#that much to say about it other than ��violence against women is bad actually"

[ladyloveandjustice]

I was stubbornly not wanting to cry at dandadan I was like "single mom doing sex work supporting her child backstory! obviously some guys are gonna come attack her and her kid will die or be taken I've seen this I refuse to cry for this basic ass woman suffers story wanting to tug my heartstrings I REFUSE"

but then it was so well directed and Momo's reaction and the hug and "to a kinder world" and I cried anyway. you win this one dandadan.

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

MASTERLIST HERE

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Hazbins bad character design

I feel like there is a definitive lack of varitey when it comes to the designs in HH as well as a problem of characters' designs not fitting them or what the show wants us to assume about them.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (like lots of other ppl already) but the designs in HH specifically mostly don't work. They're fine if you look at them disconnected from the show. Maybe as just random characters who don't really have to carry a show visually. But they don't work if you actually put them into context and into the background of Hazbin Hotel.

Obviously this stuff is very objective and if you do like the designs thats fine (which I shouldn't even have to say). Also I didn't study art or character design and I don't think you have to to be good at it/be able to form opinions on it and this is mostly just me compiling what I don't like while using some basic knowledge on how shapes, colours etc work.

(rant under the cut)

One problem I really have is, that as soon as you have a design there are immediate assumptions about the character. In the sense that if person A is very muscular and fights against person B, who is maybe slimmer or less buff, you would probably immediately assume that person A wins, atleast in physical combat. Whereas person B would probably be the assumed winner in a stretching or flexibility competition. Often characters are designed with these assumptions in mind. Muscle, height, weight, age, clothes etc. give way into assuming stuff about people, their condition, lifestyle or personality.

The expectations that are set up by the design choices are usually either picked to genuinely represent something about a character or to be subverted and shock/confuse the audience.

Like how a lot of fighting types in Pokémon will either be more muscular or have other details relating to certain fighting styles/sports and the fairy types are usually pinkish, fluffy and cutesy. Because these elements are something typically associated with these types and when we look at them we can pretty easily tell which type they're supposed to be.

Otherwise, Monster girl from Invincible is drawn as a twelve year old girl, so it subverts expectations when she turns into a big green monster and generally doesn't stray away from violence, because it's something you wouldn't have assumed about her from her appearance.

In Hazbin Hotel most of the time the character designs don't necessarily fit what they're supposed to be and they also don't use the other design choices as subversion (the one that would probably count here is Nifty with looking and acting very childlike usually but then also acting violent/crazy sometimes).

The first thing would probably be that characters don't look their age mostly.

Charlie and Valeria (Vaggie, but I really don't wanna keep calling her that so she gets a new name) look fine as they're supposed to be around 20. Rosie and Carmilla also look alright for what we can assume their ages are supposed to be. But Alastor is in his 30s or 40s (what it says on the fandom wiki) and he looks around 20 as well. The same thing goes for Lucifer. He looks so young that he could also count as just Charlies brother or friend rather than her dad, because he doesn't look like he could be the dad of a 20 year old. This makes the song "Hell's Greatest Dad" a bit awkward because these men are singing/competing about who is better as Charlies father but they don't look a day older than her. Husk also looks way too young for someone in his 60s-70s (again from the wiki).

The body types being all the same also doesn't help.

Mimzy and Adam are pretty much the only more relevant characters who aren't like all the others in terms of body shape. All the other relevant women in the show have a tiny waist and either big boobs/big hips or just a slimmer build in general. All the men have thin waists and then broader shoulders.

And for some characters it makes sense. Like Angel is really flexible and his more lanky body fits with being a spider. But why are Lucifer and Valentino like that? Other than the fact that Viv doesn't like drawing muscles there is really no reason for them too being build like every other skinny man there. Valentino is supposed to be intimidating not just by how he acts but physically too. He seemingly has a bit more muscle than others but his arms are still super thin and look like they could snap if I look at them wrong. I'm not trying to say that abusers all have to be buff, but simply from a design perspective the scenes with him would be a lot more effective if we saw him actually have a big physical advantage over Angel and others, even when he isn't necessarily threatening them. As soon as he comes on screen, we could see him as a much more intimidating presence, especially when all the other characters look like sticks. Or they could make it so, that he hides his muscles under his coat and when we get the reveal of him actually removing it, it's more shocking and immediately makes the situation more tense.

Lucifer could've had a more confident frame as well. He's the king of hell and the strongest being in hell, so just for the diversity I would give him some muscles too. Husk is also super skinny and for someone who only sits around and drinks alcohol all day, he should definitely have a beer belly (please I swear to god I wanna see more men with bellies, Mammon was great). Also for Valeria and Lute and pretty much all the Angels I don't get why they wouldn't be more buff either. Valeria is a fighter, she's Charlies bodyguard but she looks like all of the other women there. It's stated that Angels fight so wild because they don't know they could get hurt. And while I know that the Angels can really only get hurt by angelic weapons, having this whole reveal that they can be injured would've definitely suprised me more, if they actually looked like they couldn't be injured in the first place. But then again, Valeria looks like her arms would break as soon as a breeze hits them too hard. In some episodes her thighs look a bit more muscular, but not notably and she also doesn't fight using her legs (like Carmilla) so only her thighs being bigger sort of doesn't make sense. In general, she or Lute don't show any difference to the women who aren't physical fighters. And obviously just to have a more interesting show to look at, including different body types would do a great job at making these characters stand apart from eachother more.

While we're on the topic of diversity, another obvious thing that makes the characters redundant and borig (sometimes ugly too) is the reused colour pallette. Colour coding is probably one of the easiest things when talking about character designs and it's something atleast Helluva Boss understands.

What effect warm/cold tones have or what feelings we associate with different colours is a great way to bring stuff about characters across without being too on the nose. Obviously colour can also be used to either connect characters or to make them very distinct. Shape language also plays into that of course. In Inside Out the emotions are mostly characterized by their respective colour and by their distinct shapes.

Joy = yellow (bright colour often associated with the sun/light)

Sadness = blue (cold colour often associated with tears/rain)

Anger = red (very strong colour with aggressive association with fire or when someone turns red because of anger)

Fear = purple (light colour here, mix between red and blue as fear often falls into a more angry or sad feeling)

Disgust = green (colour of most dirt or puke or other stuff people usually see as gross)

Or in a show like Bluey, where different patterns, shapes and colours show the breed of the dog and also how characters might be related to eachother (same breed/mix of breed = usually related).

Or how colours can be used as lighting effects to create cool shots when the colour pallette changes all of a sudden. In JJBA these changes happen often when someone is in distress or unsure of themselves. Also in tense moments to make them seem more exciting and interesting.

Hazbin Hotel has very limited range when it comes to the colours of the main cast. All of them feature some form of red and that usually in combination with black or white (if they aren't just purely red like Alastor or Rosie). This makes them not stand out from eachother and creates very similar colour pallettes which get boring once you've seen them repeated over and over again. It also makes the visual connection between characters who are actually related (like Charlie and Lucifer) a lot less strong because so many characters share similarities already.

Also they just hurt to look at sometimes because the background is mostly red as well and with a lot of them being very overly detailed. People have also spoken before about the show being pretty inaccessible for colour blind/vision impared people due to these issues with the colour.

And now you might say that it's hell and therefore it makes sense for all of them and the background to be red. But firstly, I don't think that there is a definitive source which decides that hell is red and can only be shown/interpreted as red. And also there is another show, also set in hell which actually does a much better job at that and actually shows different colours in hell. Like in Helluva Boss the rings are all colour coded.

And I know, that HH plays in the pride ring fully, but imagine how cool it would've been to see sinners have colours similar to the sin(s) they committed. This could lead to them looking distinct from eachother and the background and would also lead to us being able to assume stuff about them, if we're familiar with the colour coding. In "Hell's Greatest Dad" they do a fun colour change with different light and it's really refreshing and I just wanted to see more variety like that (of course I kinda get that the colour changing isn't really part of the shows design but it was pretty cool to see in that song).

There also is the issue with characters that are supposed to be animal-like sinners not looking like the animal they apparently take inspiration from. The thing is that the animal/object parts don't necessarily have to be visible to understand a character. But in the show, how sinners look in hell is often influenced by their life on earth. Vox's head being a TV is because he was a Tv-show host when he was alive. Nifty also is supposedly a bug, which makes sense because she hates bugs and probably hated them in real life too. But that is where it would be great to actually have Nifty resemble a bug, instead she has no features of one and just looks like a regular humanoid sinner. The same thing happens with Alastor being a deer, Valeria a moth, Charlie goat-like and Angel a spider (also Mimzy is apparently based off of a chicken). Like I said, the animal inspiration isn't essential to the characters, but emphasizing these design elements could help the characters stand out instead of them all just looking like sort of human characters. Sir pentious and Husk work the best in terms of presenting their animal inspiration (though pretty much everything else about Husks design sucks ass).

And then there are complaints about the characters that are supposed to be people of colour not having any features that resemble their race. It's just a bit weird when a mostly humanoid sinner doesn't really seem to resemble how the person looked in real life. Black characters have really desaturated and sometimes just straight up grey skin in HH. Alastor is probably the most egregious in that regard, but also Emily has just light blueish gray skin and no textured hair or other black features like the nose or lips or palms. Velvette and Sera have darker skin but also no other features (except for when we see Velvette's natural hair texture in like one shot at the end of the season). I know there are other things wrong with how Voodoo is presented in HH or with Mimzy's design often being seen as a jewish caricature, but I don't wanna focus on that fully, because I feel like there are people better suited for talking about that (black people or jewish people ofc).

In general HH is a show with pretty bad designs (imo). That's actually a thing I prefer about Helluva Boss, because there the designs are mostly okay or actually sometimes pretty good. Striker is probably my favourite design in both shows (he reminds me of Dillon and that's cool).

I like Mammon, Asmodeus, Octavia and Loona as well. I would still probably change a bunch if I were to redesing the HB cast but they overall look more solid than the HH cast.

This was another post which pretty quickly became an excuse to talk about other media I enjoy. I might do that more often, because comparing elements of HH or HB to other stuff makes it kinda easier to articulate my feelings. Also just because I enjoy talking about other stuff too.

[groundzerosgirlfriend]

Rin Okumura: NSFW Alphabet

A-Aftercare

After a night of 'the Devil's Tango," Rin falls asleep pretty quickly, drooling all over his pillow and sleeping like the dead, but that's just most of the time. If he manages to stay awake long enough, he probably loves pillow talk—telling each other how much you love each other and maybe complaining about his day and Yukio, who's up his ass more than usual. He's also always looking for a way to show off one of his only talents, 'cooking' so if you express any form of hunger before he falls asleep, he's quick to jump out of bed and prepare you a meal worthy of a Queen.

B-Body Part (On you & him) Rin honestly loves everything about you. Though if you ever asked him this, he'd probably think it was a trick question and get nervous and anxious, not being able to think of anything on the spot. Though if you clarify that it isn't a trick question and that you're just simply curious, he'll take the time to think about it before deciding on your face. Yeah, boobs are nice and all, but your face has your eyes that he loves staring into and that beautiful smile he loves to see.

On the other hand, when it comes down to what he loves about himself, for a lot of life, Rin thought he was nothing more than a violent monster, and when he was found out to be Satan's son, those insecurities just worsened. He's hated his hands for a long time; they seemingly brought violence everywhere he went. Yet, one day, when you held his hands without fear and commented on how much you loved them, he could swear he could die happily knowing that you loved something he despises so much. He likes his hands now, knowing that you love them

C-Cum (what he does with it & what it tastes like) Unfortunately, Rin does not like the invention of condoms; he complains that they don't feel personal enough, even though he's already balls deep inside you. He won't wear them willingly; you have to practically force him into one, but he won't cum in you. He knows you have a life and doesn't want you to be stuck carrying Satan's grandchild, especially while you're still in school. He'll pull out and cum all over your ass; the sight sends a shiver down his spine every time, but there has been an accident or two where he has cum inside you to riled up to realize he was cusping orgasm. His awkward chuckle and the rubbing on his back of his neck almost makes your anger go away…almost.

His cum is not necessarily bad either. In fact, it's as enjoyable as it can get swallowing down seed. He has a healthy diet and makes his own meals, staying away from the artificial stuff. The only notable difference is that it's a lot warmer than others, even cusping the phrase 'hot'. Also, there's a ton of it, like it should actually be illegal to spew as much cum as he does.

D-Dirty Secret (Does he have own) Rin is probably a slight hypocrite—just a slight one. He teases and joshes Shima for saying and doing perverted things about women, proclaiming that he's too much of a' studly womanizer, but he has definitely jacked off to a pair of your panties before. How he got his hands on them is a mystery, but he's taking this secret to the grave unless his big, fat mouth spills it while he's blabbering on and on.

E-Experience

Despite Rin's attractive, boyish features and the talents of a professional chef, he has no experience. He gets no play, has never gone on a date, no bitches, nothing. Not only does his unnatural temper and strength scare away lots of girls, and most people aren't lined around the corner to date the son of Satan himself, especially due to his blue pyrokinesis that he's still trying to learn to control.

F-Favorite Position Rin's favorite positions are anything that allows him to see your face; if he can't see your face, then he's a bit huffy and fussy. "Missionary," though a little plain, always gets him shooting blanks like no other. What can he say? He loves the intimacy. Though he's also not against holding you up against the wall with ease due to his demonic strength and fucking your brains out as you go limp in his hold.

G-goofy

Rin hates silence along with sitting still; it's almost like he's allergic to it. If it goes quiet for more than 2 minutes, his leg starts bouncing, he starts getting fidgety, and he overall becomes fussy and annoying. That being said, he hates sex that is silent because, in his mind, when someone is silent towards him, they're mad at him or they don't want to be around him, two things he dislikes very much. So he makes it his personal mission to ensure you're always having a good time when you're in bed together. Your laughter from any slip-ups that may occur makes it all worth it, and he'd embarrass himself to the end of time just to hear those giggles once more.

H-Hair Before getting into a relationship with you, Rin never bothers to shave down there unless it's actually starting to bother him. He didn't think he'd be getting a blowjob on a random Friday night, so why bother? But now that you've entered his life, he takes a step back, realizing how unappealing spitting out pubes mid-sex can be and making it a practice to keep himself clean down there.

I-intimacy Rin definitely loves intimacy and being romantic with someone, even if he sometimes makes 'alpha male' jokes with friends (Shima) about how it's lame; he's a deep sucker for all the mushy mushy. Every day he wants to spoil you with gifts for staying by his side even when his brother didn't, but there's not much a broke high school student can buy as this rich preppy school, so he makes it up to you in other ways. By making you lunch, rubbing your back, ensuring your hands stay interlocked the entire time he fucks you into his mattress in mating press, leaving sloppy shuddering kisses down your spine as he fucks you doggystyle, and making you cum over and over by means of his mouth and hands (which he's surprisingly good at, not to brag about it).

J-Jerk Despite being raised in a church and having the most talented, unshakable-faithful priest as a father figure, Rin beat his dick like no other. There's not much privacy in the church, so he had to ensure absolute silence unless he wanted everyone teasing him in the morning at breakfast, but jacking off always helped reel in his uncontrollable temper. He's an ex-wire now, and honestly, he's always just a bit too tired to think about touching himself, and besides, he has you now. But if you're even not in the mood when he's desperate, he will resort to his primitive ways with a tight grip around his length and moaning to and grunting to his hearts content now that he's lives basically alone in the abandoned dorms (excluding his brother and maybe you).

K-kink Rin definitely has a food play kink; he loves eating, and he loves you. Combining his two favorite things together is a recipe for success. He'll hide it under the guise of baking something together, all shy and jittery while trying to be smooth like usual, but it ends with your chest covered in his spit and the residue stickiness of honey and chocolate blubbering about how much he loves you. Also, he has a super huge praise kink when you tell him just how good he did at something; he thinks his heart will fall out of his chest and his dick might burst out of his pants. He brushes off your comments dismissively at first about how it was no big deal for him, but if you compliment while in his demon form, his tail will wag like a little puppy, and you'll see it since he never tucks it in.

L-location Despite Rin's sporadic and energetic behavior, he knows when reckless things are just a bit too reckless, and this is one of them. Getting caught fucking you in mid-public would definitely paint him in a more perverted light than Shima, and having to explain what's going on while you're both trying to cover up is more than enough to keep the lovemaking to the safety of your room, but if you're pushy enough, you can persuade him into a bathroom stall or even a storage closet. What can he say? He can't deny you.

M-motivation Seeing you in your Cram school uniform, the shorter the skirt and the tighter the shirt, the better. He also likes to see you kick demon ass, your biggest hype man, and when you're both done, he pulls you away with him already knowing what he wants to do to celebrate.

N-no (what he won't do) He won't use his flames on you or have anything to do with his demonic powers. He is quite literally terrified of hurting you with something he possesses, and he even has nightmares about you hating him and being engulfed in flames, screaming, and crying. He's also iffy with threesomes; he's kind of possessive, even if he won't say it, and if you wanted one with Suguru ("Bon"), he thinks he could burn his classmate to ash as he's already unsheathing his sword.

O-oral Rin loves both equally; he's never going to be one to turn down a blowjob, but giving to you has just the slightest tip over the edge. Hearing you moan and squirm his name as he holds your hips down with his effortless strength, your squeals and cries light a fire in him that doesn't hurt anyone (except for maybe you when you're overstimulated by belief).

P-pace Rin's pace is usually sloppy and quick; he knows he should slow down and take his time with you, but time isn't on both of your hands. The threat of Yukio coming into their shared room is always looming, and besides, you haven't complained through any of your orgasms yet. Yet, on days he knows he has you all to himself with no worry about Yuki appearing, he takes you nice and slow to show you his appreciation.

Q-Quickies Rin is a big, big fan of the art of a quickie. Sometimes schoolwork is a lot, and along with the additional pressure of Exorcist training and grueling mission hours that leave you both exhausted, there isn't a lot of time to take you to bed, peel off your clothes slowly, and really go to town with the foreplay. He prefers if you suggest them, so he doesn't seem pushy, but if you agree to one, no matter who asks first, he'll take you to the abandoned dorm male dormitory and do you in against the wall in the first room he sees, maybe even in the hallway if he's really restless.

R-risk Rin isn't always into into risks despite his volatile and reckless nature, it really depends what the bad outcome of the risk could be. So if it's anything that potentially lets anyone beside his friends at the Cram school know he's the son of Satan let's just say he's wont be jumping with enthusiasm like he usually does.

S-stamina Rin stamina depends on his emotions largely, if he's in his normal human-goofy self he gets like two maybe three rounds in before he's out for the count and 5 seconds away before passing out on your boobs, if he's in his demonic form snarling and growling like a wild beast his stamins and endurance are unlimited and you could do 7 rounds pass out three times, voice hoarse, sheets soaking wet with sweat cum and he's still ready for another round.

T-time

Rin's round last maybe 10-15 minutes at a time of just one of your normal fucks, not including the foreplay. Foreplay included could stretch the session up to 20-30 minutes of total time, and for the scenario of quickies he can bust his load in 5-8 minutes tops.

U-unfair Occasionally Rin will tease but it's mostly likely not done on purpose and it's with his words and not his action. Sometime he's just says the cheesiest thing ever that'll make you all shy and flustered and he'll stand there confused but smirking nonetheless assuming his his lighthearted compliments swayed your hearts. Now when you tease him Rin melts into the floor: when you tug him along like a little puppy away from his friends to show him something or touch dangerously close to this crotch as you two sit side by side his eyes turn into his hearts and his mouth goes dry as he tries not to get a boner.

V-volume Rin is moderately loud when he's on top of you and his words dirty talk consists of lots of profanities (little potty mouth), groans and sweet nothings as he fucks into you gummy walls, but when he's on the bottom with your weight on his lap you better believe he's whimpering and moaning like a dog in heat as you ride him deeper into submission.

W-weird fact Like mentioned in the anime and demonstrated many times, grabbing and touching Rin's tail makes him basically paralyzed. So while not really unknown, it is weird how something so simple can render him so defenseless to all your perverted whims. Whenever you do it and give him a knowing smile crawling near him, he only whispers out an anxious "Be gentle" with his voice cracking and his face beet red.

X-ray Rin isn't big, but he's isn't small either he's like the perfect size. He's a grower definitely about 3 inches when he's soft; but it doubles to about 6.4 inches when he's hard, maybe 6.8 if he's rock solid with arousal. His tip is blushes red like crazy when he's needy and he leaks like a broken faucet. His balls are cute and very squishy and they don't hang to low either. It's perfect just like him.

Y-yearning On a scale of 1–10, Rin lands about a 6.5, maybe a 6.8 if it's been a rough week. It's not always on his mind, like a perverted deviant, but staring at you for too long, or more specifically, the swell of your skirt or your breasts within your blouse, can definitely cause stray thoughts to appear. What can he say—he's a hormonal teenager?

Z-zzz Like mentioned in 'Aftercare' (A), Rin falls asleep pretty quickly, and when he does, there's no point in trying to wake him up. He's basically a drooling, snoring corpse, but you do notice that his tail instinctively wraps around your leg and ankle to keep you from getting very far away from him, even in his sleep.

[pillarsalt]

hi um

I was? transmasc but recently I’ve been seeing a lot of really misogynistic sexist transphobic stuff from trans community and it’s just been totally accepted, even by other transmascs. It’s been going on for a while but recently there was a murder of a nonbinary afab person and yet the whole trans community here has been silent, instead screaming about a transfem user being banned or something? This isn’t the first time an afab trans persons suffering has been dismissed, but now right after this awful death, i see transfems making posts about how transmascs talking about their oppression are terfs.

I didn’t want to think about it but all i could think about was that it was weird how despite everyone claiming trans men have all this privilege, trans women always come first…they get the most representation, they get the fame the admiration and the opportunities, their voices are always the loudest and their problems always always come first no matter what.

But despite popular belief trans men’s issues aren’t actually less significant, in some cases we suffer far more than trans women especially in regard to sexual violence. Yet we are silenced. We are frequently left poor, we are discriminated against for our sex we are discriminated against for being trans we are discriminated against for being perceived as lesbians. Yet we are made to be silent?

Why are our voices less important than trans women’s?

And all I could think about was that this is how females are treated in every other area.

I don’t know what else to say… I tried so hard not to reach that conclusion because I don’t want to be transmysogynist but I kept coming back to it and I couldn’t find an argument against it. This is how females are treated. This is what male privilege look like. And if trans women have male privilege, then why the fuck am I sitting here letting them talk over me?

I just feel really really angry. Your a blog who I liked your art but I blocked you when I discovered you were a radfem, but I sort of had you in the back of my mind for some reason and now I feel lost and confused, and I don’t think I want to be part of the trans community anymore.

Hey anon, firstly I really appreciate your willingness to have an open discussion with me. This must be weighing on you pretty heavily.

Secondly, holy shit, you're right. While the entire website is treating this user's ban as a national travesty, I haven't seen a single person talking about Nex's murder despite how much they claim to care about trans people. That's really fucking low, and this situation does very much encapsulate the state of misogyny within the trans community.

And you're right, this IS how females are treated in every other area. Throughout history, the suffering and injustice women face is minimized, laughed at, ignored, and when we want to talk about it, we're shut down and told we're making people uncomfortable and our pain isn't that bad. And here we are again, with a female person's death outweighed by a male person's inconvenience.

The denial of sex-based oppression that permeates trans spaces is a blatant lie that can only be held together if nobody is allowed to acknowledge it, and those who do are punished. If the trans community truly stood behind what they say, discussion would be encouraged! The foundation of their movement would be backed up with facts and replicable science! But instead, they'll call you a bigot for pointing out systems of oppression you can see with your own eyes. Because if you do, transwomen's position as Most Oppressed, and therefore the final authority on what's right and wrong, collapses. You are correct when you say that it seems like transwomen always come first; I don't remember who said it first, but just look at magazine covers featuring trans people -- the transwomen are fully clothed CEOs, athletes, movie stars, but transmen mostly get on magazine covers for... being pregnant and half naked. Misogyny is built into every society on earth, and individuals simply calling themselves something else doesn't change that. And when you give male people free reign to be as misogynistic as they want without consequence, they'll grab that opportunity and hold on like their lives depend on it. The way they weaponize transmen's sex against them is indistinguishable from what 'cis' men do to 'cis' women, but if you ever speak out about it, somehow YOU'RE the one hurting THEM. They do not want transmascs to find solidarity with other female people, because then they would have to face the reality of their own place in a patriarchal world, and face the fact that there are experiences exclusive to female people and that we have the right to speak about it. I mean you see shit like this and the motives become completely transparent:

I do find it funny how hard the trans community and their allies work to prevent anyone from hearing what radfems have to say in case they "corrupt" you with mere words. A lot of the time, it's simply listening to transwomen themselves that sparks the feeling of "something's not right here" in your brain. That's what happened with me too. I'll tell you that most of us also used to be proponents of trans activism, many formerly identifying as trans too. You are seeing through manipulation, and I know it's quite shocking to realize. Even when I first started having doubts about trans rhetoric, I thought "well everyone else agrees about this, so I need to shut up and be nice about it even if I don't agree." It's an unpleasant place to be in. The cognitive dissonance is exhausting though, and it becomes impossible to ignore.

The mistreatment of transmasc people in the trans community by transfems is brutal, and It's hard to watch from the outside because I just want to say "Hey, you know you don't have to take this shit, right?" And you really don't. You are not at all a bad person for recognizing the frankly absurd amount of misogyny in the trans community. Feeling lost and confused is shitty, but it's normal for this situation. The best thing you can do is keep observing, keep reading, form your own opinions, and never let anyone tell you to shut up. Above all, prioritize yourself and your mental wellbeing. If you need to remove yourself from gender-related spaces and discussion for a while, that's totally alright. Just know you're not evil or a bigot for not blindly agreeing with everything the trans community has told you. Your opinions and experiences are worthwhile too.

[storytowrite]

|You will always be mine ~ Lee Minho series|

PART 1

Paring: Minho x Y/N

Genre: smut, angst, university au

Word count: 732

Warnings: sex, 18+, Minho is a psycho, dom!Minho, sub!reader, abuse, slight BDSM, kidnapping, violence, age gap, Minho is an university professor, Y/N can be hurt physically (and mentally too I guess).

Synopsis: Who knew that accidental fuck in the club bathroom with a handsome man will bring you to a lot of unexpected events.

Author's note: I kept this series for a really long time not sure if I want to post it or not, but I decided to do it anyway, so I hope you'll like it.

——————————

"Faster!" You moaned as his member thrust deeper and deeper into you "…Yeah!” You dug your nails into his biceps, your back pressed against the cold tiles of the club bathroom. He held you tight against your thighs, his thumbs making gentle circles on your skin. Your bodies rubbed against each other rhythmically.

"Just a little more sunshine, hold on a little longer." He moaned into your ear. After a few more thrusts, you both ended up in spasms of pleasure. You rested your head against his chest, regulating your breathing. “You're pretty good, honey, you know?” He asked, brushing a strand of hair from your forehead.

"Thanks." You only murmured and smiled slightly at him, "You're not that bad either."

The man laughed softly. He pulled away from you after a moment and helped you get dressed, then pulled on his ankle-length trousers and straightened his rumpled shirt. He wasn't the tallest man you had ever known, but he was certainly one of the most experienced. You didn't know his name, didn't need to. You knew you wouldn't see him again, after all so why care? 

"I'll go first." The man said, breaking the momentary silence that fell between the two of you. "After all, it's the women's bathroom…”

"Mhm, sure," You replied, "That's…”

"See you later." The man said before you could finish, then left, leaving you alone in the club bathroom. You sighed softly and adjusted yourself in front of the mirror. It was quite good sex. You thought and with a smile on your lips left the bathroom. “Time to find the rest of the crew.” You muttered to yourself and went in search of your friends who had long been lost in the crowd of bodies, swaying to the music.

You didn't come alone to the club. No. It wouldn't have been prudent of you, though you weren't the most prudent person anyway. Your friend Jeno disappeared into the crowd, dancing with every woman he met. You sighed softly, going to clubs with Jeno always ended like this, in separation, each of you finding more interesting company to spend the evening than your own.

However, this time you did not come to the club with Jeno only. His older cousin Jungwoo decided to go with the two of you too. You liked Jungwoo even though you didn't interact much with each other. He wasn't in the city often because of his studies, but that was about to change as he got a scholarship to the same college where you studied. You were curious if he would actually transfer.

You stood between the dance floor and the bar and looked for your friend. Jeno had long since disappeared from your sight, with some brunette, so you hoped that maybe at least Jungwoo was somewhere nearby. You didn't want to spend the rest of the party on the couch against the wall. You were about to give up when you heard a familiar voice behind you.

“Y/N! you are here! Where have you gone? I couldn't find you anywhere. Oh my God! Is that a hickey?!” Jungwoo stood, as if on cue, right in front of you..

“Hi. Woo…” You said, slightly amused. “Yes, it's a hickey, let's say I had an interesting meeting in the bathroom.”

“Mhm, I think I already know what kind of an interesting meeting…” He said with the face of an expert.

“And you? Are you having fun?” You asked before he started peppering you with questions about the man you’d had passionate, albeit quick, sex with in the bathroom a moment earlier. Jungwoo smiled widely at you.

"I have the bartender's number." He said proudly. "You don't even know how hard it was for me to get it. But he looks gorgeous! Plus, I got free drinks, so I guess he liked me.”

"Hey, I want free drinks too!" You said with a little jealousy in your voice.

“Then pick up the bartender.” Jungwoo laughed and was about to offer you drinks, when Jeno approached the two of you, not quite in a good mood though. One of his eyes slowly turned purple. “Oh, what happened?” Asked his cousin.

“It turned out that the girl I went with was not alone in the club.” Murmured Jeno. “Her boyfriend decided to step in... let's go home, I have to put ice on myself.”

<- Series Masterlist | Part 2 ->

[heartseungs-archive]

better than gold | l.hc

genre ➳  historical au (early 19th century), fluff, angst, friends to lovers pairings ➳ nobleman!haechan x fem!reader word count ➳ 16.4k (added more after proofreading...) warnings ➳ mentions of alcohol, violence (threats), classism info ➳  this is the first installment of boats against the current, an 00 line series! click here to read the other works :) 

the present: august, 1912

The grandfather clock's heavy toll resonates throughout your house's wooden walls, quickly shocking you awake from where you lie sleepily on your desk. It is not the first time the heavy family heirloom has done so, and despite your protests, your father insists on keeping it.

Outside, the sky is pitch black, only illuminated by the lonely moon. You hear the faint chirping of crickets from far away, and you wonder if he’ll be coming today.

As if spoken into existence, you hear a rustling below you, definitely made by something much larger than a wild rabbit. Leaning your body out of the window, you look down to see a familiar face staring back up at you.

“You’re early today,” you say.

“Will you believe me if I say I missed you too much at the party?” Despite how the darkness prevents you from seeing his expression, you know a mischievous grin decorates his lips.

Even though it definitely isn’t the first time Donghyuck has attempted to scale the walls of your home, it still makes your mouth turn dry. You watch nervously as he deftly moves from the trellis to the carved marble eaves of your window with ease of experience. Donghyuck’s definitely strong enough to hold on even if he loses his footing, and smart enough not to get himself killed. Still, he’s usually slightly tipsy from his parties, and you are not sure if it is the best idea to have him climbing structures unattended in the middle of the night. Though it isn’t the brightest idea, you’re half ready to leap from the window after him if he falls.

Five minutes later, Donghyuck is standing in your bedroom, clothes and hair slightly rumpled, and a triumphant grin on his face.

The first time he had done this, you had almost been out of your mind with fear. Both for Donghyuck, and at the thought that someone could walk in at any time. Had one of the maidservants, or even worse, members of the family, discovered him here, the both of you would have been as good as dead.

No matter that Donghyuck had been your best friend and confidante from before you could even walk. In society’s eyes, you were an unmarried woman, and him a bachelor. And those two did not mix, especially not unchaperoned in a bedroom close to midnight.

“What are you thinking about?” Donghyuck has made himself comfortable by your fireplace, sinking into the armchair which he always complains is much too stiff, while you chide him for his poor posture.

You shake your head. “Nothing much. How was your week?”

“You know me, Y/N. The usual.”

The usual meaning alcohol, women and cards. The reality wasn’t as bad as you presented it to be, of course. Donghyuck wasn’t some sort of degenerate, unlike some of the men you had actually met. He was just a flirty, reckless fool with too much time on his hands, and an avid passion for red wine.

“Did any poor girl come after you this time for breaking her heart?” You inquire, amused.

“Well, I did get champagne poured on my head by a very angry woman. I think her name was Hana?” Donghyuck complains, his lips settling into a pout.

“Honestly, you should figure out by now that you can’t just flirt with women and leave them hanging. It’s not a nice thing to do, you know?” You chide slightly, but you don’t hold it against Donghyuck. He’s never given anyone false promises, making it clear that he was there for a good time. His dalliances have also never gone beyond honeyed words and occasional meals. It’s not his fault that feelings often get entangled, and unreciprocated. Still, his life would be much easier if he didn’t constantly have a string of jilted lovers out for his blood.

“But it’s fun,” Donghyuck replies nonchalantly, and you roll your eyes. “Enough about me. What has my dearest Y/N been up to?” He asks, leaning forward to hear you better.

Your shoulders sink a little, and Donghyuck immediately notices it. However, he remains silent, waiting for you to begin speaking. “I’m not sure what I could tell you, since I’m stuck in the house every day anyways. I hate to say this, but your visits are the most exciting part of my week.”

Even though that should make Donghyuck happy - he enjoys spending time with you, after all, and vice versa - he knows that isolation is taking its toll on you. He feels irrationally angry at your parents, but bites his tongue. He knows you don’t like it when he speaks ill of them, even if he knows this is unfair to you and he’s technically right.

It’s his fault, after all. If the both of you hadn’t been photographed together by that gossip newspaper, your father would likely have never lost his temper. Even if Renjun’s estate was safe, anyone could have come in during a party.

Donghyuck should have known better. Done better.

It’s been a month since you’ve been confined at home, and three weeks since Donghyuck started his weekly wall-climbing escapades. Before this, the both of you would meet almost weekly. Once your virtual house arrest started, Donghyuck found himself missing your presence, as if a hole had opened in his life with nothing to fill it.

For you, the confinement had been more mind-numbing than anything. Besides your daytime lessons, you found yourself dawdling aimlessly around the house, with little to do, and desperately missing the city.

Donghyuck notices your expression gradually get more desolate, and he immediately snaps himself out of his thoughts. He’s here to make you feel better, not act as a walking reminder of your missing freedom.

“Well, I’ll try to stay longer, then. Be grateful. Not everyone can have the honour of being in my presence for such an extended period of time,” Donghyuck states cockily, and you laugh at him.

Just like that, he’s lightened your mood, despite the sombre nature of the conversation. It’s something he does easily, coming up with a witty jab to amuse you.

You’re sorry to see Donghyuck go when he finally leaves two hours later, his face considerably less flushed after he had sobered from the alcohol. You had also forced him to down two glasses of water and some biscuits, so he wouldn’t wake up tomorrow with a splitting headache. Even stuck at home, you want to do what you can to care for Donghyuck’s well-being. At least his house isn’t that large of a distance away from yours.

Had this been three years ago, your parents would have allowed him to stay over in a heartbeat. Now, he’s more like some sort of fugitive, every interaction with Donghyuck reduced to clandestine meetings.

Still, times change so very quickly, shifting like quicksand. You just pray Donghyuck and yourself won’t get swallowed in and lose each other along the way.

the past: september, 1897

Donghyuck doesn’t like crying people.

He would rather his classmate throw a tantrum and kick him, than cry in his face. He decides that he especially doesn’t like girls who sob quietly and sniffle afterwards, refusing to speak to him for the rest of the day. It makes Donghyuck feel bad, and that’s his least favourite feeling.

He wants to say that he didn’t mean to spill milk all over your new satin dress, but he supposes he did mean it if he was the one who decided to start running around the playroom. Donghyuck thinks you might be even more upset if you found out he told a lie to you. The teacher looks like she’s at a loss, and Donghyuck feels as if he needs to take matters into his own hands, and make amends.

Just so you don’t cry again and make Donghyuck feel guilty, or at least that’s what he tells himself.

The drawing that Donghyuck hands to you twenty minutes later is colourful and messy, almost symbolic of the boy sitting across of you.

“I did this for you. I’m sorry for ruining your dress,” he mumbles, looking down nervously at his sock-clad feet. Pretty Y/N, it says, underneath a clumsily-drawn stick figure of you. And in the far corner of the paper lies another figure, almost as if exiled. Stupid Donghyuck is scribbled next to a drawing of himself, deliberately made much uglier with downturned eyebrows and a jagged mouth. Your eyes widen at his description of himself. The teacher said that was a bad word, you can’t help but think.

Despite your tear-stained cheeks, a little smile pokes out from the corner of your lips. Still, you don’t say anything, causing Donghyuck’s heart to begin speeding up in nervousness. Unbeknownst to himself, he is anxiously tapping his feet on the ground, waiting for you to respond.

“I…like the drawing. And I’m sorry your milk was spilt,” you mutter to yourself, but Donghyuck’s keen earns pick it up. He smiles a toothy grin at you, happy to be forgiven. Across the classroom, your teacher watches fondly, smiling to herself. The both of you spend the rest of the afternoon together, after you ask Donghyuck if you can borrow his pencils to add to the drawing.

From that day on, you and Donghyuck are inseparable. Donghyuck is almost like a magnet glued to you, following you around wherever you go. He’s the one to both steal your snacks and share them with you, the one who teases you but also hits another boy for making you cry.

Your parents eventually recognise the little boy who walks out of class with you every day, hand in hand.

“Who is this, Y/N?” Your mother asks sweetly, leaning down to match your heights.

“He’s my friend. Donghyuck.” Donghyuck knows to bow politely despite his young age, and you can tell from the slight smile on your mother’s face that she’s already pleased with him.

‘Would Donghyuck like to come over for lunch today?” Your father asks.

“We have ice cream. Our cook used to work at an ice cream parlor,” you whisper conspiratorially in Donghyuck’s ear. His eyes widen immediately, and he looks at you eagerly. Ice cream is one of Donghyuck’s favourite foods, but he’s rarely allowed to have it.

“Well, then I guess it’s settled. The both of you can sit in the back with the nanny.”

The kindly-looking woman who is Donghyuck’s nanny helps the both of you into the car. You still remember the first day you had met her, where you laughed at Donghyuck for needing a nanny to follow him around.

“Don’t your parents pick you up from school, Donghyuck?”

“They’re very busy with their business. My nanny is the one who spends time with me at home,” Donghyuck had mumbled, looking down at his hands. His expression was strangely sorrowful for that of a seven-year-old boy.

“Well, you can come over after school, if you want. I’m sure your nanny will agree.”

And that marked the start of countless sun-lit afternoons spent at your family home, until Donghyuck became a regular, fixed presence in your life even as the both of you grew up.

february, 1908

You could not wait for this night to end.

The idea of a debutante ball was glamorous and had drawn you in at first. After all, it sounded like a dream. A ball celebrating your transition to eighteen years of age, from child to adult. You had spent the months before devoting time to lessons to prepare, endless hours given to ballroom dancing and etiquette.

However, the long-awaited night itself had passed by in a rapid blur of conversations with strangers whose names you did not remember, and dances that left you dizzy and slightly breathless. You had missed out on dinner because of the constriction of your dress, and it left you starving two hours later.

You muttered a polite excuse to the group that you were standing with, making a beeline for the gilded doors leading towards the balcony. You had expected more from alcohol when trying it for the first time, but the champagne had only left an uncomfortable flush in your cheeks that was quickly cooled by the night air.  Growing up had been a little disappointing, if you could say so yourself.

“There you are.” The intrusion of someone else’s voice causes you to jump in shock before you quickly relax once you realise who it is.

Donghyuck was dressed in a fine suit, tailored neatly to his lean figure. Still, he would probably outgrow it before the year ended. Within the past two years, Donghyuck had grown rapidly, now over half a head taller than you, his shoulders widening much too quickly. His speaking voice had faded into a low honey timbre but retained some of its childish cadences, especially when he got excited. You almost didn’t recognise his voice at first, considering the last time you heard it was much too long ago.

“I thought you weren’t coming.” Donghyuck’s arrival at your debutante ball is a pleasant surprise, considering his family had embarked on a grand tour of Europe just a few months ago.

By right, he should have been in Florence at this very moment. You hadn’t expected him to return until next summer, instead having to fill the Donghyuck-sized gap in your life with his postcards and your carefully written letters. Telephoning was difficult, especially when Donghyuck was constantly travelling from province to town to city.

Looking at your best friend properly now, Donghyuck seems slightly different, older. The way he carries himself is more confident, as if he’s at ease with himself. He’s grown up, you realise, and self-consciousness overtakes you. Maybe you still look like a child next to him, unsurely dangling on the precipice between maturity and childishness.

“Do you really think I would miss your debutante for anything? I just need to join them back in Vienna next month.” His voice is painfully familiar, but hearing it in person is so much better than over the phone.

You felt Donghyuck’s absence more than you allowed yourself to acknowledge, you realise. Having him next to you makes it easier to breathe, even if your corset is much too tight.

“I missed seeing you, you know,” Donghyuck says, and you turn to him, breath hitching slightly. The both of you rarely exchange any terms of affection, if any at all. The last time you told Donghyuck you missed him was perhaps over a decade ago, when he had been sick and missed coming to preparatory school for a few days.

You hope there aren’t any eavesdroppers in the vicinity who might misunderstand. Within your own private circles, you and Donghyuck are safe. Almost everyone knows the both of you have been attached at the hip since young, and no one jumps to conclusions. But here, with the curious, judging eyes of strangers? You cannot help but be scared, for both yourself and Donghyuck. Still, you nod, a silent acknowledgement of Donghyuck’s statement.

Just then, you hear the faint sounds of applause and cheering coming from the ballroom, and you realise the clock has just struck midnight.

“Happy birthday, Y/N.” Donghyuck is the first to wish you, ahead of your family. He looks slightly nervous as he pulls something out from his jacket pocket, and you look over at him curiously.

“I got you a present while I was in France. It reminded me of you,” he murmurs, and the sight suddenly reminds you of that exact moment in kindergarten when he first handed you that drawing.

The blue velvet box is sleek and elegant, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It opens neatly to reveal a matching bracelet and necklace, a little sun charm fashioned in gold and diamond dangling from the end of both. You don’t miss the symbolism of it, and look up at Donghyuck.

“It’s lovely. Can you put it on for me?” Donghyuck nods, and the air feels strangely tense, charged with an unfamiliar energy. His hands are gentle as he places the necklace gently around your neck, only fumbling slightly before it's set in place. The cool metal is jarring against the warmth of your skin, and you shiver slightly, though you’re not sure if it's from the metal or from Donghyuck’s fingers accidentally brushing against the nape of your neck. He moves to your wrist then, and your eyes are drawn to his cuff links.

They are in the exact same design as the jewellery he gifted you, just slightly smaller. He did that on purpose, you realise, and notice the mirth in his eyes. No one will notice, unless they look closely at both you and Donghyuck.

It feels intimate, like a shared secret between the both of you.

A small proof of your friendship with him, for you to know, even if no one else does.

He finally steps away from you once the bracelet is secured, and you lift it up to observe it carefully. Despite the lack of light, the pendant gleams brightly, almost as if imbued with its own glow, a sun in itself. A little piece, a reminder of Donghyuck, to carry around wherever you go.

It had simply been a lucky coincidence that the debutante ball fell on the exact day of your birthday. However, looking at Donghyuck now, standing next to you on the balcony, you’re suddenly infinitely grateful for the stroke of luck that allowed it to happen.

march, 1908

Donghyuck absolutely detested carriage rides, especially when they were with someone whose presence he did not enjoy.

There were still five more hours to Vienna, but Donghyuck already felt exhausted at the idea of what he would have to endure once he reached. The excitement of the grand tour had been diminished by the ever-looming presence of his parents, and he knew that their demands would only increase once he returned home. After all, he would be formally considered an adult.

He decides to stare absentmindedly out the window, at a dazzling landscape of white and green. Donghyuck’s attention inadvertently drifts to the entire reason he had even left in the first place.

It had not been easy to convince his parents to allow him to leave halfway through their tour of Florence, especially when the city had been the location for many of his father’s meetings. Meetings where Donghyuck’s presence had been required. However, once introductions had passed, Donghyuck found himself no different from a piece of furniture, more ornamental than functional in nature.

Of course, his parents were unaware of the true reason Donghyuck so desperately wished to return home.

He had found the opportunity when his father needed documents delivered to their home address, and someone to approve said documents. Donghyuck had volunteered with little hesitation, even if it meant rushing a ten-day journey within four. He had little sleep, both from moving from train to train and forcing himself to keep awake to finish the work he had promised his father.

His fatigue seemed to melt away, however, when he saw you in that pearl-white ballgown and matching gloves, hair pinned in a chignon with feathers interspersed in between.

The delight in your eyes when you saw Donghyuck made him feel as if every single snide comment made by his father meant nothing, minuscule compared to the faint smile on your face as he placed the necklace around your neck.

Donghyuck had been hesitant at the atelier, unsure if it was too much. Perhaps you didn’t want a gift so clearly associated with him, even if the both of you were close. He was grateful now, however, and thought that the sun pendant looked so much more beautiful on you than it ever did on him.

He found it strange that before your debutante, he had been fine with just exchanging postcards and letters detailing your days. Months had been spent like this from city to city, as he took in the sights and sounds of a place so very different from home.

However, the memory of your presence now remained fresh in his mind, and Donghyuck found your absence even more noticeable. As far as Donghyuck knew, you had never been to another country, much less a separate continent. You would have taken in the architecture with starry eyes, and dragged Donghyuck around with you to savour as many cuisines as possible.

He decides to close his eyes, and pretend that you are sitting in the same cabin across from him, travelling together.

may, 1909

You are nineteen when everything comes crashing down.

“You should thank me, Lee Donghyuck. I just saved your life.”

‘I could have handled that on my own,” Donghyuck mutters petulantly, and you throw a questioning glance at him. The moment he had become an eligible bachelor, Donghyuck was quick to gain the attention of many women, owing to his natural charm. Of course, he easily soaked up the attention and relished in it, quickly becoming the centre of parties.

One lady, in particular, had been notably persistent, and you almost admired her for her efforts. She had shown up consistently at every party Donghyuck had thrown or attended, staying for hours and attempting to strike up a conversation. When that was unsuccessful, she extended her reach to Renjun and Jeno. It definitely didn’t help that she seemed to appear everywhere they went.

“She would have still been tailing you if I hadn’t come,” you huff, striding into the main hall of your family estate. Donghyuck follows in after you, an amused smile on his face.

“Oh, what would I do without you, Y/N? You’re my saviour from the immense threat of overly eager noblewomen. How should I repay you?” He has a hand over his heart, sighing dramatically, and you roll your eyes at Donghyuck’s theatrics.

“One day, you’re going to regret it. If I find your cold, dead body in an alleyway because you angered the wrong person, I won’t be the one to avenge you.” The both of you walk into the familiar archway of your house, Donghyuck smiling at the familiar housemaids that make up your staff. He has already been a consistent presence since young, and most of them have seen both of you grow up together.

“Well, I think it would be more likely that you’re the murderess out for my blood-”

“Y/N. You’re home. Your parents would like to see you immediately. Apologies, Mr Lee. I’m afraid you’ll be unable to stay for lunch today.” Your senior housekeeper, Ms Kim, has a stormy expression on her face, and your eyebrows furrow in concern. Furthermore, her switch from calling Donghyuck by his formal name fills you with a sense of unease. Why doesn’t she meet his eyes?

Donghyuck looks at you, eyes questioning, but you are just as clueless as he is. Evidently, your parents must want to speak to you about something important.

“Alright. I’ll see you another day, Y/N. Also, Ms Kim, just call me Donghyuck, please. As you always do.”

His tone is casual and light, but there’s an undertone of worry.

Even though Donghyuck knows there’s no reason you would be unsafe in your own home, the atmosphere feels strangely heavy suddenly, foreboding. Ms Kim remains silent as Donghyuck strolls back the way he just came in, and that only causes your panic to rise further.

“Your parents are waiting in the sitting room, Miss,” she states lowly, before quickly rushing off.

You’re equal parts curious and scared as you make your way up the marble stairs.

“Y/N, darling, you’re here. Take a seat.” Your mother’s term of endearment when she sees you come in allows your heart to lighten up a little. But even then, worry is evident in the set of her eyebrows. Your father, however, is an entirely different story. His expression is stormy and unfamiliar to you, and reminds you of the scolding you received as a child when you had crossed too many lines.

“Is there…something wrong? I was out with Donghyuck and we had a slight mishap. i didn’t mean to be late.” Your unease causes you to shift nervously, posture remaining stiff, despite how the plush couch invites you to sink into it. There’s a pause, and you look at your father. It’s evident he wants to say something.

“You shouldn’t meet the Lee boy from now on. He isn’t allowed to visit, either.” You know your father is referring to Donghyuck, and you look at him, visibly alarmed. Your parents have always welcomed Donghyuck to your house, and they are aware of the friendship between the both of you.

Your mother senses the shift in the atmosphere of the room, and quickly attempts to mediate.

“What your father is saying, Y/N, is that you should try to interact less with Donghyuck-I mean, Mr Lee, from now on. It would be easier for both families if the two of you maintained a distance.” Her words are stilted as she looks at you, gauging your expression as it shifts from confusion to disbelief.

The laugh that escapes you comes out nervous and forced, your eyes darting rapidly from your father, to your mother, and then back.

You force yourself breathe, to remain calm, even as you fiddle with your fingers in your lap. However, your voice comes out slightly strained.

“Donghyuck’s my childhood friend. He comes over every week. I thought the both of you were alright with his presence. Why so suddenly-”

“Because we did not know that goddamned boy was Lee Haechan!” Your father’s voice is booming, the sudden increase in volume causing both you and your mother to flinch. It takes you a while to process Donghyuck’s formal name, the one he uses with strangers. Evidently, there is a lapse in communication, and your father’s outburst puzzling you further. Just then, the butler comes to the door. “There is a call for you, sir.” Your father leaves enraged, and the silence that falls over the room is heavy.

You look to your mother desperately for some sort of clarification, and she sighs wearily. Tears are budding at the corner of your eyes, and you hastily blink them away.

“Your father found out about Donghyuck’s identity at a business function a week ago. We were unaware that Donghyuck was the only son of the Lee family.”

“Does that mean something?” You had always been aware of Donghyuck’s family history, where his ancestors had ties to this place from over a century ago. He didn’t speak much of it, only telling you bits and pieces.

“As you know, Y/N, our family is relatively new. After all, it was your grandfather who earned his fortune here. Your father and the Lees have a relatively tumultuous relationship, to say the least.”

Your confusion begins to clear up barely, but you’re not sure if for the better or worse. Since you were young, you’ve heard the whispers follow your parents, and subsequently you, round. That families like yours, the nouveau-riche who earned their wealth barely half a century ago, are nothing compared to the aristocracy. That your presence and others diluted the nature of high society itself, instead bringing disgrace with their lack of pedigree.

You’ve always paid little mind to it, however. After all, there are plenty of families that would be considered nouveau-riche, most of them equally as wealthy and powerful as the ones that hail from the aristocracy. The whispers have gradually dwindled over the years, and you believed it to be a poorly-conceived notion by certain adults reluctant to let their social status be infringed by those considered beneath them.

And you know that Donghyuck pays little mind to it, if any. In fact, you’re not sure if he’s even aware of the distinction, considering the nature of your friendship.

“I know you and Donghyuck have known each other for a long time. However, we do not think Donghyuck’s parents would be happy about this if they found out. It would be easier for both of you if you maintained a distance. Both for you and Donghyuck, and for your families as well.”

Your mother’s words cause you to realise that you’ve never been formally introduced to Donghyuck’s parents, or even met them. While you have been over to his house, it was only when his parents were absent on their business trips, or when he threw parties with hundreds in attendance.

Donghyuck has barely mentioned them, and you fail to recall any piece of knowledge about his parents. You wonder if they are aware of you, Donghyuck’s best friend since childhood. The sudden imbalance has been made glaringly obvious by your father’s words, and you’re not entirely sure what to do with the new realization.

The thought that you might be non-existent to Donghyuck’s family, the people he’s closest to in the world, leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Your mother seems to sense the turmoil unfolding in your mind, and looks at you gently. “Take some time to think about it, Y/N. Your father and I will be out for dinner tonight. The telephone will be free to use if you wish to make a call.”

You can tell she is apologetic about her words and that of your father’s, but you can’t bring yourself to reply just yet.

Later that evening, you’re nestled in the armchair of your father’s office, telephone across you. Donghyuck is likely done with dinner at this very moment, and perhaps resting in his room.

You must look rather ridiculous to the staff, having sat in here for an hour and yet nowhere near making a call. Still, hesitation tugs at your movements. What will you even ask Donghyuck?

As if to end your dilemma, the telephone rings loudly.

You hastily pick it up, and hear a faint static buzzing before a honeyed voice comes through.

“Hello. This is Lee Donghyuck. May I speak to Y/N for a brief moment, please?” His voice sounds excessively formal and stilted, so different from the tone you’re used to. It causes a smile to make its way onto your face, despite the situation.

“You’re speaking to her right now, Mr Lee,” you reply, and hear Donghyuck huff a laugh from across the receiver.

“Very funny, Y/N. I was half-terrified that your father would be the one to pick up. Care to tell me what happened today after I left?” Donghyuck is simply curious, but you are unsure how to broach the topic.

“Donghyuck?” He hums in acknowledgement.

“My father talked to me today. About the situation between both of our…families. Did you know about it?” Dead silence fills the room, and you can even hear Donghyuck’s breathing still.

“If you are asking whether I was aware that our families are bitter competitors and refuse to interact with each other, then…” Donghyuck’s voice trails off, and you bite your lip out of worry.

“Then?”

“Then yes.” Donghyuck’s voice comes off almost sheepish, and you feel pressure building up at the front of your head.

“Do your parents know who I am?” You finally ask the question that’s waiting on the tip of your tongue. After all, your parents have known Donghyuck since he was a child. Surely his mother and father are aware of you, his best friend of over a decade. Even if friendships between the opposite sex aren’t exactly considered orthodox in proper society.

“They know…I have a close female friend,” he mutters, and it comes out in bits and pieces, that you almost strain to catch it.

“A close female friend.” The four words leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth as you sound them out, even though you know Donghyuck doesn’t mean them to be demeaning. However, it feels humiliating in a way, especially since you’re aware of how the exact same term is used to describe Donghyuck’s fleeting, romantic entanglements.

There’s a beat of silence over the phone, until Donghyuck exhales sharply. You’re gripped by a flash of anger, and then it disappears, leaving doubt and a grim look on your face. Your other hand lies in your lap, and you don’t even realise you’re wrenching your skirt so hard that it crumples.

“Y/N, listen to me, you know how my parents are-”

“No, Donghyuck, I do not know how your parents are. If you may recall, you’ve barely told me anything about them. Or about your family at all, really.”

Your words come out clipped, and you quickly slam down the receiver, ending the telephone call. It’s not even out of anger, really- you think you might just be more fearful of Donghyuck’s reply.

All these years, you rarely prodded Donghyuck to share about his family, unless he offered the information up himself. You knew he had a younger sister and several cousins. After all, it was obvious that the boy did not enjoy sharing much about them, and you guessed that he likely had an estranged relationship with them. For you, it was enough to know that he was from a family similar to yours, inhabiting the upper echelons of society.

Donghyuck was your best friend who grew up with you, spent summers at your house, and the person who your parents treated like a son. That was the only person he needed to be. Even when your father lost his temper, the rage was not directed at Donghyuck, but rather how he was convinced that Donghyuck’s parents would never have allowed such a friendship to blossom.

You wonder what lies Donghyuck must have told them, then, to be able to spend so much time with you unhindered. Unease plagued you at the idea that Donghyuck intentionally omitted his identity from your parents as well, even if it was not malicious in nature.

It made you feel as if your friendship with Donghyuck was something to be embarrassed by, an illicit secret that brought shame onto both of your families.

Maybe he perceived it that way too.

july, 1909

“I’m busy today, Renjun.”

“With checking another one of your father’s ledgers? We both know you don’t enjoy it anyways,” Renjun mutters under his breath, and you glare at him. To give the boy credit, you were eager enough for an excuse to escape the workload that came with being the oldest child and heir.

“Fine. Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, is it?”

“Yes. At seven. Don’t be late.” He hangs up before you can even reply, and you stare at the now silent receiver. The way that Renjun speaks is the same way he conducts his relationships and friendships: the barest of what is necessary. Still, his curtness is refreshing compared to so many of the people you’ve met, who seem to have no end to their honeyed words.

You think of a boy with never-ending flowery words and witticisms, and determinedly push that thought away immediately.

Three hours later, you stride into the grand lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, heels clacking softly against the marble flooring. The restaurant is one of your favourites, and a smile of recognition appears on the hostess’s face as soon as she sees you.

“Miss Y/N. Good evening. This way, please.” You follow her into one of the private rooms, wondering why Renjun didn’t come out to get you himself. Despite his cold exterior, Renjun prefers to save the waitstaff their trouble, even if it is part of their job.

A sense of foreboding enters you when you push open the door, and you understand why the moment you see who’s sitting at the table.

Lee Donghyuck, hair combed back immaculately and suit clinging to frame, stands up and rushes to block you from leaving when you turn towards the exit.

“Let me through, Haechan,” you say through gritted teeth, looking at the wall past his head. The use of his formal name causes Donghyuck to flinch as if struck, and an apology almost escapes you.

“I haven’t seen you in two months, Y/N. Sit down and we can talk about this. Please,” Donghyuck’s voice is pleading, insistent, and it causes you to pause. Almost. You levelled your gaze at him calmly.

“And what did you tell your parents to meet me today? Did you say that you were meeting Renjun? I’m not sure what they would think if they knew you were meeting a close female friend in a private room at such an expensive restaurant.”

As much as you do not want to use Donghyuck’s parents against him, you’re not quite sure how to deal with him. Lee Haechan, Lee Donghyuck, your best friend. It keeps blending together, leaving you confused.

Donghyuck swallows and steps away, and you think that this is it. He’ll let you go, and the both of you will never return to whatever friendship you had before this. He’ll become a friendly acquaintance at most, considering the both of you will see each other much too often. Especially once he takes over his father’s estate and so do you.

“I told them I was meeting [L/N] [Y/N]. My best friend.”

Donghyuck’s words hang in the air, an invisible hand that stops you from pushing open the door.

“I told them we met in kindergarten and that I visited your estate every day. I told them I’ve known you for twelve years, and that we met every week. And that your parents know me. I told them everything.”

You look at Donghyuck, not daring to breathe.

“Wouldn’t they be angry?” You ask, eyes searching his. Donghyuck allows a small smile to appear on his face, before his eyes turn serious with sincerity once again.

‘Not any less angry than they would have been if I told them earlier. I’m sorry, Y/N. For not being honest from the beginning. I was scared.”

Donghyuck looks so young suddenly, eyes wide and anxious as he looks at you. Every bit a grown-up in the eyes of society, and yet so very young to you. He’s the boy you’ve always known, the seven-year-old who made a painting to apologise to you for ruining your dress. Your heart softens just a little looking at him, guilt creeping in. You’re unfamiliar with his parents, but anyone who can put a damper on the sun himself must be a force to be reckoned with.

The reason Donghyuck loved coming over so much must have been because of them, then. Because his home was hostile and unwelcoming, and he found solace in yours.

Your shoulders relax from their tense posture, and Donghyuck immediately notices it. His expression lightens a little as well, as he senses your rapidly-changing emotions. He steps closer to you, until the both of you are less than a hand’s breadth away from each other.

Up close, you can see the mix of doe-brown and raven-black in Donghyuck’s eyes, and the freckles that scatter haphazardly across his skin. His face is so very familiar to you, and seeing him again after two months of absolute silence hits you like a punch to the gut.

“Donghyuck, I didn’t-”

He grabs your hand, quickly cutting you off. Unease and guilt floods you, but you’ve never been as good at stringing words together as Donghyuck.

“It’s alright, Y/N. You don’t have to apologise for anything.” His voice is comforting, a soothing balm to the emotional turmoil in your heart. You nod quietly, not sure how to continue.

“Now, sit down, will you? I ordered all your favourites and I can’t possibly finish them by myself,” he jokes, and you follow Donghyuck as he pulls out the chair for you, hands exerting gentle pressure on your shoulders.

Later, you watch as Donghyuck eagerly digs into the red velvet cake, even before you get to do so. You had introduced it to him a few years ago, despite his insistence on ordering ice cream instead. Needless to say, you were quite sure you had convinced him to enjoy it, or perhaps he just gave in after your repeated pleading.

He hums contentedly, and your heart surges with fondness. You’re not sure how you had actually thought that Donghyuck could be reduced to a mere acquaintance, the years of friendship diminished. However, you couldn’t be more glad that he was now here, opposite you.

The city is still buzzing when you and Donghyuck leave the chandelier-lit hallways of the Waldorf Astoria, and Donghyuck tugs insistently on your arm.

“Come on. Let’s get you home.” He cranes his neck out towards the road to look for a taxi, but you extend a hand to halt his movements. Donghyuck flashes a questioning glance, and you smile reassuringly.

“It’s still early. We can stay out a little longer.” Donghyuck nods, acquiescing to your request. After all, the one most likely to have a curfew is you, rather than him. Although your parents think you’re out with Renjun and trust him to an extent, they’d rather not have your whereabouts unknown until late.

“Jaemin told me about a place near here the other day. Let’s try to find it.”

You follow Donghyuck down numerous winding alleys until you think the both of you might be in an entirely different district. By the time he pauses, the both of you are slightly out of breath and standing in front of an elevator with faded wooden doors. The lift is likely older than the both of you, judging from the way its doors open jerkily.

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure this is safe?” Regardless, you follow Donghyuck into the lift.

“You should trust me more. Do you think I would want your parents to dislike me even more by making them think I was responsible for your untimely death?” He says it casually, but you know your parents’ rejection must have hurt more than Donghyuck is willing to let on.

“I’m sure that if they found you and my dead body, they would rather believe I caused my own death than pin you as guilty.” It’s a weak attempt and not one you entirely believe, but you hope it comforts him nonetheless.

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, instead choosing to squeeze your hand gently. At some point along the way, he had gotten tired of having to look back to check if you were keeping up, and had instead chosen to grab your hand and drag you with him.

“I wonder how Jaemin found this godforsaken place,” Donghyuck muses.

“It’s probably for his photography. You know how he’s always running around the city looking for new places.”

Just then, the elevator lurches slightly before halting, and you stumble in a moment of shock.

Your impending fall is halted by a pair of arms that are most definitely not yours, and you turn to find yourself less than a hair’s breadth away from Donghyuck, whose eyebrows are furrowed in concern.

“Are you alright? You should be careful with those shoes.” Donghyuck’s referring to your heels, the ones that you wear for sit-down dinners and definitely do not use for exploring abandoned buildings with your best friend.

However, you find yourself unable to focus on Donghyuck’s words, and instead, the warmth that emanates from the hand he’s placed on your waist. He’s much too close to you for comfort, and your mind is beginning to blank.

“Y/N?” His words snap you out of your brief daydream, and you quickly step away from him, blood rushing to your cheeks. Warmth floods you, your heart beating unstably, and you’re quite sure it’s not just from all the walking.

You welcome the chance to leave the tiny, cramped lift and put some space between you and Donghyuck, despite having absolutely no idea where the both of you are. A slight breeze provides respite to your flushed cheeks, and Donghyuck follows after you. The both of you are on a completely empty rooftop, and you immediately head towards the edge.

“You can see the entire city from here,” you say as you lean over the parapet. The lift brought you much higher than expected, allowing you to be flooded with the sight of New York’s stunning skyline. It’s a pretty view, and you’re filled with a sense of quiet peace as Donghyuck stands by your side.

It’s beautiful,” you exhale, and at Donghyuck’s lack of response, turn over to him. Your eyes immediately meet, and there is an unfamiliar fondness in Donghyuck’s starry-eyed gaze.

“Yeah, it is.” Donghyuck says lowly, eyes never leaving yours. The air feels charged with a strange energy, crackling with tension. If you utter a word, it might just be broken. First the lift, and now this. Your heart has been hammering against your ribcage endlessly, and it seems absurd that it might be because of Donghyuck. He’s the person you trust with anything, the one who you’d willingly get lost with. Yet, his gaze now makes you feel like a cornered animal, and you find yourself unable to formulate a coherent response.

“Donghyuck, I…” Your voice trails off and he smiles slightly, instead moving closer until your shoulders touch. The both of you stand side by side, eyes fixed on the radiant lights that make up the city.

However, your wristwatch quickly serves to dispel the peace of the moment, as you quickly dart a glance at the time.

“Donghyuck, we’ve got to leave. I told them I’d be out with Renjun until a quarter past ten.” You hook your arm around his and quickly pull him back in the direction of the lift.

Once the both of you are back below, however, Donghyuck’s quick to hail you a cab.

“Aren’t you getting in?” You ask, confused, staring at Donghyuck who remains standing outside. He smiles down at you gently, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear before you can even register that it has slipped out of your bun.

“I don’t want your staff to see us and get into trouble. I’ll make my own way back.” There’s a slight disappointment in Donghyuck’s voice, and you’re not sure if you should tell him that you simply do not care if Ms Kim sees Donghyuck sending you back and reports it to your parents.

“Drive safely, please,” Donghyuck directs to the driver, handing him the fare with a look that tells you not to protest. The driver nods, and you turn back to look at Donghyuck, still standing on the pavement. His familiar figure brings a smile to your face despite your tiredness as he lifts up a hand to wave.

The ride back is spent in solitary quiet, for Donghyuck is not here to fill up the chatter in the space.

That night, you sleep more soundly than you have in weeks.

the present: september, 1912

“We’re done for the morning.” Your tutor, Mr Park, is a kindly, middle-aged man, and you've grown especially thankful for his presence since you’ve been confined at home.

You gather up your things, bowing to him as you get up from one of the many plush armchairs in your father’s library. You’ve decided to make it your mission to finish all the books that fill these shelves, and so far your progress is halfway there. No matter that you spend hours reading every day.

“Y/N. Take the afternoon off.” Mr Park’s voice cuts through the stillness of the library, and you turn to look at him questioningly.

“Even my best students preparing for Harvard don’t study as much as you do. Take a break and spend the afternoon in the city. No young lady should languish at home.”

The twinkle in his eye tells you that Mr Park will hide you sneaking out from your parents, and you immediately get up.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t consider your students languishing at home if they were male,” you retort, a bemused smile on your face.

“That’s because they are much less sensible than you are. Home confinement would do most men a world of good.” His remark causes a grin to appear on your face, and he waves you off. You do not argue further. After all, there are only five or so hours before your parents return, and you plan to make the most of it.

The entryway is noticeably quiet as you make your way down the marble stairs, purse in hand and shoes changed to favour a pair more comfortable for walking.

Besides the close housekeeping staff, no one else knows of your father’s anger at you. Well, besides one other person, of course.

“Y/N!” Your younger sister, Miyeon, appears in the hallway right as you are about to leave. Her eyes are alight with curiosity, storybook in hand. Panicked, you run over to hush her.

“Lower your voice, Miyeon-ah. I need you to help me keep a secret. Can you tell Ms Kim I’m very sick and would like no one to disturb me in my room?”

“Unnie, are you sneaking out?” She whispers conspiratorially, and you flash a grin at her.

“Yes. To see Donghyuck. But you can’t tell anyone, because Donghyuck and I are…planning a surprise for everyone. Okay?”

She nods eagerly, but her lips quickly soften into a pout. “I miss Donghyuck. Will he come to visit soon?”

A sharp pang of guilt enters your heart as you peer down at her forlorn expression. Donghyuck’s always treated your eight-year-old sister especially well, keeping her entertained when you’re too overwhelmed by her hyperactivity.  He’s as much an older brother to her as you are her sister.

“He’s been very…busy. I’ll ask him to visit as soon as possible, okay?” She hums in agreement at that, and you smooth your hand over her hair gently. Miyeon does not need to know of the enmity between both of your families, and your now-fraught relationship with your father. You want her to have as good a childhood as possible, and there’s no reason she should be involved in it.

It is only when you are standing at the driveway that you realise you’ve made an oversight. Although your father didn’t explicitly restrict you from leaving, he told the driver that you were not to be driven anywhere at any cost, effectively preventing you from making the thirty-minute trip down to the city centre.

Walking will cost you at least two hours of your precious time, but you suppose you have no choice. The weather is welcoming, at least, and you decide that you’ll try to make the most of it and enjoy the scenery. After all, the fresh air feels much better than the stifling air of your room.

Twenty minutes in, you’ve finally made it out of the gated community where your family’s estate is located in. The road here is gravelly, and you stop yourself from tripping a few times.

A car comes up behind you, and you pause as it comes to a stop right in front of you. Your heart fills with apprehension. You’ve heard about people getting robbed or kidnapped on the roads, but it’s bright daylight and this path is relatively safe. In fact, you’ve walked it hundreds of times.

When a man steps out, you’re entirely prepared to run, until you recognize the familiar silhouette.

“Renjun?” You immediately walk over, and he waves in greeting. Renjun rarely leaves his estate, especially in the middle of the day.

“I needed to head into the city to collect some art supplies. Saw you and figured you needed a ride.” You smile gratefully at him and immediately get in. Renjun’s car is pristine, and the leather seats are plush against your back.

“I haven’t seen you in weeks. Haechan told me you were stuck at home.” You nod, allowing a sigh to escape.

“My father got angry. You know how he is. I decided to sneak out today.”

“Which is why you’re walking three miles?” You roll your eyes at the sarcasm in Renjun’s tone.

“Yes, but now that I have you, our dear Renjun, to send me, my journey will be cut short,” you simper sweetly.

“Did I forget to tell you that I charge a fee? I’ve found a new calling as a taxi driver.”

“We both know you’d rather die than allow strangers to get into your precious car.”

Despite your constant bickering, you missed Renjun more than you’d care to admit. Especially since he would tease you about it to no end.

“Well then, where to?”

“Anywhere. I’m just glad to be out. I can go with you to get your art supplies,” you reply, and Renjun arches an eyebrow.

“You don’t want to see Haechan?”

You shrug. “He doesn’t know I’m out today and I have no way to find him. Besides, I just saw him last week.”

“Last week?” Renjun asks, confused, and your breath hitches. You didn’t mean for it to slip out.

“Well…Donghyuck may have….done some wall-climbing.” Renjun lets out an incredulous laugh, shaking his head. He drums his fingers on the wheel, humming silently.

“The both of you are ridiculous. Haechan mainly, but you too.”

Your eyebrows furrow slightly, and you turn to Renjun. “What?”

He doesn't reply, instead smiling one of his stupid smiles that say I know better than you do. There’s no way to get Renjun to divulge his thoughts unless he wishes, and so you leave him to it. You don’t think it’s that ridiculous. If Donghyuck was the one stuck at home, you would probably risk breaking your neck for him too. And it was likely the bigger sacrifice, considering how his room was a floor higher than yours.

The rest of the drive is passed in comfortable silence, Renjun quietly humming to a jazz song you don’t know the title of. The familiar brick-and-mortar buildings enter your vision, and the car drives past men in bowler hats and women in bonnets. Compared to the quiet isolation that exists within the suburbs, the city buzzes with a frenetic energy that screams liveliness, and it hits you like a tidal wave after all the solitary afternoons spent in your family’s garden.

The art supply store is much larger than you expected, with a ceiling that extends all the way up, leading to a skylight. Renjun is evidently familiar with the place from the way he weaves from shelf to shelf, and you follow quietly, observing him at work. Renjun is secretive about his art, even to his close friends, and you only get to see his works displayed when they are displayed at galleries or sold at auctions.

He’s quick to arrange for the materials to be delivered by the end of today, and the both of you head to the exit.

“Well, this is where I have to leave you now. Have fun, but stay safe.” The way Renjun talks to you makes you feel like a little child, but that’s just how he is.

“We haven’t seen each other in so long. Are you not free for a meal?” There’s disappointment evident in your voice. As much as you do not mind spending time by yourself in the city, you would much rather have Renjun by your side.

“I wish I was, but there’s a meeting with a sponsor I can’t miss. I can send you home again, though. Can you meet me here in two hours?” You nod in assent, watching as Renjun strides down until he eventually disappears around a corner.

It’s just you now, and the bustling streets of New York City. This is the most lively area of the city, with art galleries and restaurants littering every street. You’re drawn to one, in particular, its elegant marble arches and stained glass fixtures taking your breath away. When you step in, you’re immediately surrounded by commotion. It’s unusually crowded for a gallery, and from the attire of everyone around you, it’s likely no typical event. You grab a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray as you weave through the crowds, attempting to find a less crowded area.

You eventually pause in front of a winged sculpture that takes up most of the space in its display case.

“Enjoying the exhibition?”

“Well, I suppose you could say so.” You don’t turn around to view the source of the voice, too enraptured in reading the description that accompanies the figure.

“And you’re not going to say you came here to find me?” The voice is cocky, but slightly petulant, and all too reminiscent of someone you know. You turn around sharply, eyebrows furrowing.

“Donghyuck? I didn’t know you were here-”

“Yeah, I figured, considering how you made a straight beeline for the gallery instead of me. Why didn’t you tell me your parents let you leave the house?” There’s a note of hurt in his voice, and you grin slightly. It’s almost adorable, but also comforting, having the knowledge that Donghyuck values your presence as much as you do his.

You make your way over to him, ruffling his hair slightly. He bends down reflexively for you to do so, and it makes you feel like you’re a young child again. It’s something only Donghyuck can do, you think. He represents every part of your childhood, and makes you feel as if you’re young again, without a care in the world.

“I snuck out,” you whisper proudly, and Donghyuck raises his eyebrows, slightly impressed. As far as he knows, he’s the rule-breaker out of both of you.

“Anyways, what are you doing here? You’ve never been one much for art.”

“My family’s the one organizing this exhibition and the auction later. As their only son, I have to be here,” Donghyuck replies, and you nod in understanding. Despite his frivolous nature, he still fulfils his duties to the utmost extent, and you suppose that’s why you’ve never chided Donghyuck for his occasionally irresponsible actions. If anything, you’re more worried about his liver and his general health from all the red wine and sleepless nights he has.

“Then…are your parents here?” You ask nervously, fiddling with your hands. You’ve never met Donghyuck’s parents, and you’re not sure if you want to. You’ve seen them in the newspapers, of course, and in passing at important events, but never long enough to draw any notice. Though they’re definitely aware of your presence, it seems they’ve decided to ignore it as a minor inconvenience. Similar to how your parents treat Donghyuck now, you think.

Donghyuck shakes his head happily, however. “They’re out temporarily to settle some stuff for the auction, so it’s just me helming the event. It’s about time for lunch, though.” As if coordinated, your stomach rumbles, and Donghyuck lets out a laugh at it.

“My treat for lunch. To celebrate my best friend’s temporary freedom,” he teases, and you smile up at him.

Before the both of you can exit, however, a man strides in. His eyebrows are thin and pinched, much like the rest of his features. There is a certain unwelcoming air to him, and you notice Donghyuck turning imperceptibly stiff.

“Ah. Haechan. I was wondering where the golden boy of the Lee family was.” His voice is haughty, belying sarcasm, and you immediately decide that you don’t particularly like this man. There’s something about him that spells malice, as if he’s deliberately out to get you.

“Mr Park. A pleasure to see that you’re doing well,” Donghyuck returns with a sickly sweet smile, one that you know is entirely false. It’s the smile reserved for the people he likes the least, and you’re rendered even more curious about who this Mr Park is.

“And who’s this lady friend of yours?’ Mr Park says, turning to you. The way his gaze looks you up and down makes you shudder slightly, and Donghyuck immediately steps forward. However, you’re determined to not back down.

“The name’s Y/N L/N,” you bite out, eyes narrowed at him.

“Y/N L/N? I believe I know your father. Still, what are you doing running around with a boy like Haechan?” There is an almost predatory glint in his eye as he takes in the both of you, and you’re sure he’s aware of the not-so-well-concealed feud between both you and Donghyuck’s families.

“If you excuse us. Y/N and I are rather busy. Especially if you consider the prominence of our families,” Donghyuck’s low tone is condescending, betraying a hint of danger, and it's something you’re unused to.

You realise that this is Lee Haechan, heir to a major business conglomerate and the reigning king of New York high society. The front he shows to everyone else, that gives him a sense of notoriety. His palm is warm against the small of the back as he guides you out of the room, but the both of you are not fast enough to escape Mr Park’s last comment.

“Busy, huh? I wonder what your parents will say when they find out their son is playing in his own version of Romeo and Juliet as the male lead.”

It takes you a while to figure out the meaning behind Mr Park’s words, but they settle into you with a feeling of unease. Not the idea that Mr Park thinks you and Donghyuck are romantically involved- that’s the least of your concerns. But is that what your friendship with Donghyuck is destined for? Tragedy?

Donghyuck seems to sense your emotional turmoil and smooths his hands over yours. “Don’t think about what that guy said. He just spews whatever nonsense comes to mind. My parents don’t like him either.” The smile that you give Donghyuck is shaky, but he’ll take it.

“If anything, I would be Juliet. I’m not daft enough to drink poison just because I thought you died,” he states, and you roll your eyes. However, your heart feels a bit lighter, and you’re able to pass the walk to lunch in comfortable silence.

Later that afternoon, Donghyuck watches silently as you get back in the car with Renjun and drive off. He would offer, but he’s not sure if his showing up would only further undermine your parents’ impression of him. Sometimes, he feels almost like some sort of parasite, clinging to you until even your relationship with your father has become increasingly tense. Still, he can’t seem to detach from you for too long. You’ve been such a big part of his world for as long as he can remember. He’s not sure what he would do to fill the space if you disappeared.

He may have also lied to you about Mr Park, but hopefully, you’ll never know that. Donghyuck feels oddly protective over you, even though he knows you’re perfectly capable of handling yourself. It’s probably just because you’re one of the few genuinely close friends he has, and he can’t afford to lose any.

When Donghyuck finally returns to the gallery, the people present are much more sparse, everyone already heading out for dinner.

“Lee Haechan. Where were you?” His father’s voice is low and cuts across the shadows of the room, and Donghyuck almost trips on his own feet out of surprise. Of course. Mr Park, that desperate ladder-climber. He would do anything to curry favour with Donghyuck’s father.

“I see you still refuse to address me by my birth name. If you have to know, I was with Y/N.”

”That wench again? Mr Park informed me of what he saw today. Stop fooling around and get your head back on straight.”

Donghyuck feels his jaw clenching, fingers curled into a fist. You’re no wench, as much as his father likes to call you one. But his father thinks anyone is below him, even his own son and wife.

“She’s my friend.” Donghyuck finds his voice wavering, and he hates it. Twenty-one, and yet he still feels fear at the sight of his father. It’s a painful relationship they have, really. His father cannot abandon him because Donghyuck is his heir and more than capable enough, even if he despises him. Besides, no respectable member of the gentry should have to endure the shameful scandal of a runaway son. And Donghyuck refuses to abandon his mother and the life he has now outside of his father.

But every time he finds himself close to the limit, it’s always about you.

“She’s a competitor, you idiot. I may not like the girl, but I have an ounce of respect for her being smart enough to have my only son wrapped around her finger as such. If you tire of the women you have, I’ll send more.”

“How dare you-”

“I dare, Haechan, because I’m your father and the only reason why your sorry little life and that of your mother’s still exist. And my power extends outside as well. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret. It would be a pity if the family lost their oldest daughter, don’t you think?”

The air seems to hush, a deathly silence overtaking the hall. Donghyuck can feel his heartbeat slowing, his anger cooling to a numbing fear as he takes in the implications of his father’s words. He knows his family does have unsavoury ties to the less respectable areas of society, but he’s always chosen to ignore it. Donghyuck’s not sure how far his father is willing to go to do what he deems necessary, but the idea of finding out causes his mouth to turn dry.

To lose you….that only spells two consequences, none of them good. And he’s not sure if your family is enough to protect you, wealthy as they are. He knows your parents. They are kind, even if they’ve distanced themselves from him. Compared to his father, yours is nowhere as cold-blooded. But he would be devastated at the thought of anything happening to you. It’s two birds with one stone, he realises. To topple his business opponent, and reign in his son.

In that moment, standing in that gallery with the man who raised him, Donghyuck feels so very helpless. He’s angry at so many things. His father, the situation the both of you are in, and himself. For not being good enough to protect you, for being the reason why you fell out with your father, for putting you in danger each and every single time he seeks you out.

It’s a terrible time to have this realisation, but Donghyuck loves you. He realises it when he’s pacing in his room later that evening, his father’s threats looming over his head and causing anxiety to rake its claws in him.

Of course, he loves you as his best friend, the one who’s been by his side since he was young and provided a respite away from the cold home that he had grown up in. Still, it seems that there’s always something more, something missing. Donghyuck doesn’t have anything to rely on, considering his parents had a loveless marriage.

However, looking at your family, and looking at you, he thinks he might understand love a little more.

Of course, he would fall hopelessly for someone who had grown up with so much care and affection to give.

The moments where he sees couples on the streets, and wonder if the both of you look like them even if you’re not hand-in-hand.

That night on the balcony, when he thought you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen in his life. And the time on the rooftop, when he wished to just lean into you, and close the distance.

Donghyuck realises that he’s loved you for most of his life, even before he knew what love was. His name may mean the sun, but he finds himself orbiting around you instead.

The use of Romeo and Juliet feels ironically bitter now, and Donghyuck scoffs at the impossibility of the situation. His love isn’t enough to untangle this web of threads that the both of you are stuck in, unless he cuts through them entirely. You’ll get hurt, but at least you’ll be free. It’ll be as painful as cutting his own heart out, but Donghyuck would gladly place your safety above his.

Fifteen years is a long, long time to love someone. Yet, Donghyuck now feels as if all the time in the world would not be enough to love you.

november, 1912

He’s not coming today, Y/N.

When it hits almost two in the morning, that’s when you give up. It’s been two months since you’ve last seen Donghyuck, and since he stopped coming to your window in the middle of the night. You shouldn’t be disappointed- It must be tiring for him, and you’ve gone longer than that without seeing Donghyuck. Still, you can’t help the sense of dread that pervades you every single time you stand at your balcony, and his familiar face isn’t in sight.

You’ve been able to call Renjun and your other friends, but they’re disappointingly sparse with updates about Donghyuck, besides the usual of him at parties. It’s like he’s still normal to everyone, except you. You’ve tried calling Donghyuck’s estate, but you’ve always given up in fear of his parents being the ones to pick up. You had once left a note for his housekeeper, but it seems that it didn’t exactly get through.

You stare up at the ceiling from where you are in your bed, head swirling with thoughts. Maybe he’s busy with his work. After all, that’s likely the most plausible reason. Despite that, unease settles in you, and your sleep is fitful.

The midday sun greets you once you wake up, and you’re surprised at how late you’ve woken up. Lunch is already halfway through when you’re down, your father at the head of the table.

“Good morning,” you say slightly drowsily as you settle down and pour yourself a heaping cup of coffee, and your parents both smile slightly at you, your father moving the bread basket over. Throughout the past few months, you suppose his initial anger and worry about Donghyuck has mellowed somewhat.

“Y/N. Tell the driver to bring you where you want from now on,” your father mutters, and you almost drop the sugar cube out of shock.

“What?” You look up at him incredulously, unwilling to believe that perhaps, you might be allowed to leave.

Your mother smiles kindly at you, though her eyes are sympathetic. “Your father was just scared of the rumours surrounding you and Donghyuck. But they’re gone now, and we haven’t seen the boy in a while. Besides, you’re an adult now. As your parents, we can’t stop you from doing what you want.”

You can’t stop the grin that makes its way onto your face, and you immediately engulf the both of them in a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll be sensible, I promise.” Breakfast forgotten, you immediately run up to your room to get ready, unaware of the words your parents exchange with each other.

“I know Donghyuck is a good and kind boy. But he’ll bring trouble everywhere he goes, with that father of his.”

“He makes her happy. Let them figure it out.”

Despite your parents’ discouragement, your first course of action is to find Donghyuck. By the time you leave, it’s in the late afternoon, which means the weekly parties will start at any time. If you’ve estimated the weeks correctly, it’s Renjun’s turn this time.

The drive down to Renjun’s house is far, but scenic. He had deliberately chosen the very outskirts. of the suburbs, and bought the land surrounding the property as well, so as to ensure only greenery would be seen. You think his estate is the prettiest, though yours comes to a close second.

When you reach, people are already beginning to mill about, and you’re grateful you dressed appropriately. It takes you long enough to make your way past the gardens, to the main foyer, and then down a few side hallways to reach the room that Renjun saves for his close friends.

“Hello, everyone. Missed me?” Your voice is playful as you walk in, and Renjun immediately sits up, a smile lighting up his features.

“I didn’t think you’d actually make it. Congratulations on your freedom.” He passes you a glass of Sauvignon, so dark it almost looks like blood. Jeno lifts his glass to you in a silent toast, grinning. Your eyes scan the room, but you frown. “This is Donghyuck’s favourite wine. Why isn’t he here finishing it all?” Your tone is light, but you’re genuinely wondering where the man has run off to, considering he’s rarely separated from Renjun.

However, Renjun’s expression looks almost sheepish, and it makes you even more confused. He places his hands on your shoulders gently, steering you in the direction of the couch. “Donghyuck’s a little preoccupied. He’ll be back soon.”

Renjun seems insistent, and so you leave him be. However, one hour and six poker games later, you’re starting to get genuinely concerned.

“Renjun, can you bring me to Donghyuck?” You ask, and Renjun looks like he’s been put in a difficult spot.

“Renjun. Where is he?” Your tone is serious now, and the man in front of you lets out a sigh, looking resigned. He gets up, waving a hand for you to follow him. “Down that hallway. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

You’re equal parts fearful and baffled. It’s Donghyuck. What would you have to fear? You turn the corner, and hear coquettish giggles coming out of a room. You roll your eyes. Renjun was just being dramatic, after all. This is nothing that you’re not used to, even if you find it slightly distasteful.

When you knock on the open door, signalling your presence, the two women sitting next to Donghyuck immediately look up, before their eyes widen in realisation. Donghyuck straightens and leans forward, his eyes slightly hazed over by alcohol but still aware of your presence. You stare at him from where you are standing, eyebrow raised.

“Who are you?”

That is the one question you’re not expecting, and your posture immediately straightens. “What? Donghyuck, you must be really drunk. It’s me, Y/N.” Your voice is still light, unaware of the situation, and Donghyuck swallows, looking at you directly before he speaks.

“Ah. What’s the heir of the L/N family doing in this room? Unless…you would like to join?” Donghyuck’s mouth is curled in a smirk, and it causes a sour feeling to appear in your mouth. What sort of game is he playing here? Donghyuck’s never made you feel small, or put you in a spot.

And yet, now, the situation is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. The two women are staring, doubtful of what to do. You feel slightly humiliated, and you’re not sure how to bridge the gap between you and him.

“Could you leave us, please?” You tilt your head meaningfully at the two other women in the room, who thankfully, leave without much hesitation. Donghyuck seems sad to see them go, a petulant pout on his face.

“If you just wanted me to yourself, you could have said so,” he says snarkily, and you roll your eyes. “Donghyuck, this is ridiculous. Why did you do that?”

“Why not? It was funny. Also, my name’s Haechan. Not Donghyuck.”

“What? Donghyuck, we’ve known each other for so long. Whatever prank you’re playing, cut it out.” You’re completely bewildered now, eyes piercing into Donghyuck from across the room, while he remains relaxed, legs spread out comfortably on the chaise. He swallows, and it seems like it’s the first time you’ve seen him hesitate in the past ten minutes or so.

“It’s not a prank. I’m tired.” You’re frozen at the door, and haven’t moved from it since you stepped in.

“If you’re tired, you should rest-”

“Not physically. I’m tired of you. Our friendship. Whatever. It’s annoying. I was having fun and then you ruined it.” His words don’t make sense to you at first, considering the implausibility of his statement. You laugh in incredulity at first. This must be some poorly-conceived prank he came up with. After all, he has gone too far by accident before, but you’ve always been quick to let him know. However, it’s hard to contain your own infuriation, especially at his careless words.

“Are you…are you serious?” He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m sick of it.”

This prank is exceedingly cruel, even for him.

That’s when the cold tendrils of fear begin to surround you. The fact that he might mean what he’s saying, that this isn’t some stupid joke his poor, half-addled brain conjured up. His expression is painfully earnest, and your throat constricts uncomfortably.

“Donghyuck, if I did something-”

“You didn’t do anything. I just don’t want to be associated with you anymore. It’s difficult, you know? And exhausting. We weren’t meant to be friends anyways.”

Your heart is breaking, but you’re sure only you can hear it, judging by the nonchalant expression on Donghyuck’s face. “Alright. I understand.” Your hands are trembling as you quickly turn on your heel. However, before you move past the threshold, you find that there’s still something you want to say.

“You know, it was difficult for me too. But I thought it was worth it. With you. I’m sorry you found it exhausting.”

You run out of the room before your tears can escape, leaving Donghyuck behind.

Unluckily enough, you collide right into Renjun. “See, Y/N, I told you not to go because I didn’t want you to get upset- are you crying?” His voice holds a note of surprise.

“Hey, listen to me. Donghyuck really does love you. He just has a terrible fucking way of expressing it. I’ll talk to him,” Renjun says, and you pull away from him. “What?”

“Don’t you have romantic feelings for him? I just didn’t want you to get hurt-”

You shake your head vehemently. “Renjun, where did you get this from?”

“I thought it was obvious to everyone. But that isn’t why you’re crying?” He’s just as muddled as you are now, and you’re still unable to wrap your head around everything that’s happened and what Renjun is saying.

“He told me he got bored and tired of the friendship. And essentially doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. That’s why I was crying. Still am, actually.”

You watch as Renjun’s face gradually transforms from confusion to anger, and you would feel scared if you were on the receiving end. However, you feel strangely comforted. “That guy must be drunk out of his mind. Don’t take anything seriously, okay? I’ll talk to him. That idiot-”

You extend a hand to grab Renjun’s arm to stop him from making his way to Donghyuck, smiling a watery smile at him. “Renjun, it’s okay. Drunk words are sober thoughts, right? I kind of understand, even if he could have been a little nicer about it. I’ll just go back home now. Don’t worry about me.”

From the way your smile wavers, Renjun knows nothing is alright, but he can only watch hopelessly as you go, unsure how to mend the situation. When Donghyuck barely mentioned you and refused to partake in any conversation involving the mention of your name, Renjun had thought it strange, but ignored it.

Now, he understood. Something was very, very wrong.

There was only one person he could seek clarification from. And so, despite your protests, he stormed towards the sitting room that Donghyuck was in.

When he sees the boy in question, he scoffs angrily and storms over. “Stop drinking already,” he mutters, wrenching the wine bottle out of Donghyuck’s hand. Occasionally, the sight of Donghyuck tipsy is amusing, but now he just seems pathetic to Renjun.

“Cut it out, Renjun. Are you here to ruin my fun too?”

Donghyuck’s being mean on purpose, but Renjun’s already much more prepared to handle the situation. He’s always been more emotionally mature than most and wonders how heavy a blow this must have been for you.

“Don’t tell me to cut it out when you’re the one who messed up. Y/N just ran out of here crying, and I want to know what the hell is wrong with you,” Renjun says determinedly, and Donghyuck looks up at him, cloudy eyes temporarily replaced with regretful sobriety.

“She cried?”

“You’re sorry now? I’m not surprised, after what you said to her.” Renjun knows he’s being harsh, for Donghyuck must be hiding something, but he can’t help it. You’re his friend too, even if he’s close to Donghyuck.

Still, he wants to help to mend whatever it is. Because he knows that you’re one of the people that Donghyuck loves most in the world, even if the boy resolutely refuses to admit it.

Donghyuck sinks back into the couch, eyes closed. Renjun’s heart softens a little at the sight. This is the most defeated he’s seen Donghyuck in the decade that he’s known him. It’s a tendency of Donghyuck’s, to keep his problems to himself. Renjun understands because he’s done it before too.

The fear of being a burden is a heavy one to carry. He supposes for Donghyuck, it’s even worse because he doesn’t have anyone at home to rely on. And everyone expects the sun to keep on shining, day in and day out.

“Come on, Donghyuck. Out with it.”

“God, Renjun, you know I don’t mean any of what I said. It’s more likely that Y/N would get tired of me, honestly.” Donghyuck lets out a laugh at his own words, but it comes out bitter and forced.

“It’s my father. He made certain…threats. I cut Y/N off to keep her safe.” Renjun immediately understands the meaning behind Donghyuck’s words, but even then, he furrows his eyebrows.

“God, you’re an idiot, Lee Donghyuck.” His eyes open slightly then, and he looks at Renjun.

“What? No, Renjun, you don’t understand. My father can and will make good on his threats-”

“I know exactly what kind of person Mr Lee is. I don’t think pushing Y/N away will do anything at all. If your father wanted to make a move, he would have a long time ago. Besides, if he did anything now, the culprit is obvious. You don’t actually think Y/N is helpless, do you?” Renjun realises that the idea of you getting hurt has sent Donghyuck into a panic, muddling his judgement.

“Of course she’s not helpless, but she’s no match for-”

“Think about it, Donghyuck. Y/N’s family is one of the richest and the most powerful in the entire of upstate New York. The both of you may think that you’ve been able to keep your friendship under wraps, but her family has her under heavy protection. You think your father has connections? So does hers. There are eyes everywhere in this city, on you, her, and you both. She has plenty of people to protect her. Your father would be asking for retribution if he tried anything.”

Donghyuck finally falls silent then, mulling over Renjun’s words. There’s a sense of relief as he realises you’re no longer in danger. After all, that was his only goal. Even though Donghyuck doesn’t reply, Renjun knows that his words have gotten through somewhat, from the way that the clouds in Donghyuck’s expression have cleared up.

However, another realization quickly sinks in, and Donghyuck’s eyes fall dim again.

“God, then the things I said-”

“You broke her heart, you idiot. Go and find her, before she decides she’s done with you for good,” Renjun says, and Donghyuck turns to him sharply, a confused look on his face.

It is then that Renjun realises how for as oblivious as you are, there is no one more ignorant than Lee Donghyuck himself.

“Y/N’s in love with you too, just in case you haven’t realised.”

Donghyuck looks completely disbelieving, and Renjun tries not to roll his eyes. The both of you are much too similar, he can’t help but think. “Just ask her yourself.” Donghyuck curses under his breath, before grabbing his jacket and running out of the room, and Renjun watches as he goes. 

As much as Renjun is tired of seeing the both of you dance in circles around one another, he wonders if just maybe, this time, the both of you might get your happy ending.

Donghyuck’s mind is blank when he stands underneath your window, the cold air quickly making him clear-headed. He’s trembling, and it’s not from the cold air whipping around, but rather his nerves. He tries not to shiver as he goes through the familiar motions of throwing pebbles against your window.

Five minutes pass, and then ten. With each second, Donghyuck’s heart falls further and further down, and he’s not sure if you want anything to do with him at this moment. Still, he’ll stand here the entire night, if it means he can have a moment with you.

Just then, the door to your window cracks open, and Donghyuck’s breath hitches. You’re still wearing your dress from earlier, but your hair is mussed and your makeup is mostly gone.

Donghyuck thinks you look breathtaking.

It seems that once he confronted the full weight of his feelings for you, they’ve only intensified. He supposes that explains why there’s a strange pressure in his chest whenever he sees your face, and it’s like the breath is stolen from his lungs.

You remain silent, expression unmoving as you stare down at Donghyuck. He finally collects his thoughts, and looks up at you beseechingly.

“I need to talk to you. Can I come in?” You seem to pause, expression stricken, before nodding. Donghyuck exhales loudly in relief, but he hopes you didn’t catch it.

You can’t help but keep your eyes fixed on him as he makes his way up the familiar bricks. As much as you remember his words from earlier, you can’t help but be concerned for his safety. You refuse to admit that his presence here has allowed the tiniest tendril of hope to snake into your heart.

Donghyuck immediately drifts in the direction of your fireplace, even as his eyes remain firmly lodged on you, and you realise he must have been freezing while waiting for you.

However, he seems considerably tense as he turns back to you, eyes searching and assessing. You make a deliberate effort not to show any outward emotion, but you know that your eyes are still red-rimmed from earlier, and there are still visible tear tracks.

“I thought you made your opinion quite clear. Are you here to go into even more detail?” The words come out firm, and Donghyuck tries not to flinch. You have every right to be angry, after all.

“No, it’s not that. I swear it’s not that. I’m here to apologise. And if you decide that you don’t want anything to do with me ever again, that’s okay. I’ll go back right out the way I came.” His eyes are pleading, hands wide open in supplication.

You don’t say anything, and Donghyuck takes it as a positive affirmation for him to keep going.

He has to do this.

“I got…scared,” he confesses, and you arch an eyebrow slightly, waiting for him to continue. But your heart is already shifting towards forgiveness, and you’re not sure if it’s foolish.

“I thought that by pushing you away, I could protect you from my father. I know that I’m wrong now, and I’m sorry. For what I said, which hurt you, untrue as it was. I didn’t think any of it through.”

There’s so much fear and anxiety in each sentence that escapes Donghyuck, and you wonder how much he must have thought about this. About how to protect you in the only way he could, even if it meant hurting you in the process.

Even then, you’re not prepared for what he says next.

“You’re one of the most precious people to me, and I’m not exactly the most clear-headed when it comes to the ones I love.”

There’s a pause, and it feels like the world has tilted on its axis.

“You love me?” You ask, eyes wavering as you search Donghyuck’s for even a hint of deceit.

Yet, you think you already know the answer. Away from the events of today, Donghyuck’s love for you is painfully obvious from everything he does.

He immediately strides over, hands cupping your face gently as he leans down until his face is level with yours.

“Of course I do, you beautiful, brilliant woman. How could I not? I would never tire of this,” he whispers, and your heart constricts delightfully.

You’re not sure if Donghyuck can hear the audible thudding of your pulse, but you feel as if the room is spinning, and he’s the only thing grounding you. You think about what Renjun said in the hallway. The line between platonic and romantic love was so very, very fine. And it muddied so often, so easily, for you and Donghyuck.

Right now, with him in front of you, you think that perhaps, the idea of crossing that line doesn’t sound so bad.

You swallow, head tilting up to look at him. Your best friend, Donghyuck. The person you loved the most, and the only one who could make you laugh and cry with just a few simple words.

‘When you asked if I wanted to join you, in that room. What if I said I wanted to be the only one?” You ask, your gaze aimed directly at Donghyuck’s.

When he takes in your words, his stare darkens briefly, before quickly softening. He steps impossibly closer, until you can feel the warmth of your body against his.

Your lips are so very close to his now. You think your breathing might have just stopped.

“Then you’ll be the only one. Always have been,” he mutters, before closing the distance between the both of you.

When Donghyuck kisses you, it feels as if a piece of your heart has finally settled.

His lips press against yours insistently but gently, and you find your hands making their way up to grip the lapels of his jacket. You’re bending backwards slightly, and might have lost your balance if it wasn’t for the steady grip of his hands, one on your waist and the other on your cheek.

Donghyuck kisses you languidly, as if he has all the time in the world to do so. You find yourself smiling into the kiss, but bite back a gasp when his tongue slips into your mouth briefly, almost teasing.

You pull back, flustered, hands lightly pushing at Donghyuck’s shoulders. Your cheeks are bright red now, but you can’t help but miss the phantom feeling of his lips on yours. Donghyuck smirks now, much more confident, and you refuse to meet his gaze.

Your wide eyes and messy hair, courtesy of Donghyuck, has something softening imperceptibly in his heart. He smooths a palm over your hair, and strokes a thumb over your cheek fondly. A small part of him still thinks he’s dreaming. Still, he knows that this wouldn’t be something he could conjure up by himself.

You’re everything he’s ever wanted and needed, and Donghyuck refuses to let you go if you’re willing to stay.

“I meant it when I said you were the only one. I was fearful that I would scare you away. I know I say stupid things sometimes, and I make bad decisions. But thank you. For not running away, and staying. Fifteen years ago, and now.” The sincerity in Donghyuck’s voice is startling, but comforting all the same.

“You’ve stayed for me too, Donghyuck. I don’t think you realise how much other people love you. you have so much love to give, but it’s okay to receive it sometimes,” you reply, looking at the boy in front of you, the one who carries too much doubt and worry and hides it behind a smooth veneer of cheer and mischief.

He doesn’t say anything, but the way Donghyuck squeezes your hand gratefully tells you that he’s heard you.

The soft sound of voices drifting from outside causes you to freeze, until you realise it’s just Miyeon being put to bed by the nanny. You let out a breath of relief, and Donghyuck smiles gently.

“It’s late. I should go.”

However, just as Donghyuck’s about to make his way back down, you find yourself filled with a sense of reluctance. You don’t want to let him go just yet.

“Hyuck. Stay the night,” you say, and he immediately halts, backtracking into the room. His gaze is doubtful, as he processes your words.

“Like here? With you?” You nod, and it’s almost amusing how it’s Donghyuck’s turn to turn slightly red.

“You act like you didn’t stay over so many times when we were kids. Even though my parents made you sleep on the floor, you’d always pester me to let you get into the bed instead.”

“It’s different now, Y/N.”

“Not that different. You’re still my best friend, Hyuck. We just also happen to be in a relationship,” you state as you tug the blanket over your waist and grab a pillow to pass to him, turning off the lights.

Donghyuck eventually makes his way to the other side, and you turn until the both of you are facing each other while lying down. His features are soft in the dim light of the room, and you run your finger over his profile, pausing briefly at the freckle on his cheekbone.

“Well, then I suppose being romantically involved entitles me to some liberties.” His voice is hushed, filling you with a sense of anticipation.

“Like?” Your voice is muffled, slightly sleepy as you lean into the pillow, but curious.

“Like this,” he whispers, before pulling you towards him by your waist and peppering your face with kisses. Your giggles ring out in the quiet of the room, but they’re quickly silenced by Donghyuck kissing you again. You eagerly reciprocate, lips moving against his in a perfect cadence, and you can’t seem to stop smiling.

It’s easy, being in love with Donghyuck. Almost as if you’ve done it your entire life.

That night, the both of you fall asleep with your limbs tangled together, barely visible in the dim twilight of the room. Your parents may be furious, but you find yourself unable to care, not when you can hear the sound of Donghyuck’s heartbeat from the way you lean against his chest.

After all, what you and Donghyuck have is better than gold, and you wouldn’t exchange a single thing in the world for it.

[welcomefortune]

One of the big problems I do have with Veilguard is that they seem to not want much moral ambiguity. Like finding out that Sten has nothing to do with the Qunari invading despite being previously established as the Arishok. Or the Crows just being completely morally good now and making sure all of their targets deserve it. Or none of the elves joining their gods or Solas because they’re good and only evil people would join evil people so it’s just the Venatori and the Antaam despite the fact that the Venatori’s vision of Tevinter relies on human supremacy to elves and the Antaam hate magic they’re actually fine with it when it comes to the elven gods. Or how if you are blighted now the Grey Wardens will put you through the Joining to save you but don’t worry they wouldn’t actually make you join against your will because that would be bad. Or how the Lords of Fortune are treasure hunters but don’t worry they would never take anything cultural important and respect indigenous rights. Or how none of the Shadow Dragons want to do a violent uprising against slavery the most they want is to threaten that they might do violence but ultimately they are going to end slavery by asking nicely.

No one even seems to have any prejudices against anyone or anything. If you play a Shadow Dragon mage Rook you don’t have any issues with the Qun or the Qunari even though you’re family is military and has been at war against them or that you are from Ventus which was taken over by the Qunari and all of the mages were lobotomized with qamek a few years ago or from Tevinter propaganda or just from being a mage. The worst you can say is to question if someone who follows the Qun is scared of mages and everyone looks at you like you’re crazy for asking that. And the other way around doesn’t apply either. No Qunari hold particular prejudice against you for being a Tevinter mage. Taash’s mom seems to not like Tevinter mages in a codex entry but she doesn’t say anything to you or Taash about it. The Butcher doesn’t even hold it against you! People have made a lot out of no one being prejudiced against elves which is true but it also applies the other way around. There really is very little mistrust of you as a human Tevinter mage by any elves. The only pushback I remember getting is being asked if you will respect the halla which seems to be more about you not being an elf than anything else. Any sexism also seems to be mostly brushed under the rug. When you talk to Tarquin he tells you that he was told by his father that to be a man he needed to be in the military. That mostly tracks with what we know about Tevinter. It’s a little more trans accepting than it was according to Krem but I can buy that Tevinter has started accepting trans men in the military in the last decade. He then goes on to ask a female Shadow Dragon Rook why they aren’t in the military and you can’t even bring up how women’s roles in the military are very restrictive. You don’t bring up anything about gender roles in Tevinter even though according to the lore they are more rigid than in the South and men hold nearly all of the leadership positions. You can’t bring up how it may be difficult for Tevinter to accept a woman as Archon since as far as I know all of the previous Archons have been men.

There’s some background mentions of how life is difficult for certain groups in certain places but we never see it or even hear specifics. We hear that there’s slavery in Tevinter and it’s hard to be an elf but we don’t see it and a Shadow Dragon Rook seems shocked that the Venatori are engaging in human trafficking. We hear life is difficult for mages in Treviso but we never see or hear about it after one line.

This isn’t a Veilguard exclusive problem it seems to be an issue in a lot of media today that there’s this total unwillingness to deal with anything controversial or difficult. I think they’re trying to respond to feedback about how people didn’t like the way in which sensitive things were handled in media in the past but it seems like the way most are choosing to handle it is by not dealing with it at all? Or flattening out characters like in HOTD where in response to the criticism about how Dany was handled they’ve decided that now women have no ambition or capacity for evil or violence and they are all purely good but also have zero agency whatsoever.

I know a lot of people prefer this and like all of their media to be escapist with no bad things happening in it but I personally prefer when difficult things are handled as long as they’re handled with care. I personally don’t subscribe to the belief that by depicting something you are inherently endorsing it. Anyway it’s fine if you disagree and I hope I don’t sound like a chud who just wants to be racist in games, I’d be fine if Rook couldn’t express these views but it’s just a bit strange to me that no one holds these views anymore in Thedas.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

why is headless women art bad? i can see why it's seen as objectifying but why is it such a big deal to make art out of the female form? (sorry if i sound agressive this is a genuine question)

Hi anon! You certainly don’t sound aggressive - I’m actually very grateful for the opportunity to collate my current thoughts in one place, so thank you for the prompt. I’m going to try my hardest to keep this short.

For any women who haven’t seen posts on this topic previously, some examples of the ‘headless women art’ trend I’ve been talking about for a while now are below. They’re often missing their limbs, at various points of amputation, as well as all or part of their heads (if she has her eyes, I generally don’t count it). Sometimes their heads have been ‘replaced’ with other objects, typically plants or mushrooms, though I wouldn’t count a woman with an animal or bird’s head. They’re often naked.

So, per Anon’s question, why is it a ‘big deal’?

I mean, really, it’s not. It’s an absolutely minuscule deal - it’s as dwarfed by the issues of the sex industry, femicide, and systemic sex inequality, as we are by the Sun. And yet, much as our bodies are made of particles formed in dying stars, I see elements of the large within the small… ok, I’m not getting poetic.

It’s not a big deal, and I don’t necessarily think it’s wholly terrible either, which is why in my analysis posts on the topic I try to ask questions more than criticise, and criticise gently when I do so. What it comes down to is that I spotted a pattern, and wanted to acknowledge that pattern, think about it, and ask other women for their thoughts on it.

With that said, there are certain things that I question particularly, and have seen other women question, which I’ll list:

Remove her legs and she can’t run, remove her arms and she can’t fight, remove her mouth and she can’t shout, and remove her eyes and she can’t look back at you. You totally disempower her when you remove almost every body part capable of action.

By removing her head you also remove her brain (her personality and internal identity), and her face (her visible external identity). By anonymising her you strip her of her individuality, and depict all female people as a result - so what message are you sending about all female people with your depiction of us, naked and dismembered?

A (living) woman’s neutral existence requires her to have her head. By removing it, you are making an active choice to step away from the neutral (and it’s on you to defend that choice), and you are also by necessity depicting a dead woman. You ask about ‘art out of the female form’ - the living female form has a head. Why remove it?

The simplest test of whether something might be sexist, is to see whether it applies to men and women equally. Are (straight) men decorating their homes with ‘bits’ of male bodies? Do men in general feel conscious enough of, yet alienated enough from, the appearance of their bodies that they seek out their representation, sans heads, to reflect back at them? Why not, if women are? Would it be strange if they did?

As a follow up, since many of these pieces are made by women (often straight women), are (straight) men often focusing their artistic output on depicting ‘bits’ of male bodies? Do men regularly choose to create art intended to depict the ‘beauty’ of the male form? If not, why not?

You mention objectification - what links are there between objectification and violence? Could self-objectification be used to normalise violence against the self, or even excuse it? What about violence against others who are like the self (ie violence against other women)?

As I say, I’m not necessarily saying this artistic trend is exclusively a bad one, or that people/women in particular shouldn’t be decorating their homes however they please. It’s just something I’ve noted and found interesting, and like many apparently free choices, I think feminist women have a responsibility to interrogate their own and others’ motivations.

This is a hasty overview, and I’ve probably missed things - I’ll reblog with additions if I think of any, but you can also see my previous posts on this topic, and other women’s contributions, under my “Headless Women Art” tag. Thanks again for the question!

[writingwithcolor]

Am I handling the black woman character’s murder well?

@selfdxd2 asked:

Hello! My current project is a crime fiction set in KY, USA in which the instigating action is the death of a young black woman (W), with the first half being another young woman (L) investigating her disappearance and how it correlates with the disappearance of her close friend. That friend (P) is later found alive after having been kidnapped because he witnessed the crime, and is the POV character of the second half. He is also a white man, and him being white is relevant to other aspects of the story. My intention is for the "credit" for solving W's death to go almost entirely to L (who is also a woman of color, specifically Romani), and for the tragedy to be centered around the unfair loss of life and the pain of her parents and others who knew W rather than how bad P feels about it. My main cast also has two other prominent black women with arcs that extend outside this tragedy. All of this is intended to lend to one of the story's major themes of social invisibility vs visibility. So does this exploration of that stray into harmful territory from the outset? I know successfully keeping away from any white manpain traps will take active caution while actually writing the story and I intend to get sensitivity readers as I work on it, but I wanted to get some feedback on my starting point before going too far down that road. Thanks so much for all you do!

It is important for us to know why this young Black woman was murdered to give specific advice. 

Was it racially motivated, gender motivated, or both? 

Wrong place, wrong time? 

Did someone take revenge?

Was she involved in something insidious? 

Was it truly an accident?

Depending on the reason, you should explore and acknowledge this violence and the existing societal problem behind it. For help, see the crime stats on violence against Black women.

…and for the tragedy to be centered around the unfair loss of life and the pain of her parents and others who knew W rather than how bad P feels about it.

Yes, give a voice to the people most affected by her death. Other Black women, people, and Women of Color. This will help further not make it about the feelings of a white man. He is absolutely a victim of the crime too, being kidnapped, so his trauma does matter and should be tended to. But ultimately, he gets to live.

On that note, his life being worth kidnapping vs. ending begs the question; why wasn’t he murdered while the Black woman’s life had to end? And for representation purposes, why couldn’t it be the other way around (Where the Black woman lives and witnesses the crime, and the white man dies)?

This is why knowing your reasoning for her death is so important. 

Otherwise, if she was thoughtlessly murdered, it does feel like her life was incredibly devalued in your story due to her being a Black woman. It’s a serious and true problem, so I'm not saying not to write this. This just needs careful exploring. If you’re choosing to bring this real life problem into your story, it deserves full and respectful acknowledgement. 

Please check out our resources on writing tragic material, Black suffering and abuse and avoiding exploitation. 

More reading: tragedy exploitation tag

~Mod Colette

[jewishvitya]

Tal Mitnick, an 18 years old Israeli that refused to serve in the military:

It's not just a couple of soldiers that are bad soldiers or that enact violent occupation on Palestinians, it's actually a whole system of violence. Of pulling people into the army and making them work for the occupation and for oppressing Palestinians.

Militarism in Israel is very entrenched in society. And the military is some golden goose that you're not allowed to touch. You're allowed to criticize the government, you're allowed to go out for gay rights, for women's rights. But when it comes to criticizing military action against Palestinians or other oppressed communities, this is totally out of the norm. You cannot speak against the military because it's so entrenched in society.

A lot of conversations start with the military, and because most people did serve, it's seen as this kind of thing that everyone needs to pass in order to become an Israeli.

So. Yeah. When you're older you don't feel ostracized as much because after a while it's less relevant to daily life. At least in my experience, I didn't serve and it's not really talked about much at this point.

In Jewish Israeli society, the military is trusted more than most other institutions. Tbh, more than any other institution I can think of. And it's seen as a right of passage. Some people will be okay with you if you volunteer for a social service instead - work at hospitals, schools, etc. Others think you shouldn't get the choice, and unless there's a medical issue you should be going to the military.

The narrative of self defense is absolutely believed, so by refusing to serve, those kids are seen as saying "I will enjoy the sacrifice made by others, but I will not contribute myself." It's seen as ungrateful. But that's if you don't express a moral objection to the military.

If you challenge the military itself, you're challenging Israeli society. And that's how it's taken. "I refuse to participate in the occupation" - "So you're saying I did something bad by serving. You're saying I'm a bad person." And when most of Israelis served in the military, and those that didn't serve often still support it or have loved ones that did or still do, this is challenging the moral character of pretty much all of us. Which, it should.

The military nurtures a mindset of dehumanization to a scary degree. I listened to a few interviews with stories from Breaking the Silence, an organization meant to bring to light the way the military abuses Palestinians, and there's something described by Yehuda Shaul.

He tells the story of serving in Hebron, in the West Bank, and he describes the daily stated mission of soldiers there.

While on patrol at night, they pick a random Palestinian house - explicitly one that they have no intelligence against, a civilian family - and they get in, wake the family up, separate men from women, search or something, get on the roof, jump to the next roof, get into that house, wake that family up, treat them the same way.

Again, at random. And he described two goals for this:

One, to create the feeling of being persecuted, and two, to make our presence felt.

They want Palestinians to feel beaten down and powerless, and they want them to feel that the military is everywhere, so they're too scared to resist.

This isn't random rogue soldiers, this is what the military does there on a normal day. And he said it's impossible to treat a population this way without seeing them as less human than we are.

I don't know if I can just say that the military is another tool for indoctrination in addition to everything else it does. But as a kid, I had a left-leaning friend from the Tel Aviv area, and we'd argue a lot. Because you don't need to be a full on leftist to disagree very strongly with a teenage settler. And as I was going through the process of changing my mind, I saw him going through the same process in the opposite direction - he became way more right wing during his military service. He told me the stories of why, and all those stories did was make me feel like I don't even know this person. I wonder sometimes how many young people go through the same.

[chalkrevelations]

Further to this :

I’m posting one more time on this, and then I’m hoping I’m done. But I continue to see bad-faith takes on the settlement statements that were released this week, and I’m so done with the double standard from so many people in Kinnporsche fandom who have spent the past three+ months engaged in hypocritical bullying and victim-blaming and/or remaining damningly silent in the face of actual, public and visible abuse of Build Jakapan.

This wasn’t even a he-said, she-said situation. This was a months-long campaign of cyber-bullying, harassment and abuse – verbal, emotional and psychological – that Poi carried out against Build online, in the open, with no attempts to hide it. We saw her abuse him, repeatedly. We saw her be homophobic toward him, and not only did everyone who was ready to rush into battle against Build for supposedly being homophobic while making money off the queer community now stay silent about it, Poi got almost 10K retweets of it, so all those people who’ve wanted to cancel Build since last summer? We can see how much their allyship is actually worth. We saw the release of the VP novel with his bruised, bloody and battered face on the cover like some kind of disgusting revenge fantasy splayed out in public. We saw her release messages about sexual matters that were insinuated to be his private messages – which, like everything she’s ever posted, have not been verified as real and correct, in the setting of her admission of lying and faking and making false accusations with other material she released. But if they were real, the release of those messages would be on the same spectrum as revenge porn. We watched her commit outright theft of his belongings, and we watched her lie about his words and actions in an attempt to drive a wedge between him and his fans, we watched her punch down at those fans by invading their privacy as surely as she invaded his, we watched her make it all as filthy and gross and mercenary as she could in order to besmirch it as much as she could, watched her laugh about how much fans cared about him like he doesn’t deserve any kind of care or concern, like he’s a dog she can kick around without repercussion.

And antis joined in that abuse, plenty of people in the fandom were complicit in it – lies were collected and reblogged and spread around as supposed receipts of what a terrible person he was, by people who repeatedly represented themselves as “neutral,” without the least bit of concern for the provenance of those rumors, which were already in unbelievable supervillain territory and sure enough, turned out to be actual legal slander. People posted things like “burn in hell,” or made and spread vile memes when he left BOC like the whole thing was something funny, to laugh about, rather than a serious issue like accusations of intimate partner violence. He was called trash, garbage, an incel – at the same time people were vilifying him for supposedly cheating on Poi, so which is it? Is he an incel or was he fucking half of Bangkok? In one of the most breathtaking instances of victim-blaming I’ve seen in a long time, people amplified and spread the lie that he slept with Poi to get his role like it was some kind of gotcha, as if – had it been true – that wouldn’t have been evidence of Poi’s harassment and sexual abuse of him. The casting couch isn’t any less abusive when a man is subject to it than when a woman is subject to it. If it's gross and abusive for Harvey Weinstein to do it, then it would be gross and abusive for Poi to do it, and the way some people acted like it would somehow be Build’s fault? I’m sure every actress in Hollywood would love to hear that. Or would it be OK because he’s a man? Because that sounds awfully close to those creeps who say that teenaged boys should think they’re lucky when their female teachers molest them. (Or maybe when women in power over them on the filming set coerce them into giving massages?)

And as we saw all this happen – even as people patted themselves on the back and reassured each other that this wasn’t a witch-hunt, that it wasn’t an online mob working itself into a frenzy - 99.5 percent of the people who had been so very concerned with compiling and spreading everything and the kitchen sink during the initial feeding frenzy on Build went aggressively silent in the face of Build’s legal claims, including defamation, coercion and other abusive behavior by Poi. Suddenly, we started getting calls for circumspection and civility - aka silence - now that Build and his reputation and his career already had been savaged. Now that it was becoming evident that these same people were complicit in her abuse of him and had helped create the very scenario he said that she had threatened and kept him under control with. Now that they had helped an abuser get their satisfaction during what is traditionally the most dangerous time for abuse victims – when they try to leave.

Suddenly people were just done with all of this, just so very tired of it - now that the damage was done, and what was left was clean-up of the havoc they had helped wreak.

This fandom has done nothing to change my opinion that this whole debacle was never actually about genuine concern over intimate partner violence, but was rooted in shipwars - going all the way back to last summer, when someone went digging back through Build’s socials to find comments eight years old that could be blown up by Twitter cancel culture just as the Vegaspete storyline kicked off, VP was increasingly pulling attention, and BBB’s facetime was increasing. Not a single thing I’ve seen since then – since Build was identified as the soft target of the VP ship and discourse around him was poisoned by purity cancel culture – has convinced me otherwise.

People in this fandom took a deadly serious issue like intimate partner violence, and they used it as a tool for their petty shipwars, and they used it to get a little hit of self-righteousness, as a little “moral” crusade that allowed them to get their Two-Minute Hate on in a way that was deemed socially acceptable and gave them a taste of blood because it was wildly successful in the real world in a way keyboard slacktivism rarely is. It’s very telling, though, how much concern they actually seem to have for abuse survivors when they won’t even call out abusive behavior happening publicly, right in front of their faces. I guess some abuse victims do have to be perfect, or maybe it’s that some people do deserve to be abused, despite the claims when people were simping for Poi?

It’s very telling when their biggest concern appears to be using abuse claims as a cudgel to make themselves feel righteous - because it appears that’s all Poi ever really was, a tool for some people in KP fandom to beat Build with. If they actually, honestly gave a shit about her, someone would have shown concern about her mental health and whether she has any kind of support network at all, rather than egging her on, encouraging and amplifying her abusive and out-of-control behavior online. I’m not going to deny that I dislike Poi, that I’ve found her distasteful and incredibly off-putting since watching her behind-the-scenes behavior with the KP cast, including trying to yank Build to the edge of a balcony on a high-rise building as he tried to resist and laughing about being called out by Jeff for sexual harassment of a minor. But one of the things that I also found disturbing about this whole debacle was the way people encouraged and enjoyed - relished - behavior that ought to be concerning for her mental health.

And even now, I’ve seen people act as if the behavior that Poi and Build have admitted to in their statements was equally bad. Sorry, no, him secretly recording a conversation that was evidence of her abusive behavior is not equivalent to her faking pregnancy claims against him and insinuating that he was the reason she got an abortion or miscarried. I’m sure all abusers would love it if conversations in which they talk about their abusive behavior were kept private and secret, but I'm extremely suspicious of anyone who wants to act like that recording shouldn't be released - they should ask themselves why they're ok with abuse being covered up.

Would they call a woman who secretly recorded evidence of being abused a liar?

   (ETA 5/15, 1630 - Several people have messaged me to let me know this post has breached containment and is loose on Twitter. I would respectfully request that everyone follow Build’s own expressed wishes - and mine - and do not engage with antis. This includes @ing specific people with links to this. I could have attached individual names to many of the bad-faith behaviors I talk about in the post, but there are reasons I didn’t. People have already spent three months punching down at Build’s fans, as well as at him. The behavior of his fans reflects on him - however unfair that may be - and must remain above reproach. That includes not picking individual fights. If someone is encouraging this, consider that they are likely a plant, a fake fan trying to goad others into bad behavior to try to make Build look bad. If I find out anyone has done this, I will block you. Thanks.)

[shakespearean-dream]

last of the big five yall!!!!

happy late fourth of july! remember to keep boycotting, speak out and listen to palestinians, the people of congo, native americans, queer/trans people and women currently being oppressed this independence day because america fucking sucks!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🔥🔥🔥

here are a couple good places to donate! please remember to do your own research and take care of each other, it’s getting scary out here.

ohhhh nimdok, where to start with you….

i have been dreading doing him because he pisses me off so bad but i actually had some decent fun with him :D. designing him and branching out farther away from his canon self was nice, but im not touching his backstory or personality really, that stays about the same for me in my head.

speaking of whichhh! like benny, i understand how the game makers had a short amount of time to fit an entire character arc of an old man undoing his deeply internalized racism/xenophobia/ableism in a singular short scenario, but unlike benny i actually somehow like his better?? nimdok had a lot more to get over (well not saying being a dickhead murderer isn’t a lot but 😭) and i enjoyed seeing him actually help out the people he would’ve previously turned in. it still feels a little hollow/unrealistic because again, he’s been like this his whole life, but considering how much AM takes him away from the group to (most likely) psychologically torture him for his actions he’s probably had a bit of a revelation.

doing his scenario was unfortunately funny at times because of the strange way we had to go about redeeming him with the golem guy😭giving him a smooch caught me off guard but ykw? i’ll take it for being able to kill mengele like immediately afterward. also speaking of whichhhh…

i would go into more detail about nimdok and mengeles relationship to give it some depth because god i love me some queers, but that is??? a real fucking guy???? a real life monster???? im less than comfortable picturing the fucker in my mind, much less giving him depth with a character who i also don’t like. like why ship ur essentially OC with a REAL LIFE N/AZI??? just another one of the reasons harlan elision creeps me out. (if that just pissed you off google search him s/a-ing 2 people, marrying a 19 year old when he was in his 40s and defending a child r/apist i really don’t feel like arguing with you. the guy was a horrible fucking person and he makes me sick, i just like this franchise.)

i cannot cough up anymore thoughts about this fella pls forgive me; these past couple days have been rough on my 3 brain cells. AM will for sure be next and after that fully rendered/decked out full bodies are in order!! so look out for that:]]]] i may also start posting some art fight things since i was just complaining about the lag a post or so ago☺️ jk ily artfight. team seafoam lets goo

ok i love u guys!!! if u have any requests for me drop a comment or an ask, and thank you so much for the continued support on my art❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ lots of links on this post but one more quick reminder to take a look at my commission page if you’d like!!! yolanda is still in the shop because they cannot figure out what’s wrong with her :(

have a good night friends 🫶

[om2006]

Greetings, Greek mythology community I decided to wake up and choose violence today, OK here we go, HADES AND PERSEPHONE ARE NOT COUPLE GOALS this is not a there are tons of different versions of the myth or you can interpret however you want situation the story of Hades and persephone is explicitly told in the Hommeric hymn to Demeter which clearly states that it was a kidnapping that was approved by Zeus persephone's father, she had no choice in the matter and she doesn't go to the underworld willingly , the oldest source that claims that she does is from a novel written in the 40's by a woman who wanted to make Greek mythology more accessible for young girls like her daughter, never once was it stated in the original myth that persephone loved Hades or her time in the underworld, quite the opposite actually she was sad and she was missing her mother, let's talk about said mother by the way why do you people keep demonizing Demeter? Where did the "she is an overbearing and mean helicopter parent" trope come from? Persephone loved her mother, the story isn't about her relationship with Hades it's about A GRIEVING MOTHER'S search for her daughter, she doesn't freeze the world out of anger or cruelty the world starts dying because she is too sad about the fact that her daughter was taken from her to do her goddess duties, now let's talk about the real world and historical reasons why shipping these two just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, remember in the beginning when I said the kidnapping was approved by Zeus? Well for some reason that immediately absolves Hades of all the blame according to most people but that's not what I wanna talk about, I want to talk about how that's representive of the real world themes that the myth wanted to implement, that nor the bride nor her mother should have a say in who she gets to marry it's only the father Zeus's wish who decided that Hades is a fitting husband without even telling persephone and Demeter that should be fullfiled and the story wants us to support that opinion, when Demeter asks Helios where her daughter is, he tells her but he also basically says "but that's ok because Hades is like super rich and powerful and that's all that matters what should a young woman want other than that? You should be happy that your daughter was taken from you by him" when persephone is leaving the underworld Hades basically repeats that statement and that with him she is going to be super happy and a queen among the dead and in later stories in the mythology we see that she indeed seems to have embraced the scary death queen persona and everyone now is like, "see, it started messy but they love each other and persephone loves the underworld now" and while part of persephone embracing the underworld is related to the fact that she is a much older goddess than Hades who was associated with the underworld before hellenistic culture, in the context of the culture and what the story wants to teach, it's that young brides should always accept whatever home and husband their father chooses for them, it doesn't matter that she was brought to that home against her will, it doesn't matter that she was clearly miserable at first, she will eventually love them. "but Hades genuinely loves persephone and never cheated on her" good for him, he is doing the bare minimum, still kidnapped his wife, just because the rest of the pantheon is worse doesn't make this ok also the fact that he doesn't go out and cheat on her or mess with mortal women is totally not because the Greeks feared writing about underworld gods because they believed it attracts death faster it's because Hades is really just a nice and sweet guy, give me a break

[sparrowofthedawnsworld]

Princess Of The Prisoner - Pirate!Jake Kiszka AU

A/N: I’m BACK!! And god, is it good to be. I’ve missed you all so, so much. I thank you all for your patience and endless support. You all mean the world to me <3 I hope you all enjoy this - finally. I love you! (Only lightly edited for the moment).

WARNINGS: Semi-light Violence, bl00d, unconsciousness, fighting, use of weapons.

This is MAJOR 18+ Minors DNI! AT ALL. Bondage, kn!fe play, edging/orgasm denial, light overstimulation, fingering (F), oral (F&M receiving), choking, slapping, degradation, unprotected sex (be smart, be safe!)

Masterlist

•••

“I am no where near equipped for what you are asking of me.” You speak firmly to your father, fighting the intense urge to stomp your foot against the shiny, glassy floor like that of a child.

“If I didn’t see you fit, I would not send you.” Your father says to you, sounding just as sure of his plan as ever.

As always.

“I will not be used as bait for one of your enemies.” You straighten your back, holding his blazing and frustrated stare. “You’ve lost your sanity, father.”

“I have not asked you, I have told you what you are to do.” He remains stubborn and firm. “I expect him here no later than morning. Don’t disappoint me, dearest. Now, you best be off.”

Your face twists in the purest form of anger as you turn away from your father to leave him be at his throne. You storm across the palace, back to your own room.

“How could he put me in such a dangerous position?” you mutter to yourself, gathering up a new dress to change into for your days journey.

“Sending me off to find some god forsaken ship, to hunt down a man for him,” you continue to ramble to no one other than yourself and the over-decorated walls.

Or, so you think.

“Let me guess-“ The cook of your palace stands in your doorway. You have grown quite close with her, given she is one of the few women around anymore. “-You’re being sent off on a mission, per your father’s orders again?”

“Yes,” you sigh heavily, undoing your corset. “I must be off shortly. I’m essentially being used as bait for the captain of some ship, Jacob Kiszka.”

Her eyes look as though they are going to fall out of her head, “Do you not realize who that is, Princess?”

“I haven’t the first clue who he is, no,” you admit.

All you know is that his ship would be arriving sooner rather than later, and Jacob is after a specific sword of your father’s. You are not sure why the sword is so significant, all you know is that Jacob is indeed after it.

“I’m sure he’s some gross old man-“

“Far from it, actually. He’s quite young if I remember correctly,” she informs you, laughing lightly at your shocked expression.

“Young?” you scoff in disbelief. “There is no possible way…”

“Oh, but there is. He could only be a few years older than you,” she continues and laughs lightly at you, unintentionally adding to your frustration more. “Not to say that I am at all on board with your father using you, but I understand why he’s asked you. He’s just a young lad.”

“This is just absolutely ridiculous,” you huff. “Sending me off to capture some boy, who could probably still kill me with one hand, regardless of age!” Your arms flail around you in dramatic emphasis. “How do you even know this information about him?”

“He’s actually quite well known,” she answers, eyes falling to the floor. “But… how I know him personally is not relevant.”

A heavy silence falls over the two of you for a moment.

“I know very well that your father has taught you to be an incredible fighter,” she speaks up, softly breaking the silence. “…Perhaps if you’re truly so worried, you should take another man with you. Daniel, maybe?”

You think on her suggestion for a moment, ultimately deciding it isn’t a bad idea after all.

“Will you please retrieve him for me?”

“Of course, Princess.” She nods to you politely. “I should not distract you any further. Good luck to you, dear.. I shall send for Daniel for you at once.”

“Thank you,” you mumble under your breath, sending her a rather forced smile.

Gathering the rest of your things, you are going off to find Daniel yourself, but you realize he has finally come to you, by the soft knock at your door.

“Princess,” he greets with a charming nod of his head and a smile that can undoubtedly melt the coldest souls. “It was brought to me that you are in need of my assistance.”

“Yes,” you start, casting him your undivided attention, just as he is giving to you. “My father wants me to capture this Captain…Jacob Kiszka. He is after something of his and Father wants him taken care right away.”

“With all respect, Princess, shouldn’t you be demanding he send someone else to do such a job?” Daniel’s face turns immensely concerned and fearful on your behalf. “Jacob is a very skilled and clever man. You have no business-“

“-I’ve tried to change his mind all I can, but you know how he is,” you speak warily, cutting him off. “But that’s why I’ve asked for you. I would love for you to join me.”

Daniel’s eyes widen and the Adams apple of his throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly.

“Princess, I truly don’t think this is-“

“-I have no other choice, Daniel!” You firmly cut him off once again. “Now… Are you coming, or are you going to stay here as though you are some sort of coward?”

Daniel is far from a coward and you know that without a doubt, but you have to convince him somehow.

“When are we to depart?” He caves, speaking through a sigh of defeat.

“Right now.” You nod curtly, grabbing your belongings and walking right past him.

He mumbles to himself from behind you, taking long strides to keep up alongside you, “What have I gotten myself into…?”

“Just look at it as an adventure, Daniel,” you jest in attempts to lighten the mood.

“And suppose one of us gets hurt? What shall happen then?” Daniel questions rapidly, speeding up to reach the door of the palace before you. “Ah! Do not dare to touch that door.”

“I am about to capture a thief and you are concerned about me opening but a single door?” you chide lightly, cocking an eyebrow as he opens the door for you anyway.

You step out first, waiting patiently for him to follow after you.

“And stop thinking in such worrisome ways,” you add, once he joins at your side. “You are quite frankly putting a thorn in my side.”

Your light teasing brings a small smile to Daniel’s face and he huffs a soft laugh before changing the subject entirely.

“How would you like to travel, princess?”

“On foot,” you tell him, taking off in the direction of the area in which Jacob and his ship are suspected to be coming to.

He looks at you with shock filled eyes, “Alright, you are officially out of all of your senses.”

“It is not that far from here,” you roll your eyes, the pair of you walking farther away from the palace. “They’re going to anchor at the closest point they can, but far enough away as to not be perceived from the palace.”

“And how can you be so sure?” He’s full of never ending questions.

“Enough questions, Daniel, seriously,” you sigh in slight annoyance. “It would be in your best interest to simply trust me.”

The two of you walk in silence for quite some time, taking in the nature around you and putting mental marks on things that you walked by, as to not leave any chance of getting lost on your journey back.

“How much farther are we going, Princess?” Daniel breaks down and asks yet another question.

You open your mouth to answer him, but the sounds of various voices shouting about, swiftly interrupt you.

“Stop.” You place your hand out to stop Daniel in his tracks beside to you. “Voices. I hear voices. Do you hear them, Daniel?”

He looks around, listening intently and after a moment or two, the same shouting fills his ears as well.

“I hear them.” Daniel nods, confirming that you are not losing your sanity.

Quickly, you put your plan of attack into motion.

“Daniel, whatever you do, do not leave my side.” You tell him, giving a curt nod as you made your way towards the tree line that followed the edge of the river bank.

The closer you get, the louder the voices become and the more your nerves threaten to overtake you.

You and Danny make your way through the trees, stopping just out of view of the surprisingly nice ship haphazardly docked just before the shoreline.

A beautiful, fit and young man treads his way through the shallow water and up on to the sand, looking far more put together than the rest of the crew surrounding him.

“That must be him…” you point towards him, Daniel’s eyes following your index finger. He nods, confirming your guess.

“Princess, please, let me take care of this?” Daniel pleads quietly. “There are far too many of them to take on alone.”

“Nonsense. I shall do what I was sent to do,” you insist. “We must figure out how to capture him without the rest witnessing. They will surely come looking, if they see us leave with him.”

“Not to mention that we walked here,” Daniel reminds you. “I suppose that means I will be carrying him back, surely?”

“You have always been incredibly smart,” you tease and answer his question all at once.

“Now, then! Now, then!”

Soft gasps are shared between you and Daniel, as who you presume was Jacob, starts to loudly gather in his crew.

“Now that I have the undivided attention of all of you dandy crewmen, I shall be off in attempts to get in to the King’s palace at once!” he begins to explain, voice somehow much louder and firmer than you expected it to be. “I hate to break one’s heart, but all of you are to return to the ship and remain there until I return! I cannot risk my plans being tampered with. Am I clear to all of you?!”

They all express their understanding in almost perfect unison.

“That will be all, then! Please, return to the ship right away!”

Like well trained animals, everyone files back to the ship as Jake stands around to watch on, ensuring not one person is staying behind.

He is so breathtaking… It almost drowns out the hatred that you already hold for him.

You shake your intrusive thoughts of the captain away, putting on your brave face to continue on with a new plan.

“Come, Daniel!” you yell in a whisper, creeping your way back out of the trees.

“Come on!”

Once you both make it out, he begins his frantic questioning once more, “What ever are we doing now, princess?!”

“Hush,” you silence him. “We must go back towards the palace. I believe it best that we ambush him there.”

He simply shakes his head in understanding, glancing over his shoulder quickly to be sure no one has spotted either of you and is following.

You stop at the bushes near the entrance of the palace, breathing heavily and shaking your head in exasperation as the two of you duck down out of sight.

Daniel lets out a frustrated and tired huff. “We are back where we started, princess. I’m starting to question your oh-so elaborate planning.”

“You are being such a sore thumb today. I beg of you to just do as I say.” You send him a pleading look.

Silence fills the air around the two of you for a while, until the cracking of rocks beneath boots captures Daniel’s attention.

“Princess,” he nudges at your shoulder. “The Captain is upon us.”

You peak through the flowers and leaves, eyeing him as he makes his way carefully up the path.

You catch yourself gawking at him again; the way he walks, his long tresses and the beautiful dagger hanging from a strap across his chest.

“Your majesty, please,” Daniel begs, knocking you from your trance. “Please, tell me what you want me to do.”

“I… I want you to wait until he walks by us. If we stay here, he won’t see us right away. Once he passes, we will attack from behind. I need him unconscious,” you explain quickly. “Once he is unconscious, I will tie his hands and you shall help me carry him to the cells.”

Just as you finish and Daniel gives you his quick, verbal understanding, Jake passes through the gates and bushes, slowing his pace and ducking every so often to avoid possibly being seen.

“I will tell you when,” you whisper into Daniel’s ear and he nods once.

The captain walks a few more feet up the pathway, ducking down behind a rose bush and unsheathing his dagger from its case.

Daniel copies him, pulling his own dagger from its casing.

“Now,” you mutter with unbridled urgency.

Daniel has Jake plummeting to the ground within seconds. You watch on for only a moment, before fear takes over and you feel the need to join him.

Groans and curses are being hurled between them, swings and bone crushing punches being thrown along with their noises of pain.

Jake holds his dagger backwards, swinging the handle towards the side of Daniel’s head.

“NO!”

You bolt towards them, taking Jake to the ground upon your collision - sparing Daniel of the bone-crushing blow that was mere seconds away from colliding with the temple of his head.

Daniel recovers rather quickly, throwing you off of Jake and taking your place on top of him.

One strong and well-timed swing from Danial is all it takes and the Captain falls limp against the ground as he goes unconscious.

Daniel falls away from him, chest heaving and covered in small droplets of blood here and there. His hand clutches over his chest, as he fights to recenter himself.

“Are you alright?” you ask frantically, pulling the rope from around your waist and tying it securely around the Captain’s hands.

“Just perfect, Princess,” Daniel chuckles sarcastically, dusting himself off as he stands to his feet. “Here, allow me.”

“I think not.” You swat his hand away. “Rest for another moment. I will take care of this.”

Once you have the knots tied, you stand up and let Daniel take over again. He scoops him up like a rag doll, throwing him over his shoulder as though the Captain weighs little to nothing.

You bend down and pick up Jake’s dagger, shoving it down into your pocket and following after Daniel as he starts making his way up towards the palace.

“How long do you think he will stay unconscious?” you ask, making your way through the lower levels of the palace.

“Not much longer, I’m afraid.” Daniel answers, stopping at the large cell at the end of the cold, dimly lit hallway.

“Just put him on the bed. I shall take it from here.” You order rather gently, confident that he can’t hurt you from behind the bars of the cell.

“As you wish.”

Daniel drops him down onto the bed and unties him carefully, tossing the rope to the side thoughtlessly as he goes.

Just as he finishes Jake lets out a low groan of discomfort and Daniel quickly makes his was back out of the cell.

You close the door and lock it, watching Jake for a moment to find that he is still mostly out of it, when there isn’t another sound to be heard from him.

“Do you wish for me to inform your father that we have the Captain?”

“No!” You look up to Daniel with panic-filled eyes. “I will tell him myself. He doesn’t know that you accompanied me and I would rather him not.”

“Understandable, Princess,” Daniel says. “I shall keep my doings to myself.”

“I am most grateful for you,” you smile up at him, placing a gentle hand on his bicep. “Thank you.”

Removing your hand from his arm, Daniel brings it up to his lips in a gentle kiss as he bows, “You are most welcome, your majesty.”

He releases your hand, standing upright and beginning his way down the hallway.

Before he gets too far, he turns back to face you with a serious look. “Princess?”

You whip around to face him also, “Yes, Daniel?”

“If anything is to happen and you need my assistance again, you know where I reside.”

Not awaiting an answer - knowing you understand without having to say so out loud - he disappears through the large door. The loud sounds of it closing sends an eerie echo around the concrete walls and floor.

You slowly turn back towards the cell, watching and listening to Jake intently for any signs of movement or noise.

“Bloody hell,” Jake’s voice rumbles in a low groan, his arms struggling to push his weight away from the bed he is sprawled across.

He finally gets himself upright, looking around in a pure panic at his surroundings.

Stumbling up to his feet, he spins around and freezes in place when his eyes land upon you.

“Oh, well is this not just lovely?” you speak rather tauntingly. “The captain is finally awake.”

“And you are?” Jake saunters up to the door, rough hands wrapping around the cold bars.

“Princess of The Garden, at- well… I am not at your service,” you stumble over your formalities, forgetting that you owe him not a single one. “Not much of a kingdom we have around here, more so a small, royal family on secluded land.”

“I am very well aware of practically all of that.” Jake bites matter-of-factly, full of anger.

There are a few moments of intense silence, the loud and unsteady breathing from Jake being the only constant sound.

“Would you be so kind as to remind me how I managed to get here?” Jake questions bitterly, clearly trying to contain his rage.

“Me,” you smile at him with hardly contained pride. “Well, me and another accomplice.”

“Quite weak of you to have to bring a companion along just to capture me.” Jake smirks, his face noticeably contorting in discomfort as he assesses with his fingertips, the bruises that Daniel had left on his jaw. “Someone ought to teach you how to fight.”

“You know nothing about my fighting skills,” you say dryly, sending him a death glare through the bars of the cell. “I would be a fool to travel alone, regardless of how well I fight.”

“You seem to be a bit of a fool anyway,” Jake chuckles, glancing up at you with bold eyes.

If you could smack him across his careless mouth, you absolutely would.

“Letting your father send you into such danger…” Jake shakes his head, giving you a judgmental once-over. He turns and walks towards the hard bed in the corner. “You aren’t cut out for such violence.”

“I wish you would stop speaking as if you know me.” Your arms cross over your chest. It isn’t a very good response, but it is as good of one as you can seem to gather. “You know absolutely nothing about me.”

Jake ignores the comment entirely.

“If I may ask, why are you still lingering, princess?”

The name falling of his tongue is like a drug. The most addictive drug one could find. Somehow he makes the most flattering and important name, sound so degrading.

You stand frozen in place for a few moments too long, struggling to find a genuine reason for staying around - of which you do not have.

He hums to himself, head tilting back slightly, “Just as I thought. You haven’t any good reason.”

You open your mouth to attempt some sort of protest.

“If I may, your majesty,” Jake stands to his feet and saunters back to the door. “You are quite the gem. So exquisite and beautiful…” he trails off for a moment, a sly grin spreading over his lips as he looks over you. “Too bad you are too feisty and disobedient for my liking.”

Your whole body begins to boil with various emotions; you’re flustered, angry and immensely intrigued by him. He is setting you ablaze in a foul, but irresistible way.

“And… you are much too disrespectful for my taste,” you seethe, faltering for a moment so short, you hope it goes unnoticed. “Speaking to royalty in such a despicable manner…”

“And yet, the royalty herself, seems to be enjoying it.” Jake grins wickedly.

You can’t tell if it’s your body’s attempt to be intimidating, or seeking closer proximity to Jake. Regardless, without really thinking, you step forward, “What makes you believe for a second that I am enjoying any part of this?”

“Many reasons, Princess…” Jake starts, speaking low and hushed. “You’ve taken at the very least five steps closer to this door. You could have left the second your… ‘accomplice’ dropped me in here.”

“You are terribly-“

“-Quiet, Princess. I don’t take well to being interrupted.” Jake cuts you off abruptly, holding up a single finger that you can not seem to tear your eyes away from. “I would almost say you enjoy being spoken to this way, don’t you? Everyone gets tiresome with constantly hearing praises… And I’m sure praise is all you know, is it not?”

“Perhaps.” The word leaves your mouth bitter and clipped. He is very much right - you both know that very well.

“Mhm, as I thought.” Jake grips the bars of the door above his head, leaning forward as far as he can go. “You know… I could show you so much more. Make you feel so much more.”

“And what could you possibly be hinting at with such words, Captain?” you question, attempting to throw his title back at him the same he had yours. Only to sound much more breathy than you intend.

“If only I had the keys to open this-“ He gestures to the large door, the only thing keeping the two of you separated. “-I could show you much better than I could ever tell you, your majesty.”

“Never in a million years would I consider letting you out,” you scoff, shoving the key that is now damp from your sweating hands, back into your pocket.

“Who said anything about letting me go?” Jake asks you. “Just join me. You have the key to leave whenever you so please.”

“And… if I do choose to join you…?” You narrow your eyes, taking in his blown out pupils and all the little details surrounding them.

“Then I shall do just as I have said and show you things you will never forget.” Jake promises lowly, leaning in closer. “Things you will never want to forget,” he adds.

Your faces are as close as they can possibly be, you can feel the warmth of his breath as he speaks to you.

Without once looking away from him, you hastily retrieve the key from your pocket and unlock the door.

Jake steps back, allowing you the proper space to slide the door open just enough to squeeze your body through and get into the cell with him.

You turn around and close the door, closing your eyes for a split second in attempts to slow your pounding heart and process what you have just done.

As you turn around to finally face Jake, he immediately outstretches his hand towards you and bows before you ever-so-slightly.

Hesitantly, you place your shaking, sweating hand in his and he brings it up to his lips, “‘Tis quite the pleasure, Princess.”

Jake places the first kiss to the top of your hand, holding your stunned gaze. He shifts his hold up to your wrist, his lips following and placing another kiss higher up.

He continues the same actions, kissing all the way up your arm, until his hand reaches your shoulder and his face is inches from yours.

Slowly, he backs you up until you can feel the uncomfortable firmness of metal bars against your back.

“You are truly quite the brave one for joining me.” Jake whispers against your ear. “Just to make things sort of even, I fully plan to tease you until you’re begging and pleading for my mercy.”

“And what leads you to believe I would ever beg someone like you?” You tilt your head back defiantly.

Jake only smirks In amusement, “Is that a challenge?”

“If you can make me beg, I will let you go and tell my father you didn’t dock where he expected,” you bet with him rather smugly… and stupidly.

“My, my. The princess is going to beg me like a whore and lie to her father?” Jake tsks with a faux disappointed shake of his head. “It seems I have corrupted the sweet, royal, princess already. And suppose your accomplice -as you called him- goes back and tells him…? What lie should be grand enough to cover us then?”

His nose is practically brushing against your own, a tension so unbearable further blooming between the two of you.

“T-That is not his place. My father didn’t know that I took him, nor will he. I asked Daniel not to speak of his hand in helping me, or even that we have you,” you inform him truthfully. “It was my duty to capture you and bring you here, not his. I shall be the one to tell my father what it is he must know.”

“Well, then, I suppose I can have my way with you.” Jake purrs, teasing his lips over yours. “Is that what you want, your majesty?”

“So many words and promises, but you’ve yet to show me a thing.” You just barely chase after his lips.

Grabbing each side of your face with both of his large and calloused hands, Jake connects his lips with yours roughly.

It takes you a moment to catch up to his pace, especially with losing every bit of air from your lungs within the very second his lips met yours. Your tongues move against each other, fighting for dominance as whimpers flutter from you and into his warm mouth.

He pulls away, breathless and practically hissing out his next words, “Sweet, sweet princess. You do not know a bit of what you have in store for yourself. Stay right there.”

Jake steps back from you with a finger pointed to the floor where you stand, bending down to pick up a lengthy piece of rope that you and Daniel had him tied up with not so long ago.

“Do you trust me?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, amusement behind them as he asks you the ridiculous question.

You stare down at the rope outstretched before you - shocked, but you remain shamefully aroused by it all the same.

“Trust- trust you? You are nothing but a complete stranger,” your voice wavers.

“Nonsense. We have spent at least few hours in one another’s presence, now, haven’t we?” His crooked smile sends waves of heat to your core. “Stranger? yes, in some sense. But I’m not a complete stranger anymore.”

You drop your eyes from his, back down to the rope in his hands. Jake pushes it out a little closer to you, eyes deeply studying your cautious but curious face.

Slowly, you lift your hands up and lay your wrists over top of his hands, looking up at him in question as if to say, ‘is this right?’

Jake holds your burning stare and starts to wrap the rope around your wrists, binding them together tightly, but still comfortably somehow.

“Outstanding,” Jake hums, walking off to a corner where another small piece of rope has been discarded.

“Just one last thing,”

Jake makes his way back over to you, placing a hand on your shoulder and pushing you back a few steps until your back collides with the cold metal bars.

His hand travels from your shoulder, down your arm, until it reaches the rope around your wrists. Grabbing it, he watches your breath quicken as he lifts your arms up and over your head, securing them to the bars with a second piece of rope.

“Mm-“ you clear your throat nervously. “-And how do you presume you will be able to remove my dress in such a position?”

“Lovely of you to inquire,” Jake smiles wildly, pressing his body against yours and leaning in closer to your ear. “I just so happened to see this-“ his hand travels the corseted curve of your side, dipping into your pocket. “-the handle of my dagger shining, while you were standing outside the cell. Not only are you a princess, but a little thief.”

“Well- I...” you stutter weakly, feeling mindless for forgetting to leave it with Daniel.

“You what?” Jake presses, biting at the shell of your ear.

Your only response is your labored breathing, unable to form an intelligible response.

He unsheathes his beautiful dagger from your pocket, resting it over your chest.

“You think too little of my schemes, princess.” He places a kiss over your nose. “I already planned to take my dagger back to use just for this moment. Why take your clothes off with my tired hands, when I could cut them off?”

“Jake,” his name rushes out of your lungs in a heavy sigh.

He grabs you by the waist, turning you around to face the bars and skillfully cut the strings of your corset.

Turning you back around to face him, he pulls it off of your body with ease and continues on with cutting away at your other garments.

Each piece is slowly pulled from you, neatly cut and haphazardly tossed to the side by Jake’s calloused hands.

As he yanks the last piece away, you are then completely naked before him - eyes never lifting to meet his burning gaze upon you.

“Breathtaking, your majesty,” Jake all but whispers, seemingly a little lost in the site that he is beholding.

You draw in a deep breath, exhaling it even slower than the slowness at which you had taken it in, “I’m sure I look far more suitable than anyone you have ever laid with.”

Upon your overweening remark, your eyes finally meet with his and you swear you see fire flash within them.

“How witty of you, princess,” Jake snaps sarcastically, pressing his body into yours. “Haughty of you to assume you are not the one that I would graciously turn away.”

It stings, but somehow you know he doesn’t mean it. Part of you hoped he didn’t, at least.

“Your mouth is foul and full of disrespect,” you snap quietly; silently wishing your hands were free, so that you can act on the resurfacing urge to smack him.

Jake stays silent, bringing the handle of his dagger down against your stomach and slowly dragging it down. The golden handle makes goosebumps form across your skin, your hips writhing about ever so slightly in anticipation.

Just when the end of his handle is close to your heat, he jerks it away entirely.

Instead, he dips his own finger down farther to feel the wetness pooling between your legs himself.

Jake glances up at you with wild eyes, flashing you a wicked smile. “The princess, so proper and poised and innocent… soaked as though she’s dipped into the river.”

Adjusting his careful hold around the blade, Jake lays the handle right where it had stopped before he pulled it away. He continues its slow descent down to your clit, where it halts to rub in the slowest, softest circles.

“Oh, Jake,” you gasp, pushing your hips harder against it.

“Oh, that’s just lovely,” Jake smirks, leaning in to place kisses over your exposed chest. “My name sounds beautiful coming from that pretty little mouth.”

He uses his own hips to hold yours in place, so he that can move the handle of the dagger at whatever pressure or speed he so desires.

“Let me hear it again, princess… ‘Jake,’” he repeats his own name to you, as though you don’t know it.

“Jake,” he repeats again.

Trying to hold onto your defiance and composure, you harshly bite at the inside of your mouth to keep from doing as he asked.

“This won’t do at all, your majesty,” Jake clicks his tongue, moving the handle in faster circles, while his other wraps around your throat. “Did I not say I want to hear you again? Come now, let me hear what pretty noises you can make. I’m sure you’re fantastic at it, little whore.”

He presses the handle harder into your bundle of nerves, drawing firmer circles against you. It’s untamable; the noise that erupts from your lungs, echoing through the cold cell and likely even through the long hallway.

“So beautiful. Keep going…” Jake encourages, tilting his head back as he watches on to your pleasure.

Jake leans forward, his free hand securing itself around your jaw to tilt your head to the side. His lips meet with your neck, biting roughly at the tender skin and soothing the sting with the softness of his tongue.

A soft laugh floats out of him each time you whine or struggle against him and the rough ropes that secure you in place.

“Jake,” you whimper through a labored exhale. The feeling of sweet release is already beginning to bloom in the pit of your stomach.

“Is the princess getting close?” Jake questions with a sly cadence. “Already, your majesty?”

You choose not to answer him, in light of climbing to the peak of your orgasm without chance of interruption.

Alas, Jake is the least bit stupid.

“Are you trying to fool me, princess?” Jake asks lowly, slowing the circles that the handle of his dagger are making.

The urge to relent and beg him is already far greater than you anticipated, but you are determined to stand your ground.

“Not trying to fool you, only avoiding the act of begging a thief,” you speak breathlessly.

“That’s a shame,” Jake grins, trailing his hand down your body to your arousal. A single finger plays at your entrance, “I would let you cum if you were not so hell bent on being a stubborn little brat.”

Just to antagonize you further, he sinks his finger inside you, purposefully curling it upwards just shy of the sweet spot within you.

“Mm…”

A tight lipped whimper tumbles out of you, your body arching into his touch ever-so-slightly.

“Oh? Do you like that, princess?” Jake taunts, looking down the bridge of his nose as he watches you. “You love having attention on your pretty little pussy, don’t you?”

“I…” You aren’t really sure what you had planned to say, or even what you want to say. All thoughts are either jumbled, or lost entirely.

“You what?” Jake pries, sliding the handle of the dagger through your folds to collect more of your wetness.

The second the handle returns to your throbbing bundle of nerves, something snaps inside of you.

“Jake,” you whine, tugging at your restraints despite the incessant burn of the rope. “Jake, please!”

“There it is.” Jake’s smile is pleased and cocky.

Feeling ever so gracious, he pushes in a second finger and deepens their rhythmic thrusts.

Jake presses his lips to the corner of your open mouth, “Tell me how good it feels, princess. Tell me.”

“I-it feels s-so good. Feels so good,” you stutter, tempted to turn your head and capture his lips in a kiss, all on your own accord. “Please!”

“Please?” He parrots mockingly. “Please what, your majesty?”

The feelings of your impending climax finally starts to build once again. This time, you are not going to give it up.

“Please let me cum!” You nearly sob, rushing every single word from your mouth. “Please, captain, I’ll do whatever you want… J-just please let me cum.”

“Give it to me, then,” Jake demands. “Right now.”

The band of pleasure breaks within you, sending you into an earth-shattering spiral of bliss that you could not have ever prepared yourself for.

Your knees buckle beneath you, leaving the ropes binding your wrists to be the only thing holding you up. The sting of the rope not even registering, as cuts and burns surely form around your wrists.

“What a good girl you are for me, princess,” Jake praises you, removing his fingers from you first to wrap his arm around your body, holding you up.

“J-Jake,” you choke out, squirming in his hold against the overstimulation that he was beginning to cause you. “I- It-s-“

“Shhh,” he silences you, a little reluctantly pulling his dagger away from your core. “I know, princess.”

Studying your face, he takes in your half-lidded eyes and flushed cheeks. The slightest bit of pity took over him.

Jake tucks the dampened handle of his dagger beneath your chin, tilting your head up to meet his gaze. “Will you be a good girl if I untie you? Hm?”

“Y-yes, sir- I mean, Captain,” you answer him, correcting yourself once more just for good measure. “Yes, Captain.”

Flipping the weapon around, he drags the tip of the dagger down your throat with only enough pressure to make it resemble a feather, making your breath hitch in your chest. Fear starts to rise back up inside you, along with adrenaline. The combination is intoxicating in a dangerous way.

“Will you truly?” Jake cocks a single eyebrow at you.

The sharp tip moves across your chest and down your stomach, goosebumps forming as you shudder.

“Yes! Yes,” you promise, breathing uneven and more labored than it has been so far.

The tip dips into your belly button, eliciting some sort of choked whimper from your throat.

Jake smirks at that, “Feels nice, doesn’t it?” He begins to trail it back up your body, the same way it had descended down.

You’re struck silent, unable to manage a single word.

Finally reaching your bindings, with two flicks of the dagger, the ropes fall from your wrists.

Your body immediately collapses forward into Jake’s. He tosses his dagger to the floor with a high-pitched clink, just in time to catch you.

“Falling at my feet so soon, princess?” Jake snickers, hauling you back up and guiding you to the bed.

“You forget yourself,” you scoff, clearly displaying your distaste for the thought of being at his feet. “One place you will never find me is at your feet.”

“No, your majesty-“ Jake tangles a hand in your hair, yanking your head back. “-You have forgotten yourself.”

Letting go of your hair, he hastily works to undo the buttons adorning his vest, pulling it away to be discarded onto the dirty floor of the cell - his shirt following directly after.

“What happened to being my good girl?” Jake inquires, stepping closer to you, his face mere inches from yours.

Your response is quick and confident, “Being your good girl is only applicable if you’re pleasing me, Captain.”

“Oh, is it, now?” Jake places his hand over your sternum, sliding it up until it splays around your throat and tightens there. “Is that not what I just did? Please you?” You struggle to draw in air as his grip stays unrelenting, his hold never once wavering as you slowly sink to your knees. “And you’re so needy and desperate that it still wasn’t good enough for you?”

He leans down to be eye level with you as he fires questions at your flushed face, “You’ll take what I feel so inclined to give you, your majesty.”

Jake releases his grip, standing straight up as he watches down on you, gasping to refill your burning lungs with air.

While you work on regaining some form of control over your own body and mind, Jake begins removing the rest of his clothes.

You look up, watching him attentively through your lashes. The perfections of his body are not lost on you.

“Perhaps we should try this again,”

Jake suggests, taking himself in his hand. Your mouth waters at the sight of him. His free hand cups your cheek, “Are you going to be my good girl?”

All you can muster is a nod, unsure that your voice can even function to its fullest abilities.

His thumb, gentle and featherlight in touch, traces over your bottom lip before sinking into your mouth, “Prove it to me, then.”

Your hands are reaching up to wrap around him, before your brain can even fully process the movement.

A kiss far too innocent for the actions you wre about to take part in, is placed over his tip. You hear the shaky breath Jake draws in, encouraging you to repeat the same little kiss once more.

You drop one of your hands down to your lap, sliding your hand down to his base. Sinking your mouth down over the rest of him, you can tell that his whole body shuddered from the pleasure you’re providing him.

“That’s it, princess,” he encourages you, his hand coming up to tangle into your hair.

The twitch of his fingers against your scalp, serves to enlighten you on his urge to push you further. Taking a deep breath, you take him as far as you can go, breathing through the urge to gag around him.

“Fuck,” he curses, hips jerking on their own volition. “Your mouth is too good for me, angel, but you look absolutely lovely taking me like a little whore.”

A whimper sounds from your throat, sending the slightest bit of vibration through him. You start to find a steady rhythm, his hand still resting in your hair.

Every so often, his grip will tighten when you do something he particularly likes. Within a minute or so, he is throbbing inside of your mouth.

“Fuck, alright- enough.” He pulls you away abruptly, breathing significantly more labored.

He takes a moment to gather himself, staring up at the ceiling, as if fighting to hold onto his composure.

“Stand up,” he demands, releasing his grip on your soft tresses.

You scramble up to your feet, dizziness plaguing you for a brief moment.

Jake takes no more than a single step closer to you, eyes scanning over the expanse of your naked body that is displayed before him. He reaches up, dragging the back of his knuckles along your temple, letting the gentle touch travel its way down your face, your neck and to your breasts.

The tip of his finger grazes over your nipple, causing your eyes to flutter closed as your breathing increases.

“Oh, the ways I could ruin this flawless body…” Jake trails off, dragging the tip of his finger down your stomach slowly. “So perfect and not a single blemish or mark in sight. A true beauty, you are, aren’t you?”

With every word that so gracefully purrs its way out of his mouth, he backs you closer to the bed.

“M… mark me.” The words fly out of you before you can stop them.

In one quick movement that you are far too dazed to notice, you’re laying beneath him. His cock rests against the inner part of your thigh, hard and still throbbing softly every few seconds.

“Mark you?” he repeats your words back to you in question. “How could I, your majesty?”

There is a playful cadence to his tone, very clearly telling you that he will gladly oblige to the idea.

Jake quirks a single eyebrow at you, “And how do you suppose I do so?”

Given the fact that you hadn’t meant to say it, you haven’t thought that far ahead. Visuals of the silver blade of his dagger lightly grazing your skin, replay in your mind. Along with the imagines of bite marks and bruises that you will surely have to find the means of covering.

“Speak up,” he grumbles, lips ghosting over the center of your throat.

You quickly come to the conclusion that you will allow him to do whatever he pleases, as undeniably insane as it is.

“Do what you wish.”

Jake sits up, bold, widened eyes boring directly into yours.

You stare at each other for a few long moments, before you watch the corner of his mouth twitch and curl up into his increasingly familiar smirk.

“Mmm,” he hums in acknowledgement to your words.

Both of his hands smooth over your hips and up to your breasts, where he cups them and brings his mouth down to capture one of your nipples in his mouth.

“Jake,” you whimper, gripping at the firmness of his bare shoulders.

“I refuse to mark you permanently just yet…” Jake says against your skin. His left hand retreats from your chest, palm harshly colliding with your thigh. “Temporarily, of course-“ his palm cracks against you once more, surely leaving a red tint in its wake. “-I suppose, will do for now.”

You inhale and exhale shakily through your mouth; hung open in shock and the slightest hint of pain.

“Take me, please,” you beg him pathetically.

“Take you where, your majesty?” Jake inquires, a teasing inflection to his voice. He knows.

“Right here,” you sigh, pressing your hips up into his. “You know what I want.”

Reaching between your bodies, he glides his fingers in between your folds - still completely soaked.

“Perhaps I do.” He toys around at your entrance, paying your clit the slightest bit of attention afterwards. “There’s a chance that I don’t, though.”

A low, sinister laugh erupts from his chest as he watches you squirm underneath him.

“Tell me, princess,” Jake demands, voice low and raspy. You can feel his cock teasing your entrance, just waiting for you to say the filthy words he wants to hear so badly. “Take. You. Where?”

Pathetic as it may be, a sob tears its way out of your lungs, “Take me right here, please...I want- need you inside of me.”

“She needs it,” he taunts, barely pushing into you. “Sweet little princess just needs to be fucked…turned into a filthy mess.”

“Oh, god- fuck-“ Your nails dig deeper into the skin of Jake’s back.

“Princess is no good for anything but getting ruined by the man she’s supposed to be capturing.” Jake pulls out almost completely, only to drive himself back inside of you roughly.

The moan that rips its way out of your throat is anything but pure and elegant, bouncing around the walls around you and likely beyond.

“Quiet.” Jake places a hand over your mouth, his other holding his body above yours as he starts to sharply thrust into you. “God forbid you get us caught… Get ME caught.”

Jake begins working his way up to a steady, brutal pace. The depths at which you can feel him is sending an almost unbearable pleasure through you. From the center of your body, out to the tips of your fingers and toes; the pleasure completely consumes you.

You can’t help the volume that your moans have taken on.

Jake attempts to silence you by capturing your lips in a hungry kiss, but it proves to be of very, very little help.

He pulls away abruptly, hand wrapping around your throat, “Shut. Your fucking. Mouth, princess. Will you?” He rasps into your ear through gritted teeth. “We can’t possibly have His Majesty hearing how much of a whore you are for a thief.”

Your head lulls back, face contorted in concentration and immense pleasure as Jake continues to fuck into you relentlessly. Mercilessly.

“Good girl,” Jake praises you, starting to lose control of his own breathing.

The hand wrapped around your throat, travels up to your face; a bruising grip forcing you to look at him.

“I want you to cum for me. Quietly,” Jake growls, adjusting himself above you to bring his other hand between your two bodies. His fingers find your swollen clit, “You can do that, yes?”

“Mhm,” you hum your response, afraid that if you are to open your mouth too much, the unholiest of noises are sure to free themselves from your lungs.

“Come on, then,” Jake urges, pinning your body in place on the rather uncomfortable bed with his own. “Let me have it.”

You feel that addicting burn spreading through the pit of your stomach, mere seconds away from taking over your whole body.

As soon as Jake watches your eyes roll back into your head and your mouth fall open into the perfect little ‘o,’ he crashes his lips into yours to ensure that all possible noises are muffled.

Even he groans lowly into your mouth, forcing your to swallow it down as he continues kissing you with mind numbing passion and fervor.

Your lungs start to tingle, your body buzzing and thrashing all at once; riding out an orgasm unlike any you have ever had.

Jake’s orgasm is only seconds after yours. He spills inside you, gasping to refill his lungs with air when he pulls away from you.

“Damn it,” Jake moans. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Bliss has overtaken the both of you, leaving you to bask in stunned silence for what felt like an hour.

“I… I must say,” Jake finally speaks up. “You are quite something, your majesty.”

For once, his tone doesn’t have any malicious intent or taunting cadence behind it. It seems genuine.

You gaze up at him, slightly shocked. “Thank you…”

He removes himself from above you, laying to your side closest to the wall, leaving you the space to leave the bed.

Staring up at the ceiling, hands on his chest, he reminds you of his previous promise, “You’re free to go if you please, I shouldn’t keep you here any longer, your majesty…”

You blink a few times, struck speechless by his sudden change. You think over your next decision carefully before speaking.

“I… I think I would like to stay here with you…” You tell him, settling back against the worn blanket.

Jake has turned to look at you, now, “What?”

Moving closer to him, you cuddled into his arm, “I want to stay here with you, Jake.”

<>

You blink a few times, trying to rid your eyes of their sleepiness.

Suddenly, the loud slamming of the cell door startles you nearly senseless. You roll yourself over and sit up, all in almost one swift movement.

“Jacob?!” you yell, anger and fear flooding your entire body as you scramble up to your feet. “What ever do you think you are doing?!”

“No hard feelings, my Darling,” he starts with a faux, pitied smile. “You were absolutely magnificent. I almost brought you along. I’ll let them know to come retrieve you as soon as I step foot back on my ship.”

You mouth falls agape, your chest becoming dangerously tight as it heaves up, then shakily back down.

Jake pulls the key he had stolen from the pocket of your dress out of the lock, taking a few steps backwards before bending down and laying it gingerly on the ground.

He straightens, kicking the key just so. It slides towards the door with a few high pitched clinks, stopping just out of your reach.

Jake smiles brightly, shooting you a sly wink, “If we ever cross paths again, let’s revisit this…escapade, shall we?”

@shutupdevvie

@belovedsamuel

@gardensgatedaisy

@ageofbarbarians

@theweightofjake

@jake-kiszkas-smirk @stardustcatcher

@positivegvfthings @ascendingtostardust

@gretasmokerising @highladyofasgard

@doodle417 @groovyvanfleet

@greta-van-chaos @of-infinite-wonders

@skankforjakekiszka @demolitionndann

@sarakay-gvf @runwayblues

@colorstreammind @mybussyinchrist

@ofburningskies @streamsofstardust @twistedmelodies @gvfpal @joshsindigostreak @writingcold @juliensbakery @stillstreetjoshua @alwaysonthemend @gold-mines-melting @gretavanfanfics

[glitter-soda]

I’d like to break down my current feelings and gripes about the trans movement, both to inform my followers and maybe start a discussion.

The vast majority of trans people are relatively normal and are just trying to live their lives in peace.

Trans women are trans women. They are male, and by definition it is much more accurate to call them men than women, but I do believe they are something of a separate category. The same goes for trans men, in reverse.

Definitions like “a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman” and “a lesbian is a non-man who’s attracted to non-men” are ridiculous and frankly offensive. The word lesbian is taken. It means “female homosexual”. Literally nobody is stopping you from making your own term, so stop trying to forcibly redefine ours.

Male socialization and female socialization both exist and are important. Trans women were socialized male and trans men were socialized female.

The sheer amount of vitriol towards “terfs” and anyone else who questions anything is just…disgusting. It’s acceptable to send them graphic rape and death threats, doxx them, assault them at protests, and celebrate when they get sick or die. I don’t know how to explain that that’s not normal fucking behavior, especially since “terf” is thrown around very casually these days.

Biological women should be allowed to have spaces that don’t include any males, regardless of the purpose. Lesbian bars, female only gyms, female only domestic violence/rape shelters, and literally anything else are fine and should be allowed to exist without being vandalized or threatened with shutdowns.

The former point includes female only sports teams. Males are biologically very different from females and it should’ve be offensive to anyone to say so. Both sexes have advantages and disadvantages over the other, it just happens that many sports are designed in a way that makes it easier for males to succeed.

Abolishing female only categories in award ceremonies, scholarships, and the like in the name of inclusivity is stupid and completely forgets the reason they were established in the first place. Male bias exists and women will almost never be included because of it.

I’m not against transitioning because I believe in total bodily autonomy and find language like “mutilation” to be incredibly gross and callous. However, I think it’s bad and dangerous to be presented as the literal only treatment for dysphoria.

Children who express any form of questioning or gender nonconformity should not be immediately assumed to be trans. A little girl saying “I want to be a boy” may mean “I want the freedoms that boys have and this is the only way I know how to express it because I’m six”. For actual trans kids, puberty blockers are dangerous and minors should only be allowed to socially transition.

The entire idea of being non-binary is frankly silly to me. I believe it to mostly be a poor coping mechanism for sexist stereotypes. Again, do what you want, but don’t expect me to take you seriously.

The way a lot of information and discussions that don’t support the current trans narrative are censored or lied about online is really bad and honestly borderline cult-like. Very few people actually know what radfems believe because people are discouraged from reading anything straight from the source. The Cass Review was picked apart in bad faith and many of the articles that “sum it up” are just straight up full of false information. Detransitioners are swept under the rug and told to shut up and stop trying to ruin things when they try to talk about their experiences. The trans community needs to do better.

And most importantly:

I do not want trans people dead. I believe in my heart of hearts that the vast majority of actual radfems and gender criticals do not want trans people dead. Neither ideology is hateful or inherently against trans people.

(Y’all just hate being told “no”.)

(Also I probably forgot something, so feel free to ask or discuss idk)