?

You fuck up bad.

[silassinclair]

Would your ocs still love me if I was a worm?

LMAO now this is the question we all’ve been wanting an answer to.

Masterlist Here!!

Would the Yanderes Still Love You if You Were a Worm?

Maddox Graves

“Maddox?”

Said outlaw turns to face you when he hears you call out his name so meekly. Why do you look so sad?

“Yeah princess? What’s goin’ on?”

He notices your downcast expression and can’t help but feel worried. The outlaw pulls you into an embrace from behind and rests his chin on your shoulder. Rough hands move up and down your waist sensually.

“I have a question…” You say nervously.

“No need to be shy round’ me sweetheart. You can ask me anythin’. We been together long enough for there to be no secrets kept between us alright?”

Sighing deeply you finally ask.

“Would you still love me if I was a worm?”

…

“What kind of barkin’ at the knot question is that?”

That translates to “What kind of useless question is that?”

Anyways he’s confused. You’re not a worm and you never will be so why do you even ask?

“Maddox just answer the question! Will you still love me? Yes or no?” You whine and grip on his sleeve.

You seem pretty serious about this question huh?

Perfect opportunity to fuck with you.

The outlaw smirks beneath his bandana facial covering.

“I’d use you as bait for the fishes.”

Dante Verona

You’re scrolling on your phone when you come across a trend online. Apparently partners are asking their partners if they would still love them if they were a worm.

You’re single but you do know a certain ghost that haunts your house that has an obvious obsession with you.

So let’s ask him!

“Dante?” You call out. And seconds later his masked, ghostly apparition phases into the room from one of the walls.

“Yes amore? What is it?” He asks sweetly. He loves it when you call for him. Your voice saying every syllable of his name is heaven sent.

“Would you still love me if I was a worm?” You ask straightforwardly.

Dante is frozen where he floats.

What kind of question is that?

Is this a test of loyalty?

Where did this some from?

Dante is over analyzing so hard. This must be some sort of mental exercise.

“Uhm…” Dante hesitates for a moment. “Do you ask me this question because you are insecure about your appearance and that you have to compare yourself to a measly worm to see if I truly love you no matter your appearance?”

Dante whimpers as he pulls you into a hug. He thinks he’s comforting you but instead you feel like someone just wrapped you in a straight jacket.

“You’re my beautiful rare gem amore! My one in a billion, the apple of my eye! Why if you were a worm I would have you live a wormy life of luxury. But what I do not understand is that you find yourself ugly! Nonsense love you are stunning. You blind me with your beauty! There is no need for silly questions like this because your beauty is like no other.”

You want to interrupt his rambling but it’s just so entertaining to hear him go on about how gorgeous you are even if you were a worm.

“Do not be insecure about your appearance my love. I would love you no matter what.”

Viktor Markov

The silence between you and Viktor was awkward. He always does this. He just stares at you while lying on the bed in your clinic while you work on your files. You wish he could go somewhere else but he always has an excuse on why he has to watch you 24/7.

Wishing to break the silence you decide to ask a popular question you saw online. But you and Viktor aren’t lovers, far from it in your opinion. He thinks otherwise but you don’t know that…

Whatever, you’ll ask him the question. Besides, you’re curious as to what he’ll say.

“Hey Viktor?” You ask, still working. However Viktor perks up slightly at you finally initiating a discussion.

“Hm?” He hums lowly.

“Would you still love me if I were a worm?”

…

…

silence

…

…

“Yes.”

[ghostkinnie]

COD BOYS WHEN YOU DIE IN THEIR ARMS

pairing: ghost, soap, price, könig, alejandro and graves.

warnings: angst, mentions of death and blood, gender neutral y/n.

SIMON "GHOST" RILEY

- Simon was an empty shell for a long time until you came along and showed him what it was like to live again. You turned his life upside down and taught him what love was.

- But there you were now. Bleeding in his arms for a bullet coming from a sniper that he didn't find and didn't kill. He had failed.

- The only thing keeping Ghost sane and human was now dying in his arms and becoming cold as ice.

- And there was nothing he could do to save you. Once again he would lose everyone he loves because he was unable to protect. He had believed in happiness but it was taken from him again.

- " Please... Please Y/N don't leave me. Open your eyes. Please...Don't leave me alone...."

- But there was nothing else to do. You were dead and Simon went back to being a broken, empty shell. A ghost that would wander in solitude.

●●●

JOHNNY "SOAP" MACTAVISH

- You are Johnny's sunshine even though he is a contagious explosion. You were everything that made this man smile.

- You "were" as you now hung lifeless in his arms. He had arrived too late.

- And for not arriving sooner now he had the love of his life dead in a pool of blood. He would never forget. He would never forgive himself.

- He would brush your hair out of your face and stroke your cheek one last time as desperate sobs wriggled out of him.

- "Love? Please love answer me...! Y/N breathe.!"

- He would scream and just leave your side when Ghost or Price dragged him.

●●●

CAPTAIN JOHN "PRICE"

- Losing a soldier has always been difficult for Price. He is the captain and responsible for the lives of his men.

- But in the end he always had to move on.. but not this time. Not when the shot hit the only person he lived and died for; you.

- "Baby?! Call the fucking doctors now!...Little one I'm here now I've got you."

- But it didn't matter how quickly the doctors arrived or how much he called your name. There was a lot of blood and you were already choking on it.

- Price would beg you to resist but he knew. He knew you were gone and taken a part of him with you; his happiness.

●●●

ALEJANDRO VARGAS

- Alejandro is a romantic man and in the moment the two of you got into a relationship he knew you would take over his mind. There was only you for him.

- He would die for you and he always told you that. But what he didn't know is you who would do it throwing yourself in front of him to receive a stab.

- The knife would still be stuck in your belly when he grabbed you and looked at you in complete despair. He had never been so afraid.

- He would scream for doctors, carry you, kiss your bloodied hands and be by your side every final second.

- But being by your side wasn't enough to save you. And the scene of your last breaths would haunt him forever.

- ¿Mi amor? Por favor...Talk to me.."

●●●

KÖNIG

- You were the most precious thing in König's life. Everything that kept him stable and close to complete happiness. You were his life.

- And he was a boy so lost in love that he believed you two would be happily ever after. He really wanted this.

- But all of König's dreams of you were shattered when a gunshot rang out and a bloodstain formed on your chest.

- That was it. Nothing could be done. You were dying and König could just scream and hug your body so tightly it could break bones. He was so scared.

- Liebe? Mein Leben?...Bitte.. Wake up wake up wake up.. WAKE UP!"

- Panic fills his body and he knows that after that day he would be a broken man.

●●●

PHILLIP GRAVES

- Graves met you during missions of the 141. You were a bomb of energy and transformed his life into pure joy. He was lost in you.

- It happened during the betrayal. He intended to take you with him and keep you by his side no matter what.

- But one of his shadows ended up shooting you. And the only thing Graves could see was your body collapsing lifelessly to the floor. What was the point of living if the love of his life was dead?

- A scream of pure pain escaped his lips and he rushed to drag his body to safety. But it was no use. You were no longer breathing.

- I'm sorry! I'm sorry it's my fault! It's all my fault please...Please don't die!"

- But you were already dead and it was his fault.

[barefoothighlander]

Hey hey heyy! First of all your writing is so good! Fr teach me.

Second of all I'd love some Graves smut, something to do with proper hate sex as in enemies to ??, maybe some violence with it. Other than that you can do what you want.

Ily<3

thank u babe, also super random but I just found out the actor for graves is also jeff in yellowjacket’s and now all I picture is graves sitting in his car jamming to papa roach

warnings: mdni (18+), smut, unprotected pinv, slight dub con, choking, fingering, orgasm denial, name calling, description of wounds, mention of blood, dom!graves, slight voyeurism, creampie, mention of alcohol, not proofread

Your skin is freezing, the rain soaking your clothes, mixing with the blood dripping from the wound on your arm as you struggle to stay up. Something about him was always off, it wasn’t often the 141 worked with outsiders but you needed to trust the Shadow company, you needed to trust Graves.

You followed his orders, seeking his protection when hostile got too close, he’d saved your life on more than one account during the mission but you always kept an eye on him.

Unfortunately your suspicions were right, he had betrayed the team on behalf of Shepard, and now you were lost in the streets of Mexico with too much blood lost.

You crept through alleys, calling through your comms to Soap and Ghost, trying to find a way out when the Shadows were lurking around every corner, gunshots ringing through your ears as you slam your body against a wall trying to stay out of sight.

The dark provided decent cover, allowing you to sneak through old shops and houses, trying to find materials to help you but the feeling of your body growing weaker did little to add to your success, having to brace yourself against tables and walls just to catch your breath.

Time was running out, you knew where Ghost was but you didn’t know how to get there, between the labyrinth of streets and the threat of the Shadows, they had you stuck with no where to go.

“You lost little bird?”

His cocky tone pierces your ears, you don’t have to turn around to know who the voice belongs to, your whole world crumbling in front of you as you look for an escape route.

“No where to run”

He moves closer towards you, caging your body between him and the wall as panic sets into your body. You turn your body and brave your arms, ready to fight but he grabs your wrists, pushing your body back against the wall and pinning you there, you wince at the action, the angle of your arm pinching your wound.

“Looks like somebody clipped your wings” He smirks, his tone is deep,

“Fuck off” You spit, writhing under his grip

“We could’ve been a team you know, there would’ve been a place for you in the company”

“And be forced to take orders from you? I’d rather die”

“Tsk, kinda seemed like you enjoyed taking orders from me”

You furrow your brows at his comment, one drunken mistake made weeks ago coming back to haunt you. You had gone out drinking with the team and he tagged along, a few too many shots and you wound up in his bed, panting under his touch.

“Get the fuck off me Graves”

“I love the way you say my name” His hands release yours, moving to your waist to turn your body, pinning your chest against the wall as you whimper in pain.

“Now I wanna hear you scream it” His voice is husky, laced with anger as his lips travel over your exposed skin, tracing your limbs. The warmth of him feels too good, your shivering body moulded against his chest as his fingers trace over the hem of your pants.

His hands snake under your shirt, kneading at your breasts as you let out a small sigh, the goosebumps on your skin depleting with every touch.

“Hate me all you want, I know what you need”

“Let me go”

“Ask nicely” He grins against your neck as his fingers pinch your nipples, a gasp escaping your lips.

“Fuck you”

He grinds his length against your backside, the firm press of him igniting your core as you curse yourself.

“If that’s what you want baby”

He moves a hand down your stomach, pushing back the hem of your pants to cup your sex, his fingers teasing over your panties as you squeeze your eyes shut.

“You’re soaked, knew you needed me, little slut”

His fingers pushed your panties to the side, teasing through your folds as he gathers your slick before pushing two digits inside you. Moaning from the contact he lets out a low chuckle, his warm breath ghosting over your ear as you bit your lip, trying to muffle your moans.

He pumps his fingers into you, his thumb settling on your clit to run circles over the bud, you struggle to brace your arms against the wall, your hips arching into him as you grind down onto his hand, chasing your high.

“That’s it, fuck yourself on my fingers”

Your teeth pierce your lip as you bite down, the taste of iron filling your mouth as the coil inside you burns, your mind a flurry of lust as your orgasm approaches.

He pumps his fingers harder, curving them to swipe across your sweet spot over and over, you throw you head back as the band inside you threatens to snap but as soon as you reach your peak he rips his hand from you. You’re breathless, panting as you stare back at him,

“Wha- no” You plead

“You wanna run? Go now” He steps back a few paces, giving you room to move, your skin is on fire, clenching around nothing as your high fades from your core, he wants you to beg. Your gaze shifts between the door and him, his dark eyes staring back at you, his hand glistening in the light, covered in your slick.

You don’t move, don’t say anything, your fingers toy with your belt buckle, undoing it and he smirks, closing the gap between you.

“Good choice”

His hand is firm on your back as he presses you against the wall again, his arm moving your grip around your waist, holding you up as your limbs become unsteady. He pulls your pants below your ass, giving him enough access to feel your weeping cunt, grinding his clothed length against it and feeling you shudder from the contact, the rough denim swiping against your core, sending shocks up your spine.

“Better stay quiet, unless you want the entire company to take turns”

His threats are empty but they still make your blood run cold, the noise of his own belt clattering as he presses his chest against you, running his tip through your folds. He smears your slick around your cunt, quiet sighs falling from your mouth as you feel how hard he is.

He leans back from you, lining himself up as his free hand finds purchase on the side of your face, pushing it against the cold wall, keeping you pinned. He bottoms out in a single thrust, forcing the air from your lungs as you gasp as the stretch, the arm on your waist moving so he can rest his fingers against your clit, keeping them still against the bud to tease you.

He pounds into you, forcing every inch of himself inside with every thrust as you moan, your mind a blur, the idea of anyone hearing long gone as his tip drags against your walls.

“That’s it, take it, take it all you fucking slut”

He grunts behind you, his balls slapping against your skin with every thrust, the sound of the rain outside the only thing keeping prying ears from knowing what was happening as you unravel under his touch.

The hand on your head moves to snake around your neck, the inside of his elbow settling under your chin as he pulls you against him, your back arching as he presses your spine to his chest. His cock hits deeper from this angle, your body exposed to him as his grunts fill your ears.

You reach for him but he grabs your wrist, a low growl leaving his chest when his thumb presses into the bullet wound in your arm, forcing a cry from you as you clench down on him.

“See what you made me do, didn’t have to run from me” He presses harder into the wound, droplets of blood cascading down your skin, smearing onto him as you sob around his cock.

“Fuck. You” You manage through gritted teeth, your hand finding it’s way to his head, tugging on his hair as he lets out a grunt, thrusting harder into you.

“You bite back, always liked that about you”

You open your mouth to speak but words escape you as he grips your wrist, pulling it towards your sex and forcing your fingers to toy with your clit.

“Show me how much you need to cum, how good my cock feels inside your little pussy”

You trace circles with your weak fingers, quiet whimpers from your lips boost his ego as the feeling of your fingers is nothing compared to his.

“Poor slut, you need me to do it?”

You give a tug to his hair, silent begs as your fingers continue to work lazy circles over the bud.

“Beg for it, beg me to make you cum”

“Eat shit”

“I guess only one of us gets to finish then”

He sobbed your body forward, your hands slow to catch you against the wall, his grips your waist with bruising fingers, digging into the flesh as he thrusts into you. Your knees are weak, your arms heavy against the wall as you struggle to stay up, you need more, more of him.

“Beg for it”

His thirsts push you further into the wall, your aching fingers scraping against the stone,

“Please” You whisper

“What’s that? Didn’t hear you”

Your body admits defeat before your mind does, pushing back against him so his tip prods at your cervix, forcing him deeper into you,

“Please”

“Please what? Use your words”

“Please, let me cum!” Tears prick your eyes, your orgasm building inside of you at an agonizing pace.

“Then soak my cock you fucking slut”

His fingers make contact with your clit, rubbing harsh circles over the bud as you cry out, your hips working in tandem with his thrusts to chase your high.

He leans over your frame, his lips pressed to the shell of your ear as his hand grips around your throat, his fingers squeezing against your pulse point.

“Cum for me, show me how much you need my cock” He whispers in your ears, the words shooting straight to your core, the fire inside your searing your skin as you cum with a sob, clenching down on him as he fucks you, keeping his harsh pace. His fingers stay on your clit, not letting you come down, he forces you to ride out your orgasm at his brutal pace, his skin smacking against yours as his cock stuffs you.

Your vision blurs, a mixture of blood loss and the overstimulation of him has you seeing stars, every sound drowned out except for his moans behind you.

“M’gonna fill this fucking pussy, send you back with a reminder of who you belong to”

Your tears stain your cheeks, your throat dry and unable to respond as his thrusts become sloppy, chasing his own high.

“You want that? Wanna walk around with my cum stuffed inside you, you fucking traitor bitch” He spits, his words ringing in your ears as he bottoms out, pressing his cock deep inside your walls as his spend floods them, filling you with the warm liquid.

Your body goes limp against the wall, his arms the only thing holding you up as he milks himself in your pussy, thrusting his softening cock to make sure it stays deep before pulling out.

He tucks himself back into his pants, his grip on your waist keeping you balanced as he helps you to lean on a table, kneeling to pull your own pants back up.

He scans the room, moving to grab a small cloth before tearing it, wrapping it around your wound to help stop the bleeding. You stare at him with hooded eyes, the toll on your body evident in the way you hunch over, arms braced to keep yourself steady.

“I meant it, there would’ve been a spot for you” His tone is sincere as you gaze at him, his hair sticking to his forehead in a mix of sweat and rain drops, he reaches around his vest, pulling out a small canteen of water and handing it to you, you take it, chugging its contents before gasping for a breath.

“I’d never betray my team”

“You already did”

His words shoot through your heart, it was true in a sense, even if he wasn’t the enemy the first time, it didn’t take away from the fact that you had just fucked him in a dirty old house while he was hunting you and your team.

“Go”

You furrow your brows at him, “What?”

“Leave before I change my mind, if I catch you again it won’t end as well”

You take a moment to scan his face, he’s being sincere, you stand quickly, trying to catch your balance before sparing him a final glance and rushing through the door back into the rain, glancing down streets to try and find a way out.

“Deadeye do you copy” Ghosts voice echoes through your comms, pulling you back to reality.

“I copy”

“Jesus Christ, where are you?” His voice is laced in panic

“Coming LT” The lights of the Church stare back at you through the heavy down pour, lighting your path as you make your way to your team.

[seireitonin]

I just saw your fic/hc of if toby had kids, it's so good btw!! :3

I'm in a mischievous mood, how would he react if one of/both of the kids died? Like he took his eyes off them for one second. I feel like because they most likely live in a forest setting, it would be something like going on a lake when it's iced over and then falling through.

This is so sad omg :( but let me try my best (you really want to sob huh?😭)

Toby If His Kids Died

He’d never ever recover

He’d never ever ever EVER forgive himself

He looked away for one second

Just one

But that second is all it took

The ice was thin and his kids not knowing any better, stood on it together, falling in

Toby heard the sound of the ice breaking and the two loud splashes

He turned around as quickly as he could only to see the open hole where they once were

Trapped under the ice as Toby tried to get them out

He was too late

He pulls them out and does everything he could

CPR, shaking them softly, calling out there names

“Please…wake up…please…please…please! Talk to me! Open your eyes! Please….i need you…I love you! Your dad needs you! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

When they don’t respond it destroys him

He hits the ground, screams and sobs

Just truly broken

Out of everything that he’s been through in his life, this was the most painful, unbearable, heart shattering thing he’s ever been through

His world was gone in a second

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I love you! I failed you! I’m so sorry”

He sobs out as he hugs them to his chest, wishing they’d hug him back, and tell him they’re okay

Their skin, freezing cold, their clothes, soaking wet

He carries them home, putting them in their beds, trying to warm them up, one last time

How was he going to face his significant other?

He meets them at the front door, falling to his knees and hugging their legs, ear piercing sobs

“They’re gone…they’re gone”

“W-what?!”

“They fell in the lake and got trapped in the ice! I was too late! I-“

He can’t continue, falling victim to his sobs

His significant other, starts to scream and sob along with him, pushing Toby off in anger

“This is your fault! This is your fucking fault!”

They’re just confused and angry and full of grief like he is

“Why weren’t you watching them?! How could you let this happen?!”

“I turned away for one second! It was a second! One second! I promise!”

“Look what it cost us! Look what you did! You destroy everything you fucking touch!”

“Please….im sorry! I’m sorry!”

He couldn’t even say that wasn’t true

Every person he loved, every person who depended on him, he’s let die

Lyra is dead. His mom was probably dead. Now…his children….are gone

He’s a failure. And everyone around him had to pay the price

His significant other, and Toby bury them on a hill, where they all had a picnic once.

They put their favorite toys on the graves, saying goodbye to their bundles of joy

Life is unfair, huh?

Toby and his partner try to stay together

But they could never look at Toby the same way

They wouldn’t look Toby in the eyes or in the face

They could only see their children in Toby’s features

Toby tried to touch them, to hold them, to comfort them

He could hear them, sobbing quietly in the night with their back turned to him

The guilt eats him alive

But they didn’t want Toby’s touch, not ever again

Their meals were silent

They exchanged minimal words

What do you say? What do you do?

They couldn’t take it anymore

They packed all their things and had one final conversation with the man they once had a life with

“Toby…”

“Please…no”

“Toby….i can’t do this anymore…. I can’t”

“Please….stay”

“I love you, Toby. But I can never forgive you.”

“Don’t…”

“Our children’s empty rooms are up there. I can’t….stay. Every where I turn….I see them. It’s like they’re haunting us. I can’t stay here, Tobias. Neither should you.”

“Please! You’re all I have left! I….please! You’re all I have left…”

“You lost me a long time ago. Goodbye. Tobias”

They were gone, just like that

It’s just Toby in this empty home

A home once filled with love and joy was now filled with grief and pain

He started to have a tic attack

And no one was here to help him through it

He sobs out again, the reality hitting him harder and harder with every passing second

With no one around

He starts to have hallucinations again

He sees the ghosts of his children, like he saw the ghost of Lyra

“Why didn’t you save us?”

“I tried! I tried! You know I…I love you!”

“Then why did you let us die?!”

“Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop!”

He started picking and chewing at his fingers, pulling his hair, hitting himself in the head

Old habits from when he was 17

He turns to alcohol

He made a promise to never be like his dad

He’s sticking to it in his own way

He can never abuse his family. He has no family

He’s often drunk most of the time now

Sometimes just so he can sleep

But even when he sleeps all he can hear is the ice breaking, the ice cold water, the last moments of his kids

Masky and Hoodie find him in his home

“Toby. You have to start coming on missions again. We can’t keep covering for you. You know what Slenderman will do to you if you don’t”

“Let him kill me. I don’t care. I died a long time ago”

He takes another swig from his bottle as he talks to them, slurring a bit

“He should’ve…let me die….when I was 25”

“You can’t even stand can you?”

“Fuck you! Fuck you!”

He starts to scream

“My family is gone! I lost my family, TWICE! You think I care about missions anymore?! You think I care about anything anymore?! Huh?! I dont give a fuck about my life!”

Masky lets out a sigh

“You know, you always were emotional. Although, I kinda miss when you were a hyper and upbeat annoying little shit. I wonder if your children were the same?”

Toby immediately pulls his hatchets out and starts swinging, sloppy, but still dangerous

“Don’t you ever fucking talk about them!”

Hoody catches his arms and pushes him back on the couch

“He didn’t mean it like that.”

“I don’t give a fuck! I’ll kill him!”

“You can’t even stand up straight”

The room was spinning. He wasn’t wrong

“Just…let me die. Let me die…here”

They look at him

He’s malnourished. His skin paler than ever. His self inflicted wounds, just open because no one was there to help patch him up. The dark circles under his eyes, prominent. His eyes themselves, hollow and empty

Masky warms up some instant noodles from the cabinet

“Eat. Now”

“Fuck you”

“Toby. Please” Hoodie says, concerned

He reluctantly takes it and eats slowly unable to finish, putting it on the table in front of him

“See that…toy truck over there?”

He points to a red toy pickup truck, untouched and in the same place his son left it.

“That was my son’s favorite. He told me…he liked it so much….because it looked like….mine.”

He points to a doll with fluffy brown hair

“See that? My daughter….loved it…said it had hair like me”

He can’t take it anymore. He starts to sob. He doesn’t even care about looking tough anymore

“Fuck! They’re gone! They’re gone!”

Toby puts his head in his hands and just sobs

What else could he do?

This was his first time talking about it with someone else

They sit with him, putting their hands on his shoulders, comforting him

They didn’t always get along though out the years

But they could put that aside for something like this

“Brain. You died. Brought back by….Slenderman. How do you feel?”

He already knew what Toby was implying

“Don’t even think about it Toby. I may be alive again. But my body isn’t mine anymore and I’m a slave to Slenderman. You know that. You don’t want that for your children. They’ll belong to him and have a life of suffering. So…let them rest”

It was selfish thinking on Toby’s part. But he’d do anything to have them back

But he knew better. He wouldn’t actually go through with that idea

Toby’s mood swings are worse than ever

Extreme sadness, to extreme numbness to extreme anger

That’s it

He couldn’t feel happiness anymore

It died with his kids

It left with his significant other

Constant panic attacks

Constant nightmares

Constant hallucinations

And besides the occasional visit from Masky and Hoodie

He was alone

And….maybe it’s better this way

The words ring in his head every day

“You destroy everything you fucking touch!”

A shell of a person

Doesn’t leave his house anymore, unless it’s to visit his children’s graves

Hopes he’ll see his ex partner there one day

Wants to ask if they have nightmares too and if they still wake up and think of the life they had together

Wants to end his own life, but was cursed with immortality or at least long lasting life

He wants nothing more than to see his family again

Both of them

Blames himself every day

Will literally never not blame himself

He will never move on or be happy again

So he spends his days in the empty home, looking at once was

“Please….forgive me. I love you.”

He holds a picture of his kids to his chest as he falls asleep into another nightmare

Not that real life was any better

[majorblinks]

in love like we were (red velvet seulgi)

(ft. the rest of red velvet) (smut, female reader, actress seulgi, actress you, cheating, choking, homewrecking, mommy kink, spanking, praise and degradation, semi-public sex, fluff, i support women's rights but more importantly i support women's wrongs, jk this is fiction do NOT cheat on your partners..., 24k words)

So, here’s the bottom line: you never meant for any of this to happen. Hand to God. Er - alright, whatever, maybe you shouldn’t be dragging God into any of this, considering-

“Christ, you’re so fucking wet.” 

-okay, you’re pretty much in the least holy position possible. 

The lighting in the bathroom’s dangerously dim, but if anyone were to walk in, there’d be no mistaking it: the scent of sex, the needy, desperate whines, the way Kang Seulgi’s got you on the counter with two fingers driving into your cunt, laughing as you drip down her wrist, embarrassingly soaked. The media would have a fucking field day. Your careers would be permanently ruined. And yet-

“Shut up,” you’re choking out. “Shut up, shut up, just fuck me-”

“Baby.” Seulgi tuts. Her fingers stall. “Ask nicely.” 

You know what she wants. And - unfortunately, humiliatingly - it happens to be the exact same thing you want. 

Your eyes squeeze shut. “Mommy-”

Beside you, her phone starts to ring. 

Seulgi stops cold with her fingers still buried in you at the sight of the name flashing across the screen. The picture, too: Seulgi, grinning widely, with her arms thrown around an unbelievably gorgeous dark-haired woman. Smile demure. Not a hair out of place. Looking like she’s straight off the movie sets she frequents, made-up and meticulously styled. 

“Oh, wow,” you say, strangled, breathless. Derisive, at the contact: capitalized, first and last. As detached and businesslike as she could possibly get. “Your contact name for her is just Bae Irene?” 

“That’s her name, isn’t it?” 

It quite literally isn’t, but you’ll let that one slide. “Unsentimental much?” 

“You think so?” A harsh thrust to your cunt. You buckle at the movement, gasping, clutching the lip of the bathroom counter. Seulgi’s smirk is murderously sharp, eyebrows twitching upwards. It’s a good thing one of you is finding this funny.

“Seulgi-” 

“Enlighten me then, sweetheart.” She leans in close. Timbre of her voice like gunfire, like she knows she’s about to deliver a fatal blow. “What was your contact name for her when you dated her?” 

And that’s something that should be digging up graves, unearthing corpses: there’s the coffin, there’s your past relationship haunting you, there’s the residual remorse like Catholic guilt. There’s the fact that she’s got a girl at home and you’re casting yourself as the other woman just by letting her touch you. There’s Seulgi’s other hand wrapping around your throat, just as her fingers curl deep inside your cunt - and every ghost in the room packs up and goes home. They know a foregone conclusion when they see one.

You can’t talk. You’re back to whining pathetically, pussy clenching around her fingers. “That’s what I thought,” husks Seulgi, maniacally victorious, and lets Irene’s call go to voicemail. 

“Mommy, mommy, mommy-”

Fine, God can get the fuck out of here. Yeah, Seulgi’s your ex-girlfriend’s current girlfriend, and now she’s making you cum harder than you ever have. The holy spirit’s just gonna have to make his peace with that. We all make mistakes. It’s so human. Seriously, come on: it’s not like you’ll make this one ever again. 

Well, probably. 

-

For context, a month and a half ago, you just had the worst breakup of your life. 

-

There’s no real need to recap the gory details, play back a previously-on to catch an audience up. Really, all you have to know is this:

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” 

It’s late September. Sky clear and cloudless through your windows. The day ironically gorgeous around you, like it’s taunting you. And Irene stands in your doorway with her hands balled into bloodless fists by her side, the expression on her face never wavering.

“It’s just not working,” she repeats, like that means anything. Like it’s rehearsed, inflection practiced and pristine. “And-” A breath, regulating. “I feel like it hasn’t been working for a while.” 

Here’s where you’re at: reeling through a shock to the system. It’s you, adrift in the center of the sea, fatally unmoored; you and no map and no way home, facing down the last two years of your life in the resolute line of Irene’s mouth. All your words shipwrecked; any fight you have left chained to stones and sinking. You, alone.

“For a while?” you get out, sounding very small. 

Irene’s lashes flutter fast, a miniscule crack in her composure. Then, like it takes a Herculean effort for her voice not to shake: “I’m sorry.” 

And just like that - cut to black, let the credits roll, force the audience out of their seats; pack up the rest of Irene’s clothes and let her take them, leave like she was never there. No warning, no explanation. Just like that, it’s over. 

-

The news’ll hit the press by the end of October. It’ll make the rounds throughout social media, pictures of you and her together, award-winning actresses, looking so happy and in love that you’ll feel like throwing up. There’ll be conspiracy theories, headlines claiming to know exactly where it went wrong; fans mourning melodramatically, hashtags and trending topics. Someone will talk about it and it’ll rip all the same wounds right open. It’ll break your heart on loop. It’ll be horrible. 

And in any other life, if you’d just left it alone after that, you would’ve gotten out of it all completely unscathed. 

See, it’s all about the narrative. You as the designated victim in your story; she broke up with you, and you’d be able to thrive off the sympathy from that forever. Themes of love and loss, healing and recovery, forgiveness and starting fresh. And one day - in some sort of neat little epilogue, wrapping up loose ends - you’d be able to meet up with Irene again and laugh about the old times, and you’d be so benevolent, accepting apologies; she’d take the blame, and smile, and wish you the best. Leave you as the heroine, with your perfect happy ending. Time healing all wounds, as they say - what a tale, what a message; critics would’ve praised the life lessons taught, call it coming-of-age, honest and raw and real. But instead-

Well, instead, you’ve got no other story to tell but this. You figure it’s as good a place to start as any. 

-

It’s a month and a half after Irene breaks up with you, but she somehow manages to send you into complete and utter insanity all over again. It’s a talent, but she’s always had a lot of those. Here’s how it really begins:

“I actually have a new lease on life,” you say, over the phone on a Friday, lazing on your couch. “I’m actually feeling so optimistic right now.”

The feeling’s warranted, you’re thinking. It’s a perfect, peaceful day. You’re in between projects; you don’t start filming again until January. It’s a much-needed break, and you’re taking full advantage of it. 

“That’s amazing,” says your best friend, sounding like she means it. “That’s so, so great. So - uh - if that’s the case, I do have some… news for you.” 

To her credit, she takes it upon herself to soften the blow, at first. Gives a comprehensive recap of the celebrity rumors going around lately, dances around it with the best of them. First there’s all that baseless (and biased, you’re pretty sure) gossip about Park Sooyoung’s fiancé being a cheater, there’s the usual scandal around Ahn Yujin, there’s that conspiracy theory about Im Nayeon and her secret boyfriend-

“That’s her shirt. ”

And there’s one very specific rumor about your ex-girlfriend and Kang fucking Seulgi. 

“Look, it’s…” Your best friend is peering down at your phone screen with the single worst poker face you’ve ever seen. Then again, she’s not the actress between the two of you. “It’s probably not even that serious. It’s, um. Yeah, it’s probably nothing.” A cautious peek out of the corner of her eye. “It might not even be Irene’s, right?” 

“Wendy.” 

Wendy draws back at your tone, then immediately pats your shoulder gingerly like you’re a particularly prickly feral animal. “Dude, I’m trying to be consoling here.” 

She’s doing a shit job at it, but even if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter. You’d be losing your mind either way. 

Because when Wendy first got you on the phone while she was on the way to your place, filling you in on the goings-on of your rich and famous peers - right, she told you, like an afterthought, people are saying there’s something between she-who-must-not-be-named and Kang Seulgi, but that’s ridiculous, that’s obviously not happening, isn’t that so funny - and you’d laughed along, too, disbelieving. It’s been a month and a half, you thought. Kang Seulgi’s not even Irene’s type. Earlier this year you’d seen one of Seulgi’s smash hit blockbuster flicks with Irene and the only thing Irene said about Seulgi’s performance was a semi-scathing critique about the way her face looked when she was crying. It’s nothing. It’s-

“It’s her shirt,” you say, again, floored. 

Wendy gusts out a tiny sigh, giving up the performance. “Yeah,” she says. “I know it is.” 

Now you’re both sitting on your couch, staring blankly at Kang Seulgi’s most recent Instagram post. Disheveled black hair. Delicate lines of her nose, her jaw, her mouth. Smoldering dark eyes, lips pulled up in a careless little grin. Tall black boots and heinously expensive jewelry, all caught in high definition. And to top it all off-

“I used to wear that shirt,” you say, viciously, glaring hard at the picture. 

“And it looked so much better on you,” says Wendy, lying badly. 

“Seungwan.”

“I said I’m trying. ” 

“Okay, and I appreciate it, but-” You accidentally swipe to the right; oh, wow, it’s a photo series, that’s fantastic. “Oh my God."

It’s a bloodbath, really. Every image is that same infuriatingly effortless brand of sex appeal that Seulgi’s clearly become accustomed to marketing; she could stick a serial number on it at this point, sell it in stores like she sells out theaters. Face strangely regal and refined, almost austere; smirk pushing it just off the edge, measuring up to sexy rather than stoic. Filthy bedroom eyes, curl of her mouth suggestive by default. It’s obviously a practiced expression. Probably an equally practiced pose, something crafted to deliberately accentuate the toned muscles in her thighs, lean pull of her calves-

“Are you-” starts Wendy, eyeing you suspiciously. 

“I’m really, really pissed off,” you clarify, like that explains why you’re staring so hard at Seulgi’s legs. “I seriously can’t believe this is happening.” 

“Right,” says Wendy, slowly. “Because for a second I thought you were eye-fucking photos of your ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend.”

“I would obviously never do that. That’s crazy.” A pause, and then it actually hits: “New what?”

Your voice hitching frantically high is enough to send Wendy on the immediate defense; no, she says, nothing’s actually confirmed, so you can chill out. One shirt - even if it is so obviously Irene’s, down to the tastefully frayed tear in the collar; bought distressed, of course, because Irene’s too classy to rip up her own clothes - doesn’t actually prove anything. They’re probably just fucking, crass as it sounds. 

“Yeah,” you say sarcastically, “because that makes it better.” 

Wendy simply arches an eyebrow, her almost elfin features - warm, long-lashed eyes, prettily pert nose; today she’s got drawn-on freckles that complete the illusion - arranged in mild confusion. “Well,” she says. “Doesn’t it?” 

“Does it?” you echo, a little grouchily, eyes still stuck resentfully on Seulgi’s face. 

Look, it’s not just that you’re losing, here - it’s that you’re losing because of her. 

“I mean, yeah,” says Wendy, like it’s indisputable. “Because would you rather Irene just be hooking up with Kang Seulgi for fun, or would you rather know that Irene fell for Kang Seulgi in a month and a half in some cheesy whirlwind romance where they discovered that they’re soulmates and now she’s totally over you?” 

There’s a pause. 

“Okay,” you say, disgruntled. “When you put it like that. ”

“I’m not putting it like anything,” Wendy replies, whimsically. “That’s the way things are, man.” 

“Ugh,” you respond, and bury your face in her shoulder. 

Because if it’s true, and that’s the way things are-

You’re backpedaling to a month and a half ago, abandoned in the doorway of your apartment; a tsunami with no warning signs, no signals or sirens. Irene’s winning, in a different way. She’s got Kang Seulgi as her girlfriend with her victorious smirk, her reputation, her awards and her fans and her fame. If they’re dating, Seulgi’s cast as the perfect counterpart, the brooding bad-girl love interest, and they’ll sail off into the sunset together, and you’ll die the anticlimactic off-screen death of the side character no one gives a fuck about. Probably from tuberculosis or something equally depressing. Alone. 

“This is so ass,” you say miserably, voice muffled by Wendy’s sweater. 

“Look at it this way,” replies Wendy, softer, smoothing a hand over your hair. “It’s been a month and a half. You dated Irene for two years. This-” she taps Kang Seulgi’s unreasonably pretty face with a manicured nail- “is definitely just a rebound. Meaningless.”  

You emerge, watch her face, watch her click your phone off, screen going blissfully dark. It’s easier to cope when the problem’s not staring at you from a screen, smiling like she’s at the top of the world looking down, forever above it all. “Really?” 

“They haven’t gone public with it, right?” Wendy reasons, defaulting to logic. “So it’s clearly not serious. I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

It’s hard to argue with her when she takes that tone. No, Wendy’s not an actress, but she spends her life up on a stage, performing in front of a crowd - she knows how to be convincing when the occasion calls for it. Yes, of course I adore my fans, of course I love all my songs, of course the idol life is perfect; of course your ex-girlfriend wouldn’t move on so fast, she loved you, she’s struggling too. 

“Okay,” you say, sucking in a deep breath, watching Wendy’s reassuring smile. You’ll buy into logic for one in your life. You’ll be like everyone else, and believe her, for now. “No, you’re right. You’re right.” 

And she must be. Because if she’s not, then-

-

“The shirt’s ugly as shit anyway,” says Wendy, loyally, leaning into last-ditch efforts. “Like, you were doing charity by even letting it touch your body.”

“Thanks,” you say. “You know what? You’re absolutely correct.” 

“It’s basic, too. Vintage, my ass. I could buy one that looks just like it off of Depop for ten bucks.” 

“I’m really digging all the hate in your heart for this t-shirt right now.” You shift your head towards her collarbone. “Except I did used to wear it, so I don’t know what you’re trying to say about my taste.” 

“A lapse in judgment,” Wendy proclaims. “You have great taste, historically.” 

It’s sweet of her to say. Of course, in, like, three days from now, you’re going to make her eat her words, but neither of you know that just yet. You’ll let it be true until then.

-

Wendy leaves a little later; she’s got an early flight tomorrow, some music show overseas. Call me if you need anything, she tells you, and you hug her goodbye, but you tell her you’ll be fine. Sure, you end up idly scrolling through some of Kang Seulgi’s recent posts, but that’s normal, that’s justifiable. Checking out your replacement, even if it is just a short-lived fling. Photo after photo of her draped in leather jackets and stretching in sports bras and glittering gowns on red carpets - fine, she’s so fucking hot, she’s perfect for a rebound. Womanizing reputation and all. It’s understandable. You wouldn’t be able to blame Irene for wanting her. Dating her, though-

But they’re not. You dispel that thought as quickly as it comes. Logic, you remind yourself. Like Wendy said: they haven’t gone public with it. Meaningless. Ridiculous. So, really, you have nothing to worry about. 

-

A day later, they go public with it.

-

“Okay, so I’m not a mind reader,” Wendy is saying frantically into the phone, like she thinks she’s talking you off a ledge. “I didn’t know. Dude, I didn’t know-”

You’re staring at SEULRENE trending on Twitter, under news article after news article touting that the two actresses announce they’re dating, that they finally made it official, that they’re so infatuated with each other, so happy -

“I’m gonna kill her,” you say, seriously.

“That’s such a horrible idea.” A pause. “Which one?” 

In the two years that you and Irene were dating, together you managed to curate a particularly rabid fanbase between the two of you, people who lamented that love was fake and didn’t exist after the report of your break-up was made public information. Posting selfies of them crying. Dramatic edits of you and Irene to sappy sad love songs. And now, in the wake of Irene dating someone new:

ooooh no bc this is actually very nasty and evil, someone Tweets. ok so based on the timeline my moot put together (thread linked below of insta stories & tweets for proof) it’s been literally a month & 14 days since they broke up… either irene moves on fast or imo she was prob fucking around with seulgi the whole time…

Somehow your fans are keeping better track of the details than you are, but maybe that’s not so surprising. They’re like the FBI, or something. It’s honestly impressive.

NO… someone else replies underneath. YOU THINK IRENE WAS CHEATING?

idk but the timing sure seems suspicious doesn’t it 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

“Was Irene cheating on me?” you choke out into the phone.

Another, longer pause. “Are you stalking your own stans on Twitter?” 

A guilty flick across your screen, swiping out of the app. “Of course not.”  

Wendy makes a noise like hissing air through her teeth, as if in physical pain. “You need to delete all social media off of your phone right now. For your own good, man, I’m serious. For your mental.” 

“I’m gonna hit Kang Seulgi with my car,” you say, fuming. “I’m gonna commit vehicular manslaughter.” 

“It’s not manslaughter if it’s premeditated. And you don’t even know how to drive.” 

“Yeah, exactly.” 

And it’s not like Irene’s done anything wrong, per se - it’s not even that. Sure, it’s a quick turnaround, but the two of you are broken up, and she’s allowed to do whatever she wants. No, it’s something else, something much more bitter and bruising-

Okay: it’s not lost on you that Kang Seulgi’s basically your exact opposite. 

She’s the country’s favorite bad girl, reputation larger than life and with this air of mystery, of carelessness, of unassailable cool. Starring in all these gritty action flicks or psychological thrillers or hard-hitting dramas, perpetually covered in blood and soaked in sweat, defined lines of muscle in her arms, along her stomach. Straight-faced and curt and sarcastic in interviews, when she chooses to give them. A revolving door of girls that’ve never been granted any official title - nothing exclusive, nothing serious - or, at least, not until Irene. You’re the antithesis, the sweet-faced girl next door, dressed up in schoolgirl skirts and playing high schoolers even at twenty-one. Innocence personified. Even dating a girl a decade older than you wasn’t enough to tarnish your image. 

So it’s so easy to imagine Seulgi with Irene, smiling that same heedless smile that’s plastered all over her Instagram - saying I know what you had before; I know it wasn’t enough. Let me show you everything you’re missing out on. Oh, she bored you to tears , didn’t she; come on, watch me bring you back to life. Serpent in Eden, fangs like the devil. Smiling because she knows she won. 

“When did this become a competition?” asks Wendy, after a beat. “I mean, I’m all for coming up with crazy delusional narratives in my free time, but - what, you think she did this on purpose?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” you insist, scrolling through her Instagram again. “It’s just - God. It’s like, out of everyone, why did it have to be Kang Seulgi?” 

A sigh. “No, I get it. You feel like they ended up having this instant connection, or whatever. Because it’s so fast. So it’s kind of like - you’re wondering what she has that you don’t, right?” 

Well, sort of. You know what she has that you don’t, on a surface level: she’s (marginally) more famous than you, hotter and more established, she’s got more awards, more money - she’s got visible abs and those toned thighs, hands threatening in every photograph; seduction down pat, like she’d been trained for it; this way of making everything she does seem so easy-

An extended stretch of silence. “So is it that they’re in a serious public relationship or is it really just the Kang Seulgi of it all?”

You’re swiping through a photo series of Seulgi on set for her most recent action film, her with a fake cut done up in SFX makeup stretching bloody across her collarbone, her nose glinting with a sheen of sweat. Gaze trained off into the distance, bruises underneath enticingly dark. Flex of her bicep in the sixth one as she closes her fist around a pistol. Half a smirk at the camera in the eighth, eyes saying it all: you want me and you can’t have me; you want me, but doesn’t everyone? 

“Can’t it be both?” you say, staring hard. 

“Well, it kind of seems like you think she’s really hot and you’re mad about that first and foremost.” 

“Um,” you say, and abruptly it’s like you’ve never acted in your life. “No. It’s, like, way deeper than that.” 

Wendy sounds like she’s holding back a laugh. “Okay,” she says, and lets it go. It’s the kind thing to do. 

-

“I think I understand it now,” she says, later. “She’s currently your mortal enemy because you think she’s better than you.”

“I can handle her being better than me,” you say. “She’s my mortal enemy because she’s better than me and my ex-girlfriend’s in love with her.”

“Who said anything about love?”

But along with the story, there’s a handful of paparazzi pictures posted in each article, plastered all over Twitter - Irene and Seulgi laughing as they pile into a car together, hands linked, smiles blindingly bright. Stunning even through blurry photographs, in every medium; the two of them spotting the cameras and not caring at all, treating them with great angles, perfect shots. So sure of themselves. Pictures and a thousand words, et cetera. It says everything it needs to.

“Seriously, though, do I really need a reason?” you add, after an hour of ranting. “She’s my ex’s new girlfriend. It’s been a month and a half. I’m allowed to want her dead.” 

“Totally,” says Wendy, supportively. “I’m sure there’s no other explanation for why you feel so strongly about her.”

“There really isn’t,” you say, and leave it at that. It’s practically the truth, anyway. 

-

Later that night, as you’re still stalking Seulgi on Instagram, you accidentally like a photo from February. It’s bad, but it could be worse. At least it’s not from last year. At least she’s clothed in it. 

(Mostly. It’s her sprawled over a motel bed in a ripped band tee and lacy panties and nothing else. But it’s also very clearly a photo from set - you recognize it from a movie of hers that you went to see with Wendy a few months back. R-rated, fully scandalous, entirely brilliant, sure to sweep the end-of-year awards ceremonies you have coming up. Seulgi played the drug-addicted fuck-crazy frontwoman to some rock band, had half a dozen topless scenes, thrown back on the sheets like a timeless sex symbol: makeup smudged, chest heaving, moans practically pornographic. Eyes heavy, hooded, meant to seduce. 

But this picture’s got none of that. Seulgi’s very clearly mid-laugh in it, for one, breaking character; someone had happened to snap a candid, catch her in a moment of gorgeous, wild imperfection. It’s one of the only photos on her Instagram that isn’t her face fixed in a practiced smolder, that doesn’t relegate her pretty mouth to a smirk. A rarity, where she’s not living up to her reputation. 

And you can’t stop staring at it. Wondering what it was that got her to crack. Strangely spellbound by that one expression, unable to pull your eyes away.)

So your finger slips, and you like it - whatever. But it’s probably fine: you doubt Seulgi even has her notifications turned on, and even if she does, she gets hundreds of thousands of those per day. She’ll never see it. 

Nobody needs to know, really. And even if they do, it’s not like it means anything. 

-

do you think this is heartless of irene though, you text Wendy. like i know i said i wasn’t mad at her but

irene? heartless? replies Wendy. generally yes. but in this context….. ummm…

???

i mean. sorry. but its KANG SEULGI

and? you say. And then, because it’s easier to lie to Wendy through your teeth when she can’t see the expression on your face: kang seulgi is like deeply mediocre as an actress. and otherwise. i don’t know what you’re talking about. 

It’s a mistruth of biblical proportions. Miraculously, Wendy doesn’t even call you on it.

whoa…. she says, instead. cant wait for these texts to get leaked so u get crucified on twitter for talking shit about THE kang seulgi

wendy why would these texts ever get leaked. 

idk….. for the right price…..

you leak these texts and i’m leaking your nudes. 

go ahead i look fucking great in all my nudes!!!!! tf!!!!

And that’s how you know it’s really over: Wendy can’t even blame Irene for going after Seulgi. Wendy, who’s always had a vague vendetta against Irene (her vibes are permanently fucked and can never be resuscitated, Wendy informed you once, while drunk, and has since never offered another explanation), backing down from an opportunity to insult her. It’s bad. It’s really bad.

KYSSSSS, you say. Then, immediately: okay i’m sorry i didn’t mean that i’m just emotional right now. 

we’re going to a party when i get back, texts Wendy. u need to get out of the house before u become so delusional that u have to be institutionalized.

fine, you say, unable to fight back. It’s starting to seem like she kind of has a point. 

-

(Looking back on it now, the actual first problem is this: 

Wendy’s right. You think Kang Seulgi is so, so hot. But the even worse thing is that you’ve thought this for ages: binge-watched every movie she’s ever been in, gone through dozens of interviews, drooled over red carpet photos. Since you started dating Irene. Since long before that. But it’s always been fine - distant and manageable, irrelevant and light-hearted - because you’ve never once acted on it, because you’ve never once met her. Nothing that’ll ever come to fruition at all, and for good reason. And it doesn’t matter now, because she’s dating your ex-girlfriend and so you want her dead. It’ll never be anything more than that. 

Or, at least, that’s what you think.) 

-

Two days later, and - well, there’s always a party. You’re all too rich and famous and repressed. It’s just how it’s always been. 

The typical scene’s already in full swing, when you get there: looming mansion, rooms gaping wide, the most well-known names in the country spilling out over the spotless tile flooring, laughing and drinking and enjoying some semblance of freedom. You’re all so used to smiling into a lens like surveillance is second nature - you’ll get reckless at times like these, when you know you can afford it. When you know there’s only a miniscule chance of getting caught. 

“Seriously,” you say, phone tucked close to your ear, talking loud over the music: “if I don’t find you in the next ten minutes, I’m leaving.” 

“But then how will you get laid without me?” Wendy says, on the other line. 

You roll your eyes, then shoot a wave at one of Wendy’s idol friends across the room, someone she probably knows from a music show or a collab stage or because they’re part of the same company. The idol industry’s a little different than yours; they’re constantly at the same events, frequenting the same venues. It’s easier to forge connections. “You mean because you’ll be my wingman or because you’ll take one for the team and fuck me yourself?” 

“It’s a toss-up,” says Wendy, who’s talking equally loudly, probably trapped in some opposite corner of this manor of a house. “I still haven’t seen if you look hot enough tonight. I have standards, bitch.” 

“Right,” you say, as you notice Park Sooyoung and her fiancé, isolated off to the right in what seems like a particularly intense conversation for a party. “You really know how to turn a girl on, Wendy. I’m, like, creaming my jeans.”

A horrified pause through the pounding music. “You’re wearing jeans?” 

“Obviously not. Weren’t you the one who said-”

“Yeah, yeah. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” 

Cliché, but you won’t knock it ‘til you try it. They’re tropes for a reason. So you’re looking for a very specific kind of attention tonight: short skirt and shoes with a heel and hair straightened to a shine. This Kang Seulgi thing is the last goddamn straw, giving you a mission, an objective: you need to get fucked, and soon. You don’t need to find the love of your life, or whatever. You just need to prove you’ve moved on.

“Shouldn’t be that hard,” says Wendy. “I’m sure there are plenty of social climbers at this party who want what you have and think they can fuck their way into a job or whatever.” 

“So you’re saying that they’d want me for my fame and not anything else?” She’s got a point, but you’re not about to tell her that; it’s enough to get a fuck, and that’s all you’re asking for. “Thanks. Really, that’s so helpful.” 

“Your fame and your ass,” replies Wendy, cheerfully. “What else do you need? Like, it clearly wouldn’t be for your personality-”

“Fuck off. I’m going out to the balcony,” you say, beelining towards the glass double doors; they’re recognizable enough, and you need the backup. “Come find me, okay?” 

“Okay, no, that’s too vague. There are like fifteen balconies in this place. How will I know-”

-

And everything that happens next occurs with horror-movie proportions: the fatal anticipation, the red flags flying. Any audience member’s screaming at the screen right now, warning you: don’t go through that doorway, don’t make that decision, turn on your heel and run. It’s a slasher and you’re heading right into the killer’s arms. It’ll ruin you for life. It’s so obvious-

(There’s a storm coming. There’s the crack of lightning, electricity at your ribs. The sky’s a second from splitting open. What are the odds, what’s the mathematic probability; you and the girl you’ve been obsessing over for the past three days - or earlier than that, if you’re counting just how many of her movies you’ve seen, put on repeat, lost your mind a million times over - in the same place, the same time. You’re distracted; you’ve forgotten to put your guard up. Again with all the fucking clichés.)

-but there’s hindsight, and all its clarity. You’re just not there yet. You’re too close to see it coming. 

-

There’s a woman smoking on the balcony. 

There’d be a sitcom laugh track here, if anyone were watching - how clueless can someone be, how comically stupid - because you don’t even realize it at first, much less recognize who it is. You’re pushing open the heavy double doors, still talking loudly to Wendy, trying to elaborate on statues that could serve as makeshift landmarks - and in the rush of the cool autumn wind, you finally spot her standing there. Cue raucous laughter. Take a breath for delighted applause. 

“Ah, sorry,” you say, automatically, coming to a stop. 

“Yeah, you should be,” says Wendy, still on the phone. 

The doors shut with an ominous sound behind you; bad omens, butterfly effects. Smoke curling around the woman’s hair, turning her silhouette spectral, ghostlike. Clad in a dress so short there’s no way her teeth aren’t chattering around her cigarette. You say, into the phone, “Not to you, idiot. I’m talking to-”

And then the woman turns, and you’re so shocked you accidentally hang up the call. Because it’s-

Well, everyone probably already knows by now. 

What they don’t know - what nobody could know, except you, in this one moment - is the overwhelmingly, tragically physical effect seeing her in person has on you. Lungs suddenly like they’re struggling for air. Pulse like the thrum of music still blaring inside, bass as a bloodline, melodies as chemical compositions. Somehow, entirely by accident, you’d built her up in your head to be this deity, this goddess, this fictitious impossibility: she’s otherworldly in her films, in photographs, spur-of-the-moment snaps taken by fans. Beautiful like something out of a Renaissance painting, striking and regal and ruminative. You’d never even imagined anything else. 

And it’s there, in bits and pieces, a glimpse of the myth in motion. Threat in the high hemline of her skirt. Lips startlingly red, blood and sin and more suggestive things. Collarbones like cliffs to throw yourself off of; glint in her eye like she’s armed and dangerous. Like she’s everything her movies paint her out to be. 

But then there’s everything else.

“Oh,” you say out loud, throat dry, and you’re paralyzed. 

Because she’s nothing like she is when you’ve seen her in print, awards shows and billboards - and in that moment, it all starts crumbling to the ground. 

She’s positively tiny in real life, that’s the first thing. Sporting platform boots and still a few inches shorter than you are; sleeves hitting below her elbows, veins visible in her arms, patterned under her skin. Lipstick bleeding just past the line of her mouth, smudged unevenly at her cupid’s bow. Hair a little wild in the wind, slipping undone and coarse over her shoulders. Eyeliner worn-in, mascara leaving faint, sooty shadows under both eyes. Tiny moles you’d seen photoshopped out in magazines; one just underneath her eyebrow, stark against fair skin; one of her knees is badly bruised, blooming a faint, sickly yellow-green. Posture slightly slumped as she turns to look at you, shoulders rounded, set of her lips a bit crooked, pulled up at a corner. 

“Hey,” Kang Seulgi says, voice gravelly, and that’s really when everything falls apart. 

Because she’s nothing like she is on billboards. Because she’s better.

-

Here’s how it happens, if you had to explain yourself: you meet and it’s already so far gone. You can’t help but blink dumbly, heart thrown into an avalanche, splitting your ribs; smoke everywhere, fires set ablaze. Off the key of reason, each bit of her just past perfect and heading straight to immeasurably, unquantifiably beautiful. Rough edges and nails unpolished, hands like an invitation. Lips puckering around her cigarette, hair somewhat blending into the night sky - and Seulgi looks right on back at you, staring openly, drinking you in. 

“Hi,” you say, breathlessly, because you forget that you’re supposed to hate her guts. 

“Hey,” says Seulgi again, and she’s still staring, eyes wide. It’s becoming incredibly apparent that there’s no need for introduction. She knows who you are.

(That’s the next problem. You know each other, even though you’ve never met. There’s no escaping it now.) 

The seconds tick by in spellbindingly slow motion. Like you’re waiting for the clock to strike midnight; waiting on an inevitability, a prewritten series of events, an entirely scripted array of scenes. Moon a deliberate director. Stars the screenwriters, setting marks, assigning meaning: put a pause here, pull back on the dialogue - the critics will get all the subtext. 

You’re frozen. You just can’t stop looking at her. 

“Sorry,” Seulgi says, suddenly. 

“Um,” you say back, because for one crazy moment, you think she’s talking about Irene. And for an even crazier moment you think of saying no, it’s fine, I forgive you - no, obviously I haven’t been obsessing about it since I heard the news; God, you’re so much more than gorgeous, I get it; fuck, I’d never blame anyone for going after you. Look at you. Look at you. 

But then Seulgi gestures with her cigarette between two fingers, and you realize she’s talking about the smoking. And she abruptly doesn’t sound sorry at all when she says, “You can go back inside, if you want. Not trying to offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities here.” 

Your mouth falls open. 

“Seriously,” Seulgi tacks on, at your silence. “I wouldn’t want to, you know.” Slow pan of your body, your hair to your heels. Something about the way she looks at you, then; severe quirk of her eyebrow, the amused sniff of air through her nose. “Get in your way.”

And, well-

“It’s a bad habit,” continues Seulgi, mouth at an exponentially sharper tilt, and takes another lazy drag. 

-it occurs to you that she’s kind of being a bitch. 

And that in itself is fucking mind-boggling. Because she’s the one dating your ex-girlfriend after a month and a half. Because if anyone should be getting nasty here, it should be you - you’d have the right to, you should be furious (and you are, you remind yourself, you’ve been furious at her this whole time, she’s your mortal enemy, seeing her in person doesn’t change that), you should follow through on your threat of running her over with a car, it’s so stupid that she’s the one trying to get a rise out of you right now-

“Disgusting habit, actually,” you say, barely giving her a chance to breathe. “But if you want to die from lung cancer, that’s totally your prerogative. I don’t care either way.” 

So, obviously, you make the split-second decision to be a bitch right back. It’s just the thing to do. 

A tiny, maddening smirk curls around Seulgi’s mouth. “That’s a little strong, kid,” she says. “You wouldn’t care if I died?” 

“Does it really matter to you what I care about?” You’ve got your arms folded over your chest; you can’t believe she just called you kid. Yeah, she’s got like ten years on you, but - Jesus Christ. “You don’t know me.” 

“You don’t like me,” says Seulgi, like she’s mildly delighted by it. 

“I just said I don’t know you, Seulgi.” 

The moment her name leaves your mouth you know it’s a mistake - but you can’t quite figure out why. Just that you’re both aware of something of a seismic shift, the whole house tipping sideways; moon slipping slightly out of orbit, constellations doubling back to take another glance. Both of you unsteady in your heels; Seulgi’s lips part, and she’s staring again. Expression oddly slack, as if struck. Smoke softening the line of her jaw. 

“Seulgi,” you say, again, trying to recover. 

You can’t come up with anything else. It’s as if you’ve never done improv, like you’ve never charmed your way through talk show interviews. There are tiny, glimmering studs lining Seulgi’s ears, a perfect match to the small pendant she’s got around her neck, glinting in the moonlight. Nestled right where her neckline dips scandalously low.

“My eyes are up here,” says Seulgi, apparently taking the opportunity to bring back the hostility full-force. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you say, just as fast. “There’s barely anything worth looking at there.” 

There’s a pause. 

Okay - fine, it’s possible that was maybe going a little far. To be fair, you’ve never had a first conversation this tense, with anyone; you don’t know the regulations. It’s ridiculous that you’re acting like this. But it’s her - it’s something about her stupid smile and her smoking, her reckless beauty and her big reputation, that look in her eyes that says she gets whatever she wants, even if she has to take it. 

You glance upwards just to see that Seulgi actually almost looks like she’s about to burst out laughing. Lips twitching, irises strangely bright under silvery moonlight. Smile revealing her teeth.

But she doesn’t, though it looks like it takes some effort. “Wow,” she says, instead, and returns to condescending amusement as quickly as she’d left it. “That’s really mature.”

“You’re the one who stole my girlfriend and you wanna talk about maturity?” you spit. “That’s hilarious.” 

It’s not your best move. As if anyone could steal a grown woman, much less one like Irene - but Seulgi’s looking at you like that, and you have to land a blow, even if it’s irrational. Plus sometimes you’re susceptible to social media bullshit.

Seulgi’s still smiling. “I’ll have you know there was no overlap,” she says. “Very above board. But it’s cute that you buy into Twitter conspiracy theories. Spend a lot of time stalking your own stans?” 

“Okay,” you shoot back, “but how would you know that my stans are coming up with Twitter conspiracy theories in the first place?” 

There’s another long silence. 

“So you’re stalking my stans,” you conclude. “That’s way worse.” 

“Um,” says Seulgi, suddenly looking considerably less intimidating than she did two seconds ago. Then, “Well, you’re the one who liked one of my half-naked Instagram photos from February.”

“Okay,” you say, again, arms crossed over your chest. “But why do you know that?” 

“My stans are well-informed,” Seulgi explains, tapping her cigarette against her bottom lip. “They like to keep track of who likes my shit.” 

“All I’m getting from this is that you regularly monitor both my stans and your stans when they talk about me.” 

Seulgi stares at you, mouth opening a little; like she’s guilty, like she’s caught. “So,” she says. 

“Loser,” you say, probably proving her point about immaturity.

But it doesn’t even faze her; you blink once and she’s smiling again, for some godforsaken reason. She says, “You know what, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Corner of her mouth curling further, putting her cigarette out on the railing. “I’m actually a big fan of you, to be honest.” 

“Ugh,” you say, cheeks flushing hot with frustration. It seems so obvious that she’s making fun of you; because she’s older and sexier and more famous, because there’s no way you were even on her radar before she started dating your ex. “You’re so - whatever. I’m leaving. Bye.”

You turn to go, fully intending to never speak to her again. Asshole, you’re thinking, she’s such a-

“No, no,” Seulgi’s saying, laughing, “hold on, we should-”

And it’s the littlest thing that does it, in the end: 

Seulgi’s fingers close around your wrist, and all she does is tug lightly. Barely any pressure at all. But she’s stepped forward to get her hand on you, and so she’s so close when she pulls you back to her; you stumble a bit in your heels, not expecting it, almost tumbling right into her. And - as if it’s an instinct - her other hand falls carefully to the small of your back, steadying you with her palm at your spine. Face so near to yours you can smell her perfume under all the smoke. Gazes locking; clink of chains, discarding keys, handcuffs latching tight. It’s instantaneous. 

There are fifty things you should probably say right now - don’t touch me, we’re strangers, we don’t know each other; are you this presumptuous with everyone you meet, do you try to provoke them, or is it something about me; please don’t say it’s me. But the truth is that the moment she gets her hands on you, it’s already pretty much doomed.

“Oh,” Seulgi breathes out, like a revelation.

She’s no longer laughing, so thrown even she can’t act it off. Eyes so dark, pupils scarily dilated. Wind flicking inky strands of hair across her face. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips; you shiver underneath her hand on your back, your wrist, pulse hammering underneath her thumb. Seulgi’s been messing with you since the second you met her, but even she doesn’t have the power to charge the atmosphere like this; electric current, preparing for the roll of thunder, bones thrumming restless and wired under your skin. Seismic shift, give it a sequel: any second the house’ll catch fire and disintegrate. 

“You should probably let go of me,” you warn, faintly, shivering, staring at her mouth and thinking fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Seulgi’s lashes flutter fast, blinking herself out of a trance. 

“Yeah,” she says, but there’s an undertone to it; she steps back, lets you go, visibly bites the inside of her cheek. Like she needs to snap herself out of it before it’s too late. “Right. Sorry, kid. I didn’t - I really am a fan, you know.”

“Are you,” you say, too enthralled to try and catch her in a lie. The air’s still so thick: it could splinter every surrounding window from the outside in, tear through glass like paper. You can’t comprehend the change - can’t understand why you can still feel her hands on you, white-hot and consuming. It’s too fast a tilt, throwing your head into vertigo; you’re still so full of misplaced expectation. Will she, won’t she. 

“I have been for a while,” says Seulgi, suddenly bashful. She won’t, you’re certain. She can’t; she’s out of your league and so gorgeous and she’s taken, she’s so unavailable, you just met, she’d never. “I think you’re…”

“You think I’m…” you mimic. 

Seulgi’s eyebrows raise, and her gaze drops. Surveying you again, your face, your hair, your body - measuring you up to your films, the fiction and the fantasy. And there’s this look in her eye; you can’t tell what she sees when she looks at you. Her hair’s filtering moonlight; she’s all surrealism, the temptation of imperfect things, the immeasurable beauty. Soft line of her neck. Sharp glint of her stare. And out of nowhere you already know it’s over, before she even opens her mouth. 

“Fucking incredible,” she murmurs, at a sensuous rasp, throaty insinuation curling around every syllable. 

(She will, then - it’s done and decided. She will.)

And it’s so idiotic, because you’re actresses, for God’s sake. You make a living off of faking feelings, playing parts. But there’s something about you and her and how high you are off the ground, on top of the world, larger than life and the city far beneath your heels; all it takes is a little bit of proximity. You’re both too used to having everything you’ve ever wanted right at your fingertips. All it takes is a touch. 

“You should go,” you say, quietly, hands aching to have her. 

Out of nowhere you’re too close together again. You’re not sure who stepped forward first, not sure who started it; not sure who’s fault this is going to be, when you play it all back. You can’t rationalize it in the least. Sometimes it’s just a feeling. 

“I don’t think I want to,” Seulgi murmurs back, just as inexplicably captivated as you are, too near to rein it in. “Do you really want me to?” 

“You have a girlfriend.” It’s not an answer. You’re drawn into her eyes as if by gravity; deep-space, brilliant astronomy. You can’t make yourself sound as guilty as you should. “Seulgi.”

There’s that problem with her name in your mouth again: like a death sentence, like a missile deployed, like a cocking gun. It’s a direct hit. You’ll never be able to take this one back. 

“Fuck,” Seulgi says, out loud, and then she kisses you. 

-

(Oh, there’s no way to explain it. It’s exactly the kind of thing that’d cause walk-outs in theaters, reviewers throwing up their hands in disbelief, baffled; the chemistry is there, sure, but where’s the logic, where’s the narrative sense, where’s the justification. That can’t be all it takes, that would make you and Seulgi both morons: five minutes of snarky conversation and sexual tension and you both cave, how does that work, who approved this fucking script-

Well, they’re just gonna have to get used to it. It’s a film where neither of the main characters have any common decency, so what did you really expect - and, truthfully, it only gets worse from here on out.) 

-

Right away it’s too intense, too sensual and filled with filthy intention. Countdown clocks, hourglasses dripping sand: you’re existing on completely stolen time and it shows. Her thigh finds her way between both of yours; your back hits the wall right next to the double doors. You’ve never had a first kiss so fucking sloppy - licking along your lip gloss, the seam of your mouth; teeth colliding, fingers digging into your hips; deliciously invasive, like she’s trying to devour you: motive shifting, nails working their way against your scalp, scraping until you whimper. You’re seconds from humping her thigh like an animal, making a mess to clean. And you’re suddenly so, so wet. 

“Are we really doing this?” Seulgi’s all smoke, old horrible habits; vices, addictions. “We - God-” 

“Depends,” you say, too turned on to be anything but a bitch. “If you wanna be a morally corrupt cheater who cheats on your girlfriend with someone you just met-”

“Are you gonna say that’s my prerogative again?” 

“Well.” You can’t believe she’s onto you so soon. “It is.” 

“You’re such a brat,” she says, with feeling, and then sees the look on your face. “Oh, wow. Of course you’re into that.” 

Apparently she’s onto a lot of things about you. “Who says I’m into that?”

It’s a bad point to call her bluff. In no time at all Seulgi’s got her thigh between your legs again, dislodges her hand from your hair and holds a fist to your shoulder; pressing you down, forcing friction. You can’t stop yourself - you’re rocking your hips, you’re soaking through your thong, trying not to whine - you can’t comprehend how you got here so fast, so wanton and desperate, how natural it feels for her to pin you against a wall and work whimpers out of your mouth - how much you want it-

(Fine, maybe the real truth is that the minute you saw her and her eyes and her hands and her short dress you wanted her so bad you forgot how to function, she got a little mean with you and it turned you on, she got too close to your face and you instantly thought of her fucking you senseless - fine. It’s been doomed from the very first second. Maybe you’re just as morally corrupt as she is. Maybe even more.) 

“Huh, I don’t know.” There’s no justifying it. Seulgi’s mouth held in a wicked smirk, gleam of teeth like the definition of the upper hand. Taking it without question; you’re into that, so she’ll be what you want. “Your cunt dripping all over my thigh right now?” 

“This is so fucked up,” you manage, needing to kiss her again, needing to be bent over and fucked on her fingers, needing more. Her own question thrown back in her face: “Are we really doing this?”

You’re finally gonna get your answer. It’s her, and it’s hopeless. Serpent in Eden. Fangs like the devil. Heedless smile, photographs and their infinite words: let me show you everything you’ve been missing out on; come on, baby, let me take you home; let me bring you back to life. 

“Yeah,” sighs Seulgi, and presses her lips to yours, one more time. “I think we are.” 

-

She pulls you inside by the hand, shoving past some of the most well-known names in the country. She’s careless about it, too. Like you’re incomprehensibly the only thing in the room she can see, fingers intertwined tight with yours, your nails and her bare knuckles, a near-perfect fit. She trips over someone’s foot and has to catch herself on a doorframe, and you laugh until she tells you to shut the fuck up, but she’s laughing too, and kind of looking like she wants to kiss you, right there in public. She doesn’t, because she can’t, and you know it. You let the moment go.

-

Seulgi doesn’t take you home. She’s got Irene there, probably; that’s the first reason. The second is that, truthfully, the two of you aren’t only stupid, you’re also impatient - if you have to wait any longer you’re gonna lose your minds.

“You know, I have this theory about you.” 

So that’s how you end up in some upstairs bathroom, your back flush against the sink, her hands up in your hair and her teeth over your throat, your nails leaving marks on her wrists, her thighs. Those fucking claws, Seulgi says, and grins at the scarlet-red scratches; like she likes you when you’re riled and needy, like there’s a sort of test you’ve passed. Tugs the neckline of your top down with rough fingers; kisses sloppy and open-mouthed down your neck, your collarbone, licks a line down your chest. And right as she’s hovering over a nipple, breath so hot you’re already whining, that’s when she says-

“What?” you say back. Too thrown off, too turned on; you’re blinking down at her swollen mouth, panting. It barely registers. “You have a what?” 

“Here’s how I see it.” It’s almost conversational. Seulgi flicks her tongue over your nipple, draws back just as quick. You whine without meaning to, spine curving, begging for more. “Girls like you,” she says. “You always have a type.”

There’s something dangerous about her tone, something sending you on high alert, alarms wailing, windows blown out or breaking in. Something about how she says girls like you, like she’s already got you all figured out - physical evidence to a heinous crime, already crafting her case. Motive and opportunity. Gleam in her eyes before she puts you away for life. 

“What?” you say, again, voice wavering.

Her hand trails down your stomach, searching for more skin. Tugs the hem of your skirt up. “I think you have a thing for it,” Seulgi says, and dips her chin, indicating herself. “Older women. All that entails. See, I don’t think someone like you accidentally starts dating someone like Irene.” Her hand stops at your inner thigh, won’t go near your cunt, won’t touch you where you need it. “You get off on that kind of age gap, right?” She doesn’t need you to answer for her to know it’s true. “You like feeling helpless. Like you need to be taken care of.” 

She leans forward; her lips hover over yours, unwilling to kiss you again. She’ll make you work for it. She says, “You like pretending that you’re just this naïve good girl, corrupted by some older woman who couldn’t keep her hands off you. Like you’re just such an angel, baby. They couldn’t resist.” Raises her hands to your hips and presses down. “I think it makes you so fucking wet. ”

You hold your breath. You can’t give yourself away this early, you’re thinking. You can’t be so predictable - it’s humiliating, it’s unbearable. “Seulgi-”

Unwilling to kiss you, or at least she’s trying to be - but you say her name, and that’s all it takes for her to break. 

There’s something about the way she kisses you, then, hoisting you up until you’re perched on the bathroom sink, tongue slipping across your bottom lip: like you should’ve known. Like the first second you saw her, it should’ve sent your nervous system haywire, veins knotting themselves and bloodstream freezing like ice. Like no matter what - talk about butterfly effects, talk about roads and pathways and predestination - the second you saw her, she was always going to see right through you. Like she was always going to tilt her head like this, pull back with her lashes a flicker against her cheekbone. Pull back and demand-

“Say it.”

You’re barely breathing. “Say what?” 

Seulgi lifts an eyebrow, amused by you playing dumb. And there’s a purpose to it - a monologue, an anticipation, a breaking point. Testing you against the pull of her blunt nails scraping your thighs, won’t touch you further until you give in. Excruciating, temptation incarnate.

“Say it,” she purrs, again. “I know you want to.” One hand on either thigh and parting them, slowly. “I’m not gonna fuck you until you say it.” 

And then she runs her knuckles against the drenched spot on your panties, right where your cunt’s soaked through - and the pressure’s not nearly enough. Pulls your thong to the side, your cunt glistening wet; every part of you throbbing with aching need. She’s watching your face with an intent, arrogant sort of certainty. She knows you’re about to give in.

“Sweetheart,” Seulgi says, sends your skin simmering hot with just a word. You can’t handle how shiny her hair is, still tangled from the autumn wind - can’t stand the way her irises glint in a dark room, like she’s so great she’s defying logic, like fame’s really made her something supernatural. Can’t stand that she’s unfathomably beautiful. Can’t stand that she’s not yours. 

So you give in. 

-

“Mommy, mommy, mommy-”

Somewhere in there - that’s when Irene calls. But it’s not a question, what’s more important right now: Seulgi lets you run your mouth and stays hooked on every word, taunting you, laughing as your cunt soaks her hand. Keeps fucking your pussy like there’s nothing in the world she’d rather be doing, and lets the call go to voicemail. 

-

Seulgi fucks you like she’s everything her reputation makes her out to be, and that’s the only way to put it: rough and brutal and intense, off the edge of violent. You’re thinking of the box office killer you saw her in a few weeks back - she played the love-interest-turned-villain, led the reveal with knuckles chapped and split, smile lined in blood - and it’s the risk, the ruthlessness: it’s like no one’s ever gotten what you need until her. Throat under her hand, saying filthy things about how wet you are, how fucked up, how pathetic and naughty, fingers around your neck and squeezing hard. You’re long past the threshold of embarrassment, recognizing humiliation - the only thing you’re thinking about is cumming around her fingers, her murmuring against your skin. You’ll let her say anything.

Which is probably a bad call, in retrospect, because the obscenity that comes out of her mouth-

“No,” she snaps, when you try to cover your mouth with your palm, stifling moans. Slips her hand from the base of your throat to your wrist and tugs. “Let me hear you moan for mommy, baby.”

You’re helpless to obey, and she laughs when you do - fully laughs, fingers curling in your cunt, the sloppy wet sounds loud enough to fill the bathroom, echo off the walls. “Mommy,” you’re whimpering, losing it, stare hooked on her red, irresistible mouth, “fuck, you-”

There’s a dark flush in her cheeks, up to her neck; you try and kiss her and Seulgi holds her mouth out of reach. Leans in and says, breath hitting your teeth, “Are you always this fucking desperate?” 

No, you can’t say, no, never. I swear it’s something about you. You. It’s you. 

Because it’s so mortifying, but it’s true: Seulgi’s eyes and her hands and the way she’s got you firmly in place, one hand between your legs, the other returning delicious pressure against the nape of your neck. Tone of her voice, musical with mirth. The way it’s like she’s got everything that’ll turn you on indexed and itemized - demeaning you, making you work for it, beg for it, in this bathroom where the party’s still carrying on outside, blissfully unaware - like, somehow, she already knows. 

Then, like you’d spoken it out loud: Seulgi grips the back of your neck hard. “Or is it just that you like fucking other people’s girlfriends?” 

See, you’re an actress, in your profession, in your habits. You’re so used to being in control. Pulling at your muscles like they’re on marionette strings, perfectly maneuvering your face, your body. You can lie your way out of anything, if you put your mind to it. You’re even better with the truth. 

But you can’t even shake your head, can’t get a protest out past your whines. Seulgi’s got a hold on you and your thighs clamping down around your wrist. “I think it turns you on,” she says, and as if to punctuate it, her hand leaves your neck and connects with your cheek, quick and hard. “Smug little slut. Acting all bratty, humping my leg - you wanted this, didn’t you? I bet right when you saw me you got so wet. Already thinking about calling me mommy. ” Lips ghosting over your jaw. “You’re so obvious.” 

“That’s not-”

Another slap, the crack of her hand mesmerizing, head-spinning. “Don’t lie to me,” Seulgi says, but it’s almost amused, one eyebrow raised, sharp pull of a smirk. “You think I can’t feel your pussy clenching around my fingers?”

And she just keeps going and going - it’s a revenge fantasy for you, huh, she says, seducing your ex’s girlfriend, whining like a bitch in heat until I finally give you what you need; irises like staring down the barrel of a gun, dark and explicitly dangerous. The world’s suddenly impossible to hold in your head, parameters blurring, inhibitions seeping out at the edges - you abruptly can’t comprehend anything but the tactile, the physical - fuck status, fuck scandal, fuck anything but her in front of you - saying you’re so soaked, baby, creaming all over mommy’s fingers like that. Saying cum for me. Saying now. 

You do, and then she doesn’t stop. It’s not like you expected anything less. 

-

“You’re lucky I think you’re so fucking cute,” she tells you, pain in all the right places. “Depraved as fuck, but cute.” 

-

Afterwards:

“God,” you mutter into the crook of Seulgi’s neck. She’s holding you upright on the counter, laughing a little, breath against your temple. Lips brushing your hairline, impossibly gentle. You’re so thoroughly fucked; you forget what the protocol for no-strings sex is, illicit affairs. You were in a relationship with the same girl for two years: you’ve never learned how to have meaningless sex. Well, it’s coming back to bite you now. “Seulgi.” 

She stops laughing, sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re fucked up,” she tells you. “Saying my name like that.”

“I’m not-” You’re grinning. “I’m just saying it. Like a normal person.” 

“Nothing about you is normal,” says Seulgi, with mild fondness, and lets one hand drop between your thighs. 

It’s meant only to tease, obviously; she drags two fingers through your drooling cunt, makes you whimper from overstimulation when she bumps your clit. You’re trying to blink yourself back to clarity - all you can see is her face, her smudged lipstick, mask slipping further. Mascara fading under her eyes. Sheen breaking through her foundation on her forehead. 

“You,” you say, captivated. “You’re so…” 

You just met her for the first time tonight. She just introduced her current infidelity into the fucking dirty talk, like a taboo straight out of some really questionable porn - and, yeah, she just made you cum like you never have before. She’s possibly insane. She’s sick in the head. She’s so, so stunning. 

“You have serious issues,” you say, instead. “And you probably need to seek professional help for them. Let me make you cum.” 

Seulgi fully laughs then, something clearly out of sheer surprise, and it’s lovely: nothing like the sexy, raspy, careless thing you’ve seen her do in movies, on talk shows. No, it’s this adorable, unselfconscious bout of giggles, like she’s close to letting out a snort. You’re struck, staring. Watching her eyes squeeze shut and her head tip back, cheeks flushed. Watching her, gorgeous. 

“Okay,” you say, too weirdly endeared to be frustrated by it. “You don’t want me to make you cum, then.”

Seulgi’s lips part, laughter dropping off. “It’s not that. It’s just - baby, you can’t even stand up right now. And you don’t have to.” Runs her tongue across her top teeth, like she’s been starved for years and she’s finally satiated. Lets her eyes fall half-lidded, and adds, lower, “Fucking your needy little pussy was enough for me right now.” 

Your mouth dries up.

But the idea’s already spreading feverishly hot; settles at the tips of your fingers, gives your hands a motive. There’s that low throb behind your navel, desire untameable, physical. You need to hear it, hear her moaning for you, feel her cunt clamp down around your fingers. You’ll fight dirty to get it, too. Alright, it’s more than returning the favor, it’s so selfish-

You slip down from the counter, heels meeting the tile with a click. Your body trapped between Seulgi’s and the sink. You, leaning in, noses bumping, and say, breathless: “Mommy, I wanna make you cum for me.” Further, mouth capturing hers, the barest amount and nothing more. “Please.” 

-but this started out selfish, so there’s no other way it could really end. 

“Jesus,” exhales Seulgi, ruined. Then she pauses. “Wait, you’re gonna finger me with those?” 

You stare, uncomprehending. 

Seulgi nods downwards. “What are you trying to do, slash my vulva?” 

Right. Your nails - almond-shaped, painted a glossy black; they’re not acrylics, but they’re uniformly long, regardless. “Um,” you say. “Fuck.” Then, “Well, I can probably improvise.” 

-

You both rummage around in the bathroom cabinets until you - remarkably - find both a nail clipper and a nail file. It’s one of those really nice ones, too, metal and practically indestructible. “God’s on our side,” says Seulgi, as she watches you clip your middle fingernail down, then your ring. 

“I seriously doubt it,” you say. “You’re gay and unfaithful. God definitely hates your guts.” 

Seulgi swirls the nail file in the air, wisely, like she’s communing with a higher power. “No,” she disagrees, and takes your hand gently, getting to work. “God totally gets me. She understands.” 

You lean back and let her, entertained against your will. “Understands what?”

“That I’m dumb.” Seulgi’s concentrating hard on sanding the uneven edges of your newly short nails; better safe than sorry. “And impulsive. And I make really self-destructive decisions. And you’re so adorable and so fuckable. And I really, really can’t help myself.”

“All valid reasons to cheat,” you say, dryly, even though this definitely isn’t something you should be joking about.

“That’s what I’m saying,” says Seulgi, equally as straight-faced, and presses her lips to the back of your hand. “All good, baby. You can make mommy cum now, or whatever it was you were begging to do.” 

“Asshole,” you mutter, jerking your hand back. It’s futile, meaningless; all you do is take a step closer to her, anyway, looping your arms around her neck. “Why would I make you cum if you’re just gonna be a bitch to me?” 

“Sweetheart.” She’s smiling now. “I think we’ve established that me being a bitch to you just makes you want to fuck me more.” 

Well, shit. You can’t really argue with that one. 

-

She’s the one on the counter this time, and you get two fingers inside her before she can run her mouth more - and Seulgi’s so responsive when she’s getting fucked, like she’s forgotten the role she’s playing, the arrogance and the degradation. Eyelids shuttering, head craning back, exposing the line of her throat. Kissing you like she can’t hold back from it, tongue trailing your teeth. Her voice drawls sweet and sultry, calling you good girl, oh, you’re so good for me, sweetheart, fucking mommy so good. I know, you wanna eat me out so bad, but you can’t ruin your makeup, I get it. Priorities, whatever. I respect your vanity. 

“What?” you say, caught on a strange, sudden laugh, still pumping at her cunt, drawing sordidly wet sounds; cracking jokes at your expense while she’s on the verge of cumming all over your hand, that’s a new one. “Uh - fuck you?” 

“Right,” Seulgi pants, gripping your wrist, bearing down on your fingers. “Exactly.” 

And that’s probably the first red flag - the second, third, fourth; fine, you’re collecting them like the bruises you’ll have tomorrow, on your throat and wrists and thighs - because there’s a camaraderie there that shouldn’t be. You don’t even know her, and you’re trusting her enough to make you cum, make you laugh. It’s a warning sign. You’ve blown past those. Perfect, she’s repeating, anyway, pleasure stringing syllables together. You’re so perfect. So-

You hold her gaze when it’s over, suck your cum-soaked fingers into your mouth, enjoying the way Seulgi’s expression cracks open candidly, staring without shame. Not all your nails were cut short; your left hand’s scrawled scarlet marks into her thigh. Maybe they’ll fade fast - maybe they won’t. To be fair, that’s not exactly your problem. 

Seulgi breathes out harshly, looking somewhat tortured. “Baby.” 

Talk about red flags, you’re thinking, and release your fingers from your lips with a wet little pop. Maybe you’ll leave a few of your own, too. 

-

For all intents and purposes, this aftermath should be devastating. Apocalyptic, the end of the world. There should be some huge, tearful declaration of regret, of remorse, repenting to some higher power. Maybe you’d slap her. Maybe you’d blame her. Maybe she’d turn into a crying mess, lamenting betrayal, crying how will she ever come back from this, it’s the biggest mistake of her life-

“So,” says Seulgi, suddenly. “You wanna get out of here or something?”

You turn and look at her in the mirror, sentiment like whiplash. “Excuse me?” 

She’s already watching you, mouth quirked at a corner, caught - and then she doesn’t stop staring. Observing you openly, like she’s got a complete and total claim to you, canvassing every part of your body. Penetrative and unrelenting. 

“Like, go home with you?” you ask, stepping forward. 

You skid a little bit in your heels; Seulgi steadies you at an elbow. “Yeah,” she says.

“No,” you say, staring at her mouth, her pretty white teeth. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You have a girlfriend. You have Irene. Why would I…” 

But you’re standing here in this bathroom, freshly fucked and nothing close to classy; there are probably dark smears of lipstick covering your mouth, your collarbone. Hair beyond saving. Why would you, you’re thinking - but then again, you already have. 

“What the fuck is wrong with me,” you say, out loud. 

“So much,” Seulgi says, “but I’m definitely into it.” 

And now she’s more than smiling - positively beaming, with teeth and all, lighting up her whole face - like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. And she’s gorgeous. Something vaguely poetic about her face, features purposely and masterfully articulated; she’s so striking you can’t ever picture her being a normal girl, going to college classes and working part-time jobs. Maybe she fell into fame by accident; maybe it dragged her in, parasitic and poisonous. Either way, she’s here.

You step closer; you can’t help it, like magnetism, like gravity, like all everlasting clichés, applying even in the worst contexts. “Shut up,” you’re saying, and it’s only then that you realize you’re accidentally mid-laugh. “I’m not going home with you, Seulgi. And you’re definitely going to hell.” 

Seulgi’s hand finds your waist too easily, slipping into place. Eyes glittering in the half-light; you’d call it seeing stars, but that’s all of her. Space sweeping wide with the fall of her hair, curve of her mouth like a sliver of the moon. Guiding you right into a storm just to make you beg for more. 

“Alright,” she says, perfectly content. “But I’m pretty sure you’re gonna end up in hell, too, kid. We’re in the same boat here.”

Kid, she says, making you smaller. You should hate it and you can’t bring yourself to. 

“Promise?” you say, and hold out your pinky. 

It doesn’t mean anything. Her word’s been rendered null and void since she moment she touched you; there’s no commitment she makes that you should trust. But you’re fuck-addled and delirious and enchanted by the look on her face, the way her irises are so dark almost match her pupils: midnight, shadow, sin. You’ve known her for an hour, tops. She’s so beautiful you want her to do everything to you, but you won’t let her. There’s still a line, hypothetically. 

“Promise,” Seulgi says, without a hint of irony, and wraps your pinky around yours. It’s so funny, it’s hilarious. You laugh until you fall right back into her arms.

-

It’s over. Well, in theory. 

Mostly, it’s the worst mistake you’ve ever made, and you’re not going to repeat it. So you don’t get Seulgi’s number. You don’t say something coy about doing this again sometime, about seeing her soon, about how she should maybe dump her girlfriend and get with you instead - there’d be no point. Because it’ll never, ever happen again. 

“Totally,” agrees Seulgi, and presses you up against the bathroom door just to kiss the life out of you. Forehead bumping yours clumsily, breathing against your teeth. “Never again. I’m right there with you.” 

“Seulgi.” 

“Jesus,” she says, laughing right into your mouth. “You’re cute.” 

There’s nothing choreographed about it, nothing sorted through by intimacy coordinators, directors critiquing your chemistry. She’s got your jaw gently between her fingers, all smoke and sweet perfume. Kisses you once, lightly. 

“I’ll see you later,” she says, like another promise. 

You try and scowl, can’t quite pull it off. “The fuck you will.” 

“Fine,” Seulgi says, eyes curved in her smile, thumb to your bottom lip, skimming lightly. “Fine. We’ll never see each other again.” 

-

Never again, you’re repeating as you leave, reminding yourself, clutching the stairwell. Going home alone, swearing you regret it. Never, ever again. 

-

omg ok i’m so sorry please don’t be mad, you text Wendy, right after calling your driver. i know we didn’t meet up but i don’t feel well and i think i have to head home :(

ok no worries take care of ur mental!!!!! says Wendy. also i ran into park sooyoung and she and her fuckass bf just had a fight or something so now we’re going to ditch the party and go get food.. wish me luck <3

her fuckass fiancé, you correct. they’re getting married next month. 

Then: the bite of the wind, the hit of hypocrisy. Pots and kettles. Purpling edges of bruises spilling out from the neckline of your shirt, you can probably still smell Seulgi’s smoke in your hair - fuck, alright, okay. 

You follow up, quickly: so if you’re going to homewreck their relationship you better do it before the wedding!!!! it’s just easier legally. 

She doesn’t answer for a beat. You squint, re-reading it; okay, it’s sort of extreme. ummm i’m joking LOL, you text again, chewing on your lip. homewrecking is very bad!

right right right right, says Wendy, who has never taken any severe moral stance on homewrecking and isn’t about to start now. okay i love u pls call ur therapist and get better soon!!!!!

The thing about calling your therapist: that’s probably something you should do, yeah. Get better soon - not fucking likely. 

-

And here’s the worst thing:

None of it breaks. You go home, you wait, you bide your time waiting for the other shoe to drop; there’s gotta be people who saw, who are trying to turn a profit off of selling secrets, who are good and honest and won’t tolerate something awful like cheating - but there’s nothing. No articles insinuating guilt, no trending Twitter hashtags, no headlines or anonymous sources or incriminating photographs. You’re not stupid enough to think you’re gonna get away with this, but it kind of feels like you’re gonna get away with this.

“Fuck,” you say, out loud, as you’re scrolling through Netflix and landing on one of Seulgi’s new action films, an automatic preview starting to play. She’s gorgeous, she’s villainous; the rasp of her voice alone sends your spine aching. “Fuck.” 

So you’ve decided that you’re never going to make this horrible mistake again; one and done, one strike and it’s out of your system - that’s the smart choice to land on, in the moment. But then none of it gets out. And it plants the dangerous little thought in your head: if nobody knows about it, you begin to wonder, if it’s this easy to keep this terribly illicit affair a secret - well, it kind of makes you think that-

-

You watch the movie. It can’t hurt, at this point. You’ve already committed graver sins than that.

-

“Okay, seriously, what is the matter with you?” 

So, it’s all you can fucking think about. Not that it’s even a surprise. 

In the shower, while you’re on the phone talking to your agent, thumbing through a script for a new project. Images in your mind on repeat, abject filth: Seulgi with her mouth on yours, Seulgi pinching your nipple between two fingers, Seulgi with your thighs clamping around her wrist and making you whimper mommy, mommy, mommy; stain of her lipstick on your neck, sweat shimmering over her delicate collarbones, how she’d looked at you after a little bit in awe, and laughed. Not meanly, not condescending. Just like the situation amazed her, to be there with you. 

You’re hopeless, floating through the next few days in a fog. Brain skipping through the same details, uncannily appreciative of cinematography: black hair mussed by the wind, blue-green veins pale in her wrists. Rasp of her voice, breath hot against your ear, against the sensitive skin of your neck. Your cunt dripping down her hand as she curls her fingers; her dark eyes like the night in the dimmer light, like they’re sewn up with stars-

“Are you dissociating right now?” says Wendy, eyeing you like she’s seconds from getting your psychiatrist on the phone. “Alright, wait - name five things you can see, four things you can touch-”

-and Wendy, obviously, is not going to leave you alone about it. 

“That’s for anxiety,” you say, staring at your nails. You’d clipped them all short after the party; it’s less incriminating that way. “And I’m fine.” 

Wendy snorts. “Now I know you’re full of shit. When are you ever fine?” 

It’s two days later. You, horrifically enough, have an awards show to attend in the evening; in about fifteen minutes you’re about to have an entire team swarming your apartment, makeup artists armed to the teeth, hairstylists wielding heat protectant and flat-irons. Before that, though - okay, you’ve never been good at hiding things from Wendy. 

“So,” you say, as the two of you are lounging across your bed. It’s hard to know how to put something like this gracefully without lines to memorize, cues to follow. “Remember that party the other day-”

“Obviously.” 

You’re stalling. “I know I said I went home because I felt sick. But, um…” 

Wendy throws you an aghast look. “But you lied?” She hits you in the thigh with her phone. “Figures. Fucking actresses. You’re all just pathological liars who learned how to profit off of it.” She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. “Ugh.” 

She’s got you pegged early, but she always seems to. “What about Park Sooyoung?” 

“Park Sooyoung’s an angel,” says Wendy, immediately. “She’s an exception.” 

You’d probably be able to chat around the topic for hours, if you’d felt the need - but you’re dying to talk about it, a little bit. Nothing’s like I thought it was, you want to say. I swear the sun’s put itself out, I swear I saw the devil in the flesh; she was so much more than I thought she would be. “At the party,” you say, instead, bracing for impact, “I kind of - okay, when I was on the phone with you, and I hung up - it was because I ran into Kang Seulgi.” 

Wendy gasps. Rolls over on her side, auburn hair splayed over your sheets, eyes comically wide. “And you didn’t end up in prison for murder?” 

Oh, no; you just did something a lot worse. “We did have an… altercation.” 

The implication alone jolts Wendy upright. “You fought her? Like, physically?” Mouth open, jaw hanging off its hinges. “Without me?” 

“Uh.” You guiltily divert your gaze out the window. “Not exactly.” 

“Not exactly?” Wendy tugs at the sleeve of your shirt, forcing you to face her. “What does that mean? There was just mild bitch-slapping or something?” 

You pause. It’s not the time, but it’s there anyway, the way you make a wet dream a memory: Seulgi with her palm pressed tight to your throat, Seulgi with her hand smacking across your face. Seulgi with her gaze dark and attentive, the path of her fingers slick across your thighs, always pushing for more, more-

“Um,” you say. “I mean, there was slapping involved.” 

And all hell breaks loose.

-

It’s actually almost impressive, the way Wendy hears slapping and instantly connects the dots. Even more impressive, the way she loses her shit on the spot, goes one to ten - punching your shoulder repeatedly, voice reaching a fever pitch, shrieking oh my God, you evil homewrecking whore, what the hell, I knew you wanted to fuck her but I never thought you’d actually pull it off-

“What are you talking about?” you say, thrown entirely. 

“Come on.” Wendy’s got one of your pillows in her fist and is now attempting to clobber you with it; she’s tinier than you and more uncoordinated than her ultra-successful idol career would insinuate - it’s an easy dodge. “Every time you see a picture of Kang Seulgi you start salivating, and you have no morals when you’re horny. You think I don’t remember how many times you saw that movie where she was topless for fifty percent of it-”

“I watched that for the plot. It was my favorite movie of this year for the plot.” 

“Jesus,” Wendy says, appalled at how transparent you are. “You call yourself an actress?” 

But here’s probably the more fucked up thing - Wendy doesn’t really care. It’s not the kind of thing she’ll unfriend you over, or leak to the press, or tell Irene; her morals are just as compromised as yours are, here. And in the end, all she does is laugh so hard it brings tears to her eyes, says you’re setting an example for queer homewreckers everywhere. Says you have to teach me all your tricks - I wanna be where you are. It’s nasty of her, probably, but Wendy’s always on your side. She’s also in love with a girl who’s getting married in a month. She’s got her own motives. 

“I wasn’t even trying to do anything,” you say, defeated. “We just met and right away it was so-”

You don’t even have the words for it. How do you sum up a mortal sin in a sentence, verbalize an impossible chemistry - there’s no rationale that makes it okay. You say, lamely, “I just wanted her.”

“And you always get what you want,” Wendy interprets, because it’s true. Even if it’s awful and wrong, goes unsaid. Even if you’re willingly ruining someone else’s relationship; even if it’s selfish and horrible and you’re going to hell for it. 

“Yeah,” you agree, sighing. “I mean, most of the time.” 

And it’s ludicrous. You’re reworking your own code of ethics because you saw Seulgi through the blur of a smokescreen, because you’re addicted to the look in her eye, because you’re realizing she’s way less cool and collected and mysterious than she pretends to be. Fucks you like she wants you dead then lets you make her cum with a gentle hand stroking through your hair, all praise and open pleasure. There’s no excuse for it. 

“This is going to be a total trainwreck,” says Wendy, with very malicious glee; it’s a film that’s bombed in the box office, all the critics hate the conclusion - the characters should’ve got what was coming to them and they didn’t, they say, what the fuck kind of message is that. “But I can’t wait to see how this ends.” 

-

“Besides,” you say, “It doesn’t matter. It’s completely a one-time thing. It’s never happening again.”

Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that, you’re telling yourself. Maybe if you repeat it enough, it’ll come true. 

-

So, if you wanna know about the second time it happens:

-

It’s later that same night, because irony loves to make a fool of you, laughing at you from behind a camera, thumbing over a script, lines she already knows are coming. Awards shows, it’s how they go; all the major players are there. Well, except for Irene, who’s overseas as an ambassador for some high-end fashion brand; you see people talking about it on Twitter, disappointed that she and Seulgi won’t make their power couple debut on the red carpet. Either way, she’s not coming. It’s already completely fucked off of that fact alone.

im putting 100 bucks on kang seulgi taking u home tonight, texts Wendy, beforehand, as you’re getting your makeup done. all the pieces are in place…

please get a grip on reality seungwan i am NEVER talking to her again, you say, and leave it at that. 

Look, you know Seulgi’s gonna be there. Embarrassingly, just the thought of it sends your stomach into knots, your brain into overdrive. You’re used to keeping your composure even under the most stressful of situations - nature of fame, it’s just how it works - but the anticipation of seeing Seulgi again is so -

lmfao ok, says Wendy. as if u can keep ur hormones in check….. whore!!!!! 💀💀💀

i will get my bodyguard to beat you to a pulp, you say. 

alright thats it. im reporting u for making threats to my life. 

you can’t report me on twitter for something i said over text lol…

bitch i meant report u to the AUTHORITIES. 

You swear you have a spine, a backbone. You swear you’re gonna show up and stun on the carpet, maybe take home an award or two; realistically, you’re not even gonna run into Seulgi at all. You’ve made it this far - you stepped onto the scene at eighteen and so it’s been three years of frequenting the same ceremonies as Kang Seulgi, and you’d never met at any one of those, never so much as interacted. Maybe you’ll get out of this alive. But there’s still that fucking feeling, the whole way to the venue - like there’s fingerprints as evidence on your body, like everyone might be able to see through your dress to all the places she left a mark on you-

(You get there and she’s gorgeous. She’s there and she looks like a goddess, dressed in blue, submerged in it, sweeping you along. Same boat, you remember her saying; if we go down we go down together. Sink to the bottom of the sea and let the ocean swallow us whole. You force her voice out of your mind; it’d be better to pretend she doesn’t exist. It’s also impossible.)

You’re not nominated for any of the same awards. You sit in entirely different sections. But you’re so aware of the fact that she’s in the room that it’s driving you a little crazy; you have to make this concerted effort to keep your eyes off of her, keep from staring, blushing, making any missteps or wrong moves. You’re back under spotlights, scrutiny. You don’t let your eyes trace her body in her dress, and she doesn’t look at you at all. 

At first, it actually seems like you’re going to make it. 

-

(Same boat; same room and opposite sides. Same old fucking mistakes.) 

-

It all goes to shit when you steal away to the bathroom halfway through the show, and - because behind the curtain, someone’s controlling the setting, the scenes, getting you exactly right where you’re supposed to be - Seulgi’s already in there when you step in. It’s a trope. It’s formulaic. It’s real life reduced to rom-com clichés, except there’s nothing funny about a moment like this. 

It’s done. You stop dead in your tracks, door shutting soft behind you. “Hi.” 

And you’ve been so good all night, you have - keeping your smile contained and your eyes from straying - but it’s different when she’s in front of you, like seeing a deity in the flesh, like someone that you should drop to your knees and worship. Dress a glittering navy, floor-length and cap-sleeved, tapering in at her waist. Hair in tastefully tamed waves, begging you to run your fingers through it. There’s something about the stark black of her hair, the starlike sapphire beadwork gleaming on her dress, her fair skin, her pink lips - she looks almost ethereally ghostlike, a spirit out of a story, so gorgeous she leaves everyone she touches haunted. Skin silk-soft. Makeup immaculate. Nothing like how she looked when you saw her last, already half-undone, autumn wind throwing her into gorgeous disarray. She’s living up to her reputation, curated perfection. And she’s flawless. 

Seulgi’s staring at you with that same wide-eyed look she had the first time you two met. She says, sounding somewhat strangled, mesmerized: “Oh.”

It’s then that you realize she’s playing some dumb mobile game on her phone. 

“Uh,” you say.

Seulgi immediately abandons her phone on the counter. “Sorry,” she says, and it’s like you’re getting deja vu.

“Are you ditching an awards show to play games on your phone?” you say, stepping closer. You can’t help yourself. Seulgi straightens as you do, like an automatic reaction to your presence, spine curving to face you. You try not to read into it. 

“I got bored,” she says, blinking. Her eyes are stunningly made-up, sending them otherworldly striking; liner sliding into sharp points at the corner of each eye, false lashes individually glued and arranged purposely. That’s the thing about awards shows: you’re all selling a product, acting even more than you do on set. 

“You really are a loser,” you say, somehow delighted by it.

“I know,” she says, leaning against the counter, and now she’s smiling. “Hey, kid.” 

And it’s as if you’ve both forgotten how to act at all.

Because it’s the same as it was before; like a reprise, like a relapse. You get too close together and you feel it, that impossible tug, the way the moon controls the tides, the way celebrities control their own images; Seulgi rests her elbow on the counter and you watch the flex of her bicep, the splay of her fingers, nails manicured but enticingly short. Remembering how it felt to have those fingers fucking your cunt, wrapped around your throat. Realizing that not an inch of her belongs to you, and that you don’t have a backbone, and that you want her anyway. She’s parting her lips, inhaling deep. She knows. 

Nothing helps. You’re halfway to dry drowning; shutting off airways, breathing rendered impossible. Water won’t reach your lungs, but it’ll still be the thing to kill you.

“I don’t think we should be alone together,” you say, softly, the first to call it as it is. 

“Alright.” Seulgi folds her arms over her chest. You’re struck by the way the straps of her dress pull over her collarbone, her slender shoulders; tailored to perfection, and she’s too beautiful to be real. “Then go pee. I’ll leave.” 

“I didn’t have to pee,” you say. “I just - nerves, you know. I needed some air.” You wave vaguely around the bathroom. “Or alone time, I guess.”

“You did,” says Seulgi, getting implications. She tilts her head. “But you’ve been to so many of these, no?” You’re moving even closer without realizing it, pulled out to sea. “And just this show is making you nervous?” 

You’re supposed to be cutting off conversation at the source, quitting your vices cold turkey. “Yeah,” you say instead, throwing her a dirty look. “I wonder why that is.” 

“It’s a mystery,” Seulgi agrees. 

“Jesus.” Her attitude’s so cavalier, her eyes so fucking intense; you couldn’t wrench yourself away even if you wanted to. It’s intoxicating. It’s irresistible. “You and I had sex a day after you went public with your relationship with Irene. Can you at least pretend to feel remorseful about it?”

Seulgi cocks an eyebrow. Her arms unfold; her mouth flicks at a corner. I do too much pretending in my day-to-day, the expression says; I don’t let my life imitate my art. I’m with you. Why fake like I want to be anywhere else? 

“You’re an actress,” you add, like anyone needs a reminder. 

“So are you,” she returns. “I don’t see you feeling very remorseful about any of this either.” 

“I do,” you say, itching to step forward, to fall into her arms, to make her laugh, to beg her to fuck your brains out. “I regret it. It was a mistake. I really fucking regret it.” 

“No, you don’t.” Seulgi’s fingers graze your wrist, wrap around your hand. Pulling you closer like it’s something she’s allowed to do. Calling your bluff, again, like she’s seen too much of you to be fooled by all your usual tricks - and there’s tension brimming where there shouldn’t be. Like you’re back on the balcony, inhaling smoke; like it’s all about to go up in flames. 

“Well,” you say, unsteadily. “I will.” 

But, first-

-

You shouldn’t fuck her. There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t fuck her. Every regular watcher is threatening to cancel their streaming subscription - the self-sabotaging, the mess; God, the screenwriters must hate you, constantly making you make the shittiest decisions, ruining your character; where’s the resolution, where’s the redemption arc. But-

“You’ll be a good girl for mommy, right? Be quiet while I fuck your little cunt?"

But you’re fucking her. There’s no way around it. 

You’re pressed against the bathroom counter and she’s pushing your dress up your thighs; you’re clutching handfuls of your full skirt, hitching it up to give her access. She trails a hand upwards, takes your panties and pulls them to the side. “Sweetheart,” Seulgi says, intention cut into her mouth, carnal and wicked, “I asked you a question.” 

You’re nodding wildly, lip tucked tightly between your teeth. You’ll be quiet, you’re trying to communicate with your eyes alone, you will, you’ll behave-

She thumbs your clit, dips to feel how soaked you are, pulls back with the pads of her fingers wet and glistening. Eyes snapping to yours. Pitch leaving no room for discussion. “Words, please.” 

“Yes, mommy,” you whimper, and Seulgi grins. 

“You’re so much less bratty this time around,” she muses, sinks one finger in your dripping pussy, leaves you gasping for air. “All you needed was to get your pussy fucked right, huh? That’s all you needed to learn your lesson?” 

She really starts fucking you, then, like she’s addicted to the moans you’re letting out of your mouth; works in two fingers, then three - it’s not as brutal as the first time, but just as all-consuming, life-wrecking, devastating, the sounds as she finger-fucks you just as slick and nasty. Cunt clenching around her fingers, wet down your thighs, hips rocking; she goes for your jugular, pressure against both sides of your neck; claustrophobic, erotic, breath shuddering low and trapped in your throat. Grinding when she rubs her palm over your clit, aching for more. Begging to cum in a low rasp. You’re not learning any lessons in this room: that’s a fucking given. 

Seulgi’s more in control than you are, but barely; her eyes are tied to your lips, to the wet raw heat of your pussy, dripping down her hand. I’d love to fuck that face, she says like a threat, ride that pretty mouth, cum on your tongue - but I really can’t ruin your makeup tonight. (Privately, you think she’s already ruined a lot more than that.)

“Next time,” she promises, eyes sly and undertone murderous, and you cum right around her fingers. 

(There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t, but you do anyway.)

-

You’re right, in the end. You’re absolutely gonna regret this. 

-

Afterwards, take two:

Any second it’ll hit, you’re telling yourself. Reality, all-consuming guilt, the weight of what you’ve just done - again. Your conscience is gonna make you start sobbing, push you to a confession, push Seulgi away and scream at her. Any minute now, you’ll-

“You’re definitely gonna win it,” Seulgi’s saying, about your nomination for your most recent drama, the award you’re up for. “You were unreal. I swear every time I see you cry on-screen, I really feel it. It’s so…” She shakes her head, overcome. “Powerful, I guess. Sorry. That sounds lame.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” you say back, smiling. “Thanks. And - you’re gonna win yours too.” She’s nominated for your favorite film of hers, the one where she played the rock star, wore too much eyeliner, created a character that broke your heart. “That movie’s my favorite one of this past year, just for the record. I’ve seen it like a million times. I love it to death.” 

“You would,” says Seulgi, arching an eyebrow, but there’s something soft around the edges of her grin. “I’m topless for so much of it.” 

“Not because of that.” You pause, allow: “But it was a perk.”

“I’m sure.”

“No, seriously.” You turn fully; Seulgi’s leaning a little into your side, already, and doesn’t flinch when you bump her shoulder, fingers at the crook of her elbow. She chances a glance at you, smooths a hand over your hair. “It was your voice.” 

Seulgi lets out a little laugh. Brushes under your eye with a careful thumb, flicking away a flake of mascara. “What?” 

See, she’s a rock star in this movie you love, like you said; it’s all made up of concert performances and sold-out stadium tours that look so real, fake talk show performances, studio audiences. Strumming at a guitar in the quiet moments. Singing aloud to herself, her band, her love interest. Rich and honeyed, gliding over every note, thick and raspy at all the right times. “Your voice,” you say. “I mean - it’s amazing. You would’ve made a killing as an idol, you have to know that. The soundtrack to that movie - it was all I listened to for months. You’re absolutely gonna fuck my Spotify Wrapped.” 

Seulgi’s mouth opens a little. Her fingers pause at your temple, the bobby pins holding your hair back. 

“So I guess you could say I’m a fan, too,” you say, suddenly shy. “I have been for a while.” 

You were right, before: no one should’ve allowed you two to be alone together. It opens the door for this, for opportunity, for mortal fuck-ups; Seulgi’s manicured fingers drop to your neckline, the walls threaten to tear themselves down, the sinks ache to switch on and flood the room. Current rushing in, taking you both away - where are the lifeboats now, the escape routes - you’re swept off your feet in the waves. Seulgi tangles a hand in your necklace like she wants to snap it off and she’s tempering her instincts. Anyone could walk in and catch you. They don’t. 

“You,” she says, sighing. Not like she’s giving up, but like she’s giving in. “I can’t get enough of you.” 

“You’re gonna have to,” you say, hot and helpless under her touch. “You have a girlfriend. And this is all really fucked up.”

You keep saying this like it means anything, like it’ll trigger a fight or flight response, send Seulgi running. “I know,” she says instead, stays exactly where she is, blunt nails grazing your collarbone. Fastened to you as if with thread, incapable of tearing herself free. “You think I don’t know that?” 

“I don’t know what you think,” you point out, searching her expression. “I don’t know anything about you. Except that you’re a fan of me and you love being called mommy and every time you get your hands on me you try to fuck me until I can’t walk.”

“See?” says Seulgi. “You know all the important things.” 

There’s nothing funny about this - her cheating on her girlfriend, her girlfriend being your ex - but there’s this expression on her face, corner of her mouth turned up, studying you freely. Dark eyes reading nothing but beguiled amusement. Tapping two fingers against her bottom lip like she might still be able to taste your cunt off of them. 

“We’re strangers,” you say, so enthralled by her. “Complete strangers.” 

(That’s the problem with fame, you think of saying. It doesn’t feel like it. I’ve seen hours of your interviews, all of your movies. I was lying: I know so much, I know more than I should. You feel like you knew me before we met; I see the way you look at me, the way you touch me. Like you’ve imagined it happening a million times before.)

“I know,” Seulgi says, smiling. 

There’s a kind of odd acceptance to it, in that one single sentence. You can’t look away from her, and it’s mutual - Seulgi pulls your chin down with her thumb, and kisses you. 

It’s almost tender, sweetly gentle, like she has every right to do so. You’re smiling, for some reason, grinning against her lips. She must know it, because the next thing she does is sink her teeth into the corner of your mouth, enough to sting but not enough to break skin - and a whine traps itself in your throat. You kiss her and you can feel it, really feel it: this uncontainable scope of fame, between the two of you. Supernovas in this sort of world, side by side like meteors on a crash course, like heat death, like that same self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Give it one more minute and you’ll call it off, you’re thinking, winding your arms around her neck. Any minute now. 

-

You’re actually about to leave at the same time, but there’s the telltale sound of some music performance going on, some idol group; it’s better to sneak back into the show on a break, an intermission to situate. That’s what you tell yourself. In reality, it’s probably something about the allure of stolen moments - Seulgi leans against the counter, opens her phone, starts playing the same dumb mobile game she was engrossed in when you first walked in; you crook your head over your shoulder, watch her do it - and nothing about it makes sense. It’s all beyond logic. For some reason, she’s talking freely, randomly, now asking your opinion on festive outfits for pets; for some reason, you’re indulging her. It’s almost normal. It’s fucking asinine. 

“This is crazy, you know,” you say, unprovoked, as she loses the same game for the fifth time.  

“This is crazy,” Seulgi agrees, somehow correctly attributing it to your situation and not her lack of gaming skill. “There’s something about you,” she says, chin in her hand, gazing at your reflection. It’s exhilarating, the way she stares without trying to hide it; the way she doesn’t even attempt to play it cool. “Like I want to crack your head open and pick your brain.” 

“You are so psychotic,” you say, loving it. “You can’t just say you have a crush on me?” 

“I’m twenty-eight,” she says, a little petulantly, pout offsetting the sentiment. 

“Not too old to have a crush,” you say. “Not too old to have an ongoing affair.” 

There you go again: acknowledging the weight of what you’re doing like it’ll snap you out of it, force your moral compass back into alignment. Seulgi huffs a little through her nose, absentmindedly drops her lips to the side of your head. Leaves with the line of her lipstick still intact, somehow. Starts talking again, about what she usually does on Christmas, seeing if she can order some miniature Santa hats for her cats, new colorful lights to put around her house; you’re watching her phone and humming a little in agreement, drawn in. Rasp of her voice something like the North star, guiding you to unfamiliar territory. She keeps making you laugh. You both know exactly what you’re doing and you’re doing it anyway. 

“Congratulations,” Seulgi says, as you’re about to leave, holding the door open for you. “On your award.” 

“I didn’t win anything yet,” you tell her, bemused. 

“But you’re going to,” she says, laughing, leaving no room for debate. Squeezes your hand as you pass, like she’s saying, I mean it. I’m lying through my teeth to everyone else but you. It’d be no use. It’s you.

You roll your eyes, and let her have it. You’ve let her have so much already. 

-

She’s right. You win the award. You step up to the podium, thank your manager and your company and your fans. From the tables of actors, Seulgi wolf-whistles - honest-to-God, loud and disruptive; probably just to make you laugh, and it works. You can’t stop grinning. You’ll see the pictures later, plastered across social media: smile more genuine than any movie you’ve ever been in, any performance you’ve ever put on. Wow, some of your fans will say, already crafting theories; I haven’t seen her look this happy in a while; I wonder what it is, I wonder if she’ll tell us. It’s dramatic of them, you think. You don’t read into that, either. 

You could DM Seulgi, private message her on Twitter, get her number from an acquaintance, contact her in fifteen different ways. You don’t. It’s for the best, really. 

-

ok you’re right i need to go to jail, you text Wendy, after. i need to be arrested and put in jail…. i am a danger to myself and others. 

YOU WENT HOME WITH HER???? is the immediate response. I CALLED IT PAY UP BITCH

no we fucked in the bathroom 😭😭😭😭

in PUBLIC???? oh my god. And then: u are so lucky u got famous right after u graduated high school because u would never have made it into college. DUMB FUCK

ok that’s going a little far. 

U ARE UR EX’S GF’S MISTRESS UR THE ONE WHO TOOK IT TOO FAR FIRST, says Wendy, and then sends a string of incomprehensible emojis. u could have fucked ANYONE else. ANYONE. U ARE THE ONE WHO MADE THIS HAPPEN!!!!!

Alright, it’s certainly aggressive. But she’s not really wrong, either. 

-

You post a series of photos on your Instagram of your dress, of the night, thanking the designer and your fans, saying you’re so grateful for the award, the opportunity. You look just like you always have; clean-cut and pristine, good-girl shine completely intact, like you’ve never made a single mistake in your life. Seulgi doesn’t like it, doesn’t comment. You let it be. 

-

lolll at her and seulgi both being at that event at the same time, one of your fans says on Twitter, about you. come on there have to be SOME pap pics of them getting into a knock down drag out NASTY fight in the street like

no catfight sry, someone else responds, and links a video: this is the only interaction we got between them? but it’s kind of…. idk

The video’s a fifteen second clip of the event itself; you and Seulgi aren’t seated at the same table, but it’s close enough for you to both be in the same shot. And it’s barely anything at all; the announcer says something and Seulgi looks over her shoulder at you, twitches an eyebrow upwards. You meet her eyes immediately, nose scrunching, the subtle dig of your front teeth into your lip. She smiles, just barely; your lashes flutter fast, and you look away. 

It’s the tiniest thing. Could read as anything from hostile to cordial to a complete accident to what it truly was, at the time: like you’re both high schoolers commiserating over a lame teacher, an annoying classmate, sharing a private joke between the two of you. Much too comfortable to be strangers. It’s your second time meeting; you’ve both seen too much of each other - on-screen, uncovered skin - to be anything but overly familiar. 

is anyone else seeing the enemies to lovers vision, someone says. like the chemistry…. OH

??????, someone replies. IT'S A 15 SECOND CLIP AND SEULGI’S STILL DATING IRENE.

okay but look at the material like they’d be hot together i’m sorry

As if that’s all it takes to make it okay, you’re thinking, scrolling through it, entertained when you shouldn’t be. The two of you being hot together, erasing all your sins. Ah, well. Maybe in a perfect world. 

-

You watch the movie you’d been talking with Seulgi about that night - your favorite one, the rock star role and the topless scenes and her stunning voice. It bowls you over like it always does, brings tears to your eyes at the ending; it’s just that kind of film, angsty and gorgeous and devastating, Seulgi’s performance somewhat earth-shattering every time. All the right nuance, leaning into the subtleties. She’s brilliant; every line brutal and beautiful in equal measures, every turn of her head a revelatory, religious experience. The very first time you watched it was alone, a few months back, clicking through various streaming services - you like everything Seulgi’s been in, so it was a no-brainer - and two hours later you were sobbing into your hands, rethinking your whole life and every personal career choice you’ve ever made. Putting it as five stars into your secret Letterboxd account and adding a review that says i'm pregnant and the baby daddy is kang seulgi’s performance in this movie and leaving it there, self-explanatory. It said enough, you thought.

Honestly, it’s possible you should’ve seen this whole affair coming. 

-

“So, what’s the deal?” asks Wendy, when you see her in person the next day. “Are you still pretending like this is just a - what, a two-time thing, now? That you came to your senses and it’ll really never happen again this time?” 

“Um,” you say. 

(The fact of the matter is this: there’s a new ache in you, something only she can ease. You try fucking yourself - with your fingers, with toys - and it’s nowhere near as satisfying. Even with you picturing her voice murmuring low in your ear: so pretty, baby, taking mommy’s fingers like that. Cum for me. Cum. So you touch yourself and it’s effective in the barest sense, and nothing more. Like Seulgi broke you the second she got her hands on you and now she’s the only one that can get you back. You’re needy all the time, distracted and wet; longing for her voice, her mouth, the hungry glint in her eyes when she looks at you. Longing for something you know you shouldn’t want, and it only makes you want it more.)

“It’s gonna happen again,” you admit, and Wendy bursts out laughing. At least you’re being honest with someone. 

-

Later that night - because you hate to make sound decisions, because common sense has thoroughly escaped you, because you can’t make mistakes without making them habits, too; because there’s the sharp edge of a horror sting, Hitchcockian, and every murderous whodunit needs a plot device and a dumbass final girl - Wendy says that the two of you should go to a party. Another one of her idol friends’ places, she says. Plus, the last party you went to worked out really well for the both of you, so. 

“Is Seulgi gonna be there?” you ask, sussing out motives. “Is that why you’re doing this?” 

“How should I know?” says Wendy, innocently, but you figure everyone probably already does. 

-

(Because - yep, you’re gonna be the person who fucks your ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend three times in one week. God’s just gonna have to deal with that in his own way.)

-

So you return to the scene of the very first crime, in spirit: another party, another packed mansion. Another short skirt and sheer tights and an opportunity to fuck your whole life up. Well, at least Wendy’s by your side for this one - it makes a difference, having her for support. 

“Wait,” you realize belatedly, when you get inside. “This is Park Sooyoung’s house.” 

“Oh, is it?” says Wendy, arm linked in yours and searching the crowd. “That’s so funny.” 

“Good God.” It’s not hard to pick Sooyoung out; she’s at her own kitchen counter, black hair spilling over her shoulders, her fiancé with an arm around her waist and a drink in his hand. She also spots Wendy the second she enters the vicinity, breaks into a smile that echoes something like relief, all teeth and tired eyes - wedding planning must be taking its toll. “So we’re at this party for you, then.” 

Wendy smiles back at Sooyoung, the same way she does in every broadcasted performance; grin glittering, irresistibly earnest charm. The line of Sooyoung’s mouth softens, goes tender. “I figured if you’re gonna homewreck a perfectly good relationship just so you can fuck the girl of your dreams, I should get to do the same.” 

It’s one way to land a blow. “The girl of my-” you choke out, stop, have to take it back. “Okay, Seulgi is not-”

“Uh,” says Wendy, raising an eyebrow at something over your shoulder. “Turn around.” 

You stop cold. You’ve seen a movie just like this before - you know a spoken cue when you hear one. “No.” 

“What do you mean, no?” 

“We just got here. She can’t already be here. It’s too soon.”

Wendy bites her bottom lip into her mouth, agitated and amused in equal measures; you’re too wired to place the source of it, waves already crashing against the hull, the threat of salt and sea and drowning. You’re putting off the inevitable. If you turned around right now, it’d all play in slow motion, your gazes meeting in a crowded room, right out of one of your dramas - she’d stare at you like she always does, those fucking eyes, craving and unreal and unrelenting, and-

“Anything else,” you say, frantically. It’s too early in the night; you’re too fucking sober. “We can even go talk to Park Sooyoung. Come on, girl of your dreams-” 

Wendy’s focus flicks behind you again. “Alright,” she agrees, too easily. “Let’s go.” 

It’s then that you should probably figure out what’s going on here, but you don’t. 

It’s always been easy to talk to Sooyoung, for you - the two of you first met on the first big project you’d ever filmed, where she’d played your older sister - and tonight she’s just as lovely, effervescent and flawlessly gorgeous, always indulgent in conversation. It helps that Wendy’s there; they go back even farther, though it’s a story you’ve heard a million times. Sooyoung has a specific smile she saves just for Wendy, a way she laughs when Wendy cracks a joke - that’s a whole narrative on its own, prologue to finale. 

“The wedding’s so soon, though,” you’re saying emphatically, propping your hip against Sooyoung’s counter, preoccupying yourself with staring at her engagement ring so you don’t let your eyes wander anywhere else. “Are you stressed?” 

Sooyoung hums, adjusts her long hair over her shoulder. She, for some unknown reason, has her fingers hooked in the sleeve of Wendy’s top, fingers absentmindedly brushing her wrist. Her soon-to-be husband’s suddenly nowhere to be seen. “Not really,” she says, though the minute crease in her forehead says otherwise. “I mean, I have a wedding planner that I’m paying a small fortune to, so. Basically the only thing I have to do on the day is show up and look pretty.” 

“Oh, no,” says Wendy, grinning, sensing an opening. “How are you ever gonna make that happen?” 

Sooyoung shoots Wendy a sideways look. “I know,” she says, mouth at a playful tilt. “Getting me to look good? Ugh.”

“Hey, if you believe in miracles…”  

You fight back an eye-roll. For as long as you’ve known them, they’ve always been like this; the banter, the back-and-forth, irrationally entertained by each other from the jump. It’s beyond you how Park Sooyoung’s ever convinced herself that she likes anyone more than she likes Wendy - why spend the rest of your life with anyone else but your favorite person - but she’s made her own decisions. It’s not like you’d have any room to judge, at this point. Speaking of which-

“-is everything okay there?” Sooyoung’s saying, when you start listening again. “I bet it’s at least a little awkward, right?” 

“It’s very fucking awkward,” says Wendy. It becomes immediately apparent that they’re talking about you, either sensing that you’ve tuned out or so wrapped up in each other that they’ve forgotten you’re standing there entirely. “But - you know. She’s working through it in her own way. Certainly making some drastic choices.” 

“But not good ones,” Sooyoung interprets, tone indicating she thinks it’s a joke. 

“Absolutely not,” confirms Wendy, deadly serious.

A sigh from Sooyoung. “Is it fine that all three of them are here, then? I guess - I never know how to go about these things, I don’t know, like, what’s fair game, whose side to take-”

“Wait,” you say, cutting in. “All three of us?” 

Wendy grimaces, tossing another glance right over your shoulder, scoping out how bad the situation is. There’s a bomb she’s been managing to delay in increments, a hastily built dam holding back a rush of water - and, now, that break in the floodgates. It’s over. It’s been over for ages. 

“Well, yeah,” says Sooyoung. “You, and Seulgi, and-”

-

Needless to say, you’re about to prove Wendy completely right, yet again - the only choices you ever make are fucking awful, but you’ve gone way too far to go back now. 

-

Look, at least it’s nothing like the movies. 

It’s the farthest thing from slow motion: you turn around and it’s like everything hits in that same split second, no soundtrack to soften the blow - a sucker punch, a car crash - no perfect pacing, leisurely pan of a camera lens. It’s you and your ex-girlfriend and the girl you’ve been fucking; the roof seems to sink low, walls pulling in tight, doors locking you all in. Debris and smoking wreckage. There’s no way to romanticize that. 

“Um,” says Sooyoung, already turning to go. “You know what, I’m gonna…” 

It’s a relatively graceful exit for a moment like this. Wendy, whether out of some loyalty or some sick desire to see how this trainwreck plays out - alright, it’s probably both - stays right by your side. Like you said: backup. There are some things you don’t have the sanity to face alone. Such as-

“Hello,” says Irene, with a hesitant little smile. 

It’s very nearly devastating - that's the thing. It comes so close. 

There’s her categorically perfect face, beautiful like she’s getting put in front of a panel and scored on it, tens across the board - poise of a pageant queen, composure like the movie star she is - exactly like you’d always remember her, since two years ago when you first started dating, since nearly three when you’d met for the first time. And despite her haughty, aloof image, there’s still that visible soft spot she has for you: in the gentle tug of her lips, chin tilted barely upwards, color of her eyes warm and familiar. It’s enough to pull you back in. It’s enough to dredge up memories like floodlands, something that’ll consume you entirely. 

“Hi,” you say, speechless for all the wrong reasons. 

(And here’s the thing: you should be thinking of all that. You spent two years loving her, kissing the curve of her smile, wrapped up in her arms; her date to every movie premiere, your face all over her social media. You’d been a brand together, a phenomenon, a love story to admire and aspire to - a perfect slow-burn, strangers to friends to lovers, soft and simple and romantic; you hadn’t fallen in love, like the poets say: you’d slipped into it quietly, like being tucked into bed at night. And that was better. That was the way it should’ve been.)

You should be a mess, right now. You should be racked with guilt - she loved you, how could you do this to her, what about your morals, your dignity - honestly, and it comes so close to being devastating, you swear, the first time you’ve seen Irene since the breakup, in front of you and smiling like that, it’s almost enough to bring you to ruin-

“Hi,” says Seulgi, next to her, voice short and somewhat shot. “Nice to meet you.” 

-but it’s nothing compared to the way you want to get absolutely fucked to death by Kang Seulgi right now. 

“Oh, that’s right,” says Irene, cordially, and your history hightails it out of the room. It’s a party; she’ll keep it friendly, light. You clearly aren’t making this a whole thing, so she won’t either. “You haven’t met Seulgi before, have you?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” you say, playing along. It’s the role of a lifetime: acting like you’re someone who didn’t cum all over Seulgi’s fingers just yesterday. “Nice to meet you, Seulgi.” 

It’s a bad move, saying her name - but then again, it always is. 

You just can’t help it. You’re too overcome by the sight of her. It’s like she’s never looked so close to you, so dangerous; top with too many buttons undone, deep cut down her chest, divide of her collarbone, skin unmarred and inviting, hair loose and wild. Suddenly it’s like you feel everywhere she’s ever touched you, marked by notes and chalk outlines, body a crime scene; here’s the evidence, here’s the guilty verdict, open-and-shut. And Seulgi’s looking right back at you, too, lips parted, flushing through her foundation, eyes heavy with liner and blatant desire. Bites on the inside of her lower lip, visible and rough; scans your entire body, top to toe, throat constricting as she swallows. She’s wearing the tiniest plaid miniskirt, like she’s making a mockery of a school uniform, fulfilling someone’s very specific fantasy. And she’s so, so fucking hot. 

“Yeah, cool,” says Seulgi, staring like she wants to bend you over the nearest flat surface and rail you in front of everyone, and not making much of an effort to act at all. Then, abruptly: “I need a cigarette.”

She turns on her heel and bolts for the back door.

“Wow,” says Wendy, next to you, watching Seulgi as she makes her escape. “She seems… nice.”

Irene’s silent, watching your expression, face impassive. 

“No, I get it,” you say, working your tone into something sympathetic; keep the layers, the feigned bitterness, the judgment. “I’m her girlfriend’s ex. Of course she’d feel a little awkward around me.” You smile reassuringly at Irene. “It’s okay. I’m sure she’s great.” 

The corner of Irene’s mouth turns up, grateful. Close press of her lips, and doesn’t speak. 

“It’s good to see you,” you say, getting the gist anyway. 

Because Irene’s as she always is, at the end of the day; assuming she doesn’t need words to communicate, counting on the people around her to read her mind, do the heavy lifting for her. There are worse character flaws for a person to have, you reason. It’s at least a damn good thing she never learned to do the same for you. 

(Oh, the things she’d see, if she could get into your head. Brimming with the uncontrollable urge to either burst out laughing on the spot at Seulgi’s unsubtle exit or run after her and kiss Seulgi senseless, watch her smoke and let her make you smile, lean into her body and say you’re so cute, do whatever you want with me; I’ll be yours for tonight, if that’s what you need. We’ve made so many mistakes, you and me. Let’s make some more.) 

“It’s good to see you, too,” Irene says, finally. She won’t pull you in for a reconciliatory hug, won’t lay a finger on you; she knows all her boundaries. She’s probably the only one in this room who does. “I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.” 

“Thanks,” you say, because if only she knew. 

-

Speaking of worse character flaws.

-

“Get your shit together,” you say, out of the corner of your mouth, when you run into Seulgi on the back patio. “I thought you were an actress.”

“It’s a crime that I’m not fucking you right now,” Seulgi says around her cigarette, lighter flicking fast. A beat, and it catches. “I’m gonna lose my mind.” 

There’s that same pretty pink blush high in her cheeks. It could be the cold but it isn’t. “Your girlfriend’s here,” you say, like she’s unaware, like that’ll make her take it back, like you don’t wish you were on your knees and eating her out just as much as she does. “We are horrible fucking people, Seulgi.”

There’s really no use - it’s a formality, completely performative. Seulgi’s got her gaze stuck on your tight top, your legs wrapped in sheer black tights, your boots, your blunt nails. Stare hooded, expression suggesting unspeakable things. 

“Alright, kid,” she agrees. Alright, she’s saying; I’ll be anything, as long as I can have you. “I think I can be okay with that.” 

-

It’s a long, torturous night. 

Not that you thought it’d be any different. Irene’s as much of a presence as she always is, despite how physically small she is - it’d be hard to find a room she couldn’t command with a snap of her fingers, a click of her stilettos - but it’s unbearable when she’s with Seulgi, the two of them attracting stares and attention simply by virtue of being together, stunning separately and surreal on each others’ arms. It’s manageable, at first; your jealousy’s so misplaced and so you start drinking a little yourself, laughing loud with Wendy, ignoring it. It’s fine. 

But it starts unraveling completely probably about two hours in. 

“I can’t take this anymore,” you say, watching Seulgi prop her elbows atop Sooyoung’s kitchen island, hair winding its way past her shoulders, looking like how light runs from night skies, seeps its way from shadowy corners. Can’t stand the way she leans in and whispers something to Irene, and Irene’s reactions are as muted as they always are, when she’s not on camera; a quick quirk of her mouth, and nothing more. Seulgi’s eyes slide to you every other minute. She looks bored. She looks vicious. “I need to be admitted to the psych ward.” 

“So I’ve been saying,” says Wendy. “For years.” 

Seulgi’s laughing, now, but in that closed-off, false way she does in talk show interviews. Playing with Irene’s fingers, their heads bent together. She darts another look towards you again. Put your money where your mouth is, you want to tell her; you want me so bad, then have me. Give it all up for me. 

“I wanna test a theory,” you say, to Wendy, because it’s all about the scientific method, and you know Seulgi won’t give anything up for you at all, unless pushed to the brink. It’s just the way things are. 

Wendy tilts her head. “Is it Kang Seulgi-related?” 

“Uh.” You’re too obvious. 

She rolls her eyes, rephrases. “Is it gonna get you laid?”

“Yeah,” you say, because it’s too late for shame, but it’d be tactless to say well, that’s gonna happen regardless. Even if it’s true. 

“Fine.” Wendy sighs, sends a baleful look over to where Park Sooyoung’s smiling softly by the back door, wrapped up in her fiancé’s arms. “At least one of us should be getting fucked tonight.” 

-

You’ve acted in enough dramas to know how to manufacture chemistry with anyone, but it’s a little extra effective with Wendy; the two of you aren’t scared to touch each other, giggle together like you’re in on a dirty, private joke, ignore that there’s anyone else in the room. You’re codependent, and she’s gorgeous, crop top revealing her toned stomach, plenty of places to trace with your fingertips. It’s easy to put on a show. And it’s not at all a subtle one; Wendy’s got an arm around your waist in turn, murmuring something in your ear, lips brushing your jaw when she pulls back. Transforming every touch into something intimate, suggestive. 

“I really don’t think you need to be doing all this,” says Wendy, as you wind a lock of her hair around your finger, flutter your eyelashes like she’s flirting. “Seulgi’s already cheated on Irene with you twice. Doesn’t that already prove enough?” 

“No,” you say, stare purposely focused on her mouth. It’s pettier than that, anyway. See me with someone else, you’re thinking; see how you like it. It’s a thought that’d be understandable if you were trying to stick it to Irene right now, instead of a girl you’ve met (and fucked) twice, but- “Is she looking?” 

“Oh, yeah.” Wendy’s grinning, unable to work her lips into a sultry kind of pout; it’s something she’d be able to do on stage, but it’s different when she’s back here on earth with the rest of you. “And I think she’s gonna wring my fucking neck.” 

You throw a glance over your shoulder. Seulgi’s still over in the kitchen, jaw flat and eyes trained on you without a cover, no façade in sight. She’s getting that look on her face - the one that says she’s gonna fucking strangle you for this - and the way her fingers flex outwards instead of curling to fists - saying if I do, you’re gonna beg for more. It’s working. Of course it’s working. Seulgi’s fingers are trembling a little bit, restless; desperate for a vice, you or her nicotine. What’s worse, really. 

“How far are you willing to go for this?” you ask, hand falling to cup Wendy’s cheek. 

“As far as you want.” Wendy’s always game, and she’s spent a few too many nights alone. She’s got her own points to prove. 

“Great,” you say, smiling. “Kiss me.” 

“So romantic,” says Wendy, but she does it anyway. 

-

It’s not like you haven’t done it before, but it’s different under the influence - under alcohol, under Seulgi’s stare burning a hole in your back, under the cover of darkness like you’ve never shone under spotlights - and it works. 

“Oh, man,” says Wendy, pulling back, sliding a hand through your hair; your lip gloss glimmers on her bottom lip. “We’re fucked up. And I think I need to stop before Seulgi actually puts out a hit on me.” 

“She shouldn’t care,” you say, innocuous, tracing Wendy’s sides with your fingertips. “She has a girlfriend. Why should she give a fuck who I’m making out with?” 

“We’re not making out,” says Wendy. She’s got glittering eyeshadow on the inner corners of both eyes, sparkling in low light. You think of city streets and skylines, her face on billboards, her voice on the radio, how her fans would froth at the mouths if they could see her like this. “I kissed you once.” 

“We’re not making out yet,” you correct her. 

“Well, in that case,” says Wendy, and pulls you back in. 

(By the back door, Park Sooyoung’s watching the both of you, lips pressed together in a thin line, blinking fast as if unable to reconcile what she’s seeing. Unsure of what she really wants, never knowing how to get it. Feelings are funny like that.)

-

It’s only a matter of time, but it always is. 

come outside, the text from a number you don’t recognize reads. i’m taking you home. 

seems like a bad idea to hitch a ride home with a stranger, you respond right away, knowing even with the anonymity, fingertips trembling like your entire body aches to scream her name. Wendy’s got an arm around your waist, the two of you tucked in a corner and talking to one of her friends; she reads the texts over your shoulder and laughs out loud. You add, i’m famous or whatever. there are a lot of people who want to hurt me. 

yeah, is the only response, like a threat in itself. you’re right. they do. 

-

You don’t know what Seulgi tells Irene to get away with this, but it doesn’t really matter. 

“Oh, wow,” you say, as you make it down the driveway just to see her already standing by the front gate. She’s got her phone in her hand and a sleek black car idling on the curb. “What a coincidence. You know, I just got this text from this person who’s clearly stalking me, wanted to take me home with them - so crazy, seriously, fans these days-”

“Get in the fucking car,” Seulgi snaps, voice deadly low; closes her fingers around your wrist and tugs.

She doesn’t leave you any room to argue, but it’s not like you would, regardless - you wouldn’t leave even if she’d let you. 

So you’re piling into the backseat of the car, and the second the door shuts, windows tinted, she curls her fingers in your hair and kisses you. Desperately, like she’s been wanting to the moment she saw you, right when you walked in a room; possessive and sloppy, the taste of her mouth, the bite of alcohol - oh, she’s drunk, she can’t curb a single impulse like this. Knuckles bone-white and every breath like a gasp; you’re losing your mind already, inhibitions like a foreign language, something you could never really get a grasp on. She sighs right on your tongue, sharing air like a necessity. The car starts moving. Nothing registers but her. 

“You’re such a fucking brat,” says Seulgi roughly, fingers tangled in the flimsy strap of your top. “I don’t give you attention for one night and you start throwing yourself at anyone desperate enough to fucking touch you-”

“Are you jealous?” you taunt, asking for it. “Even though you were there with your girlfriend?” 

Her gaze locks on yours. Pupils drowning her irises. Staring at the flick of her tongue against her teeth. Other hand on your thigh, underneath your skirt. 

And then she wraps one hand in the fabric of your tights and tears. 

All the air vacates your lungs, a head-rush if there ever was one - and now she’s got complete access to everything she wants, your thong, the way she can probably see how you’re soaking through it. You get out shakily, like it’s what matters: “Those were expensive.” 

“Darling,” says Seulgi, smugly arrogant, “I’m pretty sure I can afford to buy you new ones.” 

Her ego shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but it is. You’re squirming in place, begging to be touched; you’d let her fuck you right here in the back of this car with her driver stone-faced at the wheel, let heat fog up the windows, let it be a sex scene straight out of some filthy erotic art film, you squealing and cumming all over the leather seats - but you’ve been bad, Seulgi murmurs against your ear, and so you can wait. She’s thumbing your cunt through your panties, agonizingly slow, forcing you to grind down against her fingers. Anything for friction, for pressure, for her hands right where you want them-

“You make me kind of insane,” she mumbles against your mouth, a break in the character, revelation of the truth. Pulls back with her lips swollen and red. “God. I just wanna do super fucked up things to you, all the time.” 

“Then do them,” you breathe out, and Seulgi smiles widely, teeth glinting like they’re coated in venom. 

You don’t fuck in the car, but it’s close. Her driver doesn’t say a thing. That’s something you’ve all come to know, early on in this world: money can buy anything, especially silence. It’s the only way you’ll ever make it out of this alive. 

-

Finally, she takes you home. 

-

Your first thought is that it’s fucking unbelievable.

You’re so used to McMansions and penthouse apartments, sterile and unwelcoming - but Seulgi’s place is artsy and cluttered like she’s an ancient, eccentric billionaire instead of a twentysomething movie star. Strange intricate sculptures and colorful throw pillows. Paintings covering the walls that seem vaguely obscene. Sprawling plush rugs, overgrown plants situated at almost every corner in glazed terracotta pots, vines weaving their way towards the floor, over windowsills. A few very elaborate-looking cat trees, dangling with lilac fabric flowers and strung up with tiny plush bees. The view’s stunning. It’s not the only thing. 

“Whoa,” you say, forgetting you’re supposed to be begging for forgiveness, or something. “The feng shui of this house is, like, nuts.”

“Thanks,” says Seulgi, mildly endeared and holding your hand, like she’s accidentally forgotten the same thing. 

But it doesn’t last long - she drops to her knees right there in the entryway and works your boots off of you, one leg at a time - her heels are undoubtedly thousands of dollars, but she discards them like they’re nothing, lets them clatter across the floor. You don’t even make it to the bedroom before she’s got your skirt rucked up around your waist and she’s pulling at your ruined tights; off, she’s saying, standing, mouthing at your neck, I need them off - and you’re too needy and pliant underneath her, too ready and desperate to be ruined. “Mommy,” you’re saying, making your eyes big, tapping into every trick of the trade, “mommy, I’m so wet-” 

And there’s the sharp sound of her hand colliding hard with your cheek. 

“I don’t wanna hear it,” drawls Seulgi, tone slipping low and deadly, and drags you up the stairs. 

You don’t have time to catalog the rest of the feng shui - you would if you could - because the second you hit her bedroom Seulgi’s tugging at the rest of your clothes, lifting your shirt overhead, unclasping your bra; you’re pawing at her in a similarly insatiable way, hands unbuttoning her blouse, yanking at that goddamned schoolgirl skirt, entranced by the look on her face: lips bitten, cheeks flushed, painstakingly pretty. Like you might be ruining you as much as you’re ruining her. I’m so sorry, you’re blubbering, as her nails scrape at you, mommy, I know I was bad-

“And you know what happens to bad girls, right?” 

Yes, you’re thinking, staring up at her with watery eyes - oh, yeah, you know how this ends. 

Stomach-first on Seulgi’s lap, for one. Soaked and trembling on top of her, drenched through your thong. Gasping because you can’t quite catch your breath. That’s how it goes with sex, with her, like you can never get your fucking bearings, like you never know when she’s gonna strike-

“Here’s the thing about you,” you hear Seulgi say, one hand stroking gently through your hair, voice suddenly soothing. “You’re never gonna learn how to behave unless I teach you, huh?”

-and that’s right when the flat of her palm comes down on your ass. 

Tears spring to your eyes immediately. “Fuck-”

“Oh, baby girl.” Her hand’s back in your hair. Click of her tongue against teeth. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” 

Another one, the loud crack of her hand. You flinch violently, wriggling in her lap - she gives a tiny laugh, loving it, yanking a little on your hair. She says, in a rasp: “And you’re so wet, aren’t you?”

It’s barely a question. You’re leaking through your thong, dripping onto her thighs. She’ll probably make you lick it up later, make you face it, take it. You can’t hide forever, she’ll say. I see what all of this does to you. 

Seulgi leans down, rubbing her hand up your spine, fist clutching at your hair. “You can’t be acting like a whore in public like that, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “It’s unflattering.” 

You can’t speak, squirming and humiliated, embarrassing whines tearing their way out of your mouth, out of your control. You’re shuddering, you’re pathetic, seconds from coming apart at the seams; her fingertips skate back down, circle your ass, threatening to hit. She’ll hurt you and you’ll like it, she knows. You already do. 

“In private - I mean, do whatever you want.” Another hit, then another - you’re crying now, dizzy and light-headed - you’ve never been more wet in your fucking life. “That’s how you got so far in this industry, isn’t it? You just let everybody take a turn with this slutty fucking cunt. That’s how you get all your jobs, right?” Seulgi’s palm rubs the length of your cunt, harsh and rough; the apartment’s crumbling, foundation tearing itself up - she hits you again - leave as many bruises as you want, you think of saying, give me something that’ll haunt me when you leave, please - “I mean, I already know you like fucking people with experience.”

And it’s a vile thing to say, it’s so sick, and so not true. You’re a superstar, you should have your own level of ego, should fight allegations like those - but the truth is the only star left in the room is above you, laughing as your pussy leaks all over her thighs. She adjusts your body in her lap like you’re made for her to manhandle, turns you until she can see your face, the tear tracks on your cheeks. 

Your eyes on her, never snapping away. Do whatever you want to me, you’re saying, I’ll take it. 

“Like a good girl,” Seulgi interprets.

“Yeah,” you say, hoarse and already gone. “Like a good girl.” 

(If you’re gonna make all the wrong choices, you might as well make it worth your while.)

-

Seulgi makes you cum first - and then second, and then third - with her hand forcing you down by your hipbone, lips at your navel and trailing downwards, lips wrapping around your clit and sucking. It’s somehow filthier fucking her in her own bed, no public bathrooms or images to keep clean: she makes you cum and cum until she emerges with her chin glistening and a feral smirk on her face, pleased with her handiwork, the half-moon crescents of her nails against your thighs, the way you can’t stop whining. 

“Oh, baby,” she sighs after, at the look on your face, spaced out and wrecked. “Did mommy work you too hard?” Rubs a wet hand along your ribs, uncaring of the way she smears your own cum along your skin. “I thought you said you could take it.” 

“I can,” you say, vehement, trembling all over. Prop yourself up on your elbows, breathless, and say: “I can give it pretty good, too, mommy.” Lean forward, capture her mouth against yours, tasting your own cunt. “If you’ll let me.” 

Clutches the headboard and sits on your face, hips rocking against your mouth, your tongue lapping greedily at her cunt, dripping cum all over your jaw - she cums once and you push her to the bed, work your fingers in the tight wet heat of her pussy, say mommy, I just wanna make you feel good. Thumb circling her hard little clit, fingers curling inside her, punching out full-hearted moans from her slick mouth. You’re supposed to be a pillow princess, probably, that’s absolutely your archetype - begging for a girl’s fingers or mouth, getting fucked into oblivion and calling it there - but you’ve always been greedier than you should be, needing to take and own and touch and fuck. And Seulgi’s so fucking sensitive. 

“That’s my girl,” Seulgi’s saying, one hand wound in your hair, syrupy-sweet; she won’t raise her voice anymore when it’s like this, when you’ve been good, when you’re seconds from making her cum again. She knows when you deserve the praise. “God, fuck-”

You push her to orgasm over and over until she hits her own limit, shoves you to the bed and says, Jesus, I can’t, I can’t. Ends it by taking your wrist and dragging your fingers into her mouth, tongue laving over her own cum, stringing sticky over your hand. Looks right at you the whole time, perched on your thigh, breathtaking. She’s smaller than you, but you never feel it. Like without trying, she could bring the whole world to her feet and make them beg for salvation - like without effort, she owns you. 

“I’d ask you who taught you to eat pussy like that,” Seulgi tells you, voice gravelly from moaning, “but I think I probably already know the answer.” 

It leaves you giggling, nose against her neck, consumed by her. It’s a fucked up thing to joke about, but it’s just one more thing to add to the list. 

-

(It’s hysterical, because she’s the one who should be begging for salvation - no one needs to repent more than she does. Oh, well. She’s about to spend all night on her knees, worshipping; if she’s right and God gets her, then it’s possible God can let this one slide, just this once.) 

-

Afterwards - ah, you know what they say. Third time’s the fucking charm. 

-

You don’t really mean to stay the night, but it happens anyway. Maybe you’re learning to pick your battles. You’ve made it this far giving into every stupid impulse - you know what you want, so why fight it, really. 

Seulgi’s something of a miracle to witness, first thing in the morning: gorgeous and completely dead to the world, streaks of eyeliner smeared across her closed eyes, foundation shiny and worn, whatever was left of her lipstick staining her pillowcase. Everyone’s favorite movie star, so utterly human. She’ll probably break out from falling asleep in her makeup. You probably will, too. 

“Seulgi.” 

You stretch, disentangle yourself from her; you’re sore in all the most satisfying ways, ass a stinging mess. Seulgi shifts in lieu of a response, hums, clearly a light sleeper. A smile flickers at her mouth. 

“Seulgi,” you say again, brattier, and bury your face in her hair. 

It does the trick: her name, your tone. “Kid,” Seulgi says, curving to make space for you, voice hoarse from sleep, like she’s retaliating. Then, with a laugh, eyes blinking open: “I can’t believe you stayed.” 

You pull back just to cock your head at her, assessing intention. She reaches out a hand under the sheets and grazes your bare thigh. Like she’s trying to see if she’s sleepwalking, lucid dreaming - her subconscious knows what she wants; it’ll cater to her. Sometimes she touches you like she’s not convinced you’re real. Sometimes you think you do the same for her. 

“Did you want me to leave?” you ask, grinning, somehow already knowing the answer. 

“No,” Seulgi says, anyway. Smile sleepy and stunning, a glimpse of the sun in the room with you. “Stay as long as you want.” 

It’s a blatant lie, but a heart-stoppingly sweet one. Actresses, you think, disparagingly, and lean in to kiss her mouth. “Bullshit,” you say, calling her on it. 

But she’s giggling in that way she only does when it’s real, and so you slip back between the sheets, letting her arm fall comfortably over your waist. Let the other actors carry on without you; let the plot shift around you as it goes, improvisational; let it leave you be. Oh, you don’t deserve this kind of reprieve, not by a long shot. Somehow, it’s still what you’ve got.

(Because the truth is that the moment she takes you home, it’s already over. It’s one thing to keep an affair like this confined to public bathrooms and dark corners - it’s another to hold its hand, wrap it up in her bed, let it sneak into the sheets and spend the night. Look, you’ve seen all the movies: there’s no feel-good film that lets people like you and her win. But the tape’s still rolling: there are still people listening in, sound technicians with boom mics, directors monitoring your work. We’ve set you free, let you play it by ear, they’re saying - impress me, come on, show me something good. Give me an answer that’ll satisfy an audience. You’ve made it this far, haven’t you?)

Stay, Seulgi says, like she’s even got a right to ask. Stay, she says, so you do. 

-

Fine. The truth can wait for another day, after all. You’ll just have to let it haunt you until then. 

-

obligatory author does not condone cheating and homewrecking disclaimer here. also this is another case of me intending this to be a one-shot and then it got too long..... okay the part 2 will come eventually i SWEAR!!!! if you made it here thanks for reading 24k words of fuckery and brainrot ily <3

[corazondebeskar-reads]

you know you never stood a chance - epilogue

you know you never stood a chance series

epilogue: maybe light a candle

series masterlist | prev chapter 

Joel Miller x f!reader

Words: 2.9k

Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and Joel hasn't come home yet. (this takes place about three years after the end of the main story.)

Warnings: established relationship, angst, christmas in the apocalypse, technically spoilers for tlou pt 2, mentions of breastfeeding (not as a fetish), found family, poor communication, oral (f receiving), postpartum depression, possibly violating child labor laws by using a baby as a plot device, pls remember I am playing fast and loose with both canon and the timelines lol

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

It’s Christmas Eve.

Or, at least, according to the council. You’re not sure if anyone is really sure what the date is anymore.

But for all intents and purposes, maybe it’s Christmas Eve. The holiday is a thin, moth-bitten version of its former self, but you’ve never been the holly-jolly or the religious sort, so Christmas Lite suits you just fine.

Maria had invited you and Lulu to the mess hall for a big meal and activities for the kids. It was less of an invitation than an expectation, but you stayed home anyway.

And maybe it wasn’t fair. Maybe she wanted you there for the same reason you didn’t want to be there. She’s fucking tough, maybe the strongest person you know, but she has to be feeling Tommy’s absence today, too. It isn’t Aléjandra’s first Christmas, but likely the first one she’ll remember, which is worse.

But it’s more than it just being Lulu’s first Christmas. It’s that Maria had made a point of telling you that Ellie would be there.

You prepare to watch her leave for the night. The light pours in the window when she opens the shed door, and you know she can see your shadow haunting the living room.

You want Ellie to meet her sister. You dream of it nearly every night. But there’s no way in hell you’re doing it without Joel. It’d break his heart. You like to think she knows, at least. Someone (probably Tommy) had to have told her.

So when she climbs the steps instead of walking past, you freeze. Her knuckles rap against the wood, and you close your eyes. You can’t. You need to, but you can’t.

“Maria asked me to remind you that you promised to come by tonight,” she calls through the door.

She knows you can hear her. She knows you choose not to respond (but she doesn’t know you bite your lip so hard to resist that it bleeds).

It would be wrong. But the ache is so strong you’re convinced it must be a physical wound.

She leaves.

“There goes Ellie,” you tell the baby, as you always do. “She’s got places to be, but she loves you very much.” The guilt of keeping them apart makes you nauseous.

Maybe it isn’t true yet, but you think it is. You think, despite everything, despite the anger she harbors for Joel (and a fragment of that for you), that she already loves her sister. Even if she’s only the shadow of a sister spied through dark windows and across the street.

You wonder if she knows her name. Tommy had started the whole “Lulu” thing, and though it had grown on you now, it made you suspect he hadn’t thought to mention she had a real, full name.

Luna Luann. Luna, for Ellie, and Luann for Joel’s favorite tía, the one who smuggled them chewing gum and taught Joel his strong right hook when the other kids were picking on Tommy.

You’d take this secret to the grave, but you hated the name Luann. But when he brought up the suggestion, he had talked about her for nearly twenty minutes, and so you love the woman despite her name, just for the way she brought a little more of Joel out.

You thought they’d be home by Christmas. You’re trying not to worry, but worrying’s one of the things you’re good at. It doesn’t help that you’re still struggling. You’ve been told it’s normal, but these last two weeks with Joel gone have been so hard.

She’s cutting a tooth (her very first), and you can barely catch a break. You sleep when she sleeps, but it’s never enough. A few neighbors have been bringing casseroles still, and it’s the only reason you’ve been eating.

So, you think it’s probably understandable that you crumble after you watch Ellie walk away and Luna starts to cry. The lights are out except for the single candle in the front window. You keep it lit all night in case Joel comes home. A beacon.

If you had a widow’s walk, you’d be haunting it. But you’re not a widow—couldn’t be, you’re not even a wife—and he’ll be fine. He’ll come back.

Joel always comes back.

It might be Christmas Eve, and you’re slumped against the wall of your living room, crying in tandem with your infant. There’s nothing wrong, you checked. It’s so much worse that she’s probably just picking up on your mood.

You orbit around each other that way. She is the sun that you and Joel revolve around, but his absence has sent you both off balance.

The sun might be the more accurate comparison, but you usually like to say Lulu, your Luna, was your moon, and Joel was the sun. He disagrees. He says he’s the rock, and you are her light.

It was profoundly beautiful, but none of the concepts held up to the reality. The truth was that you were a constellation, but without Ellie, you made no recognizable form. Sagitta with one feather, an arrow that can never fly true.

When you settle down to sniffles and the errant tear, Lulu has fallen asleep against your chest. You creep upstairs and lay her in the crib squeezed between the bed and the wall.

The room was plenty large, and part of it had been set up as a nursery. But after she was born, you spent each night on the floor next to the crib.

Joel hadn’t been having that. After the first week, he sat you down and asked if you’d be able to sleep in the bed if she was next to you.

And then he just… built a second, smaller crib. One that fits right up against your side of the mattress. It was low to the ground, so all you had to do was reach down, and you could feel her little chest rise and fall, or scoop her up to nurse her in the middle of the night. She’ll grow out of it fast, but by then, you hope you’ll feel secure enough to move her to the big one just across the room.

You had been embarrassed. Didn’t want anyone to know. After all, mothers had been putting their children to sleep in different rooms for ages. But you weren’t afraid to tell Joel, knew if there was anyone in this town that understood, it’d be him (and Maria).

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with keepin’ your baby close,” he said, as gruff and blunt as always.

When Joel comes home, he finds you that way. On your side, arm dangling into the crib with Lulu’s tiny fingers wrapped around your own. He sat down and gently tapped your shoulder, trying not to disturb the baby.

“What’re you doin’ here, darlin’?” he whispers when you stir. You blink up at him through sore eyes, then smile softly, sending his heart skittering.

“You’re home,” you say, extracting your finger and sitting up to reach for him.

He wraps you in his arms, lets you burrow into the nest of his broad shoulders. “M’sorry,” he murmurs into your hair, chasing the words with a kiss.

“Tommy okay?”

“Yeah, he’s good. Just hit some delays on the way home. Bridge was out. I thought y’all were going to the party?”

You don’t answer right away. You know he’ll feel bad. That he does feel bad, that the guilt eats a little part of him each day. All he wants is his girls all together.

“I was,” you mumble, feeling the tears prick with a vengeance. “But Maria said… Maria said that Ellie would be there.”

Joel’s arms squeeze you a little tighter for a moment. “Y’know I don’t want to get in the way of you talkin’ to her.”

“I know. But after last time… she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore, anyway.”

“She’ll come around,” Joel says.

It reignites a new round of self-hatred, that he’s sitting here consoling you. After all, she had spoken to you after their fight. Sat down and told you she wasn’t mad at you, that she knew he probably didn’t even tell you.

And he hadn’t told you, hadn’t clued you in, trying in his foolhardy way to spare you the burden of the lie. And you were mad at him for it; you’d had your own spat after.

But you weren’t mad he did it. Not one bit.

He can tell you don’t want to keep talking about it, and that’s fine by him.

“You miss me, baby?” he murmurs, a teasing brush of his lips over your neck.

You roll your eyes. “Oh no, did you have to go two weeks without gettin’ laid?”

He chuckles, dark and raspy, as he reaches to cup your ass and squeeze, smirking when you gasp.

“And you’re tellin’ me those little fingers were enough for your greedy cunt? Like ya ain’t droolin’ for my cock right now?”

You whimper. He’s right. Two weeks is too fucking long for either of you.

He tugs you properly into his lap, legs wrapped around his waist, before he just stands up and carries you into the guest room across the hall. It’s not ideal, but if you leave both doors open, you’ll be able to hear Luna if she wakes.

“How’ve you not thrown your back out?” you grumble as he manhandles you.

He tosses you onto the bed, already peeling off his clothes and pointedly ignoring you.

He’s halfway through tugging his jeans down when he stops and looks at you. “What’re you doing? Let me see ya, sweetheart.”

You’ve long gotten over how easy you are for him. You only hadn’t stripped yet because you wanted to work him up. “You can see me just fine. Or do you need your glasses, old man?”

He takes the bait, shaking his head, before looming over you and running his hands down the sides of his old shirt you use for a nightgown. He barely grazes your breasts, just brushing the tips of your hardened nipples and grinning when you whine.

“Up,” he orders, tugging at the hem of the shirt.

You lift enough for him to pull it off and flop back down. It’s your turn to smirk as he watches the way your tits bounce with deep hunger.

And then he fucking rips the along the side of your panties and pulls them off, throwing them to the floor.

“Hey!”

“Shut up, you can sew ‘em back.”

“I’ve already sewn that pair twice, Joel. You’re a fuckin’ menace.”

“Is that so?” Suddenly his breath is hot against your cunt, and you clench around nothing.

“Uh-huh,” you moan as he runs one finger along the seam of your cunt. “‘Cause you’re a menace.”

“Only for you, darlin’.”

You laugh. “Oh yeah? Let me do a survey around town.”

He shuts you up by sliding two fingers right into your cunt, the stretch almost too much. Almost. But you don’t really notice because he buries his face between your lips, and any sassy remark comes out in a desperate cry.

He pulls away and gives you a warning look, head tilted. His free hand comes up to cover your mouth, thick fingers clamping down and digging into your cheek. It makes you moan, but it also muffles it, so it works out fine.

“If you want your turn, you gotta be quiet. Otherwise, I’ll just have mine and shut you up proper.”

You choke down the moan dredged up by the thought of his cock down your throat and make the saddest pleading eyes you can muster.

He rolls his, shaking his head, before he goes back to your neglected clit.

You’re close, so close when you hear it. You pat Joel’s head, sitting up. “Was that the door?”

The shift is immediate. Three years in town has allowed Joel to relax somewhat, sometimes, but he slips back into it in an instant. He pulls back, brow furrowed, squinting like it’ll help him hear better.

It comes again, louder this time, insistent enough for him to pick up. A firm knocking.

There’s a pause, but Joel’s already on his feet, pulling his clothes back on. He tosses your shirt over as he ducks out of the doorway and you’re slipping it over your head when whoever is outside grows impatient.

Rapid, furious banging rattles the door, and you dart across the hall to shut the bedroom, but it’s too late.

Lulu starts wailing immediately, her little face scrunched up, nose wrinkling, and tears pouring out faster than a faucet. You scoop her up and soothe her, cradling her as she finds solace for her hurt feelings and empty stomach.

Joel goes downstairs, partly to shut up the racket but mostly because the sound fills him with dread. When he opens the door, it flings wide, and the tirade begins immediately.

Ellie storms in, already yelling. “—could you? What the fuck is wrong with you? You won’t even let her come out for fuckin’ Christmas because she might see me?”

You’re going down the stairs as soon as you hear her voice, but she stops yelling when she sees you on the landing.

“It’s not his fault,” you say, face hot with frustration and raw hurt. You hate the way your eyes water.

“Like hell, it isn’t. Maria said you were going to come, that one of you might actually have the balls to tell me you had a fuckin’ baby, and—”

“And I decided not to go, Ellie. Joel wasn’t even home. He didn’t know.”

Lulu has started to cry again, distracted from nursing by your ire. You murmur apologies, kissing the little tuft of dark hair on her head, and try to coax her back to your breast.

Ellie’s eyes are wide, and feet planted, ratty sneakers dripping filthy snow across the floor. Her mouth hangs open as she takes in the tiny, ruddy creature who finally agreed to return to her meal.

“Hey, Ellie. We had a fuckin’ baby,” Joel says after the silence hangs for a minute too long.

The bark of laughter that bursts out of her looks like it hurts, but she can’t fight it. The tension dissolves into absurdity and then tears.

Ellie sits on the ground instead of the perfectly nice sofa to her left. You come down the stairs and sit beside her.

You look up at Joel, and he nods. You wish he’d come sit, but he’s too afraid to break the peace. “Would you like to hold your sister?” you ask Ellie, keeping your voice low and steady.

“Can I? I mean… what if I break her?”

“She’s pretty tough.” Lulu is done eating, just suckling for comfort, so you pry her off your breast and tug your shirt back up.

Joel takes her without thinking, leaning her against his shoulder to help her work out the air.

Once she gives a satisfactory belch, he thrusts her at Ellie, who’s startled enough to take her without thinking about it.

You all hold very still. Except Lulu, who is blissfully unaware of the strife and coos up at her big sister. She bats a little hand at her face, smacking her nose in an attempt to grab on. Ellie laughs, and her smile, her perfect smile that you haven’t seen in a year, breaks out.

You can’t help it; you start crying. Ellie looks up in alarm, but Joel shakes his head, moving closer to rub your shoulder.

“It’s not you,” he says solemnly, “it’s just hard, after.” He gestures at the baby.

“It is you,” you say, and Joel scrubs a hand over his face with a soft groan. “It’s—I’m sorry, I just—”

Ellie’s looking like she might make a break for it. She tries to hand the baby back to Joel, who refuses.

You get ahold of yourself. “It’s not bad, Ellie. I’ve just been waiting for this since she was born.”

Ellie softens and then scowls. “Then you should have told me. You should have told me you were pregnant in the first place. I said you could talk to me.”

“No, I couldn’t,” and you pause as she shoots a dirty look at Joel. “No, not because of him. Because I would have done the same damn thing, so you may as well hate me too.”

“What?” She seems genuinely shocked, which you don’t have the patience for.

“I would do the same damn thing. If I had been there, there would have been nothin’ in the fuckin’ world keeping me from getting to you, Ellie. Nothing short of death. Not then, not now. I’d do it for her, too.”

The room is stifling, and Joel hasn’t even lit the hearth yet. Your breath comes out in little puffs, and every one of you has wet, devastated eyes. Even Lulu, who looks like she might be the first to break into tears.

Ellie looks down and sighs. “So, Lulu, huh?”

“Actually,” Joel says, and chances a step closer, squatting down. “It’s Luna. Luna Luann. Tommy’s just an idiot.”

Ellie’s a smart kid. You can see the moment it clicks—the way she looks up at Joel with something akin to hope. It fades quickly, but you know he saw it, too. His own staggering heart, heavy with love unspoken, is betrayed in the way he has to fight a smile, choke down the relief. Maybe, just maybe.

Maybe next year, you’ll get a tree.

thank you all so, so much.

*title from "Alone This Holiday" by The Used

[dumplingsjinson]

hii :) can you make some prompts where one of them is a ghost and the other human?

List of “you took ghosting to another level, didn’t you?” prompts 

“It kinda sucks that no one can see you the way I see you.” “I— you know what? Fuck you.”

“I can’t see or hear you but I know you’re in here, and you’d better stop fucking messing with me or I’ll kick you out of this house! I’m not scared of you!”  

“Just because you owned this place before doesn’t mean you get to terrorise me like this.” 

“Why would you let someone else into this house?!” “Because they’re my partner?! You’re the one who shouldn’t be here with us. Like… The grave site’s calling your name.” 

“People are going to think I’m insane if they catch me talking to you…”

“Stop bumping into me, you’re icy cold!” “I’m sorry! You’re just shitty at walking in a straight line.” 

“I wanna… I wanna be able to touch you…” “…But you can’t.”

“You’re haunting someone who didn’t even know you before you became a ghost.” 

“Well, I kinda wish I knew you when you were still, you know… Alive. And warm to touch.” 

“You were less annoying when you were alive.” 

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Call Mom

CW: PTSD/flashbacks, BBU in general, haunted, ghosts, reference to a murder, severe chronic panic

Jameson's Masterlist (scroll down)

-

Aw, crap. Hey, Johnny, do you remember where I put that girl's number? Like, Katie, or Caitlyn, or... do you remember? Hey! Johnny! Put down the fucking xbox controller for two fucking minutes and give me a hand, won't you?

Fingers snap right in front of his face.

Johnny!

Jameson jerks in a breath that sounds like a whine, sitting straight up. The fan blows cool air over his sweat-soaked skin and he shivers, cold inside and out. The air in his room is freezing, suddenly. Outside it's so dark you can't even see the trees - the power outage must still be going, there aren't any streetlights. Thanks to the clouds, no stars or moon, either.

Just darkness.

Wait, if the electricity's out...

He looks up. The ceiling fan is perfectly still above his head, even while ice-cold air keeps goosebumps rising on his arms, the hair standing up at the back of his neck.

See, was that so hard? It'll take like five minutes if we work together, I swear.

"Nat?" He mumbles. "S'at... you?"

Checked there already, actually. Checked the fridge, too, so where the hell did I put it?

He's the only person in this room.

Jameson goes from still half-asleep to fully, painfully awake and aware in a single breath.

The voice comes as clear as if it was right next to him, a voice as familiar as his own - but he has no idea whose it is. There's no one here but him - even Trash Cat isn't here any longer, probably hunting a tiny piece of plastic downstairs that he'll end up stepping on in the morning. So far she hasn't eaten any of them. He doesn't even know where she's finding them.

Johnny, come on. Let's, like, retrace our steps.

His head starts to ache more with every single word, the pain working like tendrils behind his eyes, a pressure trying to crush his skull from the inside. Something flashes, bright and almost like a spectrum of rainbow colors, in the corner of his right eye, but it won't resolve when he turns his head.

I got home from work, I told you we had a hot customer who gave me her number, and then... then what?

Jameson stares into darkness so complete it feels like it has weight. Like it's sitting on the bed next to him, like the mattress dips underneath it. A body made of memory, slowly pulling together the pieces of what's been hidden. Clawing them out but leaving deep weals across the inside of his mind, like a corpse's fingers digging into loose dirt to climb out of his grave.

"Caitlyn," He whispers, as the thought crystallizes. A memory, pure and perfect. Some sliver of whatever they broke the person he was into. Some small piece of the man who signed up. "Her name was Caitlyn, not Katie. She... wrote it on the fucking paper."

Right! Okay, so, clearly I told you her name, and then what?

Jameson turns his head, and there he is.

Hank.

His breath catches in his throat.

Hank is younger than he is, even though he was older then. The older brother, trapped in time, while Jameson - Jonathan - keeps aging. The rakish smile is still there and, Christ, Jameson had forgotten that he'd done that stupid thing to his hair - you forgot everything about him, you begged them to take him away from you so that it wouldn't hurt anymore. He's still got that one crooked tooth he'd refused to get braces to fix. That crooked tooth had been in his dental records. It was how they identified his body.

The fucking crooked tooth, the silver-colored fillings, then the DNA tests...

"No," He whispers, going for a vicious hiss, but what comes out is far too close to a whimper. "No. This is-... this is a flashback. This isn't real, this isn't-"

Maybe I left it in yesterday's pants?

"This isn't real, fuck off." Jameson shoves himself off the bed, forgetting his stupid fucking legs don't work. His knees buckle as soon as they have to take his weight.

He lands wrong on one arm and the pain spikes up through his shoulder, making him cry out in the hoarse, rasping voice that his life has left him with. "Fuck!"

He rolls onto his side, but he can't stop himself.

He looks up again. He doesn't want to remember Hank but he's desperate for one more look at his face. Just the one more time.

Just once more.

Hank sighs, raking a hand back through his hair, leaving it mussed-up and sticking out, looking ridiculous. He did that all the time. Bit his nails, too, and tried everything to stop but he never did. He wore those jeans with the ripped knee all the time, their mother had hated it. Hank, wearing the t-shirt for the band they'd gotten concert tickets for but never got the chance to see. Hank, dead for years, smiles to one side at a brother who isn't there.

The brother who erased him.

"Hank," He whispers. "Hank, you gotta-... you gotta go. You're hurting me-"

Damn. Man, it wasn't in my jeans either. Well, I'll find it sooner or later, I guess. Hank shrugs. His eyes are in shadow, not quite defined. Jameson wonders if it's because he's forgotten what color his brother's eyes were, forgotten it deeply enough that even this can't pull it back.

It'll be okay, Johnny. It really will. Hank looks right at him. Jameson's breath catches in his throat. The room is so cold the air burns as he breathes. It never gets this cold in California. It can't be this cold in California. I mean it. Don't cry yourself to sleep over this.

"I cried myself to sleep... all the time, but I don't now. I'm not-... that guy." He can barely speak. He sees his breath puff out when his lips move, and Jameson slumps back. His voice cracks, it creaks like old floors. He didn't stop crying for weeks. He didn't leave his bed. He did any drug he could find trying to not think about Hank, until he realized there was only one way to make sure he never had to think about what he'd done, by letting Hank walk home alone that one night, again. He didn't want to think about that pain anymore.

They had promised him he wouldn't ever have to hurt like this again.

They lied about that, too.

Jameson makes a sound he refuses to admit is a choked-off sob. "I'm not him, Hank. I'm not Johnny... not anymore."

Hank stands, and it's impossible. He's not here. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Jameson takes it without thinking. Hank's grip is so cold it burns, but Jameson lets his dead brother pull him to his feet anyway.

He smells like earth and ice.

"I'm not him," He whispers.

Right, like that argument ever works. Hank just grins, shaking his head. The man Jameson was - the one he had begged to leave behind - is the reason Hank will look like this in his memories forever. He's the reason there isn't another Hank, only this one, locked in the memories he wanted to boil and burn out of his own head. They're still there, though. They break through.

They never stop breaking through.

He would crawl back into Robert's cage himself if it only meant he didn't have to remember that it's his fault Hank is dead.

Tears run hot down his cheeks - the only thing in him that isn't frozen is his grief, wildfire in his chest leaving nothing but ash behind. Forests after wildfires are ghosts, Hank said once, when they were both high and everything sounded fucking important.

Jameson had called him an idiot - he remembers that now. But... he also thinks Hank was right. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, focusing. He isn't here. Hank cannot be here. "I don't remember... remember you-... I don't want to remember you! It was my choice to forget!"

Hank claps him on the shoulder. His smile goes briefly gentle and soft. Jameson can see it with his eyes closed. Whatever you say, man. Just promise me you'll call Mom sometime soon, okay?

The pain is too much. If he can't pass out soon, he might die just from having to experience it, unending, never stopping, rising higher and higher. "Mom...?"

Yeah, dumbass. Mom. Our mother? Who gave birth to us and never lets us fucking forget it? I keep trying to talk to her, but I guess my signal's bad. Hank laughs, and Jameson's whole body breaks with the sound of that familiar laughter. The way Hank could throw his head back without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, how he'd hear that laugh across a crowded room and know it was his brother's, know right where he was.

Until he didn't.

Until nobody did.

Until the cops found what was left.

Until-

Jameson jolts again, and finds himself still lying on the floor next to his bed. He's burning up, boiling hot, pouring sweat until his sleep shirt sticks to his back and his arms feel slick with it, his hair sticking to skin. A droplet trickles down the back of his neck like a fingertip, barely touching. He rips his shirt off, then his pants, throwing them as far away from himself as he can, until he's naked on the floor but it isn't enough.

He's still sweating, still breathing in harsh gasps, fighting around the strength of his racing heart to get enough air to fill his lungs. He looks frantically around, but no one's here.

The ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

He takes in a breath, his heart pounding. It feels like it's going to grow wings and fly away, up his throat and out of his mouth. He's still crying, he realizes only now. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and fights tears back through sheer willpower and rage, curling his hands into fists. Just like they used to be, his fingers know - muscle memory of mittens that had kept him powerless, once. Now, he does it on purpose, and he forces them to curl through the pain.

Forces down the dream.

Wills himself to forget he ever had it.

"Four... f-four things you can see," he whispers to himself, slumping back down. His voice keeps trembling, catching, and it's everything he has to open his eyes again around the pounding headache in his skull and look. "The-... moon. Out the... window. The, my dresser... for my clothes... M-My, uh, the picture Nat p-printed of me and Allyn... fuck, the... the doorknob."

Every time he thinks he knows how much of his body can hurt at once, some nerves he didn't know existed decide to join the party. He has to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, trying to will his body to cooperate. He won't walk tomorrow, he can tell already. It'll be a day to spend in bed, or using his wheelchair. It might be a week until his body lets him walk again.

He fights back a new well of rage and despair at how well he knows the next way his body will fail him. He can't think about that right now, or the pain and the panic will spiral out of control. He might hurt someone. He can't hurt anyone, not ever again.

He won't.

"Three... things I can touch," He murmurs. "My, my... my shirt, fuck, gross, sweaty... my... my hair... the floor, feels... cold, feels good... the corner of my bed..."

It helps. He makes himself focus on this, on real things, not the nightmare of his brother.

He won't remember his brother.

He won't.

"Two things I can hear. Uh, the, there's... crickets or something outside, and-... and I can hear-"

Hank's voice whispers right next to his ear.

Call Mom.

His breath hitches.

"Not real," he whispers. "One... one thing I can taste..."

All he tastes is blood, and for one horrified half a second he's sure it's Hank's blood, until he realizes he bit his tongue in his sleep.

The blood is his own.

Call Mom.

-

[jadesabbat]

It occured to me today that being kinda shitty online will haunt a person longer than actual crimes will, at least in the us. As an example, let's look at some statutes of limitations in Texas, a state I assume is tough on crime:

Felony theft - 5 years

Arson - 10 years

Forgery - 10 years

Endangering a child - 5 years (or maybe 10? Idk it's listed twice)

Trafficking a child for labor - 20 years after the child turns 18

Being a huge asshole online - Oops that one's not a crime, but people sure will make sure that shit follows you to your damn grave. Once your reputation is sunk, there's rarely a second chance; your name is forever associated with what you were up to when you were a young idiot. I've personally heard people tearing a man to shreds for shit he'd said twenty-two years prior, with no regard for of he'd changed his behavior since. The state of Texas is more forgiving than online social media, and that is so wildly fucked up