#the costumes and the men wearing them

[ishido-enjoyer]

Ishido and Toranaga costume fittings for Shogun (credit: Hirakugenji, via Pinterest). Costumes designed by Carlos Rosario.

[alaskan-wallflower]

hot take but maybe people should stop harassing/stalking the outsiders cast.

[honeybyte]

. well,

[saintofblasphemy]

On the episode with the carnivale and suddenly ive never been sadder in my life

[mariemariemaria]

i really dont know whats driving all the pro-corset nonsense but its so annoying. girls were put into corsets from young ages, sometimes before they even reached puberty. mothers were often the ones forcing their daughters to wear corsets even though they didn't want to and rebelled against it. honestly i think being critical of corsets is important when discussing today's insane beauty and weight standards for women. 'tiny waist' crazes came in and out of fashion and waist goals could be as small as 16 inches, which is insane and there's no way you're gonna convince me that that's healthy or normal or feminist. how is that any different to women having weight or thinness goals that prioritise their beauty over their health? how is the fluctuating fashion for different waist sizes any different to how different women's body shapes go in and out of fashion these days? body shapes which are so extreme that they are impossible to achieve without either starving yourself ('herorin chic') or getting surgery (bbls). i think we do a disservice to ourselves if we ignore the similarities and dont learn from history tbqh

[i-am-kind-of-lost]

X Men: Days of Future Past goes harder than any MCU movie ever did or will.

[britneyshakespeare]

they just don't make men like gene kelly anymore

[measureformeasure]

for someone who never wears belts i sure do own a lot of belts????

[copia]

lady in tesco complimented my earrings

picked up a leather waistcoat for ritual cosplay purposes and it fits me perfectly

day has improved

[froghwon]

.

[krashing-starz]

i think for the next bridgerton season they should introduce a new character who at first seems like a foil to cressida but as the season progresses the two fall in love but they can't be together because they're both women/cressida's parents don't approve/the new character is of lower social status/etc. and one night the new character goes to cressida and begs her to run away but cressida says no because she's supposed to be engaged to a man and we have a big lead up where it seems like cressida will abandon the life she wants for the life she's told to have only for it to turn out she did run away and she spends the rest of the season writing letters to eloise about how many great adventures ( ;-] ) she's having with her girlfriend.

also this should all happen within the first half of the season

[kamitv]

▷ (S)CREAM VI

Synopsis . In which your ‘killers’ soon realize you’re not stuck with them but they’re stuck with you… / Pairings . (Separate) Ghostface!Geto x f!reader, Ghostface!Gojo x f!reader, & Ghostface!Choso x f!reader / Content . afab!reader, three/foursome, squirting, non-curse au, oral sex, reader gets kinda passed around, men teasing one another, dirty talk, unprotected sex, established relationship, lowk feral reader, cuck!Geto, rough sex, praise, overstim, degrading, tw: spitting, pet names, filth (cùm eating), pussy slapping, teasing, a hint of knife play, etc . / wc . 9.6k (oops!)

A/N: Sorry this is late, but anywho! I <3 Ghostface. Art creds to @aransmind [MDNI]

“You want me to wear that and chase you around the estate?”

“Yeah, and when you find me…”

“I fuck you instead of killing you.”

“Mhm!” You hum cheerfully to your rather concerned boyfriend whose lap you’re currently sitting on.

Those dark raven strands of hair framing his gorgeous face sway with the light tip of his head to the side as his naturally slim eyes narrow at your overly excited expression, “And I’m doing this, why?” Geto questions.

You let out a giggle, which only confuses him even more. “Because Scream is my favorite franchise and Ghostface is hot… Duh.”

It’s as if the man only falls for you more and more every day. Geto’s been with you for roughly two years now and yet you’ve never revealed this sudden… mask kink you clearly have. He likes the Scream franchise just as much as you do and the idea of chasing you around and eventually fucking you in costume definitely excites him.

So there you are; sitting in his lap and pouting, steadily snaking your arms around his neck and pulling yourself in close before you plant a chaste little kiss on his lips.

“C’mon Sugu, I know you’ve thought about it before,” You point out to him in a low purr as your lips depart from his.

The hands that’d been calmly resting on your hips suddenly grow intrigued as they slide up to your waist and give you a soft squeeze, “I really haven’t.” He admits honestly. You can see it all in his eyes that he silently agreed to this the moment you brought out that stupid mask.

At his soft admission, a gleaming smile spreads across your face, “Okayy, well you are now… So is that a yes or what?”

He pretends to think for only a moment longer, glancing off to the side in faux thought before landing those pretty lilac irises back onto you, “Yeah, sure. Tomorrow's Halloween so, we can do it then.” Geto tells you.

And that was all it took. 

Halloween night was here before you even had time to fully prepare for it. The entire day you weren’t able to stop thinking about the moment Geto would walk through the front door, dressed in all black with that overly attractive ghostface mask cloaking his equally beautiful face. 

Your heart was racing in anticipation as the sun began to set outside and the clock ticked closer and closer toward the time of which he would return home from work. You knew he’d be there no more than thirty minutes after and all you could do was wonder how this all would go down.

Clad in only one of his oversized white t-shirts, you distracted yourself by mindlessly scrolling on your phone as you awaited the moment he’d get home. Any second now and you’d hear that lovely security chime go off—

You jump a little in your bed when your thought is cut off by an incoming unknown number. If you weren’t buzzing with excitement before, you damn sure are now because it’s clear your boyfriend is going out of his way to play into this with you. There are practically small hearts in your eyes as you tap that enticing green button on your screen to answer the phone.

Biting back a smile, you’re quick to bring the phone up to your ear, “Hello?”

An almost low-quality distortion to the person’s voice is instantly recognized by you—it wasn’t Suguru’s voice at all, it was that infamous voice changer that spoke to you. “Why don’t you wanna talk to me?” A man asks, and you know this line all too well.

Hell, you know the entire dialogue. This is exactly why you sit up in your bed and hold back that smile of yours like your life depended on it. Tilting your head into the phone, you glance around your bedroom, “Who is this?”

“You tell me your name, I’ll tell you mine,” The ‘mystery’ man continues. 

You had to slap a hand over your mouth to keep yourself from giggling right then and there. Your dark little fantasy was becoming true right before your very eyes and it had a sliver of excitement slipping down your spine. Sliding out from your bed, you take small steps toward the nearby window and glance outside.

Scoffing softly, “I don’t think so.” You quote, straight from the first Scream. You’ve seen the movie enough times to recite the whole thing word for word, even his lines.

It’s a bit off-script how things go from here on out but, that’s the goal.

“Aw, you’re no fun.” He purrs. Even with that damn voice changer, you’d recognize that purr any day. You know this is your boyfriend and that only has your body heating up with each passing second.

Now you’re left to improv a bit. “Think so?” You reply as you pull your bedroom curtains closed and turn away from the window.

“Oh I know so, sweetheart. It’s Halloween night and you’re doing nothing to celebrate.” The man on your phone points out. 

You’re walking out of your room now and taking a careful peek into the dimmed hallway. “And that makes me not fun? What am I supposed to do to celebrate Halloween aside from dressing up and maybe handing out some candy?”

He chuckles. “You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you can figure something else out.”

“Let me guess,” Your brows raise a little, “I should be watching scary movies?”

“That depends. You like scary movies?” There you are, right back onto the script.

“Uhuh,” You hum in response with a slight nod as if he could see you.

“What’s your favorite scary movie?” And there it is, infamous line one of many. You nearly let out a dreamy sigh knowing that it’s nothing but your boyfriend on the other end.

Allowing yourself to smile this time, you trek down your hallway and towards the staircase. “Uhhh, I dunno,” Of course you know, but where’s the fun in saying it so soon?

“You have to have a favorite. What comes to mind?” Every scratchy distorted-pitched word that pours from the man’s mouth has anticipation bubbling within you.

You sigh. “Uhmm, Halloween!” As you recall that answer straight from the movie, you turn to your staircase and allow your eyes to scan the first floor of your home.

Most of the lights are on so it’s not too dark or anything but you really are curious whether or not Geto has made his way inside already.

“Y’know, the one with the guy with the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters?” You quote flawlessly yet again. You’re such a fanatic for the Scream franchise that you’re loving every single second of this.

“Yeahh,” He purrs again, making your heart involuntarily flutter.

You begin to slowly descend down the flight of stairs, “What’s yours?”

“Guess.” He orders on the other end.

Pausing halfway down, you glance over to your kitchen. The light is still on and everything is exactly the way you left it. “Uhm, Nightmare on Elm Street?” You soon reply.

“Is that the one where the guy had knives for fingers?” The way your boyfriend knows every word to this just as well as you do makes your stomach churn in affection just a bit. 

Your voice turns enthusiastic and you continue your steps down, “Yeah! Freddy Kruger.”

“Freddy, that’s right.” He continues, “I like that movie—it was scary.”

“Well the first one was but the rest sucked.” You’re downstairs now, looking around at the way all the blinds in your home are open. Did you leave them like that for this exact reason? You don’t remember.

“Mhm,” ‘Mystery’ man hums and you swear you can picture the smirk on his face as he utters the next infamous line. “Soo, you got a boyfriend?”

You pull your lower lip into your mouth for a second before smiling, “Why? You wanna ask me out on a date?” Now you’re making a right to enter your living room, heading toward your couch placed in the center.

“Maybe. Do you have a boyfriend?” He asks again.

You pause for a second. This literally is your boyfriend so, surely he wants you to play into this question, right?

“No.” You chirp simply.

You can hear the smile on his face even through that stupidly attractive voice changer, “You never told me your name.”

You know what comes after this and you can’t help but begin to look around as you plop down on your couch, “Why do you wanna know my name?” 

It’s silent over the phone for a long couple of seconds

“Cause’ we wanna know who we’re looking at.”

Your heart surprisingly sinks as those words hit your ears. We? That’s not… how that scene goes. He was supposed to say that he wants to know who he’s looking at. There’s no we? Where the hell did he even get that from??

For the first time since you picked up this damn phone and started this whole thing, you’re actually a bit nervous. Chuckling loosely, you try to play it off as your eyes glance around your living room, “What do you mean, ‘we’?” 

There’s a shuffling over the phone for just a moment. Then, you hear that distorted voice again, but the pitch is slightly different. “C’mon, princess. You’ve seen the movies, you should know by now that there’s hardly ever only one killer.” The man says. 

Eyes all over every corner of the house, heart thumping slightly in your chest, you can feel your anxiety rising within. “I… I don’t understand.” You murmur softly.

And then… all the lights go out with a loud noise coming from somewhere outside. If you weren’t shaking in fear before, you damn sure are now. Your eyes go even wider and you move to put your phone on speaker, clicking your flashlight on right after. 

“S-Suguru, this isn’t funny! I like the movies ‘nd all but I’m not the biggest fan of being scared, you know that.” The person(s) on the phone can hear the clear trembling in your voice as you stand up and point your flashlight to whatever area your eyes land on, searching for any signs of anyone.

There’s a snicker over the line. “Oh but this iss funny, sweets.” The tone changed again—it’s still distorted in that famous Ghostface pitch, but it’s not Suguru nor the person who’d said something before. “You look sooo scared right now.”

Aw hell, that lets you know he (or they) can see you right now. Which is just great considering you can’t see shit aside from darkness and the few areas of your house that your light lands on. You’re scared to leave the living room but… you’re also terrified of staying right where you are. You don’t know how many Ghostface’s are in your house right now and you don’t know what the hell Suguru has planned for you tonight.

“Stop playing around! Turn the lights back on and quit this scary shit, Suguru.” You huff out into the call, taking one step to your right and hearing the floor creak below your foot.

The house is eerily quiet—which is ridiculously concerning considering how he-, they can see you but you can’t see them at the moment. How the hell are they talking to you without you hearing them? They are in your house now, right??

“You said you wanted to get fucked by Ghostface, baby.” The voice returns, as does that natural purr, letting you know it’s Geto talking once more. “You never said how many…”

You slowly walk around your couch and shift your flashlight toward the blinds, trying to get a look outside your windows. “Are you serious? That sounds insane. How many of you are there?!” Your gaze flicks toward the nearby staircase and you only scare yourself as your eyes get lost in the darkness of your home.

Geto’s still talking, “Including me, there’s three of us. How does that sound, hm? I’m obviously not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to but, you do know who we all are.”

You swallow thickly. “Do I?” This time your words leave in a whisper and you swear you hear a shuffling coming from upstairs.

Lord knows you’re scared out of your mind right now. But, it is comforting to know that whatever this is, your boyfriend is in control of it all. You trust him more than anything, so there’s no real reason to be scared… right? 

“Mhm. So how ‘bout we play a game?” Your boyfriend requests, and the sound of him smiling again is heard through his tone.

You stop walking entirely and your eyes are fixated upstairs as you flash your light up there. “Okay Jigsaw.” You snort, “What… What kind of game, huh?”

He sighs, almost sounding as though he were sitting back against something. “The one you and I were going to play. Y’know, you run around ‘n hide but if I find you, I fuck you. Let’s continue that but… with two others.”

“Suguru, you’re gonna let two other guys fuck me?” You’re beyond baffled by this whole thing. Never in a million years would you have expected this from your boyfriend. This is the same man who got mad a while ago for the way some guy who was all flirty with you at a restaurant…

Geto hums deeply, “S’long as you’re okay with it and they find you before I do, yeahh.”

“I didn’t know you were into that…” You reply, moving a hand to tug his shirt further down your body. Knowing that there was more than just him in the area right now made you a bit self-conscious.

“Didn’t know you were into masks but the Ghostface thing really does it for ya’, huh?” Suguru snaps back with that sass you know and love.

“I mean…” You shrug, “Yeah.”

“Right. So then, the game is simple. You try to hide and whoever finds you first; fucks you.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, nooo. There’s more to this baby…” You swear you hear a creak upstairs—coming from somewhere down the left end of the hallway. It gives you the chills as Geto continues. “See, I know how loud you are when you cum so… tonight, I want you to be nice and quiet.”

You gulp, “What happens if I’m not?”

“Another one of us will find you.”

“Oh—“

“…And join in.” He steadily adds on with an amused smile on his face that you obviously can’t see right now.

Your heart races at the thought alone. “Oh.”

Just for extra consent, Geto tilts his head against the phone, “That alright with you?”

“Yes… but, wait do I still have to be quiet even if there ends up being two of you guys fucking me…?” You lean to the side a bit and aim your light toward the direction you heard the creak, spotting no one and no signs of life whatsoever.

“Yep.” Geto replies with a teasing pop of the ‘p’.

“But—“

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do fine. After all,” The voice changer clicks off and Suguru’s tone is nice and clear with you, “Y’know whose cock you’re supposed t’get loud on.”

You feel yourself throb at the sound of his voice without that stupid filter, puffing out a little sigh in reaction to his lewd words. 

“Oh, and by the way…”

“Huh?”

The voice changer clicks on one last time and he chuckles. “They’re already in the house.”

——

Okay, you knew Halloween was one of Suguru’s favorite holidays but shit you didn’t expect him to go all out like this.

Not one, not two, but three Ghostfaces in your home searching for you right now? You’re lucky the house is big and there are plenty of places to hide but fuck is your anxiety through the goddamn roof as you sit in the empty tub of your first-floor bathroom. The door is shut but not locked and you’ve got the tub curtain pulled closed, just in case one of them does happen to stroll in.

Obviously, this wasn’t the best hiding spot in the world but you wanted them to eventually find you. You were scared in the beginning because of how unexpected this was but now you’re just as excited as you were when you first received that infamous phone call and recited all the lines with your boyfriend.

As soon as the call had ended, you clicked your flashlight off and snuck around in search of a hiding place—which is roughly how you ended up where you are now…

Now you’re left wondering who would find you first. Well, that and who the hell is under two of those masks. You suspect one of them is Gojo Satoru since that’s your boyfriend’s best friend but the other guy… you’re not too sure. Geto said you knew him but that still doesn’t help much.

Your boyfriend has a lot of friends that you know. Which one does he trust enough to let them have their way with you??

After maybe fifteen minutes of sitting in the tub, you start hearing someone outside the bathroom door. Footsteps shuffle by and you can tell the person went off into your kitchen. Then you hear the sounds of doors and cabinets opening, all of which make your breath hitch.

It’s so nerve-wracking and exciting waiting for someone to swing open the bathroom door. The footsteps soon pass it again and you let out the faintest sigh.

…Only to hear those steps halt not too far off from the door. Then, they turn and your body stiffens up entirely as each thump against the hardwood floor draws closer and closer to the door. You can’t see it because of the shower curtains but, there’s a shadow at the bathroom door.

Then you hear a small clinking sound, followed by a very soft… thump? Almost as if someone were leaning against the bathroom door to listen.

It was so scarily exciting that you had to move a hand over your mouth to keep yourself as silent as possible. After which, it’s all so very motionless.

There’s no sound, safe for someone walking around upstairs, and you just know someone’s outside the bathroom door right now. Your heart sinks into your ass the moment you hear that doorknob turning torturously slow until it’s lightly pushed open. 

Then, there are but two soft steps taken inside and you don’t hear it but the door is closed behind whoever just entered.

They could be coming in to just use the bathroom… riiiight?

That’s extremely naive of you to think but a girl can only hope. Another step is taken deeper into the bathroom and that soft clinking sound you heard before is getting louder. It’s faint, almost like… jewelry or… necklaces slapping against one another gently. Jewelry… Necklaces… Which one of Geto’s friends do you know wears a lot of jewelry...? C’mon, think.

Necklaces… rings maybe… piercings—

The very second it clicks in your brain who this might be, you practically flinch right out of your skin as you spot a knife slowly moving to slide the bathtub curtain open. As the curtain is pulled open, you’re met with the tilted head of someone in a Ghostface costume.

Your eyes are all wide on them and you genuinely have no idea where on your body this guy is looking but the mask is actually quite scary when it’s all dark and neither of you is making any sudden movements.

His head slowly angles to the opposing direction, just like Ghostface often does in the movies, and you gulp loudly. The curtain is pinned to the wall by the knife in his hand and you think you’re sweating.

“Scared?” His voice is deep. Familiarly deep. It quickly confirms your suspicions of who’s face may be lying beneath that iconic mask.

With your eyes all frantic along what’s covering his face, noticing the bits of blood and cracks decorating it, you swallow thickly yet again. “Choso?” Your voice is hardly above a whisper and the air feels so heavy with tension.

His hand moves away from the wall and the knife, which you hope is fake, is placed on the edge of the tub with a soft tapping noise emitting into the still air. Then he takes that same hand and lifts it to pull his mask up to the right side of his face, revealing his expression to you as he crouches down to your eye level. You quickly feel your fear die off and it’s replaced with… something else as you study his face. There’s fake blood splattered on his skin, makeup extending the tattoo along the bridge of his nose, and piercings that stand out against his facial features.

“The tub, really?” He whispers to you, chuckling softly and flashing this kind smile at you that makes you feel overly warm inside. “S’this the best you could do? Y’know if I was a real killer you’d be dead right now, right?” Choso teases, all of his words kept in a low voice.

You roll your eyes and shift against the cold tub flooring, “I wouldn’t have hid in here if you guys were real killers, I’m not dumb.”

His lips curve into this sexy yet lazy smirk and you can feel your heart fluttering in your chest. You had a thing for Choso way back before you started dating Geto and it seems as though your body hasn’t forgotten why. “Yeahh?” Choso chastises with another tilt of his head, “Think you would be the final girl?”

Leaning forward a bit, you nod. “No, I know I would.”

Choso lets out a hum before biting his lower lip for a moment. Then, he lets it fall from in between his teeth and you think you’re in a trance. “Oh she’s cocky, huh?” He teases.

You smile at him and then push up to stand on your knees. Leaning all the way forward, you slowly reach for the knife and take it into your hands. Then you move to hold the tip of it right underneath his jaw and the sound of his breath hitching hits your ears just right. 

You openly stare at his lips and watch the way his smirk slowly transcends into a full cocky smile. “Y’know that’s not fake, right?” Choso hushes out to you.

The knife is carefully caressing his skin as you trace it up slightly to his chin, “It’s not?” You ask innocently, placing your free hand on the edge of the tub and watching how he slowly moves to sit on his knees so that he’s looking up at you.

His face is all pretty from this angle, big brown doe-eyes batting up at you so softly, such a pretty face of dark innocence presented before you. Who’s really the ‘victim’ here—you or him?

“Nah,” Choso whispers, “That’s a real knife.”

“Why would you carry around a real knife?” You ask in an equally soft tone as your brows twist up in confusion.

He shrugs. “Honestly, I was gonna ask if you were into a bit of knife play…” 

His words make your mind stray away from the situation at hand. Your imagination is quick to push out ideas and all sorts of scenarios that could have occurred with this knife of his had you not looked so scared when he first saw you…

“Are you?” The question in return makes Choso’s gaze flicker into something way more lustful than it was moments before.

He scoffs, “Am I? Why would I ask you about it if I wasn’t.”

“So… What, you wanna cut my clothes off of somethin’?” You ask carefully, steadily slipping the tip of the knife along his jawline.

Choso just barely nods his head in response.

“Y’know it’s funny you say that and yet you’re the one on your knees with a knife held up to your chin right now.” You point out with an all-knowing grin plastered all over your face.

Choso bites back a laugh. It’s cute that you think you have the upper hand here. “You and I both know that could easily change in a matter of seconds.” He claims.

And y’know, maybe it’s because you found yourself turned on by this whole game or maybe it’s simply because you wanted to fuck Choso but either way—you do not shy away from testing that theory. All you said was a simple ‘prove it’ and you found yourself in quite the position moments later.

It was one thing that Choso managed to easily gain a hold of the knife once more but it was another thing entirely that he was able to swiftly and quietly get you out of the tub and into his arms. All without even so much as grazing you with that sharp weapon too.

It was almost impressive, in all honesty.

Somewhere in the mix of all that, he ends up placing the knife down and soon has you sitting on the bathroom counter. Well, had you sitting on the bathroom counter—it quickly becomes a lot more than simply that.

Choso used that lil’ knife of his to cut down the center of your (Geto’s) shirt and was quick to have you all exposed to his overly greedy eyes. You were wearing nothing more than this lacy black set beneath that oversized shirt so it wasn’t much to get you unclothed.

One second he was cutting your shirt open and the next his lips were on yours. Then his pierced tongue was in your mouth and your arms were around his neck, tugging him closer to you and feeling his hard cock poking you through the thick layers of black clothes between you and him.

Which is exactly what led to the way you are currently.

Choso now has your legs spread wide open for him and his clothes are hardly even off, safe for the black cloak-like jacket that slipped off of his shoulders and the way his pants have been tugged down. He’s got on this black compression shirt and you spot the layered chains/necklaces hanging from around his throat that you heard earlier. Now leaning back slightly against the mirror behind you with your eyes set down between the two of you, you’re left watching the mean slap of Choso’s leaky cockhead against your clit. 

“Cho,” You whispered out pleadingly. He’d been doing this for the longest—tapping his thick cock against your clit and then rubbing it from side to side against you, feeling the way you leak onto the counter below and hearing those faint whines escaping your throat.

Then he has the nerve to have the sluttiest expression on his half-revealed face, eyes all low-lidded and glued to your exposed pussy, bottom lip locked in between his teeth as he holds back his own breathy sounds of pleasure, and brows all tense as if he’s not the one torturing the two of you like this. “Shiiiit,” Choso rasps out, sliding his cock down slowly and pressing his fat tip against your weeping hole. “Suguru was right, this pussy is s’fuckin’ loud ‘n messy…” He breathes.

Your lips are all parted and all you can do is pant softly as he lifts his tip away and then slaps it against your cunt again, listening to the shlick tapping sound that comes from your sex.

Almost in a daze, he glides his cock up and down your wet folds, “Look at herrr,” Choso purrs, “All wet f’me. Can’t believe he’s lettin’ us fuck you.” His hips push forward a bit and you feel the way his heavy shaft glides against your cunt instead of inside like you so desperately want him to.

You have to suppress the needy whine that threatens to escape your throat, holding one hand slightly over your mouth. “Choso, please.” You whisper beneath your palm.

He pulls his hips back and angles his tip back down to your entrance, pushing forward ever so slightly and teasing that tight ring of muscle, not trying to really push himself into you at all. “What is it, princess?” Choso taunts, smirking as he lifts his eyes up to your face, “Want me to fuck you?”

You throb at his words, nodding as if a second longer would have you pronounced dead. “Please,” You whine, trying your best to wiggle your hips forward.

Choso leans forward and moves his lips right up your ear, his breath all warm and tickly against your skin. “Yeah? Y’want my cock inside you that badly?” He says with another faint push of his hips. Every word that leaves his lips has you dripping all over him.

It’s not until you move your hand away from your mouth and place it on the counter space behind you, and whisper, “Yes Choso, just put it all the way in already, I’m losing my fuckin’ m-mind…” Your last word leaves a little shaky due to the way he suddenly moves a hand over your lips.

Pressing his palm against your mouth, you grow confused until you look over to the bottom of the bathroom door and see a shadow moving by. Yet another Ghostface was nearby.

Choso, not yet wanting to ruin his alone time with you, presses his lips further against your ear, and his other hand grips your thigh tightly. “M’not ready t’share you yet so, be really fuckin’ quiet f’me, alright?” His warning confused you for half a second before you felt him roll his hips forward with a sharp snap at the end, stuffing you full with every hard inch of his cock in one go.

Your eyes tear up and your mouth hangs open under his hand, a strangled moan escaping your throat. Choso’s dick is so stupidly big, reminding you of your boyfriend in more ways than one. Unlike Geto though, Choso’s got this ruthless right curve and just drags against your sweet spot with every small movement he makes, the rest of his cock felt throbbing and twitching wildly against your sodden walls.

He lets out a choked grunt against your ear and you can feel him humping his cock deeper inside you with these small maddening little thrusts. “Does he even fuck you? S-Shiiit…” Choso lets his thoughts be vocalized against the crown of your ear and you only squeeze around his girthy shaft. “S’fuckin’ tight.. God-, fu-uck…” His voice has this pretty lil’ crack at the end that makes you soak his cock even more, sloppy juices leaking all out from where the two of you are connected.

Choso has to tug his hips back a bit and he completely forgets that he recently heard someone walking by the bathroom as he mindlessly thrusts right back into you. Your eyes meet the back of your skull and you groan into his palm. The wet gurgles and squelches from your pussy are what draws attention to the bathroom, if any.

Which is something you can’t even control, especially not with the way Choso goes from short grunts in your ear to moaning delightedly against your skin and fucking his thick cock into your sinfully warm cunt. Deep and almost passionate strokes are made into you and he can’t help but rid his hand from your mouth at some point. Moving it back to your thighs, he sprawls your legs out even wider so his cock can dig deeper into you.

With your jaw still hanging open, the sounds of him fucking you against the counter slowly grow louder and louder. You’re trying not to moan but it’s so hard with him—Choso knows how to use his cock all too well and his eyes are studying your face so he knows where exactly he should be thrusting. Just the slightest shift of his hips causes drool to leak from the corner of your lips and that makes him flash this fucked-out little smile.

Choso leans up closer and his body sandwiches against yours for a moment. You swear you can feel his angry cockhead prodding at your guts because fuck is he in there deep. Not to mention how orgasmic it is to feel him drag his pierced tongue against your chin, lapping up the mess of drool from your face before shoving the muscle into your mouth and forcing you to suck on it.

That leaves your moaning drowned out for a bit and Choso takes the opportunity to pound himself into you like a damn madman. Your legs quickly begin to feel like jello in his hands and you couldn’t even focus on sucking on his tongue anymore. Then, he pulls his mouth away, just barely, and the two of you are staring deep into each other’s eyes as his pace gets faster. His hips are so sharp against you and you can feel his weighty balls slapping against your ass with every mean and pronounced thrust.

Your breath mingles with one another and you’re both so fucked out that you don’t even realize you’re a lot louder now until you spot the bathroom door cracking open in your peripherals. It barely makes a sound as it’s pushed open slightly and all you see is yet another person wearing a Ghostface mask—the sight alone and the clear eye contact you make with them leading straight to your orgasm.

The second Ghostface stands motionless, doing nothing more than watching the blissful way your eyes lull to the back of your head and you release this sweet moan of Choso’s name. Choso, oblivious to being watched right now, is so close to emptying himself inside you.

“F-Fuck,” He huffs, tipping his head back and looking up to the ceiling for a moment. “So tight… I’m gonna c-cum if you keep squeezin’ me like that.” His voice fluctuates here and there but by the time your eyes roll back into place, the bathroom door is shut and that second Ghostface is now standing right behind Choso.

You flinch and Choso chokes out a grunt at how tightly you just clenched around his cock. The second Ghostface is slow to lift his mask up a bit, only revealing his mouth with this recognizable snake bite piercing that has your cunt gripping onto Choso even tighter. Then, the man leans to Choso’s ear and practically scares him into cumming inside you.

“What do we have here, hm?” Gojo whispers, making Choso’s hips stutter against you. He then reaches a gloved hand around Choso and your neglected clit is met with his thumb swatting over it, “Can’t believe you found her first. S’not fair…” Gojo hums softly with a slight pout.

You have this dumbfounded look all over your face and you may be fucked out of your mind but you swear Choso’s cock is almost harder inside you. The two of you curse in unison as Gojo rotates his thumb against your clit in a sensual circle motion, making you clench again and Choso rolls his gaze back—only the whites of his eyes visible to you.

“K-Keep rubbin’ her like that,” Choso pants with a soft moan. “She’s so fucking tight… I’m gonna die in here, s-shit.” He curses dramatically.

Gojo flicks his thumb upwards against your clit with a nasty trickle of your slick oozing out onto Choso’s cock. “You’re not gonna die, Cho,” He says in a chastising tone with a smile on his face, taking his free hand to pull his mask further up so that you can see his eyes. 

You watch the way Gojo looks over Choso’s shoulder and stares at Choso’s lengthy cock disappearing in and out of your slobbering pussy. Gojo feels his own dick throb against his pants, pressing himself a bit closer to Choso and moving to talk into his ear. “I mean look at her,” Gojo directs, leading to Choso focusing his hazy gaze onto your face. “You’re already fucking her to tears, you’re not gonna die, heh. You’re fuckin’ her good.”

That last praise is what causes Choso to slump forward against you and roll his hips harshly against you—followed by which is a thick spurt of cum as he finishes inside you with a broken groan pouring from his lips. All as Gojo keeps his thumb on your clit, despite his hand getting squished in between you and Choso’s body. 

Then Gojo smirks and leans in toward Choso again, “There ya’ go, good boy. Let it all out inside her. Jus’ like that…” 

You don’t think you’ve ever been this… ruined before in your life. Watching Gojo tease and praise Choso like that while you were still being fucked and your clit was being stimulated led to you abruptly squirting. Choso’s cock slips right out of you and Gojo removes his hand just so that both of them could watch you let out that filthy lil’ stream.

Choso’s completely out of it as he watches your pussy spasm wildly. “Holy…” He whispers, hardly able to finish the rest of his statement.

Gojo clicks his tongue, “Suguru didn’t tell us you were a squirter. Or, has he never made you do that before?” He asks, slowly lifting his eyes up to your face.

You look like you’re about to pass out, your body all sweaty as you lean back against the mirror again and pant heavily. “He… hah, f-fuck, h-he has.” You squeak out softly.

Gojo hums before looking back down, allowing Choso to step (stumble) back slightly past him so he can catch his breath. Then, once Choso is completely out of the way and the space between your legs is left vacant—Gojo lets out an alarming chuckle.

He watches the way Choso’s cum dribbles out of your overstimulated cunt, glob after glob leaking out so prettily that Gojo can’t help but crouch down to get a closer look. Your eyes lazily follow his snowy head of hair and watch as his face is repositioned in between your spread legs. He moves his gloved thumb to your pussy lips and sloshes that mix of you and Choso’s cum around against you. 

Then, Gojo flicks his gaze up to you and you gulp. He looks you dead in the eyes before spreading your lips further apart with his thumb and leaning forward. Your jaw drops in shock as Gojo cups his mouth against your pussy and suckles the mess from Choso into his mouth.

You whine, “S-Satoru—oh, w-wait,” You’re left gasping as you shoot a hand down to his hair and grip him tightly.

Gojo groans deeply and you feel his tongue lap against your saturated cunt leisurely. Moving up and down in a sloppy filthy manner, your legs are trembling while Gojo cleans you up casually. 

Choso’s sitting on the nearby toilet seat now, batting his lashes at Gojos actions in shock. “Satoru you… you know I just—“

“Mhmm,” Gojo mumbles into your pussy, pulling his lips back just barely to allow a cool slap of air to hit you. Then, he swallows. “You both taste really,” Gojo leans back in to kiss your cunt, “Mmph… fuckin’ sweet.” He murmurs against you before slithering his tongue inside you.

Your back arches and your legs move to close around his head as your fingers tug desperately on his locks of hair. “S’toru,” You mumble, “Fuck. Please… mgh, n-needa’ break. I-I can’t—“

Gojo tilts his head and smiles into your honeyed slick, “Sweetheart,” He rasps against you, suckling on your taste for a moment longer before pulling off with a wet pop! “I jus’ got here ‘n you want a break from me already?” He says, pushing out his bottom lip to pout. “That’s so mean.”

Before you even get the chance to argue with that, he’s diving right back in and eating you out like a man staved. Sucking, licking, kissing, spitting—Gojo’s between your legs in some kind of trance as he drools all over his current meal. He’s such a messy eater too, his actions quickly leading to the lower half of his face being coated with remnants of you.

After a bit, Choso seems to have collected himself and he’s soon standing up. His pants have been hastily pulled up and you’re too lost in the overstimulation Gojo’s giving you to realize Choso is approaching you too. When your eyes lift, you see Choso with his Ghostface mask back over his face and his phone held in his right hand.

Cocking his head to the side, he looms closer to Gojo and sneaks a, now gloved, hand into his bright white tufts of hair, prying his mouth away from your cunt with a harsh tug. You watch with teary eyes as Choso holds his phone up to Gojo’s face, and hums out a low, “Smile.” With the voice changer turned on.

Gojo sparks a toothy grin and his expression is all high in pleasure. He looks faded out of his mind, simply off of eating you out alone. The flash from Choso’s phone lights up the bathroom and within the picture he just took, only your legs are visible dangling over Gojo’s shoulders. They’d just recreated that infamous photo you see around this time of year all over your socials. Usually, the victim would be laid out stomach first on the floor and Ghostface would tug their head up by their hair but, this definitely works too.

“Atta’ boy,” Choso praises after he’s taken the desired amount of pictures. 

Gojo looks up to you and he’s pretty sure he can see little hearts in your eyes as you glance back and forth between him and Choso. “You don’t mind, do ya’? We wanna have somethin’ to remember this by,” He tells you.

You simply shake your head no and both of the men in front of you smile. Choso then nods his head a little before using his grasp on Gojo’s hair to shove him back down in between your legs—earning a surprised hum from your throat and a muffled groan from Gojo’s. 

Despite the little Surprise, Gojo gets back to work with his mouth and you end up leaning forward a bit in surprise. Choso moves over to the side a bit and he feels you drop a hand to Gojo’s head to give him a light push away so he can ease up on you. In contrast to this, Choso steals your attention by wrapping a free hand of his around your throat. Your eyes shoot up to him and you’re met with the eyes of Ghostface since he’s got the mask back on.

Purposefully, he does that head tilt again. So slowly does it tip to the side as Gojo’s teeth graze your clit, causing you to let out a pleasureful yelp. “Fuck!” You gasp, to which Choso removes his hand from Gojo’s hair.

Creeping up along your body, Choso grabs a greedy handful of your breast before leaning in. “That was loud, princess. You’re gonna get us all caught,” He snickers to you.

Your bottom lip quivers and you think the sight of it makes Choso feel bad. He takes his hand off of your tits for just a second to pull his mask up and then returns his gasp. Both of you have the same idea in mind but it’s you that reaches for him this time, tugging him in so that his lips can meet yours again.

And then it’s just sloppy from there on out. Anyone with ears could walk past that bathroom, or anywhere down stairs for that matter, and hear the sliding of lips over one another followed by gurgled gasps and barely muffed goans. Choso’s making out with you while he plays with your tits in his hands and Gojo’s still lost in between your legs.

Your whole body feels like it’s on fire and your head is beginning to spin from how good you feel everywhere. It only gets worse when the two start muttering praises out to you.

Dragging his lips down to your chest, Choso hushes out these elated whispers, “C’mon pretty girl, don’t tap out on us jus’ yet.”

Then there’s Gojo who moves to suck on your inner thigh. “Yeahh, don’t tap out. Let us make you feel good, baby.” He hums into your skin.

The counter beneath your ass is a slippery wet mess just like the bottom of Gojo's face and all the way down his neck with the way he let your juices trickle along his skin as he ate. All three of you get a little lost in the moment for quite some time. So much that you all seem to forget there’s supposed to be a third Ghostface.

Who, unknowingly, ends up silently opening the bathroom door and catching the way his two friends have his girlfriend all spread out ‘n ruined like some slut. Geto swore he almost came in his pants at the sight alone. You don’t seem to notice he’s standing there and you’re the only one facing him. His eyes are all over your wet expression, watching and listening to you moan two other guy’s names.

He didn’t even want to say anything. Geto just wanted to remain where he was and watch because lord knows if he joins in he won’t last longer than a few seconds. So, he does exactly that—going completely unnoticed there for a while. 

Up until Gojo pulls his mouth off of you for a second. He looks up to see Choso decorating your chest in hot kisses and wet hickies, the two of you constantly making eye contact with one another before he moves his lips to yours again. Fuck just watching you two was hot. So hot that it makes Gojo wonder where the hell his best friend is at and why he’s missing out on all this.

Which is what leads to him turning around to glance back at the bathroom entrance, quickly spotting Geto standing there leaning against the door frame. Well, shit. It’s in that moment that Gojo realizes he sees the appeal in the whole Ghostface thing because fuck is his best friend just as hot as everything and everyone else in this damn room.

After Gojo, you’re the next person to realize your boyfriend is now present, and then Choso seconds later. Each of you have this face as if you’d been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to but that little detail is irrelevant given how Geto could care less about how he was the last to find you. And sure, he may have watched you run into the bathroom earlier and could’ve gone in there to scare you a while ago but, watching Choso and Gojo eventually find you and then listening to them interact with you from outside the bathroom was far more entertaining.

—

So, one thing led to another and…

You find yourself laid out in your bed all over again, this time accompanied with three men. Geto was the first to get himself situated—seating himself not too far away from the bed and telling you to “put on a show for him”.

By this point, who were you to even question him? If Gojo and Choso were leading things before, they damn sure aren’t now because it’s you who’s ordering them around and letting them know where you want them. Starting with you on all fours, showing off that arch that Geto has had you perfect over the years. Then your legs part slowly and Gojo’s behind you in a trance as he watches you move a hand to spread your cunt open for him.

“You spoil us, sweetheart,” Gojo rasps in a low pitch, voice slightly hoarse from how long he’d gone without talking earlier. 

You wanted to focus on him some more but a pair of fingers are placed on your chin and your face is quickly redirected to the second man of need. The moment your head turns, you’re met with Choso’s fat cockhead right in front of your face. Batting your lashes, you’re slow to look all the way up to him and see the way he’s smirking down at you.

“‘Could get off on that look alone, y’know.” Choso comments deeply in reference to your wide glossed over eyes and how close his tip is to your lips.

Gojo’s behind you frowning at the way Choso stole your attention yet again. In an attempt to, at least, have your mind on him once more, Gojo simply pushes his hips forward and eyes the sloppy part of your pussy spread against his pink tip. He hears it, Choso hears it, they all hear the way you gasp softly. It’s like they’re all hyper aware of every sound or slight movement you make.

Immediately after, your hips are wiggling back and Gojo’s quick to palm the fats of your ass. “Finally givin’ me some attention now, huh?” He quips.

You pull away from Choso’s touch just to look back at Gojo. “Suguru should’ve told you guys, I hate bein’ teased.” The way you force yourself back on him not even a second after that last word is leaving your lips has Gojo’s jaw falling and his fingers curling into your skin.

“W-Woah sweets, you could’ve warned me f-first…” He stammers, eyes dropping down to your greedy cunt swallowing up his lengthy inches of cock like it’s nothing. Gojo had to bite back a whine as he listened to the syrupy squelches that came with each backward push of your hips. “Fuuck, don’t stop. Give it t’me, baby.”

Gojo doesn’t even have to move yet and you’re already letting off a shaky moan, driving your hips back carefully and feeling him fill up every inch of your cunt. He’s all dazed while he watches his aching cock delve deep inside you, inch by inch—you take him like you were fuckin’ made for him. 

The man is just dazed. He understands why Choso said he was gonna die earlier becuase fuckin’ hell he’s not even all the way in yet and you’re already clamping around his veiny shaft with no intention of ever letting go. And the goddamn arch you have, they way your ass looks all pretty backing up against him—

Gojo’s thrusting forward before he even realizes he is and his hands slide up to your hips to hold you nice ‘n steady. Your legs shake and your jaw mirrors his with the way it just hangs open. Then there’s your eyes and the way they roll back, a delicious moan exiting from deep within your throat.

He definately fucks you harder than Choso was earlier because you can feel his cock everywhere—he has you so stupidly full and dumb on his dick within seconds, landing a mean hand down onto your ass amid his thrusts.

“Ohh fuck, Suguru y’had this pussy all to yourself all this time?” Gojo grunts. “…S-Selfish bastard.”

Gojo’s hands are arguably slimmer than your boyfriends but his grip on you is just the same. Hence why you can’t do anything as he tugs you back to meet his rough pounding. Hell, all you’re left with is a brain full of nothing as your head turns to face forwards and you unconsciously look up at a stunned Choso.

His hand is wrapped around his cock and despite being right in front of your face, he’s definitely jerking off to they way Gojo’s fucking you (or maybe just to Gojo himself, who knows). When Choso does look down, you see his brows twist up and his lips part.

Your mouth is already hanging open so clearly you’re silently offering to help him, right? Which is why he angles himself toward your gape mouth and grunts, “Open up f’me pretty girl, nice ‘n wide…”

And you do, widening your mouth for him to slide his cock in steadily. Choso hisses at the sensation, the underside of his cock gliding down the center of your slobbering wet tongue so lewdly that it makes his teeth grind together. God, if you weren’t every bit of perfect like this. He watches the way his dick fills your mouth and feels how ridiculously tight your throat is as he eases his hips forward.

Almost in unison, Gojo and Choso and up tossing their heads back—one letting out a guttural groan and the other releasing a sweet moan. You’re soaked just about everywhere. Your pussy is sobbing and dripping around Gojo’s cock and your mouth is hardly any better with the way drool is dribbling down from your chin and onto the bed.

All as your boyfriend is losing his ever loving mind. 

Geto came twice in his hand already and yet he’s still bucking his hips up into his fist. He’s never been this hard in his life. Something about watching you get absolutely ravaged by his two friends just make his dick throb in ways he cannot explain. You look perfect too, so damn angelic despite the rather sinful situation you’re in. There’s a creamy mess of cum slicked up and down Geto’s length from the thick tip to his base.

You’re busy getting fucked to tears (again) by Gojo and Choso, one of which has a heavy hand on your head encouraging your throat further around his curved cock and the other keep’s snapping his hips against your ass with his weighty balls grazing your clit every now and then. 

You’re all so screwed. This is like something straight out of a damn porno and yet you didn’t care. Hell, you could hardly fathom enough thoughts at the moment to care.

And of course all three of them are just babbling all sorts of things to you, teasing you, taunting you, making you dizzy with pleasure.

Gojo’s back there spreading your ass apart and watching how wet you’ve gotten his dick, smiling sinfully at the sight. “Look at this pretty girl,” He grunts, “Takin’ my cock so. fucking. well. ungh.”

Then there’s Choso, nodding along as if he agrees with Gojo’s groaned words. His fingers are buried into your hair and by this point he’s fucking your face at the same rate Gojo’s fucking your cunt. “Her throat’s even better—shit. Y’should see how her lips look wrapped around me right now. Especially when I get,” Choso pauses just to give his hips one tortuously slow push, making you deepthroat his angry cockhead. “Right here, f-fuck.”

Again, Geto’s on the side just losing himself at the moment. You make the mistake of glancing over at him and his eyes lock with yours. Geto’s bottom lip is quivering and you watch his hand jerk himself off faster, his legs shifting open and closed as he overstimulates himself. Some nerve you had to look at him as if you don’t have two cocks inside you right now.

“M’gonna cum,” Geto’s muttering to himself over and over in some fucked-out little mantra. 

Watching his head toss back and the way his Adam's apple bobs up and down is probably one of the sexiest sights. The Ghostface mask is all pulled up and his hair is splayed out in a mess of strands.

You end up gagging around Choso when Gojo hits your sweet spot for the sixth time in a row, your fingernails clawing against the sheets below. That’s all it takes for Choso to pull out and come undone all over your face without warning. In his defense, he wasn’t expecting your throat to tighten around him like that so suddenly…

Geto’s not too far behind, cumming in thick ropes with a sexy groan of your name leaving his lips—a sight you barely get to see because then Gojo’s leaning over you and your torso is suddenly pressed down against the bed for a moment. Then, you’re tugged up by a harsh grasp of your hair and Gojo’s fucking you even rougher than he was before, pressing his lips right against your ear.

“Fuckin’ slut,” He degrades so suddenly, wraping a free hand around your waist just to swat a finger over your clit again. “Look at this mess,” Oh, he’s just mean all of a sudden. Gojo lets go of your hair and turns your face toward him, leaning in and… licking the remnants of Choso’s release off of your face, again.

Your breath hitches and you wish you could have said something snarky but then you’re shoved right back down onto the bed. Gojo shifts his gaze to Choso, who flinches at the sudden eye contact, and then motions for him to come closer.

Once he does, Gojo grabs him by the jaw and pulls him in. “Open your mouth,” He breathes out hotly.

Choso bats his lashes at the man but doesn’t hesitate, parting his lips and taking the extra step as to sticking his tongue out. Gojo spits right onto the center of it and then smirks, “Good boy, now swallow it ‘n taste yourself f’me.” 

It’s right about then that you release for the nth time of the night, followed by you squirting again due to the exchange you just heard between those two men. Then, as you wait for the stars in your vision to clear out, you hear Choso gulp loudly.

Half-way smiling to himself, Choso scoffs. “Guess you were right… I do taste pretty sweet.”

A/N: ty guys so much for 6k followers here btw!! much love, mwah.

[genderkoolaid]

In Los Angeles, one of the queerest cities in the United States, there are surprisingly few spaces where trans masculine individuals can find solidarity and community. For some, trying to fit into queer spaces after transitioning can be an isolating experience once they start to pass as men. “In general, people can’t necessarily look at me and know that I’m trans,” says Devyn Payne, jumping rope outside to warm up ahead of his match. It’s now different for him to enter LGBTQ+ rooms where lesbians might read him as a straight man or gay men might not recognize him as trans. “Passing as a Black man, my experience has been different in sapphic spaces ... I don’t necessarily feel welcomed [anymore].” The 27-year-old used to wrestle competitively in high school, but three years after coming out as trans he is now rediscovering his joy in the sport and reconnecting with the queer community in a different way — tonight by wrestling another trans man in a neon green jock strap under the alter ego “T-Payne.”

“Before I went to my first Trans Dudes of LA event, I had no trans men friends,” Payne says. “I can’t necessarily relate to [cisgender men]. So it’s great to have people who I can talk about the changes of being on testosterone.” [...] In this room full of transgender people, the weight of a gender binary disappears. Masculinity becomes play material, a performance to bend and break. People dressed for the part exude “Brokeback Mountain” homo-eroticism, another pair act out a construction worker role-play in a BDSM scene in which a plastic hammer is shoved in the mouth. Cal Dobbs, dressed for the part as a judge for the tournament, wears a white wig reminiscent of the founding fathers and a thong under his black robes. (“RBG, classic sex symbol,” Dobbs explained of his costume inspiration from the late Supreme Court Justice.) “Trans men and trans masculine people are redefining masculinity,” says the 27-year-old, who was the first trans person to run across the transcontinental United States. “[Wrestling] is a hyper masculine sport, [but the competitors] bring an element of humor and romance and cuteness to it that makes everyone feel really comfy and safe.” [...] In the weeks leading up to the big performance, Elías Naranjo and Arón Sánchez-Vidal had practiced their wrestling routine weekly for a month, familiarizing themselves with consent and boundaries to make sure they wouldn’t hurt each other. “I was asking them, ‘Is it OK if we kiss? Is it OK if I pick you up and grind on you?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m open to it,’ ” says Naranjo. But on the spot the two also decided to improvise as Sánchez-Vidal took his testosterone shot on the wrestling mat — a moment met with thunderous applause. The two entered the ring waving Mexican and Peruvian flags dressed as vaqueros. “EL VAQUERO... STR8 4 PAY?” read a sign that Sánchez-Vidal’s girlfriend had made to cheer on her partner. “There’s so much in being brown and trans and queer,” says Naranjo. “We want to show up and take up space ... we’re Peruvian, hot and trans.” The two won best partners, splitting a $150 cash prize at the end of the tournament. Inclusiveness was on the forefront of co-organizers Miller and Bandrowski’s minds as they planned this event. They prepped over 200 hot dogs to feed their hungry fans, a hot and heavy playlist to rally their attendees, and hired ASL interpreters to make the event accessible for deaf members of the queer community. This was their biggest event yet.

[flowersforbucky]

devil's in the backseat

bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3.7k

summary/prompt: a night at coney island with your friends turns out much differently than expected.

or getting fucked in front of a mirror

author's note: this is my first halloween fic!! this was so much fun to write. if you've read haunting adeline, then you know exactly what inspired the mirror maze scene! also disclaimer i have never been to coney island so if any of this is inaccurate then just pretend ok it's fiction :))

warnings/tags: smut, 18+ only content, sex in a public setting, mirror sex, oral (female receiving), unprotected p in v, friends to lovers, romanogers makes an appearance! kind of grumpy!reader, protective bucky, random men being creepy, language, reader is afab, she/her pronouns, reader pov, no use of y/n, porn with a little plot, fluff

my masterlist

“I can't fucking believe I let you talk me into wearing this.”

You tug the tight, cherry red colored velvet fabric of the babydoll dress in place for the dozenth time since arriving at Coney Island.

“What? You look hot. Plus, our costumes go great together.”

Natasha's costume mirrors your own - except hers is a pearlescent white and instead of a pitchfork and horns, she dons angel wings and a halo.

“I don't feel hot. I feel cold. It's fifty degrees and the sun hasn't even set yet.” If it wasn't for the black thigh high boots that cover the majority of your legs, you'd be shivering in the chilly late October weather.

“It's not my fault that you put off getting a costume until the last minute and had to pick through what little was left at Spirit Halloween,” she mumbles, passing you one of the cups of apple cider that the cashier hands to her. You gladly accept, sucking down the hot liquid in hopes that it will warm you from the inside.

Her phone dings as the two of you walk towards the rides. “It's Steve,” she informs you as she reads the text message. “They just got here,” she looks back up at you with a smirk on her face and a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Bucky decided to come with them.”

You roll your eyes, suddenly hating your borderline provocative costume even more.

“I thought he was leaving for a job in Denver this evening?”

It's not that you didn't want to see Bucky. It's that you didn't want to see Bucky dressed like this. As if you don't already get flustered around him when you're dressed in normal, everyday clothing. The hem of your dress barely conceals the curve of your ass and your tits are practically spilling over the low neckline.

“Guess it's been postponed,” she shrugs, nudging you with her shoulder.

The two of you turn to look in the opposite direction when a familiar voice calls your names. You see Steve, Sam, and Bucky walking towards you. Steve is dressed as a pirate, eyepatch and all. Sam wears a cowboy costume with an oversized hat, concealing the upper half of his face entirely.

And Bucky? Bucky wears jeans and a navy blue Henley.

Yeah, you're regretting any of your life choices that lead up to this moment.

“Well, well, well,” Sam drawls as he tips his hat back enough to take in yours and Natasha’s outfits. “Look what we have here. An angel and a devil. Have you two already entered the costume contest for best duo or should I go add your names?”

“You wouldn't dare,” you scold him. Natasha just laughs, falling into Steve’s embrace as he plants a kiss to her forehead.

“We should, you know,” Natasha agrees. “I think we'd have a pretty good shot at winning.”

“Yeah, right,” you retort, looking around at some of the more elaborate, creative costumes that many of the strangers around you are sporting. You notice a man and woman dressed as Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz and know that you and Nat wouldn't stand a chance in a costume contest. “And what about you?” You acknowledge Bucky, your eyes skimming up and down his civilian clothes. “Didn't have time to pull together a costume?”

He smirks, his eyes trailing up your figure for a heated moment before he responds. “I'll have you know that I am in costume, actually.”

Steve and Sam both snort in laughter.

“Oh yeah? And what are you supposed to be, exactly?”

He tugs up the sleeve of his shirt, showing off the shiny vibranium that is his left arm.

“I'm the Winter Soldier,” he says with a smug grin. “Obviously.”

“How creative,” you praise sarcastically.

“Cut me some slack,” he feigns insult. “I was supposed to be halfway to Colorado right now. I didn't have time to pull together anything too cute.” His eyes flicker to your dress and boots at the word cute. If anyone else notices, they say nothing.

“What are we doing just standing around here?” Natasha exclaims, tugging Steve in the direction of the rides and games. “I want to ride every ride and eat funnel cake.”

They race ahead of the rest of you, with Sam close behind, leaving you and Bucky to fall into step beside each other.

“So, why did your mission get postponed?” You ask casually, trying to fight down the nerves that threaten to bubble over every time you're alone with him.

“Beats me,” he shrugs. “Fury didn't give much of an explanation. I got the text as I was loading my bags into the car to head out.”

“That's annoying,” you mumble, swallowing the remnants of your hot apple cider. “I'm sorry,” you tell him with a glance in his direction. “I'm sure it was for a good reason.”

He shrugs. “I'm here, so I can't be too mad about it.”

Before you can overthink exactly what he means by that, you're both brought to a halt when a jolly looking man in a Ghostbusters costume steps directly in front of you, blocking your path.

“This little devil looks like she needs a giant sloth!” He exclaims, gesturing towards the prizes hanging above the balloon darts station next to you.

“Oh, no,” you start. “That’s okay–”

“Come on!” The red-faced vendor insists, looking at Bucky. “Don't you want to win your girl a giant sloth? Perhaps a giant giraffe? If she was mine, I'd be winning her any prize she wants. I'll give you five throws for ten doll–”

“Fine, fine,” Bucky relents, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. You notice a faint hint of pink blooms along the apples of his cheeks, but he doesn't correct the man when he calls you his girl. “You've worn me down,” he sighs as he shoves a crumpled ten dollar bill into the man's hand.

The man accepts the money with a satisfied, toothy grin and hands Bucky five darts.

“If you get three out of the five throws, you can choose a prize from here,” the man gestures towards a section of smaller prizes. “And if you get all five throws, you can choose–”

The man is cut off by the sharp popping sound of a balloon, and then a second, and a third, until all five darts have been impaled on the board in a consecutive line in a matter of seconds.

“She'll take the bunny,” Bucky tells him before he can erase the stunned look off of his face. He points to a large, flop-eared purple bunny hanging from the upper row of prizes.

Unlike the vendor, you aren't shocked by his perfect aim at all. Anyone who knows Bucky would have known that he wouldn't miss a single shot. You are shocked, however, that he chose the bunny without even asking which prize you want.

The man in the Ghostbusters costume grabs the bunny and hands it to you, surprise still etched on his face. He mumbles a quick goodnight before he's moving onto the next people approaching the stand.

“How did you know I'd want the bunny?” You ask Bucky, trying to juggle the stuffed animal, your empty cup of cider, and your pitchfork all in your arms.

“You like bunnies, right? It was an educated guess.” He shrugs, moving through a thick crowd of people away from the game stations. “Here, let me carry it for you,” he offers when he notices the large stuffed animal is obstructing your vision. You hand it over to him and he tucks it underneath his metal arm.

“Thank you,” you tell him, your cheeks heating at the realization that he'd remembered such an inconsequential piece of information about you. You do like bunnies. The cold night air suddenly feels a lot more balmy.

“I'm - uh - I'm going to find a trash can real quick,” you say as you wiggle the empty cup in your hand. Truthfully, you just need a moment to collect yourself.

You begin walking in the opposite direction before he can reply, your eyes scanning the throng of people for a garbage can.

So what if he knows that you like bunnies? It's a pretty trivial fact that probably means nothing. You know that Natasha’s favorite animal is flamingos - because she's your friend. It's normal for friends to know things that their friends like.

Right? Right.

“I like that outfit a whole lot, baby. But I think you'd look even cuter in just the boots and those horns.”

You're so lost in your internal monologue that you don't even notice two men closing in on you as you toss the empty cup into a trash can. Unlike most of the people here tonight, neither of them are in costumes. They stand so close to you that you can smell booze on their breath.

“Oh, fuck off,” you groan as you attempt to walk away, but they've effectively blocked you between their bodies and the large garbage can behind you. Wicked grins grow on their faces as you realize that you can't get by them.

“Look, I don’t have the patience for this tonight. Get out of my fucking way.”

“Or what?” One of them taunts. “You'll use that little pitchfork on us? Jokes on you, because we're into that.”

“What if I used it on you?” A familiar voice comes from behind them. “Would you still like that?”

Before they can even turn around to identify the voice, Bucky is pulling him back by the hood of his sweatshirt and throwing him on the ground with little to no effort. The other one attempts to stumble away as Bucky turns his attention to him.

He still has your bunny clutched in his flesh hand - despite the seriousness of the situation, you have to bite your lip to keep from smirking at the sight. You don't know of anyone who could be quite as intimidating while holding a stuffed purple bunny.

“What about you?” Bucky asks, towering over the guy by half a foot. “You got anything you wanna say?”

“I - no - we didn't know she was with someone,” he half slurs, half stutters out. His gaze flickers to Bucky's vibranium hand. The man on the ground manages to stand back up, following after his friend.

“Now you know,” Bucky calls after them as they quickly hobble away.

“I had that handled, you know,” you tell Bucky with a nod towards your pitchfork. “But thank you, anyway. Really.”

He places a gentle but firm grasp on the top of your arms and begins to tug you in the opposite direction, guiding you through the small crowd that had stopped to witness the altercation.

“I have no doubt about that,” he sighs, releasing his grip on you when the two of you are a reasonable distance away. “But I also don't doubt that you handling it would have drawn even more attention.”

He's right. If he hadn't stepped in, your method of handling it would have been even more dramatic.

“They would have deserved it,” you mumble. “I knew I shouldn't have worn this stupid costume.”

“They definitely would have deserved it,” he agrees. “And your costume isn't stupid. You should be able to wear any costume you like without getting harassed by drunk assholes.”

The two of you approach the ferris wheel as it comes to a slow stop, a couple getting out of one of the cars. You and Bucky flash your wristbands to the operator, who offers to hold your pitchfork for you while you’re on the ride.

“Besides,” he continues as you sit down next to each other in the car, the operator locking the gate in place. “I happen to like your costume. A lot.” He turns his head to you, his gaze trailing from the tops of your thigh high boots and up to the felt horns that adorn your head.

There's a shift in energy as the ferris wheel suddenly comes to life, sending you sliding across the limited space of the metal bench seat and right up against him.

“Oh, yeah?” You tease with your face a few inches from his. Close enough to see your reflection in his irises. “Is that why two different people have implied that I'm yours tonight and you haven't corrected either of them?”

“Your costume had nothing to do with that. I wouldn't have corrected them even if you were dressed as a giant banana,” he says, his tone and face both serious. “Does it bother you that I didn't correct them?”

“No,” you answer automatically - eagerly. You should feel embarrassed, but with the way he's looking at you, and how good it feels to be pressed so snug against him, you can't find it within yourself to care. “I didn't correct them either,” you point out.

The ferris wheel comes to a stop to let new people get on when your cart reaches the peak.

“And why is that?” he asks lowly. If you weren't sitting so close to him, you wouldn't have been able to hear him over the obnoxiously loud carnival music that pours from speakers in between the ferris wheel's carts.

He wraps his metal arm around your shoulders, pulling you further into him.

“Because I liked the sound of it,” you answer honestly. Your voice quivers - from nerves, or from a gust of wind that sways the pod still perching at the top of the wheel.

“Is that right?” he murmurs. He places his flesh hand on the exposed skin of your thigh - just above the top of your boot and just under the hem of your dress. His fingertips rest near the crack between your thighs. Instinctively, you spread your legs apart - not much, but enough for him to smirk at your body's automatic response to his touch.

“You like the sound of being my girl?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “I do. Is that okay with you?”

He chuckles, his fingers inching further up your thigh. You spread your legs open further, giving him the go ahead to go as high as he wants. He stops when he reaches the apex of your thighs, just an inch away from the cloth of your panties. He applies pressure with his fingertips, his short nails digging into the sensitive flesh and making you clench your legs around his hand.

“That depends,” he contemplates. “Are you my girl?”

You open your mouth to answer when the sensation of his index finger grazing the fabric that covers your cunt makes you forget how to speak. You sit there with your mouth agape as he hooks a finger into the cotton panties.

He eases a finger through your folds, lubricating it in your slick before adding a second finger and massaging the pads of them over your sensitive clit.

“Feels like you're my girl.”

You become vaguely aware of the fact that the ride is now in motion once more, heading back down to the ground, when Bucky places the stuffed bunny on your lap in an effort to conceal what is happening in the cart that you and him share.

He alternates between slow, languid circles and quick strokes against your clit as the ferris wheel makes its way down and then back up again. You can feel yourself soaking your underwear as the world dizzies around you. You hide your face in Bucky's neck to conceal the pleasure written across your face.

You're seconds away from coming against his fingers, the pressure in your belly building to a climax, when he pulls away and tugs your dress into place. Your gaze snaps up to his, shooting daggers, as the ride comes to a slow stop. He looks back at you with an amused smirk as the operator approaches the cart to unlock the gate.

“Sorry about that, sweetheart,” he tells you in a strained voice as he snatches the bunny back from you. “After you,” he motions with his head as the operator holds the gate open for you.

Stunned and speechless at what just happened, you stumble out of the cart and down the stairs to the ride's exit with Bucky behind you - both of you completely forgetting about your pitchfork. You can't help but snort a laugh at the position of the large stuffed animal - directly over Bucky’s crotch.

“Real discreet,” you tell him, glancing down at the bunny and then back up to the semi-pained expression on his face.

“I have to admit, right now this thing is worth every penny that I spent on it,” he sighs, and then removes one hand from the bunny to place it on your lower back. “Follow me,” he instructs with a smirk.

He guides you through the crowd and you follow him without question, just trying to ignore the wet ache between your legs.

You shoot him a quizzical look when you arrive at the house of mirrors. You haven't been in a mirror maze since you'd gotten lost in one at ten years old.

There's an attendant sitting in a chair outside of the entrance who unenthusiastically greets the two of you. Bucky reaches into his pocket, digging out his wallet for the second time that evening. He pulls out a hundred dollar bill and flashes it at the elderly man smoking a Pall Mall.

“Take this and don't let anyone else in until we come out,” Bucky tells him before dragging you into the attraction. You and the gray haired man both go wide eyed.

“What was that?” you cackle as the door slams to a close behind you. Bucky doesn't answer, just grabs one of your hands in his and begins guiding you through the maze of mirrors as if he's been here a hundred times.

The entire place is lit by bright, neon red lights that only aid in further confusing your sense of direction. Bucky doesn’t seem phased in the slightest, finally coming to a stop after a few minutes of maneuvering through the endless mirrors.

“You never answered me, you know,” he says as he drops your bunny to the floor. “When I asked if you're my girl.” He smirks at you, stepping closer to you and backing you against the mirror behind you.

“You just paid that man a hundred dollars to get me alone,” you jab as you pull him to you by the front of his Henley. “I think it's safe to say that I am.”

He smiles as you pull him down to you, crushing your lips to his. His hands trail down your back until they land where your thighs meet the curve of your ass cheeks. You release months worth of tension into the kiss, sweeping your tongue along the swell of his bottom lip before slipping it into his mouth the second that he parts his lips for you. He groans into the kiss, kneading the globes of your ass with his fingers. You can feel a prominent bulge through his jeans against your stomach.

Adrenaline begins to kick in when he pulls away, looking down at you with lust blown pupils. He sinks to the floor below you, kneeling in front of your cunt as he raises your dress around your waist and tugs your panties down your legs and over your boots. He slips them into his back pocket before hiking one of your legs across his shoulder.

You can already feel your juices leaking down your inner thighs before his mouth makes contact with you. When he does, you lean your head back against the glass behind you in pleasure.

He sucks your clit between his kiss-swollen lips with an obscene pop before running his tongue down your folds. He plunges his tongue inside you and you grind yourself against his face, chasing the release that you were seconds away from on the ferris wheel.

He moans at the taste of you and the vibration has your walls clenching around his tongue. You ride out your orgasm on his face, the neon red lights blurring and spinning around you.

Despite the fact that your legs feel like jelly, you pull him up to you as soon as you're able to form a coherent thought. You clumsily paw at the button of his pants and his zipper, and he shoves both his jeans and boxers down over his ass, just far enough to free his cock.

He places both of his hands just under your armpits and lifts you as you instinctively lock your legs around his hips.

The head of his cock nudges your wet folds, your juices coating his length before he nudges it inside you.

You feel full before he's even halfway in you. Your walls constrict around him and he digs his teeth into his bottom lip as he adjusts to the sensation of you.

“Fuck, that's tight. You're perfect,” he grunts as he sheaths the rest of his length into you. You let out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a gasp.

He has total control as he cradles you between his body and the cold, hard mirror behind you. He sets a harsh pace, his head ramming against your cervix at the sweetest angle from his position beneath you.

He manages to support you with the strength of only his vibranium arm as he brings his flesh hand between your bodies, once again massaging your clit in rapid circles as he fucks up into you.

You cum around his length in a shockingly short amount of time, digging your teeth into the flesh of his neck as he follows after you, filling you up with hot ropes of his cum.

You stay in the same position after you've both reached your climax, panting against one another in the claustrophobic feeling space.

“We should probably go find our friends,” you say breathlessly with a kiss to the side of his face. “Sam's probably getting sick of being a third wheel.”

He pulls out of you, his cum running down your thighs and ass cheeks. He gently lowers you back down to the ground as he begins to tuck himself back into his pants.

He laughs, cupping your face in his hands as he pulls your lips to his once again.

“If he hates being a third wheel, just imagine how much he's going to hate being a fifth wheel.”

[asahicore]

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin. 

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off. 

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior. 

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her. 

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life. 

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me. 

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you. 

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes. 

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace. 

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department. 

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him. 

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains. 

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. 

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself. 

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore. 

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now. 

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon. 

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.” 

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?” 

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser. 

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing. 

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated. 

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder. 

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together. 

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing. 

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.” 

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest. 

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing. 

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever. 

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer. 

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style. 

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning. 

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

--

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center. 

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?” 

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal. 

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown. 

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.   

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned. 

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it. 

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face. 

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it. 

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café. 

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice. 

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.” 

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.” 

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.” 

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.” 

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you��ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.” 

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree. 

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks. 

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later. 

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack. 

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t. 

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you. 

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

--

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had. 

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner. 

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone. 

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends. 

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met. 

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love. 

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart. 

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all. 

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted. 

That was his first mistake. 

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”). 

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least. 

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game? 

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?” 

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long. 

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.” 

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority. 

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over. 

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him. 

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal. 

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure. 

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute. 

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too. 

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger. 

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.” 

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.” 

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly. 

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?” 

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner. 

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down. 

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper. 

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?” 

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance. 

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his. 

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.” 

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain. 

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months. 

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-” 

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in. 

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.” 

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

--

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all. 

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego. 

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth.  He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind. 

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you. 

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had. 

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner. 

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month. 

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely. 

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

--

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you. 

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex. 

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was. 

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there. 

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

--

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well. 

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere. 

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

--

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you. 

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment. 

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away. 

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?” 

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there. 

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm. 

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck. 

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern. 

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you. 

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace. 

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

--

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public. 

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party. 

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it. 

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything. 

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends. 

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep. 

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy. 

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point. 

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention. 

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes. 

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. 

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says. 

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently. 

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. ��It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

--

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment. 

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.” 

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper. 

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

--

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside. 

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?” 

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing. 

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you. 

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours. 

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history. 

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?” 

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

--

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears. 

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

--

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)

[witchywithwhiskey]

in the woods with a couple of masked men

pairing: bucky barnes & steve rogers x female reader

summary: you've been flirting with steve rogers and bucky barnes for a month at the bar you all frequent with your friends, and on Halloween, when you tell them about your fantasy of being chased through the woods by masked men or men, they decide to make it a reality.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), threesome, smut, piv sex, unprotected sex, creampie, oral sex (m receiving), chase kink, mask kink, light bdsm, light degradation, praise kink, light choking, roughness, check-ins, pet names (baby, sweetheart, pretty girl, sweet girl) aftercare, halloween shenanigans

word count: 3.6k

a/n: this was my idea for my third and final halloween fic this year and i was really disappointed that i ran out of time to do a fully developed version, but i figured i'd put together something short and (hopefully) hot. this still ended up longer than i expected, but it's much shorter than my normal halloween fics so i hope that's ok 😅 happy (almost) halloween y'all!! ♡

halloween fics masterlist

"What do you want for Halloween, pretty girl?"

"I want a masked man—or men—to chase me through the woods and fuck me to within an inch of my life," you answered, a wicked smirk curling the corners of your mouth. 

Your eyes slid away from the men you were talking to, casting a glance around the dingy dive bar that was more crowded than normal on Halloween night. You cut your eyes back to them and lifted a single shoulder in an apathetic shrug, your smirk still flirting at the edges of your lips.

"Y'know, just what every girl wants for Halloween."

You were talking to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, who you’d met a month before Halloween. One of their friends had started flirting with one of your friends at the bar you all liked to frequent, and as that relationship blossomed into more than flirting, you started seeing them more. 

You'd gravitated to the handsome best friends, unable to resist talking to them, drinking with them, commiserating with them as your friends grew more and more flagrant with their public displays of affection. Besides, Bucky and Steve hadn't seemed to mind the way you'd laugh at their jokes—even the not-so-great ones—or lean against them when you grew tired late into the night. 

Still, you didn't know what impulse had prompted you to tell them about your deepest, darkest fantasy. It must've been some deadly combination of loneliness and recklessness, and the ease you felt when you were around Steve and Bucky. But you couldn’t bring yourself to take it back. 

Not when the men reacted by sharing a look like they planning something. Just the thought that they might be thinking about indulging your fantasy made you squeeze your thighs together and lean into the heat emanating from them.

Of course, you were also a little chilly, having worn a skimpy little dress as part of your Halloween costume, but you leaned closer to Steve and Bucky in the crowded bar for warmth and to inhale the intoxicating scent of their cologne, which sent more curls of heat dancing through your veins. 

Without looking away from each other, their arms wrapped around you and they crushed you between their chests while they continued their silent conversation. You waited patiently, soaking up Bucky and Steve’s warmth until they turned to you, matching grins on their faces.

After a hushed conversation and a couple rounds of Steve and Bucky asking, "Are you sure you want this, sweet girl?" you found your friends and told them you were leaving with the men. 

You told your friends you had your phone on you and promised to keep your location turned on, to check in when you were on your way home. Your friends cackled happily for you and shooed you off with Bucky and Steve. 

When you got to the woods, Steve and Bucky each slipped on a Ghostface mask. Your breath caught in your lungs when you saw the big, muscled men dressed in all black and wearing the masks, your heart beating faster in your chest as excitement and desire churned in your belly. 

One of them said they were giving you a 30-second head start, so you turned and bolted into the trees, running as fast as you could to put as much distance between you and them in the short time they’d given you. But only 10 seconds later, you heard them start to chase you. 

You didn't have the breath to call out and accuse them of cheating, you were too focused on making the game as hard for them as possible. So you ran harder through the woods, losing them in the spindly trees cast in shades of silvery blue by the light of the moon.

For long moments, you ran without hearing anything behind you. You didn't know if you were truly giving Bucky and Steve a run for their money or if they were playing with you, but you didn't hear them chasing you until your lungs were burning and your legs were aching. 

All at the same time, you heard a twig snap, the rustle of leaves. A hand snatched at your skimpy little dress, snapping it against your skin when you pulled out of their grasp. A grunt of frustration sounded as a scream welled in your throat, but you couldn't let it loose through your panting, gasping breaths as you ran on. 

Fingers closed around your wrist and you shrieked in surprise, whirling around to wrench yourself free as you ran, turning to look over your shoulder and catching a glimpse of the eerie white Ghostface mask with its yawning, wide open mouth. 

That glance you spared for your pursuer would be what got you caught—the first time.

With your head turned to look over your shoulder, you didn't see where you were going, and you crashed right into a big, hard chest. You bounced off it with your momentum, but strong arms wound around your waist, holding you pinned to the warm body pressed flush to your curves.

"Got you, baby," came a muffled voice through the mask.

You couldn't for the life of you tell which man it was, whether it was Bucky or Steve. Although, it didn’t really matter to you, your body burned with desire for each of them equally. 

"What're you gonna give me to let you go?” the man taunted, his mask tipping down in such a way that you knew his eyes were dragging down to your cleavage, which was in danger of spilling out over the low neckline of your dress. "C'mon, slut, you look like you know how to please a man—so please me, and I'll let you go."

Arousal swirled through your body at the degrading way he spoke to you—you’d told Steve and Bucky back at the bar that you liked a little degradation and you were pleased that they were running with it. You couldn't help the impish smirk that spread across your face in response to the man’s filthy request.

"You're right, dirty man, I know exactly what to give you," you purred running your hands down the man's chest and trying to catch his eye through the mask. 

Staring into the spooky visage of the Ghostface mask, you began lowering yourself to your knees and the man helped guide you down. His hands worked open the front of his jeans, undoing them and pulling out his cock while you settled on the cold, leaf-covered ground.

Without preamble, you sucked the man's half-hard cock into your mouth, relishing the way he groaned above you. His hands cradled your head, petting you idly while you licked along the velvety soft shaft, humming happily as you felt him harden against your tongue. He tasted musky, his scent filling your senses and making you gush with wetness between your thighs.

The man’s moans were loud in the forest as you bobbed on his cock, sucking him harder and faster and pushing him closer to his release. Distantly, you wondered where the other man was, but didn't concern yourself overmuch with it as you focused on making the man in front of your cum.

When you could feel that he was just about to let go, his thick cock throbbing against your tongue, you pulled away and broke free from his hold, leaping to your feet and darting off into the woods. His ferocious, frustrated roar followed you through the trees and you couldn't help the cackling laughter that tumbled from your lips as you ran.

Immediately, you could hear the man crashing through the underbrush after you and you had to wonder if he'd even paused to put his cock away before bolting after you. 

It seemed you hadn’t learned your lesson, because you risked a glance over your shoulder, trying to get a peak of whether he was chasing you with his cock out, and at that moment, a hand reached out and grabbed your arm, towing you into another strong, broad chest.

"What'd you do to him, sweetheart?" came another muffled voice as the second man pinned your back against a tree, caging you in with his thick arms.

You couldn't help but laugh as you told him how you'd left the other man with his cock out and throbbing with need, teetering on the edge of his release. From behind his eerie Ghostface mask, the man in front of you tsked, shaking his head slowly, almost like he pitied you.

"You're gonna pay for that, pretty girl," he murmured in a husky, muffled voice. His hands slid down the sides of your body, making you shiver at the way he groped you softly, reverently. He was cupping your tits and squeezing your hips in a way that made your body hum with heat as he said, "If you're a good girl for me, maybe I'll convince him to go easy on you."

Warm palms skimmed down the outside of your thighs, fingers curling in the hem of your dress before pushing it up higher and higher… 

You almost wanted to give in, to be good for him. Almost.

Instead, you scoffed, "Yeah, right,” and shoved roughly against the man's muscled chest. Though he barely budged, the movement dislodged his hands from your body and you managed to slip away from him, taking off again into the woods.

The man's loud laughter followed you, which was even more deliciously terrifying than the other man's roar had been. 

Fleeing from both of the men, you tried to run harder, but you were growing tired—both of running and the game.

It was a good thing, then, that you didn't get far. 

It seemed Bucky and Steve were sick of the game as well, because only a few seconds after the man’s laughter died in the night sky, a large body crashed into your back, tackling you to the forest floor. 

Whoever caught you wound an arm around your waist and braced a hand against the ground so you didn't get hurt, but you still landed with a soft, "oof," of surprise. The body at your back covered you with its weight, pushing you deeper into the cold, damp leaves blanketing the dirt.

"I'm gonna make you regret leaving me like that, slut," said a gruff, menacing voice in your ear. A hand was pushing up your dress and ripping your panties down your legs while another was fumbling with a zipper, his knuckles grazing your bare ass. 

The head of a cock grazed your folds, which were drenched with your desire, and your fingers sank into the soft soil beneath you as you arched into him, biting back a desirous moan. The man's hand grabbed your waist, leaning over you so the cold plastic of the Ghostface mask butted into your shoulder. 

"You good, pretty girl?" he rumbled, his voice gentler as he checked in with you.

Your body, which had been tense an intoxicating mix of fear and arousal, relaxed at the question and you smiled, turning your head to catch the man's eye through the mesh of the mask. You shot him a playful smirk.

"Fuck me hard, filthy man," you purred, arching beneath him and pushing against the hard ridge of his cock so it slid through your slippery folds. "Show me how a dirty little slut like me deserves to be fucked."

The man groaned, shifting his hips so he could sink into your wet heat with one thrust, wringing a cry from your lips as his thick girth stretched your tight cunt. When his hips were pressed flush with your ass, he paused and you both took a moment to breathe and adjust to the feel of him inside your pussy.

You didn’t know if the other man had been watching you, timing it perfectly, but it was at that exact moment that he stepped in front of you, dropping down onto his knees as he undid the button and fly of his jeans. He spread his thick thighs and sank down onto his haunches so his cock was level with your face when he pulled it out. 

"Why don't you show me what that pretty mouth can do, sweet girl," the man cooed, his voice distractingly patronizing even muffled through the mask. "Be a good girl and suck my cock while your pussy gets pounded."

You didn't need any more encouraging than that, lifting yourself up onto your arms so you could lick along the thick ridge on the underside of the man's cock, smirking when he groaned. 

"Ya like that, perv?" you teased in between pressing wet, suckling kisses to the velvet-wrapped steel of his shaft. "Like getting your cock played with by a slut you caught in the woods?" 

"Fuck yes," he groaned, cupping your head in his hands and urging you closer to the tip. You wrapped your lips around the head, enjoying the taste of his precum leaking onto your tongue, and sucked him hard. "Oh fuck, your mouth feels so fucking good, sweetheart."

You'd planned to tease the man's tip a little longer, but the man behind you seemed to be done letting you adjust to having two cocks in your holes. He pulled his hips back and slammed inside you again, burying his full length in your pussy and pushing you forward, forcing you to take the other man deeper. 

The cock in your mouth brushed against the back of your throat and you gagged at the unexpected feeling. The man in front of you sat back quickly, pulling free of your lips and letting you suck in air while you coughed and recovered.

"Careful, dickhead," he growled, his voice still muffled through his mask so you couldn't tell whether he was Steve or Bucky. His hands idly stroked the top of your head and you found yourself leaning into the soft gesture.

"Sorry," the other man mumbled, his hands squeezing your hips apologetically.

"No, no, I want it rough," you said in a husky voice, straining your body to get your mouth back on the cock in front of your face. You pressed a kiss to the underside of the man's length, looking up at him from under your lashes. "I told you not to hold back—I want everything you can give me, please.” 

"Fuck," the man in front of you grunted at the same time the man behind you groaned, starting to thrust into you slowly, making you feel every inch of his cock dragging along the inside of your pussy. The man who'd spoken stroked his fingers down your cheeks, catching a tear that had escaped when you'd gagged. "You're gonna spoil us, sweet girl, letting us use your pretty holes like that."

"Good," you said firmly, before swirling your tongue around the tip of his cock, moaning at the taste of him. You couldn’t wait to swallow his cum, to be filled of both of them. “Then maybe you guys will do this again with me."

"Fuck yes we will, baby," the man behind you groaned, covering you with his body and pinning you into the forest floor while his hand wrapped loosely around the front of your throat. His mask bumped against your cheek as he spoke in your ear. "We'll fuck you anytime and anywhere you want, pretty girl—all ya gotta do is ask."

A delirious smile curved your lips and you were just about to make some sassy comment, but then he thrust hard into your pussy, wrenching a sharp cry from your mouth as pleasure spiraled through your body. The other man used the opportunity of your parted lips to thrust his cock inside your mouth, careful not to go too deep. 

Steve and Bucky worked your body in tandem, one of them pinning you to the cold ground and fucking you from behind, while the other held your head steady and fucked your mouth. All you could do was take everything they gave you, never knowing which one was which, moaning as they pushed you to the edge of pleasure.

You were writhing on the ground, your hands grasping at the damp leaves and the thick, jeans-clad thighs of the man in front of you, searching for something to hold onto as your pleasure spiraled higher. You were arching your back to take the cock deeper into your pussy, whining pitifully as you begged wordlessly for your release, unable to control yourself when you were so desperate to cum.

The men must've understood because they hauled you up onto your hand and knees, never removing their cocks from your holes. As they continued to fuck you, they positioned your body so that the man behind you could slip his hand between your thighs and find your needy, aching clit.

"Cum for us, slut," he growled in your ear. 

The other man thumbed the tears from your cheeks as he pushed his cock deep into your mouth. He'd opened your throat enough for him so you didn't gag too much, but he fucked you through it anyway, until his cock was rubbing against the other man's hand as it bulged in your neck. 

"Be a good girl, sweetheart, and cum on our cocks," the man in front of you urged, his balls pushing against your chin as he buried himself in your mouth and groaning when your muscles contracted as you swallowed around him. "Wanna feel you scream on my dick."

"Yeah, baby, gotta feel your sweet cunt milk me," the other man groaned into your ear, rubbing your clit unrelentingly while he pounded into you hard enough you could hear the sharp sounds of his hips smacking against your ass. "C'mon, don't you want us to fill your holes with our cum—cum for your masked men, sweet girl.”

You didn't know what tipped you over the edge—whether it was the muffled, filthy words or the fingers on your clit, or the pair of cocks ruthlessly fucking your holes—but something set you off, and you came harder than you ever had before.

A shrieking scream worked its way up inside you, making the man in front of you moan loudly when your throat constricted around his hard length. The man behind you grunted as your pussy clenched on his cock, and he buried himself to the root, moaning at the feel of your inner walls sucking him in deeper.

Pleasure consumed your mind thoroughly, overwhelming you entirely as your body trembled violently. You tried to stay in position for the men, but you knew it was their hands more than your own strength holding you up as the ecstasy of your release wrecked you.

The man in front of you came first, holding your head pinned to his abdomen and spilling his seed down your throat while you swallowed weakly, some of it spilling out around the shaft of his cock and joining the spit and tears making a mess of your face. 

The other man followed a moment later, pressing his hips flush against your ass and coming with a filthy groan, his mask pressed to your shoulder blade and his arms wrapped around your waist while you felt his cock twitch deep inside you.

In the cold, dark forest on Halloween night, the three of you rode out your pleasure together for long, hazy moments. But when the chill of the air seeped into your cooling skin and you began to shiver, Bucky and Steve pulled themselves free from your body and gathered you up in their strong arms. 

Together, they helped you stand, fussing around you as they fixed your dress and tugged leaves from your hair. One of them draped a hooded sweatshirt around your shoulders while the other used your discarded panties to clean the mess from between your thighs.

You'd lost track of who was who as they circled around you to clean you up, so even when Steve and Bucky pulled off their Ghostface masks, you didn't know which of them had fucked your mouth and which had fucked your pussy. 

You didn't care overmuch, it was fun not knowing. Besides, you knew if you asked, they'd tell you which man was which.

"Doing good, pretty girl?" Steve cooed sweetly, dropping his lips to kiss your cheek. His fingers smoothed away the grit of your ruined makeup, making you smile.

"Yeah, so good," you said in a dreamy, breathless voice, catching his eye so he could see the honesty in your gaze when you told him, "Best Halloween ever." 

Bucky chuckled at your statement and tucked you into his side beneath his arm, turning you in a direction you assumed would bring you back to the car they’d driven out to the woods.

"Let's get you home, sweet girl," Bucky murmured, brushing a kiss against your temple while Steve slid in on your other side, his arm wrapping around your waist. They held you clutched between their bodies, and you felt nothing but warm, sated and happy. "You've had your halloween fun with your two masked men, now it's time to rest."

"Yes, sir," you said on an exhale. Though you'd been trying for a playful tone, your voice was soft and sweet and you found you meant it. You trusted them to take care of you, and you let your head fall on Steve's shoulder, snuggling into him while you let the best friends guide you back to the car.

Once Bucky had tucked you into his lap on the passenger’s seat, you texted your friends to let them know you were ok while Steve drove you home. The men helped you inside and, at your request, stayed the night, cuddling up with you in your bed. 

That night, you fell asleep with a smile on your face snuggled between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes knowing you got what every girl wants (or, at least, what you wanted): some fun in the woods with a couple of masked men—and a Halloween night to remember.

halloween fics masterlist